Организация: the Library of Congress

The Veterans History Project of the American Folklife Center collects, preserves, and makes accessible the personal accounts of American war veterans so that future generations may hear directly from veterans and better understand the realities of war.

The Project collects first-hand accounts of
U.S. Veterans from the following wars:

  • World War I (1914-1920)
  • World War II (1939-1946)
  • Korean War (1950-1955)
  • Vietnam War (1961-1975)
  • Persian Gulf War (1990-1995)
  • Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts (2001-present)

In addition, those U.S. citizen civilians who were actively involved in supporting war efforts (such as war industry workers, USO workers, flight instructors, medical volunteers, etc.) are also invited to share their valuable stories.

How did the Veterans History Project start?

The United States Congress created the Veterans History Project in 2000. The authorizing legislation (Public Law 106-380), sponsored by Representatives Ron Kind, Amo Houghton, and Steny Hoyer in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senators Max Cleland and Chuck Hagel in the U.S. Senate, received unanimous support and was signed into law by President William Jefferson Clinton on October 27, 2000.

AARP is the founding corporate sponsor of the Veterans History Project.  In addition to providing initial major funding for the Project, AARP also spread the word to its legion of volunteers and almost 37 million members, encouraging them to get involved.  Numerous state chapters have also been involved in the Project.

The Performing Arts Encyclopedia (PAE) is a guide to performing arts resources at the Library of Congress. The PAE provides information about the Library's unsurpassed collections of scores, sheet music, audio recordings, films, photographs, and other materials. Users can find digitized items from the collections; special Web presentations on topics and collections; articles and biographical essays; finding aids to collections; databases for performing arts resources; information on concerts at the Library; and a special Performing Arts Resource Guide which contains entries for hundreds of Library collections, Web sites, databases and exhibits. (In the latter, each entry describes the resource and provides a link to it if there is an online finding aid or Web site available.

Note: the current Performing Arts Resource Guide only contains a limited amount of records pointing to collections and online resources. For a more complete search of what’s available online, use the search box on the lefthand side of the Web page.)

Performing arts materials can be found in several divisions of the Library, including the Music Division; the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division; the American Folklife Center; the Manuscript Division; the Rare Books and Special Collections Division; and the Prints and Photographs Division.

The PAE contains all of the contents of the former Web site the Library of Congress Presents: Music, Theater, Dance, as well as new material and resources.

This site is the initial version of what will be a continually growing resource. Changes and improvements will be made to the site over the coming months, and we welcome your feedback. Please contact us with your comments using the form available athttp://www.loc.gov/rr/askalib/ask-perform.html.

Chronicling America is a Website providing access to information about historic newspapers and select digitized newspaper pages, and is produced by the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP). NDNP, a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Library of Congress (LC), is a long-term effort to develop an Internet-based, searchable database of U.S. newspapers with descriptive information and select digitization of historic pages. Supported by NEH, this rich digital resource will be developed and permanently maintained at the Library of Congress. An NEH award program will fund the contribution of content from, eventually, all U.S. states and territories.

More information on program guidelines, participation, and technical information can be found athttp://www.neh.gov/projects/ndnp.html or http://www.loc.gov/ndnp/.

Building the Digital Collection

Newspaper Title Directory

The Newspaper Title Directory is derived from the library catalog records created by state institutions during the NEH-sponsored United States Newspaper Program (http://www.neh.gov/projects/usnp.html), 1980-2007. This program funded state-level projects to locate, describe (catalog), and selectively preserve (via treatment and microfilm) historic newspaper collections in that state, published from 1690 to the present. Under this program, each institution created machine-readable cataloging (MARC) via the Cooperative ONline SERials Program (CONSER) for its state collections, contributing bibliographic descriptions and library holdings information to the Newspaper Union List, hosted by the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC). This data, approximately 140,000 bibliographic title entries and 900,000 separate library holdings records, was acquired and converted to MARCXML format for use in the Chronicling America Newspaper Title Directory. Contact a CONSER member for updates and corrections to bibliographic records (see http://www.loc.gov/acq/conser/conmembs.html ) through CONSER. The Chronicling America Directory bibliographic records are updated annually from the CONSER dataset hosted by OCLC.

Selected Digitized Newspaper Pages

Each NDNP participant receives an award to select and digitize approximately 100,000 newspaper pages representing that state's regional history, geographic coverage, and events of the particular time period being covered. In order to plan for phased development, the annual award program began with targeting digitized material for the decade 1900-1910. In subsequent award years, the time period was gradually extended decade by decade, to cover the historic period 1836-1922.

Participants are expected to digitize primarily from microfilm holdings for reasons of efficiency and cost, encouraging selection of technically-suitable film, bibliographic completeness, diversity and "orphaned" newspapers (newspapers that have ceased publication and lack active ownership) in order to decrease the likelihood of duplicative digitization by other organizations.

These newspaper materials were digitized to technical specifications designed by the Library of Congress. These specifications include the following basic elements (profiles describing the full set of specifications can be found athttp://www.loc.gov/ndnp/guidelines/) :

  • TIFF 6.0, 8-bit grayscale, 400 dpi, uncompressed, with specified tag values
  • JPEG2000, Part 1; 8-bit component; 6 decomposition layers; 25 quality layers; 8:1 compression; with XML Box with specified RDF metadata
  • Single page PDF with hidden text; downsampled to 150 dpi, using JPEG compression; with XMP containing specified RDF metadata.
  • Single page machine-readable text encoded in ALTO, v. 2.0 XML; in column-reading order (created with Optical Character Recognition).
  • METS XML data objects describing newspaper issues, pages, and microfilm reels; incorporating elements in MODS, PREMIS, and MIX formats.

Chronicling America provides access to these digitized historic materials primarily through a Web interface enhanced with dynamic HTML interactivity for magnification and navigation. Searches are available for both full-text newspaper pages and bibliographic newspaper records (the Newspaper Directory). Pages are displayed in JPEG format, dynamically-created from source files on user request and presented through the browser interface using a combination of Javascript, DHTML and AJAX Web programming.

Preservation Data Repository and Dissemination Application

The NDNP repository developed for Chronicling America is based on the Open Archive Information System (OAIS) Reference Model for preservation repository architecture and supported by a variety of modular components to enable long-term sustainability of data ingestion, archival management and data dissemination. The public website is built using the Python programming language, Django Web framework, RDFLib, Apache Solr search server, Apache Web server, and MySQL database engine. For more information, see http://www.loc.gov/ndnp/ or contact ndnptech@loc.gov.

Related Resources

Rights and Reproductions

The Library of Congress is providing access to bibliographic information and newspaper pages digitized under the National Digital Newspaper Program for noncommercial, educational and research purposes. While the Library is not aware of any copyrights or other rights associated with this material, the written permission of any copyright owners and/or other rights holders (such as publicity and/or privacy rights) is required for reproduction, distribution, or other use of any protected items beyond that allowed by fair use or other statutory exemptions. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with the persons desiring to use the item.

The NEH awardee responsible for producing each digital object is presented in the Chronicling America page display, above the page image – e.g. Image produced by the Library of Congress. For more information on current NDNP awardees, seehttp://www.loc.gov/ndnp/listawardees.html.

For more information on Library of Congress policies and disclaimers regarding rights and reproductions, seehttp://www.loc.gov/homepage/legal.html

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.

"California as I Saw It:" First-Person Narratives of California's Early Years, 1849-1900 consists of the full texts and illustrations of 190 works documenting the formative era of California's history through eyewitness accounts. The collection covers the dramatic decades between the Gold Rush and the turn of the twentieth century. It captures the pioneer experience; encounters between Anglo-Americans and the diverse peoples who had preceded them; the transformation of the land by mining, ranching, agriculture, and urban development; the often-turbulent growth of communities and cities; and California's emergence as both a state and a place of uniquely American dreams. The production of this collection was supported by a generous grant from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

The American State Papers, comprising a total of thirty-eight physical volumes, contain the legislative and executive documents of Congress during the period 1789 to 1838. The collection includes documents that cover the critical historical gap from 1789 to the printing of the first volume of the U.S. Serial Set in 1817. The books are arranged into ten topical classes or series:

I. Foreign Relations VI. Naval Affairs
II. Indian Affairs VII. Post Office Department
III. Finances VIII. Public Lands
IV. Commerce and Navigation IX. Claims
V. Military Affairs X. Miscellaneous

The compilation, printing, and distribution of the Papers took place from 1831 to 1861 and the thirty-eight volumes contain 6,278 documents. Not all of the classes contain documents from the entire 1789-1838 period. Every volume contains an index and all but one has a table of contents, both with machine-searchable transcriptions.

American Memory provides free and open access through the Internet to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience. It is a digital record of American history and creativity. These materials, from the collections of the Library of Congress and other institutions, chronicle historical events, people, places, and ideas that continue to shape America, serving the public as a resource for education and lifelong learning.