The use of Internet resources in historical research

Mikheeva Vitalina Vladimirovna ORCID: 0000-0003-0876-338X PhD in History Associate Professor, Department of Fundamental Legal and Socio-Humanitarian Disciplines, Moscow Financial and Industrial University "Synergy" 111123, Russia, Moscow region, Moscow, ul. Enthusiasts, 742 vitalinm7@mail.ru Other publications by this author

      The Internet has long been a natural part of our everyday life. For many, the Internet is a pleasant journey, fun, recreation, as well as the process of traveling through various sources of information without a clearly defined purpose. At the same time, the Internet is becoming increasingly important not only as an information resource, but also as a means of professional activity. To date, there are a large number of foreign publications that reveal the features of web search ^[1-4]. To help the research of professionals, a number of works have been published that reveal, for example, the features of information search in Yandex ^[5], techniques for working with the Google information search engine ^[6-7]. Russian historians are also actively considering the Internet as a source of historical information ^[8-11]. In 2021, the journal "Historical Informatics" (the brainchild of the Notabene publishing house) initiated the creation of a discussion club on the issues of digitalization of historical science, as well as "digital history". "digital humanities" and digitalization of historical science ^[12].

     Searching for information is one of the most common, but at the same time one of the most difficult tasks. It requires a certain amount of experience and knowledge that a modern person needs to possess. Hence, the question of how to work professionally with historical Internet resources is extremely relevant.

     Obviously, from the point of view of a professional historian, there are advantages and disadvantages to using the Internet. The advantages are dynamism: ease of creation, storage, publication, updating and copying, cheapness of information distribution; access at any time from any place. But the downside of dynamism is instability. After a while, without any warning, a web page, or even an entire site, may disappear or change location, or the content of the document itself changes.

      Of course, there are many professional resources that are stable, having existed for many years, but still the issue of preserving and immutability of documents on the Internet is extremely relevant. Unlike a stable, controlled collection of documents in a library, on the Internet the user is dealing with a continuously changing information array. In addition, the ease of creating and publishing documents on the Internet leads to the fact that even a novice user can create and publish his own website. This leads to the appearance of many low-quality resources on the Internet. To some extent, this problem is now being solved with the help of the so-called wiki technology. Wiki (coming soon from Hawaii. wiki -wiki – fast) is a website, the structure and content of which users can jointly change using tools provided by the site itself. The most famous wiki project is the Wikipedia encyclopedia [http://ru.wikipedia.org /] is a free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Wiki adheres to the philosophy: it is better that a mistake be easy to fix than that it be hard to commit. Therefore, wikis, being very open, also have various means to verify the correctness of recent changes on the page.

      The most important of these tools on almost every wiki is the so–called Recent Changes page, which displays a list of either a specific number of recent edits, or a list of all edits made in a given period of time. Nevertheless, the issue of evaluating the quality of a resource from the point of view of professional use of information is extremely difficult. A relatively experienced user usually intuitively distinguishes satisfactory quality resources from low–quality ones, but it is sometimes difficult for a novice Internet user, especially in an unfamiliar field of knowledge, to assess the quality of a website. Wikipedia is often the favorite and only source of information for students in the process of their scientific search.

     To effectively search for historical information on the Internet, you need to imagine who and how creates historical resources on the world Wide Web. These are mainly academic organizations, non-academic organizations (interest groups) and individual authors (professional historians, librarians and amateurs).

A resource created by an academic organization.

    Academic organizations (libraries, archives, universities, museums, scientific societies) often post electronic copies of their publications on their websites, along with information about the organization itself. For example, the Electronic Library of the Faculty of History of St. Petersburg State University contains electronic versions of monographs, articles, textbooks, textbooks written by the staff of the Faculty of History of St. Petersburg State University [http://www.history.pu.ru/biblioth/index.htm ]. Scanned versions of monographs, collections of articles, conference materials of the Institute of General History of the Russian Academy of Sciences [https://igh.ru/pages/library?locale=ru ] are presented on the institute's resource.

 A resource created by an "interest group".

     This is a thematic resource that scientists could participate in the creation of, but such a resource is not created and is not controlled by an academic institution. Examples: The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army [http://www.rkka.ru /] – a website dedicated to the history of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army: combat operations, memoirs, documents, biographies, maps; Cossacks of the XV-XXI centuries. [http://www.cossackdom.com/indexu.html ] – a website dedicated to the history of the Cossacks: documents, scientific books and articles, maps, illustrations.

Personal resources.

      Such resources are created by historians, teachers and researchers, just amateurs. For example, Social History [http://bmironov.spb.ru /] – website of Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor B. M. Mironov: bibliography on social history, course programs, etc.

Historical sources.

    The most difficult thing is to find original, especially rare historical sources, except that collections of electronic versions of sources on a specific topic are published within the framework of some scientific projects, such as, for example, within the framework of the project "Evolution of Labor Relations" (Moscow University [http://www.hist.msu.ru/Labour/index.html ] named after M. V. Lomonosov).

      In addition, a significant part of the widespread historical sources posted on the Internet are designed without reference to a printed source, there are no comments and the rules of scientific publication of documents are not observed at all. The main groups of sources presented on the Internet are:

- databases (state and departmental statistics, survey materials on economics, demography, health, materials of election campaigns, etc.);

- texts of legislative and regulatory acts, transcripts of meetings of the highest authorities and management;

- material sources – electronic photocopies of archaeological finds, ethnographic materials.

      Finally, there are many electronic anthologies on the Internet – original collections of the most widely used historical sources or electronic copies of printed historical anthologies. When using electronic copies of sources, it is important to make sure that the copy is made from an academic publication. A significant part of the digitized sources on the Internet is available only through a paid subscription, but there are also many free collections, for example:  British History Online [http:/ British History Online (archive.org) ] – collection of digitized sources from the medieval and early modern history of Great Britain; Library of Electronic Resources of the Faculty of History of Lomonosov Moscow State University [http://hist.msu.ru/ER/index.html ] and others.

Historiography.

     It is quite easy to find special articles and books on the Internet. Although many publishers offer only paid access to electronic copies of their publications, there are many free or partially free ones, such as the History and Theory Magazine [http://www.historyandtheory.org ], Eastern European Archaeological Journal [http://www.archaeology.kiev.ua/journal /], The world of History [http://www.historia.ru /] and others. As a rule, such publications offer detailed information about the content of the publication and part of the text for free. The limited appearance of the latest historical literature in full-text version on the Internet is explained by the need to protect copyright. One of the largest collections of scientific journals is the archive of articles by the non-profit organization JSTOR [http://www.jstor.org ]. The list of free access journals can be found in special directories, for example, in the Directory of Open Access journals [http://www.doaj.org ]. Electronic historical journals in Russian are usually publicly available.

Multimedia.

    The Internet is a huge database of various multimedia resources (images, background photos and film documents), including on the history of Soviet music [http://sovmusic.ru ].

Factual and documentary search.

    From the point of view of the tasks of searching for historical information, the following areas can be distinguished: fact-finding, document search and bibliography search. The search for information should begin with the definition of the search concept:

- clearly define the subject of the search;

- identify several keywords or phrases that best reflect the essence of the subject;

- think about possible synonyms, different spellings of the word;

- think about how you can use special operators to connect different keywords (advanced or complex search) in order to reduce the number of irrelevant documents.

    If the topic on which you need to find information is wide enough, then you should start with catalogs, and if you need to find something unusual and specific, search engines will be useful. At the same time, this strategy should be followed:

 - when searching for materials on a very narrow topic, you should start with meta-search engines to imagine how much this topic is represented on the Internet;

 - when searching for a regular topic, separate search engines should be used, while it is recommended to use advanced search functions to increase the relevance of search results;

- when searching for documents about a particular country or in a specific language, regional search engines should be preferred. For example, to search in Runet, it is better to contact the Yandex search engine [http://www.yandex.ru /].

       The request should be formed as accurately as possible, using all the features of the query creation mechanism. The time spent on the detailed compilation of a search query pays off with further analysis of the material.

Encyclopedias.

    Any search should start with reputable encyclopedias, reference books and dictionaries in order to get an approximate idea of the subject and form a list of keywords, and then turn to the catalogs of resources and search engines. In most cases, from reference books and encyclopedias, you can get accurate data on a specific subject industry, starting from which you can perform a full-fledged search in search engines.

    The collection of encyclopedias and dictionaries in Russian is quite extensive. This is, for example, the Chronos Project — chronological tables on world history [http://hronos.km.ru ], Category [http://www.rubricon.com /], Yandex dictionaries [http://www.slovari.yandex.ru /], Art cyclopedia — encyclopedia of art history [http://www.artcyclopedia.com /], The World Factbook — facts about countries [https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook /] and others.

   When searching for scientific information, it is sometimes advisable to use a special scientific information search service, such as the Google Academy search engine [http://scholar.google.com /]; SearchEdu search engine [http://www.searchedu.com /] (searches for information exclusively on academic and government institutions, encyclopedic and reference publications); Scirus search engine [http://www.scirus.com /] only searches for scientific information There are also special systems for searching historical information, for example, History On-line [http:/ history.ac )]. Usually such systems are created by specialists in the relevant field (teachers, scientists). The successful combination of these three powerful search tools – encyclopedias, catalogs and search engines usually leads to success.

      If the search results are still not satisfactory, you need to change your search strategy: search in other encyclopedias and catalogs; try to change keywords and use different combination methods, exclude unnecessary words from the search or try another search engine.

Blogs and forums.

    A lot of useful historical information can be found on blogs. The major search engines, particularly Google and Yandex, a search query is automatically searches for information and blog and also have a search function solely on the blog documents. LiveJournal (LJ) is one of the most popular blogging services in the world. The most distinctive feature of LiveJournal is the "friends list", which provides the site with a strong social aspect unlike other blogs. The friends list allows you to create different associations, syndicates. You can view blogs without registering with the services. But in order to make recordings, you need to register to create an account. There are free (with limited features) and paid subscriptions. If the necessary information is not found in the blogs, you can ask a question in the appropriate community. For example, on military history – in the community of Warhisrory's Journal [http://community.livejournal.com/warhistory /] etc. The list of historical blogs is extensive. For example, "1812" and not only ... [http://community.livejournal.com/ru_1812 /], The Great French Revolution [http://community.livejournal.com/1789_france_ru /], Historians [http://community.livejournal.com/ucmopuku /], History Books [ http://community.livejournal.com/ru_hist_books /], Historical Science News [http://istfak.blogspot.com /] and others.

Historical forums.

     A forum is a popular form of communication on the Internet. This is a special online resource where topics for communication are created. Anyone interested in the information can quickly view it on the forum and comment on it. Just like blogs, forums can be freely viewed, but in order to make comments, you need to register. The forum has administrators (forum owners) and moderators (maintenance staff who monitor compliance with the established rules and order). There are many special historical forums and general forums on the Internet, where there are topics ("branches") devoted to various aspects of history. Examples of historical forums: Historica [http://www.historica.ru /] – Historical Forum; T. S. S. I. Forum [http://forum.tssi.ru /] – Forum of the Creative Union of Students of History (Lomonosov Moscow State University).

     Just like blogs, most forums have an internal search engine that allows you to search for topics and individual entries by keywords.

File sharing networks.

    When searching for documents, it is advisable, first of all, to return to file-sharing networks. File sharing networks are networks designed to share files over the Internet and local area networks. To use file sharing networks, you need to install a file sharing program on your computer. The most popular global file sharing networks include Kad, eD2K, BitTorrent, etc. Popular programs for working in file sharing networks: eMule [http://www.emule-project.net /], Strong DC++ [http://strongdc.sourceforge.net /], Bitcomet [http://www.bitcomet.com /] and others. Working in a file sharing program looks something like this: the user opens access to any files - divides the files into layers (English: shared data – data for sharing). Another user looks through the list of layered files or sends a request to search for a file. The program searches for files matching the request from network clients and shows the result. After that, the user can download files from the found sources. Modern file sharing networks allow you to download a single file from several sources at once (this is faster and more reliable). When a user uploads a file (and after it ends), other network clients can upload this file to it, as a result of which particularly popular files can be available for download from hundreds of sources simultaneously. When using file sharing networks, you need to keep in mind the danger of copyright infringement.

Bibliographic search.

    The Internet's bibliographic resources are large and diverse. They include numerous lists of literature on personal pages, lists of new arrivals or thematic indexes on library websites, lists of sources in various electronic publications and many other similar materials. But their main components are electronic library catalogs and bibliographic databases (this distribution is rather arbitrary, since the electronic catalog is actually a variant of the database).

      Search in electronic library catalogs.

    Electronic catalogues of libraries form the main part of the bibliographic potential of the Internet. Today, almost all libraries have electronic catalogs. Most modern catalogs are able to search in all significant fields with the possibility of truncating the terms of the request or the variability of their use; provide the ability to limit the search by formal criteria (years of publication, type of publication, place of publication, etc.); some show the current status of the document (issued or located in the book depository), etc. The main advantage of the electronic catalog is the ability to search the bibliography by keywords. When searching for a bibliography on historical topics, it should be remembered that mostly only documents published relatively recently – the last 10-20 years - are included in the catalogs. Documents published earlier are, for the most part, only partially catalogued. Below is a list of some electronic catalogs: Russian State Library [http://rsl.ru ]; Libraries of the United States Congress [http://catalog.loc.gov /]; British Library [http://www.bl.uk /] State Public Historical Library [http://www.shpl.ru )] and others.

Meta-search bibliographic systems.

    Meta-search bibliographic systems, or portals of interlibrary information, are inherently similar to meta-search systems, only they search for bibliographic information. With the help of a meta-search bibliographic system, you can formulate and send a request to several electronic catalogues of libraries that support such a function at once. An example of a meta-search bibliographic system is Sigla [http://sigla.ru /] is a joint information project of the Lomonosov Moscow State University Scientific Library and the Library Computer Network. Sigla is an interlibrary information portal that helps to form a request and find documents in the electronic catalogs of the largest libraries in Russia and foreign countries. The web resource provides a variety of features, for example, it allows you to search for information in databases of numerous libraries in a single interface, order literature, get acquainted with the full texts of documents, redirect a search query on Yandex and Google. 

     Thus, in the modern world, the Internet provides new opportunities for the profession of historian, changes the nature of the search for historical information. However, the fruitfulness of this search still depends on the person.