CHAPTER 5:

Doing History
It is not enough to that we know our
history. We must also realize that as agents
of social change, we can contribute to the
narrative of the nation by participating in
writing about our past and our present.
DOING HISTORICAL
RESEARCH ONLINE
 INTERNET IS THE FIRST TOOL THAT ANY
STUDENT NOWADAYS WOULD USE TO
DO RESEARCH.IT HAS INCREASINGLY
BECOME THE PRIMARY MEANS BY
WHICH ANYONE WOULD FIND ANY
INFORMATION THAT THEY NEED. WITH A
SINGLE CLICK, YOU ARE ABLE TO
ACCESS TONS AND TONS OF AVAILABLE
INFORMATION. SO MUCH INFORMATION,
IN FACT, THAT IT WOULD BE EASY TO
GET LOST IN ALL THE DATA AVAILABLE.
PLAGIARISM
■ Plagiarism is presenting someone else’s work or
ideas as your own, with or without their consent, by
incorporating it into your work without full
acknowledgement. All published and unpublished
material, whether in manuscript, printed or
electronic form, is covered under this definition.
Tools you can
use in Doing
Historical
Research
Online
CYBERSPACE

■ Cyberspace is a great resource for research, if

you know how to do it properly.
A simple skill that will get you far in doing
historical research online is knowing Where to
look and how to look .
What is a Search
String?
■ A search string is a combination of words that you use
to come up with relevant results and lead you to what
you a re looking for. The more refined your search
string is, the more definite and refined the results will
be.
GOOGLE SCHOLAR
■ Google also provide it’s own customized platform for
scholarly research, called Google Scholar (
www.scholar.google.com). You may use it to find
electronic journal articles, materials from institutional
repositories, and book chapters from many different
sources.
It could be a good starting point in building your research
by providing you an overview of existing published
material for your topic.
Google Books

■ It also provides sources for scanned books, where you

may be able to read some chapters for free. This could
be useful if you want to know if a certain book would
be useful to your resarch before going to a physical
library to loan the book or photocopy pages of it.
(www.books.google.com)
Wikipedia
■ The most often, one of the first results that will come
out will be pages from Wikipedia. It is the biggest open
source encyclopedia in the whole of cyberspace.
■ In 2017, it has 40 million articles in 293 languages.
■ Being an open source encyclopedia, anyone could
contribute or edit articles in the site, which makes some
of the information in the site unreliable.
Wikipedia
Nonetheless, Wikipedia provides a useful launchpad to
sources that you may use for research. When you read
from Wikipedia, look at the linked citations in the
article, which could lead you to a source you may use
for your own research.
■ As a practice, use Wikipedia to gain a general
overview of what you need to know, so that you may
be guided in looking for credible and reliable sources
that you need for your research.
There are websites that you may use to
legally download scanned copies of books
and other materials for free, especially those
books with expired copyrights and are in
public domain;
Project Gutenberg
(www.gutenberg.org)
■ Project Gutenberg is the oldest digital library in the
world, founded in 1971. It has more than 50,000 items
in its collection, which include many works
concerning the Philippines, such as the Doctorina
Christiana (the first published book in the Philippines),
the published travelogue of foreigners who visited the
Philippines such as Jagor, de Comyn, Virchow,
Foreman, and Worcester.
■ Austin Craig’s biography of Rizal, and all volumes of
Blair and Robertson’s The Philippine Islands: 1493-
1898.
Internet Archive (www.archive.org)
■ It is an online library that originally sought to
archive web history, but grew later on to provide
digital versions of other works.
■ The archive contains 279 billion web pages, 11
million books and texts, 4 million audio
recordings, 3 million videos, 1 million images
and 100,000 software programs.
Philippine Government Websites
(www.gov.ph)
■ Philippine Government Websites are starting to be enriched
with sources that maybe used for historical research, especially
on laws and other government issuances that maybe useful
when doing topics of a more contemporary period.
■ Websites of newspapers, magazines, broadcasting stations, and
other media outlets usually keep an archive of their articles
from a particular date. For older issues, you may have to find
copies, either digitized or physical copies, in the library.
 DOING HISTORICAL
RESEARCH IN LIBRARIES AND
ARCHIVES
NECESSARY IN THE STUDY OF HISTORY AS THIS
ARE REPOSITORIES OF PRIMARY AND
SECONDARY SOURCES THAT ALLOW US TO
CREATE NARRATIVES OF THE PAST THROUGH
ACCEPTED METHODS OF HISTORICAL
SCHOLARSHIP.
IT IS IMPERATIVE UPON STUDENTS TO BE ABLE
TO DEVELOP AN APTITUDE TOWARD DOING
RESEARCH IN THIS VENUE SO US TO FURTHER
DEVELOP YOUR SKILLS IN HISTORICAL
RESEARCH.
 Libraries in archives still provide more
variety of sources in different formats
such as books, journal articles,
newspapers, magazines, photographs, and
even audio and video recordings. But
sifting through all the materials available
might prove to be a daunting task for the
unacquainted.
OPAC (Online Public Access)
■ Online Public Access or simply the Library
Catalogue. In this system, instead of going through
each entry on physical index cards, A simple search
will yield the holdings of the library related to what
you are searching for. Searching by subject will give
you a list of sources, primary and secondary, to aid
you in creating a preliminary biography let you make
later on access physically in the holdings of the
library.
The National Library of the
Philippines
■ The National Library of the Philippines in
Ermita, Manila, provides a rich treasure trove
of materials for the student - researcher
interested in Philippine history, especially in
their Filipiniana Section. It has a valuable
Rizaliana collection, several sets of Blair and
Robertson’s The Philippine Islands, 1493-
1898, rare Filipiniana books, Philippine
Presedential Papers, and other materials that
are accessible to the public, especially to
students.
THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF THE PHILIPPINES

■ The National Archives of the Philippines, also in Manila, is

an agency of the government mandated to collect, store,
preserve, and make available records of the government
and other primary sources pertaining to the history and
development of the Philippines. Most of the materials here,
especially for the years of Spanish colonialism, are in their
original language, and may not be accessible to college
students. But other materials maybe useful, and it would
not hurt to ask assistance from the staff in the archives.
UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES
– DILIMAN LIBRARY
■ The libraries in the University of
the Philippines in Diliman,
Quezon City, have holdings that
could also be useful in research.
The collections particularly in
the main library in Gonzales Hall
are rich in resources especially
the Filipiniana section, serials,
and dissertations.
ATENEO DE MANILA UNIVERSITY
■ The Ateneo de Manila
University in Quezon
City holds the American
Historical Collection, a
rich source for the
American period in the
Philippines. It is also
accessible to the public .
UNIVERSITY OF SANTO TOMAS
■ The University of Santo
Tomas in España, Manila,
also has collections from the
16th century, owing to the
fact that it is the oldest
Catholic university in the
country and is a historic site
in itself. It is also accessible
to the public.
THE FAMILY HISTORY CENTER

■ The Family History

Center at the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-
Day-Saints is a
generous resource for
research on genealogies.
THE CHINBEN SEE MEMORIAL
LIBRARY
■ A specialized library on the ethnic
Chinese in the Philippines and other
parts of the world, the library not
only has books, journals and
magazines, and other research
materials, it also has a photo and
document archive and a microfilm
section. The library was made
possible by persons who have
contributed their effort, time, and
money for us to have a rare
collection that helps in preserving
our cultural heritage.
KAISA-ANGELO KING HERITAGE
CENTER
■ The project was envisioned to provide
another venue for advocating patriotism
to the Philippines and promoting
cultural identity and understanding
between the local Chinese and Filipino
communities, after the acclaimed bi-
lingual children’s educational television
program Pinpin in the early 1990s.
THE ARCHDIOCESAN ARCHIVES
■ The Office of the Archives collects
and preserves documents, photos,
records, and other materials that
pertain to the origin, history, and
administration of the archdiocese.
They provide assistance and support
to archdiocesan offices, parishes,
and individual researchers.
 DOING LIFE
HISTORIES
AND
BIOGRAPHICA
L RESEARCH
 • Life history is an oft-neglected subdiscipline of history
because it is seen as trivial to larger narratives of nations,
societies, and civilizations.
• Studying the life of an individual is often incidental to a
greater event that has been significant to the life or a larger
unit that he or she happened to contribute to.
JESUS CHRIST
■ Jesus Christ as an individual
influence the whole world. The
faith and the religion that he
started also launched wars,
created civilizations, lasted for
many centuries, and persist up
to the present.
JOSE RIZAL
■ Jose Rizal on the other hand,
influenced many generations of
Filipinos. His novels inspired radical
Filipinos to fight the colonizers, and
his death was seen as the tipping
point of the revolution. However, his
influence was limited to the
Philippines.
■ The writing of life history would not be limited
to the great individuals, prophets, or world
leaders.
■ Ordinary individuals should also be able to
locate themselves in the pages of history.
■ Doing life histories should be accompanied by
locating the life of the individual in the larger
social life.
■ Zooming out to the national history of the
country where that individual identifies with is
also helpful.
DOING LOCAL AND
ORAL HISTORY
 The history subjects and courses usually taught to
student in school are Philippine History, world
history and history of Asia. The coverage is always
expansive and taught in broad stoke of historical
periods,of large spaces, and prominent
personalities.
■ Local history attempts to reconstruct the history
of a place to understand how the way people
lived conncents to thecommunity’s present and
future.
■ Oral History is a method of conducting
historical research through recorded
interviews between a narrator with personal
experience of historically significant events
and a well-informed interviewer, with the
goal of adding tomthe historical record.
 INTERACTING WITH
HISTORY THROUGH
HISTORICAL SHRINES AND
MUSEUMS
WHAT IS HISTORY?

■It is the study of the past events,

particularly in human affairs.
Why Shrines and Museums are
important?
Museums give us a chance to look into the past as well as
the future,to see where we’ve been and when we might
go. Without them many important pieces of history
would be lost or shielded from public view by private
collectors
■ Historal shrines and museun serve as potentials ti the
past. But one must alse take note the visiting a
museum entails preparation.
Does Local History Study Local Communities?
Local Institutions? Local Groups? Local Hereos?

■ Local history is the study of the history of a particular

community or a smaller unit of geography.
■ Doing local history is not easy task. Despite the
seemingly smaller scope of study, historians are often
faced with challenges in locating sources for local and
specific objects of study.
THANK YOU FOR
LEARNING WITH
US! 🤍