Book Review: The Information-Literate Historian by Jenny Presnell

Topic & Content

Originally published in 2007, this revised third edition was published in 2019. Aimed as a guide for undergraduate history students, the author, Jenny Presnell, primarily discusses the factors related to locating and evaluating various types of historical sources and then presenting the work as a cohesive piece of research. The book is basically organized as follows:

Part I: Basic Research

1. Historians and the Research Process: Getting Started
2. Reference Resources
3. Finding Monographs and Using Catalogs
4. Finding Journals, Magazines, and Newspapers: Using Indexes
5. Evaluating Your Sources
6. The Thrill of Discovery: Primary Sources
7. History and the Internet

Part II: Advanced Research Techniques for Primary Sources

8. Digital History and Big Data
9. Maps: From Simple to Geographic Information Systems
10. Beyond the Written Word: Finding, Evaluating, and Using Images, Motion Pictures, and Audio
11. Statistics: Quantifying History

Part III: Presenting Your Research

12. Presenting Your Research: Traditional Research Paper, Presentation, Poster, or Website?

• Appendix A: Citation Examples
• Appendix B: Information Literacy Guidelines and Competencies for Undergraduate History Students
• Appendix C: Research Checklist

Thesis

The overall purpose of this book is to serve as a guide for researchers in locating, evaluating, and utilizing the resources available for historical research. Additionally, it discusses focusing on a thesis, organizing research, and finally, presenting it convincingly and professionally.

Author’s Background

According to the very short biographical blurb, Jenny Presnell is a Humanities/Socal Sciences Librarian at Miami University, Ohio.

Critical Observations

Positives

The book is fairly similar to Cantor and Schneider’s How to Study History but more geared toward using a library. It’s not as practical as The Methods and Skills of History by Conal Furay & Michael Salevouris, and it’s not as theoretical as Michael Stanford’s A Companion to the Study of History.

The content covered in the book is broad and includes a discussion on digital and physical media, as well as multimedia, such as images, videos, and maps. The benefits and drawbacks of these resources are thoroughly discussed and give the reader a good basis for evaluating their usefulness when studying and writing history.

The best thing about this book is when Presnell directs the reader to several good resources to help with research and/or writing. While many of us learned how to use search engines and library catalogs in high school or college, Presnell goes into more detail and explains how to get the most efficient use out of them when locating sources. Additionally, most of the chapters contain detailed notes and suggested resources for further inquiry. Everything from diving into archives, finding print media, and using the internet and modern apps is covered. For example, using the Zotero app to help organize your sources and generate bibliographies and footnotes (as opposed to writing them by hand) has been a huge timesaver!

Negatives

It’s important to understand that this isn’t a guide on writing or understanding history, and as such, it probably won’t be of much use to someone looking for specifics on writing history essays. Indeed, there’s very little discussion on “how to” write history. Presnell merely points the reader to several books and style guides on history writing. Those expecting those topics will probably be disappointed.

The author is a librarian so most of the information is specifically oriented toward locating and evaluating sources. It’s also noted that this book is aimed at undergraduate students of history. As such, the information in it can come off as fairly basic, especially for an intermediate or advanced researcher.

The book reads fairly quickly, and the writing isn’t terribly advanced, so there’s a far less scholarly/academic tone. However, depending on what you’re looking for, that may be a pro or a con. Also, while the revised third edition was published in 2019, it’s already out-of-date with regard to some of the information pertaining to online sources. Some of the online sources Presnell suggests no longer exist, and there’s no way she could have predicted how artificial intelligence would be changing our internet culture in 2024. But that’s a minor critique and to be expected. (It’s doubtful that A.I. will drastically change the research methodologies we use. The same advice holds for anything you read about online. The only real difference is that information just keeps moving faster and faster.)

Evaluation (Does the content support the thesis?)

All in all, the book is a good introduction to undergraduate students looking to broaden their horizons and efficiently locate sources when researching history. Jenny Presnell is very knowledgeable and offers a lot of good advice for finding sources and providing the reader with more resources to make their research less of a hassle and more enjoyable. That said, it’s not a guide on how to write a history essay. Readers who already have a good grasp of locating sources will probably find that this book covers familiar ground. This is still a good book and a decent primer on using the repertoire of resources available to the historian.