LibGuides: Cultural Geography: Find Reliable Web Resources

Alaska-Specific Web Resources

Alaska's Digital Newspaper Program
Free access to searchable content in historic Alaskan newspapers.
State of Alaska Community Information Resources
Links to information about Alaskan communities, including statistics, photos, plans, and maps.
Juneau History Research
Links to Juneau-specific, Alaskan, and national history research resources compiled by the Juneau-Douglas City Museum. Includes links to Digital Bob (an archive of Gastineau Channel area history articles), Digital Betty (Juneau-Douglas vital records 1898-1936), and Gastineau Channel Memories (history of Juneau families 1880-1959).
Alaska's Digital Archives
Searchable digital collection of historical photos, oral histories, moving images, documents, maps, and objects.
Globalizing Southeast Alaska
"A tour of the cruise ship industry's representation of wilderness and its material reshaping of Southeast Alaska's landscape, identity, and economy."
Mapping Industrial Juneau
"A visualization of mining projects in Juneau, Alaska from 1880-1944."

National Web Resources

Society of Architectural Historians Archipedia
Contains histories, photographs, and maps for over 20,000 structures and places in the United States, including buildings, landscapes, infrastructure, monuments, artwork, and more.
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers
Searchable database of historic newspapers from across the United States.
Library of Congress Digital Collections
Online Archive of California
"Free public access to detailed descriptions of primary resource collections maintained by more than 200 contributing institutions"
University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections
"Photographs, maps, newspapers, posters, reports and other media from the University of Washington Libraries, University of Washington Faculty and Departments, and organizations that have participated in partner projects with the UW Libraries"
National Archives Research
Search for military records, people, places, events, and topics relevant to US History.
Digital Public Library of America
"Discover 29,856,256 images, texts, videos, and sounds from across the United States"
Mapping History
From the University of Oregon, provides "interactive and animated representations of fundamental historical problems and/or illustrations of historical events, developments, and dynamics."
Historical Map Web Sites
Compiled by the University of Texas at Austin Perry-Castañeda Library

Country Studies

BBC News Country Profiles
Historical, political, and economic information on countries & territories worldwide, including audio and video clips from the BBC archives
CIA World Factbook
"Information on the history, people, government, economy, energy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for 267 world entities"
Library of Congress Country Studies
Electronic versions of 80 books which "present a description and analysis of the historical setting and the social, economic, political, and national security systems and institutions of select countries throughout the world"
Migration Policy Institute Country Resources
Country resource pages that provide demographics and context for the migration experience worldwide.

Statistics

Statistics
by Egan Library Last Updated Dec 22, 2023 83 views this year

Why Evaluate?

It is important to evaluate all information resources, but Web resources can be the most questionable. Information that is freely available online is generally not reviewed, edited, or regulated for veracity and quality. Anyone can post anything to the Internet, and it is your responsibility to critically evaluate the information that you find to insure that it is appropriate to use for academic research.

One good method for evaluating web resources is to use the 5Ws:

Who? - Who is the author / source? What are their qualifications? (You may need to search beyond what is included in the article / website for a complete response.)
What? -What does the source say? Is it relevant to your topic? Does it make sense and seem complete?
Where? - Where did the author get their information (are sources cited or linked)?
When? - When was it published? Is it timely for your topic?
Why? - Why did the author write this? (To educate, inform, sell a product or service, persuade, other?) Is there an agenda or unfair bias?