PWR lecturer Susan Wyle launched a new website, "Researching with Primary Sources at Stanford" this past September, 2007. The streamlined, informative site helps students discover primary collections across the Stanford campus—collections that have been, until now, rarely seen and difficult to find. The site focuses on the Hoover Archives and Special Collections, the Music Library, and the Art Library. It also offers links to sources which support research and learning about Stanford, including the Stanford Historical Society, the Stanford Daily Archives, the Stanford Report, and the Stanford Archaeology Association. Visit the Primary Sources at: http://ual.stanford.edu/AP/univ_req/PWR/PrimarySourcesResources.html

This page has been used both to demo sources in numerous classes and to teach individual instructors about primary sources at Stanford and how to access them. "Grad students and teachers new to Stanford have been particularly excited to see the materials on this page," Wyle explains, "because it is quite possible to miss all this valuable material if you don't know where to look." Her years of dedication exploring and making available the immense range of primary sources at Stanford have paid off not only in helping researchers discover new materials but also in bringing new excitement to students as they research. Elated by the success of the site, Wyle describes student responses: "the evaluations always reflect their excitement and awe at being able to hold in their (gloved) hands the ephemera from the past."

Wyle's idea for the "Researching with Primary Sources at Stanford" website began with a desire to extend knowledge of and access to the treasures hidden in the Hoover Archives and Special Collections to more Stanford students. Because not every class visits these holdings, Wyle believed that a web page on which both students and teachers could peruse a variety of samples would spark the enthusiasm of students interested in doing more primary research. The page began, then, with a sequence of ten collections from Hoover, describing holdings ranging from Nazi propaganda photographs to the poster collection to the New Left collection, with appropriate pictures and box numbers for undergraduate research. It then grew to include examples from Special Collections, including FBI files and Freedom of Information holdings, and then went on to include the Music Library sources. These sources range from records of Stanford professors reading poetry to the latest databases of sound, such as Smithsonian Global, which can deliver both music and oral histories and other spoken word items to students' laptops. Since then, Wyle has added the Art Library, so students can learn about—and begin to see—the huge selection of art catalogs, books, and databases at the Library. This selection will be especially valuable to students who need images for their papers and presentations.

Wyle's plans for the website's future include expanding it to incorporate the Cantor Museum holdings and creating a booklet based on the website to give to students, parents, and donors. The booklet will showcase Stanford's resources as well as the titles of essays students have written in the past using these resources, along with pictures of students researching in both the Hoover and Special Collections.