History

The internet has enabled anyone to 'publish' material and information. This makes it hazardous for researchers to find reliable information. Primary sources are prevalent on the web, and this makes the historian's work much more efficient, but it is often difficult to discern a web source's reliability. Good strategies for using the web for historical research are:

• aim to get primary material rather than interpretations or essays about the material
• favor materials produced or hosted by libraries or other cultural institutions, such as museums and historical societies
• favor sites with primary material in its original form -- for instance a collection of letters with both the original documents and transcriptions -- and primary material that is relatively complete, not excerpted
• look for the author(s) of a site and investigate the author(s) credentials
• try to determine a site's purpose; for instance, a site may have a political bias, or a site may be directed at an elementary school audience

The following major cultural institutions with a variety of primary sources freely available.