Three Realizations about Bibliographies, Biographies and Directories…
This week’s topic helped me realize and consider three main things.
Firstly, I realized that biographies could be a great resource to make use of with my Social Studies classes. Biographies can be used to provide facts to students about important historical figures in a different format than a typical textbook. Furthermore, the bibliographic information within a biography could be used to help students find other resources about historical figures and related events.
Secondly, I realized that the school library catalogue is a type of bibliography. Bibliographies are indexes which point users towards other sources. Therefore, a library catalogue is a bibliography as it provides with information which helps them find and select sources. Due to the detailed information and abstracts that the library catalogue includes for most of its sources, it is really not that different from the annotated bibliographies I have created for numerous LLED courses since my return to U.B.C. For one LIBE course I was also asked to create my own online catalogue of sources. The catalogue which I created was really just an online bibliography.
Thirdly, I realized that the titles of directories, biographies and bibliographies are a very useful and telling way to authenticate/legitimize a source. If the title is obscure or seems to be unrelated it is probably because it is. While this is a useful piece of advice, I think it needs to be applied very carefully. I am sure there are many sources available which are authentic and accurate but have obscure or seemingly unrelated titles. For instance, if a publisher or author wanted to generate publicity about their biography they may give it a name for shock value. While this may not be the norm, it is very possible. As a result, title should not be the be all and end all of evaluating biographical, bibliographical and directory sources.
More useful than most of us think about.
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