About Us

The Primary Source Nexus is operated by the Barat Education Foundation thanks to grant funding from the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) Partner Program. The mission of the Library’s TPS program is to: build awareness of the Library’s educational initiatives; provide content that promotes the effective educational use of the Library’s resources; and offer access to and promote sustained use of the Library’s educational resources. Learn more about the Library’s TPS program and other resources available to teachers at www.loc.gov/teachers.

Barat received its first Library grant in 2004 and became a TPS Consortium Partner in 2006. Over the years, Barat has continually created innovative projects that provide free, engaging, inquiry-based learning materials that use Library primary sources to foster understanding and application of civics, literacy, history, math, science, and the arts.

Barat’s current TPS project, the Citizen U-niverse, encompasses the Primary Source Nexus educational portal; the Citizen U Civics Resource Center, which houses the Multidisciplinary Civics Lesson Library; and the NEA TPS Micro-credentials, which include 8 professional learning modules developed to help educators better integrate inquiry learning with primary sources into instruction across grades and disciplines using a variety of frameworks and strategies.