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Primary
Sources online
Remember that a primary
source is a text that was written at the time, and a secondary
source is written later to help us understand the primary source. The primary
source serves as evidence to document what we say, and the secondary source
acts as an interpretation to
help us understand its meaning. Example: An English translation of Aristotle
is a primary source; commentary by the translator in the same volume is a secondary
source.
Printed sources: Many primary sources are available in English
translation in the University Library system, and rare copies of the original
editions are located in the OU History of Science Collections, where you may
arrange to photograph them to obtain images
for your web project.
Online sources through the Library: The Library catalog includes
thousands of online books that you can't find with a Google search. Many are
the exact full-text replicas of printed books on the library's shelves. So try
searching the OU Libraries catalog to find an e-book of a primary source you
are searching for. The Libraries' Online video tutorial on "Advanced
Catalog Searching" (only 2 minutes long) uses searching for a full-text
e-book as an example.
Tip: When developing ideas for your Wikipedia Editing Project, it may be easier
to first choose the primary sources that interest you, and then write your Episodes
around those primary sources.
Some online sources for Primary texts in ancient through early modern
science
- Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/
- Project Gutenberg, http://gutenberg.net/
- Google Books, http://books.google.com/
(both primary and secondary sources)
- The Online Books Page, University of Pennsylvania digital library, http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books/
- Online Medieval and Classics Library, http://omacl.org/
- The Internet Classics Archive, MIT, http://classics.mit.edu/
- Bartleby's Harvard Classics online, http://www.bartleby.com/hc/
- Internet Sacred Texts online (Classics), http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/index.htm
- ReadPrint, http://www.readprint.com/
- Internet Medieval Sourcebook, http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook.html
- Christian Classics Ethereal Library (Classics), http://www.ccel.org/index/classics.html
- eBooks@Adelaide, http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/
(with chronological listing)
- Medicina Antiqua, http://www.medicinaantiqua.org.uk/
- Electronic Scholarly Publishing Digital Books, http://www.esp.org/books/
- Cornell University Library Historical Math Monographs, http://historical.library.cornell.edu/math/index.html
- The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/
- University of Virginia Library, Electronic Text Center, http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/
- Renaissance Editions, http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/%7Erbear/ren.htm
- Representative Poetry Online, http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/display/indexpoet.html
- University of Michigan, Humanities Text Initiative, http://www.hti.umich.edu/
- Historic Cities: Maps and Documents, http://historic-cities.huji.ac.il/historic_cities.html
See also the Google Searching tips in the browser
configuration page.
Jonathan
Swift on the use of indexes:
"The whole course of things being thus entirely changed between us and the
ancients, and the moderns wisely sensible of it, we of this age have
discovered a shorter and more prudent method to become scholars and wits, without
the fatigue of reading or of thinking. The most accomplished way of
using books at present is twofold: either first to serve them as some men do lords,
learn their titles exactly, and then brag of their acquaintance; or,
secondly, which is indeed the choicer, the profounder, and politer method, to
get a thorough insight into the index by which the whole book is governed
and turned, like fishes by the tail. For to enter the palace of learning at the
great gate requires an expense of time and forms, therefore men of much
haste and little ceremony are content to get in by the back-door. For the arts
are all in a flying march, and therefore more easily subdued by attacking them
in the rear. Thus physicians discover the state of the whole body by consulting
only what comes from behind. Thus men catch knowledge by
throwing their wit on the posteriors of a book, as boys do sparrows with flinging
salt upon their tails. Thus human life is best understood by the
wise man's rule of regarding the end. Thus are the sciences found, like Hercules'
oxen, by tracing them backwards. Thus are old sciences unravelled
like old stockings, by beginning at the foot." From "A Tale of a Tub"
(1704), Section VII: A Digression in Favor of Digressions.
