Information Needs for Humanities Researchers

1
Information Needs for Humanities Researchers

• Prof. Sean Ryder
• 25 June 2009

2
Research activity in the humanities

• Analysis of ideas, theories, arguments
• Comparison and synthesis of information
• Critical analysis of texts
• Editing of literary and historical works
• Translation
• Creation of electronic resources

3
Characteristics of humanities research

• Wide reading around and into a subject
• Browsing
• Long life of research
• Lone scholar tradition of publishing
• Monograph remains gold standard
• Complex system of citation not just citation
  index but footnotes, references
• Knowledge connected to material form importance
  of metadata
• Worries about credibility and permanence of
  electronic resources

4
Information sources

• Books, both as primary material and as evidence
  of previous research
• Journals
• Catalogues
• Databases
• Archives books, manuscripts as physical objects
• Audio-visual resources
• Interlibrary loans
• Forms print, electronic, microform, online
• Issues legitimacy, accessibility

5
Researching 19thC Ireland

• Critical editing of James Clarence Mangan and
  Thomas Moore
• Access to original texts manuscripts,
  newspapers, early editions
• Monograph on 19thC nationalism and culture
• Original (primary) sources newspapers,
  pamphlets, books, broadsides
• Secondary sources historiography, literary
  criticism
• Catalogues/indexes of primary and secondary
  material print and electronic
• Creation of electronic output articles,
  hypermedia archive/edition