Notices — Electronic Resources
Uncommon Sense periodically publishes information received about Electronic Resources that fall within the Institute’s field of interest.
“Economic History in the Philadelphia Region: A Guide to Manuscript and Print Resources for Research,” written by Cathy Matson and Wendy Woloson, is posted on the Web Site of the Library Company of Philadelphia’s Program in Early American Economy and Society (www.librarycompany.org/Economics/PEAESGuide). The guide contains a survey of Philadelphia-area collections related to American economic history from the earliest settlements of Europeans in the area to the 1850s. Geographically the sources encompass the economic activities of those in the general mid-Atlantic region, but also in many cases include records of trans-Atlantic enterprises. A list of individual institutions surveyed can be found at www.librarycompany.org/Economics/PEAESGuide/list.htm; contact information and a general survey of each institution’s relevant collections is also posted. The current guide allows keyword searching within the entry for each institution; capabilities enabling searches across institutions will come later in 2006. The guide will continue to grow in the coming years as surveys of other institutions are added and offerings are refined. Questions about the Library Company’s collections in general, and materials related to economic history in particular, can be directed to: woloson@librarycompany.org.
The New York State Archives has launched an innovative educational Web Site, Erie Canal Time Machine. Located at www.archives.nysed.gov, the site promotes learning through the use of historical records. The Erie Canal Time Machine is a document-based trip to the past designed for elementary and middle school students and teachers, as well as the general public. Divided into three time periods, the Web Site includes more than 40 historical documents and photographs that illustrate the canal’s opening in 1825, its operation and impact on the citizens of New York state and beyond during the 1830s, and the controversy surrounding the creation of the Barge Canal in 1903. The site offers concise historical information as well as short topical essays written by historians. There are three document-based questions geared for 4th–8th grade students and an extensive document gallery of photographs, letters, maps, broadsides, petitions, and prints which may be downloaded and incorporated into student projects or lessons. A bibliography and links to other Web Sites about the Erie Canal are also included.
The Library of Congress has completed a major expansion of the “Meeting of Frontiers” Web Site, http://frontiers.loc.gov, the seventh since the site was first launched in December 1999. “Meeting of Frontiers” is a bilingual, English-Russian collaborative project that chronicles the parallel experiences of the United States and Russia in exploring, developing, and settling their frontiers, and the meeting of those frontiers in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. It features rare books, maps, manuscripts, photographs, sheet music, and other materials from libraries in the United States and Russia, and is widely used in schools and libraries throughout both countries.
The latest expansion includes twenty-four collections from fourteen different libraries and archives in Irkutsk, Kemerovo, Krasnoiarsk, Novosibirsk, Tomsk, and other Siberian cities, as well as additional collections from the National Library of Russia in Saint Petersburg, the Russian State Library in Moscow, and the Library of Congress. With the most recent additions, the “Meeting of Frontiers” Web Site now includes more than 580,000 digital images relating to the history of Siberia, Alaska, and the American West. “Meeting of Frontiers” is funded by Congressional appropriations; additional support for development of the project in Russia has been provided by the Open Society Institute of Russia.
This online presentation joins other collections from around the world available through the Global Gateway Web Site. These collections can be seen at www.loc.gov/international. In the “Collaborative Digital Libraries” section are materials from Brazil, the Netherlands, Russia, and Spain. The “Digital Collections” section provides links to thematic presentations, including “Puerto Rico at the Dawn of the Modern Age,” “The Spanish-American War in Motion Pictures,” and the extraordinary “Prokudin-Gorskii Collection” of photographs of Russia taken just before the revolution. Please direct any questions regarding this collection to the Global Gateway inquiry form: www.loc.gov/help/contact-international.html.
The Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs Online Catalog (www.loc.gov/rr/print/catalog.html) contains catalog records and digital images representing a rich cross-section of still pictures held by the Prints & Photographs Division and other units of the Library of Congress. The catalog provides access through group or item records to about 65 percent of the Division’s holdings. About 90 percent of the records are accompanied by one or more digital images. In some collections, only thumbnail images display to those searching outside the Library of Congress because of potential rights considerations. For information on new collections and recent and upcoming activities in the Prints and Photographs Division, see the division’s “What’s New” page: www.loc.gov/rr/print/whatsnew.html.
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