When tasked with writing a thesis, undergraduate students might feel a sense of anxiety at the unknown. For many undergraduate students, a thesis is something reserved only for graduate and doctoral students. But when students are tasked with this new experience, University Libraries can help them gain valuable insight into conducting a research project with primary sources.
The Senior Thesis is a requirement to graduate from the University of South Carolina Honors College. Through the thesis, students get the opportunity to dive deeper into their major -- or take the opportunity to deviate from their area of study and pursue more of a “passion project” which would involve research that might lie outside of their chosen field.
This was the case for Caleb Taylor, a senior accounting major in the Honors College. He chose to write his thesis on how changes in 19th century transportation technology affected Columbia’s physical development. This research, conducted primarily in the South Caroliniana Library, required Caleb to pull information from old reports by local governments, including pamphlets and informational booklets dating back to the 19th century. But the research process itself was “kind of a learn as you go” experience for him.
“I realized that there was a lot more than just what there was in Thomas Cooper,” he said. “A lot of really important and very old, delicate and rare documents that are super useful for primary sources, which is usually just at the end of a very long footnote trail. The place that it all comes back to is a special collections library.” Following these footnotes was how Caleb would find threads that led him to the primary sources he was looking for.
Caleb, who had never done research in an archival library like Caroliniana before, didn’t initially know where to start with the somewhat daunting task. “At first I wasn’t really sure if, as an undergrad, that was something even accessible to me,” he said. The User Services staff at Caroliniana were a resource in themselves according to Caleb. “Everyone here is really dedicated to helping you navigate this type of research.”
Dr. Nathan Saunders, Director at the South Caroliniana Library, wants all undergraduates to know that Caroliniana has always been a place for them. “South Caroliniana has, for 185 years, welcomed undergraduate students to our reading room, and we are proud of those decades of service,” he said.
The thesis, according to Caleb, is giving him the push he needed to learn more about the research process, especially when it comes to gaining experience with primary resources. “I think that having the original document allows you to draw your own conclusions and synthesize a new idea instead of just adapting the analysis of somebody else,” he said. “You can take the basic materials and do your own analysis.”
Caleb appreciates the opportunity to explore others of his diverse set of interests through this research. “I’m very happy with my accounting major, but there is another world where I was a history major, and this is an opportunity to explore an alternative and come up with a finished product,” he said. “I can say I’m an accounting major, but I also know how to work in the field of history and I got that experience with something I was really interested in.”
That, says Saunders, is precisely why the library remains so committed to supporting undergraduate research. "South Caroliniana Library's resources can contribute to a deeper understanding of subjects and disciplines across campus. Many of the dissertations and theses students have written using our materials are of course in the field of history, but we have also seen great research projects in the fields of geography, art, world languages, public health, and law, to name just a few,” Saunders said. “We are pleased to contribute to interdisciplinary research across campus and beyond."
The South Caroliniana Library is open to the public Tuesday through Friday and the first Saturday of every month from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and open for research by appointment only. Visit their website to learn more.