This presentation was provided by Karin A. Wulf of the College of William and Mary during the NISO webinar, Discovery: Where Researchers Start, held on August 8, 2018

1. WHERE
HISTORY
BEGINS
Karin Wulf
Executive Director, Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture
Professor of History, William & Mary

2. PERSPECTIVE & ASSUMPTIONS
▪ I’m a historian
▪ Of the early modern world
▪ Working in English
▪ In an American university
▪ And am also director of a research institute
▪ We publish a field-leading journal & books; award pre- and post-doctoral research
fellowships; sponsor conferences and seminars; have public outreach channels;
collaborate nationally and internationally in major research projects
▪ All of this –and more– has shaped my expectations and experience, and
thus assumptions and perspective.

3. EXAMPLE: GETTING TO JOURNAL CONTENT
Option A
2. Browzine
▪ No search – go to Option B
3. Or - select article
4. JSTOR (login)
5. PDF or HTML
Option B
2. Library Access Options
3. Select JSTOR (login)
4. Search within
5. PDF or HTML
STEP 1:

4. EXAMPLE: RIGHT NOW VS. THE LONG TAIL
Vincent Brown, Slave Revolt in Jamaica
(http://revolt.axismaps.com/project.ht
ml)
▪ 33,000 visitors in a single day in
2015 (thanks, reddit!)
▪ AND
▪ 6,400 in previous months
▪ 1-1500 per month ongoing
Daniel Richter, “War and Culture, the
Iroquois Experience,” WMQ, 1983
▪ Most downloaded fr 2012-2015 w
4,817 JSTOR access records
▪ BUT
▪ Paper? Reprints (in 8 books)? On
Google books for free. Assigned in
courses – how to count the
downloads?
Josh Piker, “Comparing Apples and Oranges, Floors and Ceilings in Digital Scholarship”
https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2017/02/16/guest-post-joshua-piker-comparing-apples-and-oranges-floors-
and-ceilings-in-digital-scholarship/

5. ASSUMPTIONS FROM THE GROUND UP
▪ Studying archives and libraries as
a key site of knowledge
production
▪ Ex: Corens, Peters, and
Walsham, eds., Archives and
Information in the Early Modern
World (OUP, 2018)
▪ Studying how archival records
produce / reproduce hierarchies
of power
▪ Ex: Marisa Fuentes,
Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved
Women, Violence, and the
Archive (UPenn, 2016)

6. THE LIBRARY AS A SITE OF KNOWLEDGE
PRODUCTION (AND ACCESS)
American Philosophical Society
▪ Founded by Benjamin Franklin in
1743, one of the premier
libraries for the study of early
American history.
▪ New Guide to the Indigenous
Materials at the American
Philosophical Society Library
(2018)
▪ https://search.amphilsoc.org//n
atam/search
American Antiquarian Society
▪ Founded by printer Isaiah
Thomas in 1812, the premier
library for pre-Civil War
American printed and graphic
materials.
▪ Christine DeLucia, “Antiquarian
Collecting and the Transits of
Indigenous Material Culture:
Rethinking “Indian Relics” and
Tribal Histories” (2017)

7. THE LIBRARY AS A SOURCE
The Printer’s File at AAS What’s in your library?
▪ The history of collecting
▪ And cataloguing
▪ And deaccessioning
▪ Assumptions? Priorities?
▪ Re-thinking access
americanantiquarian.org/printers-file