In honor of the centennial of Robert H. Goddard’s first successful liquid-fueled rocket launch in Auburn, Massachusetts on March 16, 1926, Clark University’s Archives & Special Collections has digitizing highlights from two of our biggest and most notable collections: The Robert H. Goddard Papers and The Esther C. Goddard Papers.

Start exploring today! The Robert H. Goddard Collection

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• Stop, pause and take a deep breath. Online stories try to create an emotional response in users to generate comments and clicks.  Before making an assumption based on a headline, use the next steps to learn more about where the information came from. 
• Investigate the source.  Google it! See what others are saying about the author or publisher. Ask yourself questions like: What is the author’s area of expertise? Or what is the author’s agenda in writing this story? 
• Find credible coverage.  Find news sources that are transparent about how they gather information and avoid using loaded language to influence your opinion. 
• Trace the claim back to the original source. If there’s a picture, do a reverse image search to find where it came from. If there’s a quote, search for its original context. 
• Use a fact-checker site. Sites like Politifact, factcheck.org and Snopes provide context around viral claims and can quickly confirm whether the headline is true or not.

Remember to Take Care of Yourself 

• Share responsibly. Even if you think a story is true, avoid sharing it until you can verify it. Ask yourself who benefits from your behavior online? Are you truly informing people, or are you driving engagement that ultimately only benefits Social Media Platforms? 
• Engage with news intentionally. Focus on where you can have an impact. Try to avoid “doomscrolling”; try setting limits on how often you check news and social media. 
• Lean into your community. Anxiety is compounded by feelings of powerlessness. Find ways to improve your community and build relationships, even if it seems insignificant.

Further Reading 

• Caulfield, M. (2019). SIFT (The Four Moves). Hapgood. https://hapgood.us/2019/06/19/sift-the-four-moves/
• Fuller, J. (2024, October 31). Election anxiety is real. A doctor explains how to manage it. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2024/10/31/nx-s1-5170243/election-anxiety-is-real-a-doctor-explains-how-to-manage-it 
• Using SIFT to Evaluate Sources for Credibility Tutorial. (n.d.). [Video recording]. Retrieved January 23, 2025, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsrXJGpxwIE 

Additional Support 

• Email us: library@clarku.edu 
• Meet with a Librarian

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Instruction, Research and Access:

• Led more than 50 information literacy workshops across campus, reaching approximately 1,000 students.
• Conducted 100 research consultations and answered more than 200 reference questions from students, faculty, staff and users not affiliated with Clark.
• Worked with several faculty to update their online presence on Scopus and ORCID.
• Supported 194 courses with Course Reserves made available through the library.

Collections and Digital Projects:

• Posted over 400 works to Digital Commons and users from around the world have downloaded approximately 33,197 pieces of content.
• Scanned and added all commencement programs and images from the Columbian Exposition (1893) collection to Digital Commons.
• Began the process of cataloging the collection of approximately 1,100 miniature books housed in the Archives and Special Collections.

Archives and Special Collections:

• Responded to 80 requests for information, some of which came from institutions outside the United States including the University of Paris, the University of Edinburgh, and the National University of Mar del Plata.
• Contributed to a piece for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette regarding The Clash playing at Clark in 1979. See the full article and view the images from the Archives and Special Collections here.
• Thanks to a generous donor, the Archive’s 20 volume set of Edward Curtis’s The Indians of North America is having conservation work done at the Northeast Document Conservation Center.
• 80 visitors stopped by the Archives during Friends and Family Weekend in October to view the “Vintage Clark” display.

As the semester wraps up, the library will offer extended hours for Finals and will be closed for Winter Break from Saturday, December 21st to Wednesday, January 1st. Enjoy your time off and we will see you in the New Year!

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This tool contains over 22,000 journals from 5,000 publishers, 150,000 books, 6.4 million conference papers from proceedings and journals, 69 million records with the most thorough coverage from 1996 forward, 1.6 billion cited references dating back to 1970, 70,000 institutional profiles, and 12 million author profiles. Scopus is the place to go for finding not only research, but analytics to better understand where to publish, research topic prominence around the globe, funding sources, faculty and university strengths and opportunities, and more.

Watch for Clark-customized training opportunities in the weeks and months ahead. This is tool for graduate students, undergraduates, faculty, and staff alike. Please dive in and explore!

Questions? Interested in personal training or training for your class or cohort? Email library@clarku.edu. Visit Scopus Tutorials for quick how-to videos.

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