Introduction

Historians, be they professionals or amateurs, find themselves ever more obliged to refer to the Internet when conducting. There are, undeniably, hundreds of thousands of sites dedicated to “history,” but very few of these are genuinely thought out, built up and geared towards a true exploration of the past. That is to say, very few employ a viable, authentically historical approach.

How can historians identify the sites offering genuine historical insights? There are various different ways of evaluating online resources. Historical websites present particular problems, which experts have been trying to evaluate and resolve for some time¹.
 

This article aims neither to establish hierarchical divisions between online resources nor to offer a definitive prototype for what a historically educational website should look like.

My present aim is to define the kinds of resources the internet can offer to history, examining the ways in which these resources are collected and made available for research purposes.
 

To this end, I have chosen to limit my attentions to sites offering information on one specific research field, namely, the history of education, analysing the sources made available.
 

¹ F. Chiocchetti, Le guide alle risorse storiche online: una rassegna critica, in “Cromohs”, 7 (2002), 1-22, http://www.cromohs.unifi.it/7_2002/chiocchetti.html. Cf. also essays published in in A. Criscione, S. Noiret, C. Spagnolo, S. Vitali, La storia a(l) tempo di internet: indagine sui siti italiani di storia contemporanea (2001-2003), Patron, Bologna, 2004.

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