Media & Communication · Information Literacy
A topic within Information Literacy, itself one of 11 topics in that field and part of Media & Communication.
No prior grounding assumed.
Guidelines for Primary Source Literacy
Society of American Archivists & RBMS · 2018
Defines primary source literacy as a set of competencies distinct from general information literacy, built around the idea that a primary source is…
Assumes you know the vocabulary.
Understanding History: A Primer of Historical Method
Louis Gottschalk · 1950
Argues that a source only becomes historical evidence once its authorship, date and motive are established, and lays out the tests for telling a…
+1 more at this level
3 works
Society of American Archivists & RBMS
Defines primary source literacy as a set of competencies distinct from general information literacy, built around the idea that a primary source is never neutral because the very acts of preserving, cataloguing and digitising it already mediate what a reader receives.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Louis Gottschalk
Argues that a source only becomes historical evidence once its authorship, date and motive are established, and lays out the tests for telling a credible account from an unreliable one.
Margaret Stieg Dalton & Laurie Charnigo
Surveys working historians to find they still locate primary sources mainly through informal networks, footnote-chasing and physical browsing rather than catalogues, even as they have come to rely on electronic databases for secondary literature.
link failing as of 17 Sept 2026