Sourcery @ AHA: what is Sourcery and what can it do for you?

Greetings AHA attendees! Hear about Sourcery during your conferencing and curious about what it is and what it can do for you?  

Sourcery is an archival document delivery app based out of the University of Connecticut and maintained in collaboration with Digital Scholar, the same not-for-profit behind Zotero, Omeka, and Tropy. With Sourcery, a researcher can identify undigitized archival material that they would like a scan of via a finding aid, archivist help, or other means, and place a request for it in Sourcery. A local archives user, called a “Sourcerer,” will go to the archive, create the scans, and send them back to the researcher for a fee.  

Sourcery has many applications for researchers, genealogists, and really anyone else who is regularly conducting primary source archival research. You can use Sourcery to get critical documents, streamline your research, expand your source base, and more!  

Sourcery is best suited for retrieving material in processed collections with an accessible finding aid, particularly print paper-based material such as correspondence, photographs, meeting minutes, ephemera, and more. We will be offering scans of bound volumes soon. In contrast, 3D objects, paintings, reproduction/publication quality scans, and similar items are not as well suited for Sourcery requests and copies should be requested from the holding institution instead.  

Sourcery requests are currently at the folder- or item-level. Single folders and single items can be requested for $64 at full cost, or for $32 using our 50% off coupon available at checkout. Read more about Sourcery pricing HERE.  

Ready to make an account? Simply head over to go.sourceryapp.org and create an account. In order to make a request, you’ll need some information about your materials, including the title, contents, and archival location. Need help or still have questions? Reach out to us at info@sourceryapp.org!