• Alex Villanueva
• Developing new ways of archiving historical documents
• History

Describe
your research
experience

I am interested in new ways of communicating historical documents and experiences in a way that can be used by as many people as possible. In my personal studies, I work on Early US History.

The OUR Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship was used to help the Department of History develop a new program known as SourceLab. The SourceLab initiative at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign hopes to assist both students and professors, and also give undergraduates experience in research and textual editing. Using the program Scalar, we intend to produce high-quality, digitally accessible editions of historical sources in the public domain. SourceLab will provide these editions to the public, free of charge. All of the future editions are produced by students under faculty supervision.

SourceLab hopes it will meet the needs of the modern university classroom. Professors across campus in all fields, both in the humanities and even the STEM fields are looking for primary source documents, particurally non-textual material to tell the story of the past, the means of creating the present and steps towards the future. Examples of these primary source material can range from newspapers, to travel logs, lithographs, film, and audio. Professors then include these material in their lesson plans. Often many students, especially those who aren’t familiar with the topic, can have a difficult time taking full advantage of the material.