"The lost cannot be recovered; but let us save what remains: not by vaults and locks which fence them from the public eye and use, in consigning them to the waste of time, but by such a multiplication of copies, as shall place them beyond the reach of accident." ~ Thomas Jefferson
"Historically, the Archives has been reactive in its mode of operation. We can't afford to do that today. We've got to be proactive or we'll face a future where we've got endless numbers of systems and no capacity to make the records accessible in any sane way." ~ John Carlin
"Records come into existence, or should do so, not in order to fill cabinets or occupy floor space, or even to satisfy the archival needs of this and future generations, but first of all to serve the administrative and executive purposes of the organizations that create them."
"The National Archives is limited to providing good guidance.
It cannot be a policing agency that goes into every Federal office and
says, "You must create that record. You must
not destroy that piece of paper." ~ Don W. Wilson
"[before legislation for the libraries] Presidential papers
were systematically purged by editors, mutilated by autograph
collectors and souvenir hunters, wasted by widows, burned in barns and
barrels, and carried off by marauding troops." ~ Don W. Wilson
"The system to maintain federal records has 'collapsed
utterly.' It will be impossible to write the history of recent
diplomatic and military history as we have written about World War II.
Too many records are gone and with [them] public accountability of
government and rational public administration." ~ Eduard Mark
"One federal agency told NARA that records management was 'number 26 on our list of top 25 priorities.'"
"...most electronic records (including databases of major federal information systems) remain unscheduled, and records of historical value are not being identified and provided to NARA for preservation in archives. As a result, valuable electronic records may be at risk of loss." 2002 GAO report
"Although tens of millions of documents are available, some of what historians presume is the most interesting material is under lock and key because of national security, restrictions upon on donated papers, and an executive order from President George W. Bush." ~ Patrick McGee
"We operate on the premise that somewhere in the government they are using every software program that has even been sold, and some that were never sold because they were developed for the government." ~ Ken Thibodeau
"Pentagon generates tens of millions of images from personnel files
each year, the Clinton White House generated 38 million e-mail messages
[and the Bush White House is expected to generate triple that number],
and the 2000 census returns were converted into more than 600 million
TIFF format image files, some 40 terabytes of data." ~ David
Talbot
The key source is the Guide to Federal Records in the National Archives of the United States.
The Document Center at the University of Michigan has excellent
links for Federal government historic documents. Includes
both governmental and non-governmental web sites.
The National
Archives and Records Administration website is an essential source so
you should be quite familiar with it.
The NARA Presidential Libraries website contains much useful information, including links to the Presidential libraries.
A list of state
archive websites is a useful supplement.
Using
Archives: A Practical Guide for Researchers, developed by the
National Archives of Canada is an excellent source of information for
anyone interested in governmental archives.
The Archivist's
Toolkit is another excellent resource, especially for the
basic functions and interesting case studies.
The Society
of American Archivists is the leading professional
organization. Helpful for those who wish to learn more about the
profession.
The Report on Current Record keeping Practices within the Federal Government, among other findings, found that:
Obviously, poor record keeping and poor records management have considerable impact on what items will be available for study
in the future. Poor record keeping usually means poor archives. "The
lack of public and governmental interest and attention to records and
record keeping, an unwillingness to commit necessary resources --
money, skills, training, and technology -- and the need to overcome
entrenched organizational cultures also threaten records preservation."
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an
independent federal agency accessing and preserving records from all
three branches of government. Established in 1934, it assists federal
agencies in all aspects of records management. It manages the
Presidential Libraries System, assists the National Historical
Publications and Records Commission, publishes laws, regulations, and
Presidential documents as well as overseeing classification and
declassification policy. NARA has a staff of about 2,000 permanent
members and a relatively small budget. NARA does have a foundation which raises some additional money].
Until 1985, NARA was part of the General Services Administration and it did not flourish. In the early days as an independent agency, there was considerable controversy and too much Congressional interest. NARA is still not taken as seriously as it should be.
Allen Weinstein is the ninth Archivist of the United States. His appointment was somewhat controversial, but he is a distinguished historian.
The Federal Records Act of 1950 defines a record as "all books, papers, maps, photographs, machine-readable materials, or other documentary materials regardless of physical form or characteristics, made or received by an agency or in connection with the transaction of public business and preserved or appropriate for preservation by that agency as evidence of the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, operations, or other activities of the Government or because of the informational value of data in them." Each federal government agency has a records management plan developed in conjunction with NARA. Normally, the retention period for administrative documents is two to three years.
NARA is responsible for determining which records are likely to have enduring historical or legal value. Typically, this is less than five percent of the records produced. NARA is also responsible for establishing standards for the documentation of government agencies and activities. Archivists work with agencies to determine retention schedules and procedures as well as maintaining schedules of records in agency custody. Semi-active agency records may be stored at a regional storage facility. These facilities respond to more than 14 million agency requests for records each year.
Less than three percent of the Federal government records become a permanent part of the National Archives. With minimal funding, it is difficult for NARA to handle the growing number of paper and digital items. At present, NARA holds more than 4 billion pieces of paper as well as 300,000 reels of film, more than 5 million maps, charts, and architectural drawings, more than 200,000 audio and video recordings, 9 million aerial photos, 14 million still pictures and posters, and nearly 8,000 computer data sets.
Before the establishment of the National Archives in 1934,
many Federal government records were lost due to poor storage
conditions. Even today, important government records are lost
because agencies have poor storage facilities and poor intellectual
access. The Bureau of Indian Affairs is a notable example. The
professional storage and treatment by NARA only effects records given
to it.
In recent years, NARA has been criticized for poor
performance. In particular, its Electronic Records Archives system does
not meet relevant standards and acquisition policies need revision.
More than 2 million people visit a NARA site each year and there are about 800,000 information requests. Web site visits are about 2 million per month. NARA has an educational mission and provides programs, exhibits, and other efforts to make archives available to the public. Examples include:
NARA has more than 30 sites scattered throughout the United States. Information about these sites is available their website. Besides the main site in College Park, MD (in the Washington, D.C. area), there are substantial historical collections in regional facilities located in:
College Park (near the University of Maryland) is the primary site for NARA and opened in January, 1994. Important holdings include cartographic and architectural material, the Nixon Presidential Project [being prepared to move to the presidential library], Kennedy Assassination Records, the Berlin Documents Center film collection, digital, sound and video records plus still pictures. Researchers must be 16 years old and records are retrieved at designated times from Monday through Friday for use in research rooms. There are separate research rooms for:
On the first visit, researchers must check with a consultant archivist. Paper and pencils are provided and all material brought into the room is inspected. Personal computers, approved scanners, typewriters, tape recorders, and cameras may be brought into the research room. Cases, bags, etc. must be stored in lockers before entering the research room.
The National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis maintains the records of former members of the armed services and of federal civilian employees. About 1.2 million official military personnel files of former U.S. Navy and Marine Corps enlisted personnel who served between 1885 and 1939 are now open to the public.
Eventually, there will be an agency wide catalog of all NARA holdings (the Electronic Records Archive or ERA) including the Presidential Libraries and regional archives, the digitization of a large number of items, and the creation of a supporting IT infrastructure. More popular and notable records will be digitized and made available on the WWW. Holdings will be searchable by title, subject, date, and other keywords. Until ERA is fully operational, the NARA Archival Research Catalog provides intellectual access to holdings. It contains more than about 400,000 descriptions and more than 100,000 digital documents. This is a small portion of NARA's holdings. More information is available on Archival Research Catalog website. Initially, the focus was on audio, image, and video records, but the collection now contains more textual items. Some examples of collections made available:
The Digital Classroom is NARA's attempt to provide educators
and students with access to primary sources and activities as well as
lesson plans using primary source materials. The Classroom is
especially useful for the humanities.
The Access
to Archival Databases aggregates access to about 350 NARA
databases. You cannot browse all the databases, but must select a
database and each one has its own search mechanism. Because the website
is popular, access is sometimes slow.
The Center holds records from the first Congress. Official records from the standing, select, special, and joint committees represent the core of the collections. There is an effort to add non-government materials that illuminate legislative activity, such as interviews by historians, journalists, and political scientists. The Center also has an educational program to bring legislative records into classrooms and public exhibits. The Center is located in downtown Washington, D.C.
Record Group 46 includes U.S. Senate records while Record Group 233 is for House Records. The Center's WWW site includes guides to these record groups as well as more information about their special collections.
The National Historical Publication Commission was
created in 1934 to identify and preserve nationally significant
documents. Records were added in 1975 and with it authority to make
grants to preserve state and local records of national
importance. Documentary scholarship really began in 1950 with the first
volume of the Papers of Thomas Jefferson. President
Truman then ordered the Commission to identify other papers that should
be edited and published as part of the documentary heritage of
significant Americans (about 360 were identified). The University of
Tennessee has been involved in three of these projects. They are
costly, take a long time to complete, and have a relatively small
audience. In the last forty years, the Commission has awarded nearly 200
million in grants to four thousand recipients to strengthen state and
local archives. [these include the archive of non-governmental
organizations].
The Commission (14 members variously appointed) awards
competitive grants to preserve, publish, and encourage the use of
primary source material. It is substantially under funded and supports
fewer publications today than in the past. In recent years, the budget is
about 6 million dollars and supports about 60 grants. Grants typically
go to state and local archives, colleges and universities, libraries,
and historical societies. In 2007, no money is budgeted for this program. Detailed information is available from the NHPRC WWW site.
There has been some controversy about a Commission decision that gave more priority to state-level projects and preserving digital records rather than editing and publishing traditional historical records. After protests by historians, NARA said that it would give higher priority to the Washington, Jefferson, John Adams, Franklin, and Madison papers as well as records related to the first Congress, the early Supreme Court, and the ratification of the Constitution. The amount of money involved, about five million dollars was relatively small but shows how dependent some documentary projects are on federal funding. A key question is the degree to which these Presidential projects have benefited the nation and how useful they really are. Digital records would appear to reach a much larger audience. Capturing digital records for posterity is essential if there are to be archives in the future.
No money is budgeted for this program in the 2007 FY budget. Weinstein hopes to find money to keep the program afloat.
Genealogists are the heaviest users of the several NARA research facilities. The Genealogy Page provides access to information about research sites, research guides, publications and quite a good link to genealogical resources on the WWW. Beginning Your Genealogical Research is on the website and is a solid introduction for the beginner. On-line indexes to Census Records from 1790 to 1870 are another helpful resource. Immigration and naturalization records, military records, and miscellaneous records, including passport applications and social security records may also be available. Catalogs of microfilm resources, the films themselves, and several useful guides are available for sale.
NARA's Office of Presidential Libraries is responsible for the Presidential Library system which includes 10 Libraries and one Presidential Project. These are repositories for preserving and making available the papers, records and other historical materials of Presidents since Herbert Hoover. Each Library contains a museum and offers public programs. In fact, some argue that the libraries are more museums than archives and contain more closed records than open ones. "Presidential libraries are designed to showcase their subjects in the most favorable light."
Attendance at presidential libraries and museums has been on a
decline in recent years and more emphasis is being placed on marketing
and adding attractions. The Johnson library in Austin, Texas is the
most popular with about 200,000 visitors each year. The John F. Kennedy
library is a close second. The Herbert Hoover library in West Branch,
Iowa is least visited.
Before the Presidential Library System, Presidential papers were dispersed after the close of an administration. While some went to the Library of Congress [it began to collect presidential materials in 1903 in the manuscript division], others were scattered among libraries, historical societies, and private collections. Some items were lost or destroyed.In a sense, this can still happen. When George Bush became President, all of the previous content of the www.whitehouse.gov site was wiped clean. NARA, just before the inauguration, asked all Executive Branch agencies to take snapshots of their WWW sites as they existed at the end of the Clinton administration. Many agencies had difficulty in complying.
The Presidential Library System began in 1939 with the donation of the FDR personal and Presidential papers to the Federal government. Roosevelt pledged part of his Hyde Park estate and friends formed a non-profit corporation to raise funds for the construction of the facility. He believed that Presidential papers should belong to the public and asked NARA to take custody of the papers and administer the library. The Roosevelt library was completed in 1946. In 1955, Congress passed the Presidential Libraries Act. Private and non-Federal resources are used to build the library which is then given to NARA for operation and maintenance. Most libraries have foundations that support a variety of programs and initiatives. In 1978, the Presidential Records Act declared that the official papers of the president automatically become government property and are transferred to NARA at the end of that administration. In 1986, Congress required that future presidential libraries include an endowment tied to library size to help with the costs of maintaining the library.
Traditionally, the papers of the President were considered
personal property. While the Library of Congress has made substantial
efforts to acquire presidential archives beginning in 1834, it was not
always successful. Still, LC has some good collections on earlier
presidents such as the Abraham
Lincoln Papers gathered by Robert Todd Lincoln. In 1914, the
first presidential library opened, the Rutherford B. Hayes Memorial
Library, with considerable support from Ohio state government. In 1919,
the Hoover Library was established on the campus of Stanford
University. [Many of these papers were transferred to the Herbert
Hoover Presidential Library in Iowa in 1964.] In 1937, President
Roosevelt adapted these models and the completed presidential library
became a federal facility in 1940. Library museums for older presidents
can still be developed. The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library is
only a few years old and is managed by the Illinois State Historical
Library.
In 1978, the Presidential Records Act declared that
Presidential records that document the constitutional, statutory, and
ceremonial duties of the President belong to the Federal government.
Presidents select the location of the library. The Presidential
Libraries Act of 1986 limited library size and required private
endowments. After Watergate, Congress ordered that Nixon Presidential
materials (the Nixon Project) be maintained by NARA in College Park,
MD. The Nixon Library has been private [and controversial
because of perceived lack of objectivity and equity toward
researchers], but is in the process of becoming a federal library and soon the Nixon materials at NARA will be transfered to
it. Presidents decide where their library will be located so
that the presidential libraries are widely dispersed. The president and
his friends are responsible for raising the money for the library, but
NARA staffs and maintains it when it is opened. There is no limit on donations to
the not-for-profit library foundation created by the president and no
disclosure requirement.This could create conflicts of interest when the
president is still in office.
By law, former presidents and vice-presidents may restrict access to some of their records for up to 12 years. Then, materials must be made public. President Bush has issued an Executive Order giving former and sitting Presidents unlimited time to review and withhold documents after the 12 year period has expired. This Order is being challenged in the Federal courts as a violation of federal law.
These Libraries (and Project) contain more than 250 million pages of textual material, 5 million photographs, 14 million feet of motion picture film, 70,000 hours of sound recordings, and nearly 300,000 museum artifacts. Libraries usually include some material accumulated by the President relating to pre-presidential experiences. Many of those associated with a particular president have also donated materials.
Each library has an educational mission, often related to the museum exhibits, and involves work with educators to encourage students to use primary source materials. Libraries would also typically offer conferences aimed at a more scholarly audience. Each library has a gift shop which sells books and souvenirs.
Recent Presidents, mindful of how they will be viewed by
posterity, have formed internal library advisory bodies within their
White House staffs relatively early in their first term of office. Late
in the final term, private, external foundations will be created to
handle fund-raising. Large funded endowments must be in place when the
libraries are dedicated to pay for non-archival functions.
"As each new library jointed the system, it tended to eclipse
its predecessors in size and grandeur. The escalating cost of
maintaining and staffing such facilities in perpetuity began to dawn on
... lawmakers." The Presidential Libraries Act of 1986 placed limits on
future libraries, including the necessity for operating endowments.
Some critics suggest that presidential libraries, because of
their close ties to friends and supporters of the president, tend to
become advocates for that president and do their best to present his
term in the best possible light. Others complain that documents are
released to historians likely to portray the president favorably.
The Archivist of the United States is a political appointment and may not be qualified by training or experience for the position. The previous archivist was formerly the governor of Kansas. The current Archivist was forced out and his replacement has received considerable criticism from the historical community.
National security concerns have substantially limited access to historical documents, including removing some from public access after years on the shelf. Papers donated by the President or family members may be withheld from public use. President Bush's controversial executive order gives the former president or the current president the opportunity to limit access to public records. The Archivist has recently taken steps to limit the withdrawal of previously declassified records from NARA collections.
Partnerships may help. Google is partnering with NARA to make historic AV collections available online.
The cost of space is consuming NARA's budget. New records will require at least 1/2 million cubic feet of mostly paper records each year. More than half of NARA's budget is spent on space and its maintenance. This does not include money needed for major repairs or to improve storage conditions. Agencies generally give records to NARA about 30 years after creation so there is a time lag before changes in records impact. The new NARA facility in College Park, opened in 1994, is nearly full. Paper records continue and are costly to process and store.
Similarly, NARA lacks the money to invest in the IT needed to preserve both hard copy and digital records. The 2007 budget sent to Congress was for $338 million which is a small amount considering the enormous task before NARA. The budget includes about $500,000 to begin preparation for the George W. Bush presidential library.
External mandates, for example, preserving records on digital media, take time and effort (money) away from other needed tasks.
Digital records represent a substantial challenge, particularly in insuring that they can be "read" in the future. The records themselves may quickly deteriorate and hardware/software needed to "read" them may no longer be available.
If government web sites represent government records, then
NARA would have to preserve constantly changing content. NARA does not
accept web pages, word processed files, or relational databases so
there are large gaps.
The Electronic Records Archive [ERA] is designed to preserve and make records more widely available. NARA is partnering with several academic institutions to develop the appropriate resources. ERA is scheduled to be online in 2007. The Access to Archival Databases [AAD] program is the first development of ERA and provides access to about fifty million historic digital records. Items available via the GPO website will be included in ERA. NARA has had some difficulty in tracking the cost and schedule of this program and some wonder if it will be implemented effectively and efficiently. In-house, information technology skills are limited and the preservation challenges are substantial.
NARA, as funding allows, is attempting to digitize notable hard copy
records and make them available via the web. The John F. Kennedy
Presidential Library and Museum has launched a substantial
digitization project with IT and technical support donated by EMC
[partnership].
Email is a particular problem because of its volume and the difficulty in determining which messages are "official." HHS has about 1 million email messages each day, the Treasury Department generates nearly 1 million digital email files each year and the Clinton White House more than 6 million email files per year. Since subject lines are often not reliable, each message would need to be reviewed. Retention schedules need to be developed. Federal courts have found that e-mail records are part of the documentary record of a presidential administration. How to preserve these messages and in what format has been controversial and subject to legal challenge.
Preservation is an acute problem. One estimate would take NARA 120 years to transfer its non-textual material to a more stable format. NARA will spend about $5 million in 5 years on new homes for the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Ink is fading and parchment is deteriorating. Only recently, most paper was acidic and degraded rapidly. Still, paper is relatively permanent compared to current information technology. Video tapes last for about 20 years. The half-life of most computer technology is between 3 and 5 years. Motion picture archives include much acetate film stock that is unstable. It may take 2 hours to conserve a single photograph. NARA has only 8 machines capable of playing the Nixon White House tapes. NARA maintains a museum of equipment to provide access to non-print records. Maintenance is expensive and often difficult. Refreshing intellectual content is difficult because of lack of time and money. Already, NARA has a notable number of digital files that cannot be accessed because of hardware/software problems. There is no end in sight. Federal records are exploding while the budget for archival work falls far behind.
NARA is often about 20 to 30 years behind the creation of a
record. In the mid 1990s, NARA was receiving records created in the
1960s.
Complex digital documents are created in a large number of
agencies with little bibliographic control even within agencies
themselves. Thus, identification, archiving, and organization are
increasingly difficult since even small bits of small units have their
own digital publishing initiatives. Since NARA rarely inspects agency
records programs, the problem is likely to continue. Each agency is
responsible for managing its own records with the exception of
archiving permanent records. Some, Interior comes to mind, have done a
terrible job.
Given the many digital collections at LC, the Wise
Guide provides useful information on a variety
of collections. The Guide
changes monthly.
The American Memory WWW site leads to a variety of collections with more than 1 million items on-line. The "Collection Finder" helps users to find a particular collection. The "Search" feature allows you to search across all collections. You may search by format as well as by subject. There are also search guides on the "Learning Page." Some collections allow full text searching of documents in the collection. The "Learning Page" with activities, lesson plans, and the like is aimed at students and teachers. There is also a "What's New," "Today in History," and a FAQ links.
The American Memory Historical Collections are a major part of
LC's National Digital Library Program. The collections are multi media
collections of digitized documents, photographs, recorded sound, motion
pictures, and text from the Library's Americana collections. Emphasis
is placed on digitizing unique collections likely to be of substantial
cultural and historical value. There is an Advisory Committee that
assists in selection decisions. Interestingly, LC does not grant or
deny permission to use the content found in these collections. Each
collection contains a copyright statement and users must make their own
determination. Much of the material in these collections may be
purchased as reproductions or duplications. The American
Time Capsule contains three centuries of printed ephemera.
Collection subjects range from "African-American Perspectives: pamphlets from the Daniel A.P.Murray Collection, 1818-1907" to "An American Ballroom Companion: dance instruction manuals, 1490 - 1920" to "Around the World in the 1890s: photographs from the World's Transportation Commission, 1894 - 1886." An essential one for legislative history is "A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774-1873." My favorite collection is "Railroad Maps, 1828 - 1900." The American Memory web site gets 10 to 12 million visits per month. Manuscript collections available on the web are closed to all but scholars who visit the Library and even scholars normally look at microform copies and not the original.
An example of a notable collection are the "Thomas Jefferson
Papers" http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/mtjhtml.
This collection will consist of 83,000 images. The first installment,
included about 20,000 images which cover the period from 1651 through
1789 and Virginia history from 1606 - 1737 including a variety of
primary and secondary source materials. There is a Virginia records
time line and a Thomas Jefferson time line (1743- 1827). Time lines are
enriched with images of documents, maps, broadsides, and portraits.
Appropriate selected bibliographies are included. Material about Sally
Hemings, the Hemings family, and Jefferson and slavery at Monticello
also appear in the collection. The University of Virginia also has a substantial
digital collection on Jefferson.
Congress endorsed the notion of A National Digital Library via a public - private partnership to provide access to the Library's most interesting collections for schools, libraries, and homes. Some emphasis has been placed on collections likely to be useful to K-12 instruction and an Educational Services team assists with educational outreach.
America's Library is the Library of Congress website for children and families. It contains a substantial amount of historical material similar to that of American Memory, but with more graphics and bright colors.
Ameritech and the National Science Foundation have been notable partners, but there has been considerable fund-raising and there are other individuals and organizations involved.
Given the large number of special collections in the Library
of Congress (There are more than 117 million items in the archives),
selecting particular collections for digitization can be a challenge. Since many
collections consist of a variety of formats, digitizing can be somewhat
complicated. Many of the items in the collections are fragile and
irreplaceable. Collection sizes vary notably. The daguerreotype
collection holds about 600 items while the Detroit Publishing Company
collection has about 25,000 photographs. The Prints and
Photographs Division holds at least one million images. The Performing Arts Encyclopedia is a good example of a topical collection.
The National Digital Library Project(NDLP) is designed to provide direct access to the Library's resources. The NDLP was first announced in late 1994 and identified 200 collections as likely candidates. LC expects to spend at least $15 million dollars with another $45 million from private sources. More recently, the Library's Web Capture team has created a program to capture and maintain at risk digital content on the web. The LOC.GOV Wise Guide is a monthly digital "magazine" with links to interesting LC collections
Most digitization is outsourced but is done under curatorial supervision at the Library. Most images are generated from 35mm film and text is marked up with SGML. Contractors deliver files to the Library in CD-ROM. These may serve as an archival copy. The process of organizing and describing historical material, especially unpublished, is time-consuming. Most items in a collection have not been fully cataloged and finding aids may not be available. In many cases, it will not be possible to provide item level description. If item level description is available, a browsable list of all subjects is prepared. For text, full text searching is normally available. If item level description is not available, the browsable finding aid will provide access. Topical subject headings are chosen from LCSH and the Thesaurus for Graphic Materials (TGM). Finding the right level of specificity is almost always a problem, especially with such a varied audience. Providing navigational tools for a large collection is also a challenge.
The Library of Congress also has electronic exhibits. Two of these are "American Treasures of the Library of Congress" and "Declaring Independence: Drafting the Documents."
In cooperation with Ameritech, LC has established a competitive grant program to digitize collections at other institutions so that these collections might be added to the NDLP program. Two recent examples are "Pioneer Trails: Overland to Utah and the Pacific, 1847-1869" by Brigham Young University, the Utah Academic Library Consortium, and the Utah State Historical Society and "Shaping the Values of Youth: A Nineteenth Century American Sunday School Book Collection" by Michigan State University and Central Michigan University. About $2 million dollars will be available. The National Endowment for the Humanities has supported other initiatives to make cultural resources widely available via the Internet.
Library of Congress has begun a Local
Legacies Program which hopes to have class room local history
documentation projects preserved at LC.
The National Digital Newspaper Program
is an effort by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the
Library of Congress to digitize U.S. newspapers from 1836 -
1922. Papers before 1836 are difficult to optically scan and copyright
does not allow copying of newspapers issued after 1923.
The American
Folklife Center contains a wide variety of collections from
all fifty states as well as territories. Strong access to primary
source material. Each collection is introduced by "understanding the
collection" and "working with the collection." The site is well
organized, but lacks search capability.
The Smithsonian Institution was founded in 1846 under a trust given by James Smithson, an English scientist, to increase and diffuse knowledge. Today, the Smithsonian Institution is the world's largest museum complex. it holds more than 140 million artifacts and specimens. The Institution is composed of 16 museums and galleries plus the National Zoo and several research facilities. Thirteen museums and the Zoo are located in the District of Columbia. Three museums are located in New York city. The museums are:
The Smithsonian
Online Collections website is a good way to find Smithsonian
museum collections available via the Internet. For example, the
National Portrait Gallery created an on-line exhibit "Civil War @
Smithsonian: Collecting, Preserving, Remembering the National
Experience." "Within
These Walls" from the National Museum of American History
details how Americans lived from 1757 to 1945. Kiowa
Drawings from the National Anthropological Archives includes
hundreds of images from the 19th and 20th Centuries. In cooperation
with the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian is developing in Save Our Sounds
, a substantial collection of American sounds. More recently, the
Institution has launched SmithsonianEducation
focused on teachers and children. You can search by grade level and
subject.
NLM is well known for a strong collection on the history of medicine in the United States. Their History of Medicine Website has received several very positive reviews. Images from the History of Medicine includes about 60,000 images.
Originally the Army Medical Museum the Museum provides WWW access to exhibits on Civil War medicine.
Many departments and some sub-departments have collections of
historical items. Image collections are popular.For example:
A product of the University of North Texas hopes to archive
the websites of defunct federal agencies such as the National Bankruptcy
Review Commission and the National Partnership for Reinventing
Government. UNT is responsible for the archive and the GPO identifies
suitable materials.
In order to facilitate access to FOIA, some agencies provide a FOIA reading room. Typically, such a reading room would provide immediate access to frequently requested documents released under the Freedom of Information Act.
This website
provides information on State Department records and information access
programs. It also displays frequently requested records released under
FOIA as well as some special collections thought to be of continuing
public interest. Of special interest is material on El Salvador and the
creation of the CIA. There is a search engine.
In cooperation with the Association of Research Libraries, GPO
has begun planning for a national digitization project for legacy
[tangible] documents and publications. In the beginning,
focus will be on print items, but those in fiche will also be included
later. At the moment, GPO is conducting a survey to identify a list of
priority items or series.
Many states have begun to create digital collections of historic items which are available via the WWW. The Library of Virginia is a notable example. For example, the "WPA Life Histories" consist of 1350 life histories, social-ethnic studies, youth studies, interviews with former slaves, and some folklore studies. The WPA was a federal program with a strong state orientation.
The
Florida State Archives Photographic Collection contains more
than 790,000 photographs and about 2,000 films and videos. Nearly
50,000 of these are now available at their website including some
excellent images of steam railroading in the state.
Perhaps the best known of the non-government archives, this research institute is located at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.Via their WWW site, a relatively large number or records are available with some focus on foreign policy and intelligence matters. This is a must visit for anyone with a serious interest in international relations.
The Tax
History Project includes a wide variety of Treasury, White
House, and Congressional documents about taxation.
