FRS 197: Information Power Unleashed 

When you feel it in your gut, you know it must be right

Sophia Mendoza

Reference Librarian - Portland

207-780-4272

smendoza@usm.maine.edu

Please be prepared to pass in this assignment next week (Nov. 3).  I will grade and comment on them and return them to you the next week (Nov. 10).

• Choose a collection from USM's Manuscript Collection and create a research question that could use it as a source.  (You do not have to answer the research question, just come up with one.)
  • Example: Herbert C. Adams Papers.  Research Question: What were the political issues during Adams's tenure in the state legislature, specifically related to the Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, and does this reflect the national debate about nuclear power at that time?

• Using "A Manual for Writers" by Kate Turabian write a bibliographic citation for your selected collection.
  • For this question I expected you follow the link and see the URSUS record for the Manual and it is available at the reference desk.  Following the format (pg. 262) you would see how to create a bibliographic citation for the collection you chose, meaning this is how you would list the collection in the bibliography of a paper you wrote.  For my example:

                    Adams, Herbert C., Papers.  University of Southern Maine, Portland, ME.

• EXTRA CREDIT: Using the Maine Memory Network find the silhouettes of the Famous Class of 1825, Bowdoin College.  Name 2 famous classmates and write a bibliographic citation for one of each of their works.
  • To answer this question, follow the link to Maine Memory Network and search for "silhouette".  One of the results is a frame of about 35 silhouettes representing the class of 1825, which included Henry W. Longfellow and Nathaniel Hawthorne.  I was looking for a citation for any of their published works, so here is an example:

                    Hawthorne, Nathaniel. 1962. The Scarlet Letter. Columbus: Ohio State

                         University Press. [Orig. pub. 1850.]

                    Longfellow, Henry W. 1892. Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie. Boston: Houghton

                        Mifflin Co. [Orig. pub. 1847.]

Government & Maine Documents and

Special Collections & Osher Map Library

"Historians are prisoners of sources that can never be made fully reliable, but if they are skilled readers of sources and always mindful of their captivity, they can make their sources yield meaningful stories about a past and our relationship to it."

- From Reliable Sources, p. 3

I. Discussion of Primary Sources & Special Collections

II. Introduction to Government Documents

III. Field Trip: Tours of Osher Map Library & USM Special Collections

King Arthur: One, two, five!
Sir Galahad: Three sir!
King Arthur: THREE!

-Monty Python and the Holy Grail, 1975

• Find an authoritative copy of President Obama's eulogy of Senator Edward Kennedy.

• What is the Maine Statute number governing the Disposal of Offal as littering?

• Where would I go to look at the J. S. H. Fogg Autograph Collection?