Организация: the Library of Congress

Historical coverage of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Contains almost 400,000 bibliographic entries from 2,000 journals published worldwide since 1964.

Description: Contains over 300 U.S. newspapers published by African Americans and chronicling a century and a half of the African American experience. The collection features papers from more than 35 states - including many rare and historically significant 19th century titles - and offers researchers valuable primary sources for such diverse disciplines as cultural, literary and social history; ethnic studies and more. Users can compare and contrast African American views on practically every major theme of the American past.Coverage spans life in the Antebellum South; the spread of abolitionism; growth of the Black church; the Emancipation Proclamation; the Jim Crow Era; the Great Migration to northern cities, the West and Midwest in search of greater opportunity; rise of the N.A.A.C.P.; the Harlem Renaissance; the Civil Rights movement; political and economic empowerment and more. Researchers will find firsthand perspectives on notable Americans from Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington to W.E.B. Du Bois and Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as obituaries, advertisements, editorials and illustrations.Part of the Readex America's Historical Newspapers collection, African American Newspapers, 1827-1998 was created from the most extensive African American newspaper archives in the United States - those of the Wisconsin Historical Society, Kansas State Historical Society and the Library of Congress.
Coverage: 19th and 20th Centuries

 

The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Burney Collection Newspapers covers over 200 years of accounts from England, Ireland, and Scotland and a handful of papers from British colonies in the Americas and Asia. Totaling almost 1 million pages and containing approximately 1,270 titles, the collection includes newspapers, pamphlets, Acts of Parliament, addresses, broadsides, proclamations, and books gathered by the Reverend Charles Burney (1757-1817). The collection is particularly rich in 18th century London newspapers including all the major titles, such as the Daily Courant and the London Gazette. Also represented are English provincial titles from 1712, such as the Stamford Mercury of 1728, Irish newspapers (the earliest being the Dublin Intelligence of 1691), Scottish ones from 1708 onwards, and many 18th-century American ones too, including the New England Courant (1721-1723), on which Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) worked, before he moved from Boston to Rhode Island after having published the paper's final issue on 25 June 1726.

THOMAS was launched in January of 1995, at the inception of the 104th Congress. The leadership of the 104th Congress directed the Library of Congress to make federal legislative information freely available to the public. Since that time THOMAS has expanded the scope of its offerings to include the features and content listed below.

The Prints and Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC) contains catalog records and digital images representing a rich cross-section of still pictures held by the Prints & Photographs Division and, in some cases, other units of the Library of Congress. The Library of Congress offers broad public access to these materials as a contribution to education and scholarship.

The collections of the Prints & Photographs Division include photographs, fine and popular prints and drawings, posters, and architectural and engineering drawings. While international in scope, the collections are particularly rich in materials produced in, or documenting the history of, the United States and the lives, interests and achievements of the American people.

  • The catalog provides access through group or item records to about 95% of the Division's holdings.
  • Many 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.
  • The primary historical documents described and displayed in this catalog may contain materials offensive to some readers. The Library does not endorse views expressed in the collections but presents the collections as an aid to scholarly research.

What the Catalog Includes

Although the catalog is added to on a regular basis, it is not an exhaustive listing of the holdings of the Prints & Photographs Division, which consist of more than 14 million items. Paper finding aids, card catalogs, and browsing files of pictures available on site supplement descriptions in PPOC.

The catalog includes:

  • Various types of records and data, depending upon the nature of the materials and the level of description available. Among the types of records you may see in the catalog are:
    • Item Record--Describes an individual item, sometimes accompanied by a digital image. In some cases, every item in a collection has been described with an item record. In other cases, selected item records have been created, often for images requested for reproduction or copied as a preservation measure. Item records can vary in the amount of information supplied; some include unconfirmed information and non-standard subject headings.
    • Group Record--Describes a group of images that are related, usually by source or subject matter. Various kinds of call number designations may be used to designate a group of images: e.g., LOT, LOOK - Job, ADE - UNIT, HAER. Most groups of images are not available in digital form and must be viewed on site by coming to the Prints & Photographs Reading Room and submitting a call slip. Some have additional finding aids that provide further description of images in the group.
    • Guide Record--Describes an entire collection, outlining its scope, provenance, and the finding tools that provide access to images (digitized or non-digitized) in the collection.
    • About the Collection --Collections generally have some contextual information which may include things such as its background and scope, bibliographies, lists of related resources, and technical notes.
  • More than 1.2 million digitized images:
    • In some cases only "thumbnail" images ("gif" images) will display to those searching outside the Library of Congress because of potential rights considerations, while on-site searchers have access to larger "jpeg" and "tiff" images, as well.
    • In some collections, only a portion of the images have so far been digitized.

The Prints & Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC)overlaps with some other Library of Congress search systems. For example:

  • Some of the records in PPOC are also found in the Library of Congress Online Catalog, but PPOC includes additional records, direct display of digital images, and links to information about rights, obtaining copies, and background information about the collections represented in the catalog.
  • PPOC includes all the Prints & Photographs Division items represented in American Memory as well as additional materials not included in American Memory. Conversely, picture collections from other archives or libraries included in American Memory are not included in PPOC (e.g., Photographs from The Chicago Daily News, 1902-1933).

For information about how to use the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog, consult the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog"Help" document.

Rights Information

Rights assessment is your responsibility.

As a publicly supported institution the Library generally does not own rights to material in its collections. Therefore, it does not charge permission fees for use of such material and cannot give or deny permission to publish or otherwise distribute material in its collections. It is the patron's obligation to determine and satisfy copyright or other use restrictions when publishing or otherwise distributing materials found in the Library's collections.

The nature of historical archival collections means that copyright or other information about restrictions may be difficult or even impossible to determine. Whenever possible, the Library provides information about copyright owners and other restrictions in the catalog records or other texts that accompany collections. The Library provides such information as a service to aid patrons in determining the appropriate use of an item, but that determination ultimately rests with the patron. The Library of Congress is eager to hear from any copyright owners who are not properly identified so that appropriate information may be provided in the future.

For further information, see the Prints & Photographs Division "Rights and Restrictions Information" page.

Obtaining Copies of Images

Digitized images appearing in the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog can be downloaded (see information above regarding image rights).

Some images will display only as small, thumbnail (gif)images when searching outside the Library of Congress; larger jpeg and tiff images of such images will display when searching inside the Library of Congress and can be downloaded at public reading room workstations or when using the Library's wireless network.

Copies of most images listed in the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog can be purchased from the Library of CongressDuplication Services. When viewing information about an item of interest in the catalog, select the "Obtaining Copies" tab for instructions for obtaining copies.

Additional Prints & Photographs Division Resources

The Division has prepared picture lists and resource lists for popularly requested topics, as well as guides and finding aidsfor particular collections.

For further information about how to search for Prints & Photographs Division holdings not represented in the online catalog or in the lists of selected images, consult the "Information for Researchers" document.

There are numerous other picture catalogs available from other libraries, archives, museums, or picture agencies. Some significant ones are included in the list of "Picture Catalogs Online."

API Information

Every URL that makes up the Web site is also available in a JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) representation. These JSON representations can be viewed as convenient, light-weight Web services making up an Application Programming Interface (API) for PPOC. The API documentation contains descriptions of the request and response elements as well as examples.

Technical Information

Library of Congress staff built the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog application with several software tools and components.

The Library of Congress is not using a commercial repository system or digital asset management application to present the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog or to manage digital objects.

Congress.gov is the official website for U.S. federal legislative information. The site provides access to accurate, timely, and complete legislative information for Members of Congress, legislative agencies, and the public. It is presented by the Library of Congress (LOC) using data from the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Office of the Secretary of the Senate, the Government Printing Office, Congressional Budget Office, and the LOC's Congressional Research Service.

Congress.gov is usually updated the morning after a session adjourns. ConsultCoverage Dates for Legislative Information for the specific update schedules and start date for each collection.

The scope of data collections and system functionality have continued to expand since THOMAS was launched in January 1995, when the 104th Congress convened. THOMAS was produced after Congressional leadership directed the Library of Congress to make federal legislative information freely available to the public.

Until all data sets from the legacy system are available from the new system, THOMAS will be accessible. THOMAS Retirement - Frequently Asked Questions provides additional information.

Congressional documents from the first 100 years of the U.S. Congress (1774-1875) can be accessed through A Century of Lawmaking.