Monday, February 27, 2012
For Tuesday, February 28: Sorting Through Public Archives (Box 31)
For this activity you'll need to find a public archive, where you can view public and private records, historical documents, and/or artifacts. If you don't have time to access a site in person, try one of the online archives mentioned in Chapter Seven in FieldWorking, or do an online search using key terms about your topic plus "online archive." Or try one of these sites: The National Archives, Indiana State Archives, or the Ball State Archives and Special Interest Collections.
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Using the National Archives, I discovered that archives are crazy disorganized. It was very hard to formulate any information from them and find any documents that would relate in any way. I searched many things such as "genetic engineering," "genetic altering," "DNA," and a few other key words. I found hardly any evidence of health related topics, and only a few of those actually had to do with what I needed. But I did discover that in my research identifying what genetic engineering is and how it will impact people and what can be accomplished by it will have to be a key fact in my paper.
ReplyDeleteFor this assignment I searched online for historical documentations of vegetarianism and found one site with an essay with documented cases dating back all the way to the 1800's. The archive looks at vegetarianism before the emergence of veganism.The primary topic is what they were saying about, and whether they were abstaining from, forms of nonhuman exploitation other than ‘meat’. Elimination of milk and birds' eggs in particular. Some of the reasons offered for engaging in this practice included health, cruelty, hygiene, economics, vitality, aesthetics, ecology, temperance, frugality, pacifism, humanitarianism, and more.
ReplyDeleteSource: http://www.candidhominid.com/p/vegetarian-history.htmlSome influential vegetarians advocated their diets. The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) believed that not eating flesh was placing humans back on "the path of nature". Also, the scientist Albert Einstein (1879-1955) believed it would "beneficially influence the lot of mankind" with a "physical effect on the human temperament". The archive gives a detailed description of a number of different cases throughout history where individual and groups of people were giving up meat and other animal products for their health, environment, and mental well-being.
I used the National Archives link and found only articles about draft cards from World War 2 and census population estimates for Crawford County. It seemed like most of the information was quantitative rather than qualitative. As far as trying to find anything about Milltown or Crawford County I don't think that this would be the best choice for me. It is not just as vague and broad as academic journals but even worse. I even searched for
ReplyDelete'midwest development' and 'indiana economic growth' finding consensus results on the first one and a few sites of statistics for the second one.
I looked at the Ball State Archives and Special Interest Collections. For this archive they collect and preserve all printed and digital resources. Some of these things that it includes is books, manuscripts, local history, and drawings and documents. In regards to my subject, I decided to look in the drawings and documents, which is also located in the CAP building. This specific archive preserves the history of things that have been built in Indiana. They have over 100,000 original architectural drawings, plans, photos, models and building remains. All things in this collection pertain to architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, or historical preservation. While here I got to see many sets of blue prints from buildings on Ball State’s campus and also some other various objects. Almost all of these objects have simply been donated to the school and archive.
ReplyDeleteAfter searching the National Archives, I unveiled copious amounts of research on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Articles contained information on the array of symptoms, as well as statistics. The site was rather hard to navigate and could be better organized in my opinion. Because of the difficulty to search for information, it was hard to ascertain information related to drug and alcohol abuse during pregnancy compared to searching for articles on actual diseases. Also, I found it difficult to search for alcohol and drug consumption prior to research that we have today due to the fact that it was extremely disorganized.
ReplyDeleteI searched all of the archieve sites listed in the blog post, and was unable to locate any useful information about corporate relocations. I also did a simple google search with the fields "corporate relocation" and "online archieve". This search proved to be unsuccessful as well, bringing up a lot of "create your own archieve" options. I think that these archieves are organized in a manner that makes it difficult for outsiders to understand. I also think that my topic is too modern or too specific to find a lot of information in these archieves.
ReplyDeleteThe Marine Corps website, marines.mil, provides an archive. In USMC archives, there are several documents and biographies of some of the most notable Marines in history. They also contain audio visual documents. This information is open and free to the public because of the educational and research opportunities it provides. I also assume it is to be more transparent, which helps with public relations. The archives exhibition is in the Alfred M. Gray Research Center at the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Virginia. There are numerous documents online, but they are still in the process of posting more.
ReplyDeleteUsing the Indiana State Digital Archives I could not find anything that was relevant to my topic so I searched using the National Archives. I searched for the key words "patient care" and found many documents on the Personal Care Board. Records of public health were also available. The information I found was not well organized and it was hard to get a summary of the information available from the two lines under the header. I do not think that searching archives will be of great benefit for my research because of the type of information available but I still plan to spend more time looking into archives.
ReplyDeleteThrough searching through many online archives, I was unable to locate any that particularly pertained to my topic on the relations between faith and religious beliefs and their impact on patient's mental health status. However, through the National Archives I was able to come across many records of alcohol, drug abuse and mental health records dating back to 1929. The archives specifically on mental health were provided by the Mental Health Administration and provide historical archives, medical records, institutional videos and photographs. I also came across mental treatment records of military retirees. These records entailed documentations of mental health assessments for patients from the navy, air force, army and national guard. Although these archive records did not particularly pertain to my specific topic, they did offer interesting insight through patient records of mental health treatment. Based on the information I found through the National Archive, I would like to try searching through more medically specific archives to see if there are any specific to my topic.
ReplyDeleteI searched The National Archives for articles about the effects of the Internet on children. I had a hard time deciphering the information I found because it was very disorganized. I was able to find a few articles on my topic, but none of much value to me. I did not put much time into searching through them because it was so tedious and it was much easier for me to use other types of sources to find information. I will continue my search on other online archives and hopefully will be able to find something of use for my research paper.
ReplyDeleteI searched the National archives. In this technological generation archives are difficult to maneuver through. I found many articles on African Americans and slavery but none complex enough for me. There were articles on poverty, but not economics (pertaining to African Americans). Archives is my least favorite source. It requires a lot of time, and I feel the information provided isn't reciprocated back.
ReplyDeleteI first gathered material from several websites that linked to articles and videos. These websites cover areas over nutrition; http://triathlon.competitor.com, http://www.absolutetri.com, and http://www.triathlon.org.
ReplyDelete1. From triathlon.competitor.com I found an article called, How Many Carbs?. I found from this article glucose and fructose combined can increase a triathlete’s time during a race. Mixing these two elements can provide your carb rate to burn at higher rate.
2. The site triathlon.competitor.com I also found a video that talks about an author who focuses on nutrition for athletes. The title of the video is What Can I Cook To Keep Myself Healthy?. He talks about the miracle food in their performance. He states that your nutritional plan needs to be diverse in macro nutrients. Micro nutrients are also important for these athletes. They include whole foods that are in season.
3. The absolutetri.com I found another article that confronts the benefits of eating before and after triathlons. The patterns of eating are differently are not significant for triathletes they need to have the proper amount of glycogen and carbohydrates before and after races. This article offers a nice comparison on the amount of hydration and fuel or food you need for each race.
4. Triathlon.org allowed me to view Olympic athlete’s images in races. Many were from the start and after. The site brought me to multiple athletes’ images of what are eating and drinking. Most of the athletes are eating gels and Gatorade because they are burning high glycogen levels of fat and carbohydrates. These photos I can use in my final research as examples for the foods that are allowed to be consumed.
The investigation of the site allowed me to find more sources for my research on triathlete’s diets. This gave more insight for different opinions on my topic. The video I found also led me to another source on a book I may investigate too.
For this assignment I searched through the National Archives for information on the history of women's rights in marriage. I found it very hard to find good information for this archive. The results it gave me were not only articles but also sometimes just lists of some sort. I found it easier to just search through google with the advanced search and simply specify to only include results from government sites. Unlike the google advanced search, the National Archive only have one search box and the results presented could have from one to all of the words presented. Also, there seemed to be less results that related to my topic than the results that did. Although I did not find an article through my research in the National Archive, I did find a name a woman activist who fought for the rights of married women to be able to write a will. The article that mentioned her was not about her bout I still used the information to help me search for her on google and found a very good article I had not had before.
ReplyDeleteI was unable to find anything of use on the Indiana State Digital Archive when researching marijuana tax and expenses. However, I was successful on finding information through the National Archives. Although I did get a couple of results, the informaiton that was provided wasn't exactly what I needed and referred mostly to the pre-prohibition-era of marijuana. The majority of articles were on farmers of Hemp and wheat, not marijuana in particular. A few court cases were also present which I will be able to use as support.
ReplyDeleteShannon's post:
ReplyDeleteWhile I was looking at the different archives I realized how much information is in them but how awfully they are set up. I tried searching my topic using multiple different keywords but I mostly only received results about ethics. I am aware that ethics are important in media; however, it is not the main focus of my topic. Based on the results I received, I don't see myself using these as a source for my paper but it was interesting to see what an archive is like considering I had never had the opportunity to use one before. I just believe that when it boils down to my topic, an archive is not the best source.
I tried using the Indiana State Archives to look up keywords relating to my topic, but none of my searches turned up any matches or information. I then found the John Hopkins Institute Medical Archives on the internet and searched my keywords, which returned many results. However, the results were very disorganized, and I will most likely not use this resource to find information on my topic.
ReplyDeleteI was able to find plenty of helpful information on The National Archives website about genealogy. It explained some very helpful tips, how to start, and how to continue researching when it seems like a dead end. The Indiana Digital Archives would also be a great place to find information if someone was specifically searching for ancestors. It has various types of records including military, census, and birth certificates. This website would be a great reference for me to suggest for someone searching in Indiana.
ReplyDeleteI used Ball State Archives and Special Interest Collections and found an archive entitled "Knowledge, self-care behaviors, and hospital readmission rates for CHF patients receiving a self-care enhanced rehabilitation program." The archives were very unorganized and when I went in for help my archive only existed online, which they told me would be in book form. Though I found a little bit of valid information about patients pulling their weight in the home care sense once they leave the hospital. This information may be helpful somewhere in my research paper.
ReplyDeleteI used The National Archives. It is not organized very well, but there was a lot of information on my topic. It gave a little information on some of the diseases that vaccines fight against, and some diseases that are "gone" because of vaccines. It also gave information on the vaccines that are required.
ReplyDeleteI checked out the Ball State Archives in the Digital Media Repository. My great grandfather was Dr. Lawrence J. Scheidler, the man after whom the apartments on the north side of campus were named. I found many fascinating mentions of him in the various Muncie and Ball State archival newspapers. He was apparently a professor here and a very popular man. I decided to look up my great grandfather because I knew he was very influential at Ball State.
ReplyDeleteI used the National Archives and found that it is not organized very well. I was not able to find any information, even though I tried a myriad of key words on my topic and spent much time filtering through many different articles.
ReplyDeleteI looked at the OPA –(Online Public Access), there is only two materials, both were films, but the soundtrack one of them was Portuguese, so I wouldn’t do nothing with that; however the second film, even though was created in 1943—which was on a study of the ancient Inca capital of Machu Picchu, near Cuzco, Peru—would be an excellent material for my study because it shows some of the daily life of the Incas, plowing the terraced farmland, brewing beer, and performing religious rituals.
ReplyDelete