Links to scholarly sites and other useful sites

There are hundreds of sites offering material on the Middle Ages. It wouldn't be possible to list all of the possibilities. Fortunately, there are a few master sites that are fairly stable and supported by large institutions. Many of these are very large sites offering both medieval texts and images. Others provide links to further sites offering information on the Middle Ages.

All internet sites are not equal, however. Some are maintained by teachers and scholars, while others are the work of enthusiasts, who are not always scholarly. Caveat lector! (Which is Latin for "Let the reader beware!) You need to assess the value of any site you use (just as you need to assess the value of any book you read.) What I've given you below, however, are some "vetted" sites, that is, sites of scholarly repute. I've also included some sites with useful advice on evaluating internet sources.

Of course, the best place to start looking for your heart's desire, as Dorothy Gale found, is by your own front door, so the first link is to the IU Library Page. I have also included a link to the Monroe County Library, another good resource to know about. Then there is the biggie, the Library of Congress!

Happy surfing!

General Information Links:

• Indiana University Libraries Online Resources
• Monroe County Library
• Library of Congress Catalogue

Specifically Medieval Sites:

• ORB, the Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies. The current editor is Caroline Schriber, although a large number of scholars have contributed to it. ORB is a general site, with various reference and research materials on it, as well as links to other sites.
• The WWW Virtual Library History Index: Medieval Europe is maintained by the Michigan State University Graduate Student Medieval and Renaissance Consortium Consortium. It has fewer independent resources than ORB, but a large number of easy-to-get-to links.
• The Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages (TEAMS), a group of scholars, has an announcement sheet and a list of the Publications of the Medieval Institute at University of Western Michigan.
• TEAMS also maintains a library of Middle English texts at the University of Rochester Library. We'll be reading one of these texts this semester, but all of these texts are available in book form as well, relatively cheaply, so you could order it if you wanted.
• Labyrinth, a database maintained at Georgetown University, offers an assortment of links, bibliographies and materials.
• The Internet Medieval Sourcebook is one of the most comprehensive sites offering medieval texts in translation. It is maintained by Paul Halsall on a site at Fordham University (although Halsall is not at Fordham--a strange world we live in!). It is a little harder to use than some other sites, in that you can't always tell what category a particular text may be found in, but it is very comprehensive and has a search engine. It is actually part of ORB, and contains a link to ORB on the splash page, as well as to other History Sourcebooks. You can choose some medieval music to browse to as well, if you want!
• Netserf (cute name, huh?) is maintained at Catholic University. Again, lots of links to other sites, but particularly to images.
• Another site devoted to images and manuscripts is DScriptorium, maintained at by Jesse Hurlbut of Brigham Young University.
• The Online Medieval and Classical Library is another good source for medieval texts in translation, some on the site, others linked to it. Most of the texts are literary. Douglas B. Killings maintains it. What is particularly nice about their offerings is that they often use old translations, but update them with useful notes.
• There is a lovely and interactive site created by Diane Tillotson on medieval writing. It shows samples of manuscript hands, and allows you to explore individual letter forms by placing your cursor over a modern version of the letter. Dr. Tillotson is an archaeologist and anthropologist married to a medievalist, John Tillotson, who teaches at the Australian National University at Canberra.
• Finally, there is an on-line review of books on the Middle Ages, called The Medieval Review. This site only does book reviews, but it is a lively source of informed discussion on the topics of the books being reviewed.

Finally, sites that help you evaluate what you find on the Web. Actually, the issues surrounding Web materials are no different from those surrounding other sorts of media. However, other media come to you pre-sorted (a scholarly library will buy only certain kinds of books, and by shelving them with others of their kind, tells you what kinds of books they are and guarantees a sort of minimal competence on the part of the author(s)). On the Web you are your own librarian and you are forced to assess the quality of what you find. It probably doesn't matter which of these sites you go to. All are thoughtful and careful and most are designed by librarians and information technologists. But before you cruise, schmooze with at least one of these:

• First go home to the IU Library Site (although I don't think this is as helpful as other sites).
• The World Wide Web Virtual Library offers a site that suggests some ways of evaluating sources, which contains many links to sites discussing evaluation of different sorts of pages.
• Ithaca College calls its site ICYouSee. I've seen this referred to in a number of places.
• Virginia Commonwealth University has a site called "Evaluate Your Sources", which also has links to other sites.
• The Education Technology Journal has a site on Evaluating Web Information Sources; it contains definitions for terms students may need to evaluate sites and also offers links.
• Another useful site is put up by the library of Johns Hopkins University; it considers, for instance, the amount of false information out there.
• There is a UCLA site on how to think critically about web resources: "Thinking Critically About Net Resources";
• A librarian at Babson College has a site about on evaluating site quality, which is developed from a paper she presented at Harvard on the subject and is full of useful information.