Tag Archives: archives

Preparing for our visit to the New-York Historical Society on Wednesday 3/29

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This Wednesday we are scheduled to visit the library of the New-York Historical Society. Please arrive on time at 1:30 to allow time to check your coats and bags. Our research visit begins promptly at 1:45. The N-YHS is located at 170 Central Park West at W. 77th Street (B/C trains to 81st Street; 1 train to 79th Street).

Before our visit, please read the short blog post How to Make the Most of your Trip to the Archive from the blog Librarian Shipwreck, especially section #2 that describes Finding Aids.

Site report #4 (NYPL Map Division) is due on Thursday, March 30.

Blogging the archives – assignment due Wednesday, March 8

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Regular blogging on the course OpenLab site is part of your class participation grade. Please review the blogging guidelines or get in touch with your instructors with any questions. For Wednesday, please complete the activity described below and write one blog post of approximately 100 words in response to the questions that follow.

Activity: Using one of the digital archives websites we reviewed in class (NYPL.org,  dp.la, brooklynhistory.org), do a keyword search to locate a digitized primary source that is relevant to your topic. In your blog post, provide a link to the item you choose and address the questions below.

Blogging questions: Identify the topic, theme, or purpose of the source you chose. Hypothesize about its origins, purpose, and how others have interpreted it or responded to it. How does it fit in with the topic you have chosen to research? What questions does this source raise? Where would you look for the answers?

Looking ahead to next Monday, March 13, please be prepared to meet at 1:30 SHARP at the Brooklyn Public Library, Central Library at Grand Army Plaza. Our class meeting takes place in the Brooklyn Collection on the second floor of the library. Please review the website of the Brooklyn Collection before class on Wednesday 3/8.

Place-based research recap, and readings for Monday 3/6

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Today we learned about zoning in New York City and explored the zoning resolution text and maps.  Review selected pages from the zoning handbook that explain districts and define terms and use groups. We also explored OASISNYC.net, a portal for map-based research on New York’s land use, buildings, infrastructure, community data, and much more.

For Monday, please read through the following two websites:

Digital Archives Materials
What are archives and how do they differ from libraries?

Don’t forget! Site report #2 is due by 5 pm this Friday, March 3. Download and save a copy of the site report template, give it a new filename, complete the report, and upload as a reduced file size PDF. See instructions from a previous post.