VOLUME 32, NUMBER 9 THURSDAY, October 19, 2000
ReporterEH

Celebrate Archives Month With a Virtual Visit to NARA

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The Web has become an effective medium for informing researchers, students and the general public of the unique nature and content of archives and manuscript collections around the country. The most well-known archive in the United States is the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), whose mission is "to ensure ready access to the essential evidence that documents the rights of American citizens, the actions of federal officials and the national experience."

The NARA Web site http://www.nara.gov/ describes this independent federal agency and provides access to a number of tools for researchers. An electronic version of the Guide to Federal Records in the National Archives of the United States http://www.nara.gov/guide/index.html is based on a paper version with the same title (available in the Government Documents Collection in Lockwood Library) compiled by Robert B. Matchette, et al, in 1995.

A complete catalog of NARA holdings is in development and a prototype version is accessible at http://www.nara.gov/nara/nail.html. This prototype, the "NARA Archival Information Locator (NAIL)" is not yet comprehensive, but presently covers some of NARA's most significant holdings, particularly photograph and motion-picture collections.

To see examples of NARA's unique holdings, take a virtual journey through The Exhibit Hall, located at http://www.nara.gov/exhall/exhibits.html. Here, one can link to high-resolution images and textual transcriptions of such influential federal documents as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

NARA's dedication to the preservation of the "national experience" is apparent in such online exhibits as Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer John H. White's "Portrait of Black Chicago," as well as "Powers of Persuasion-Posters from World War II", an online version of a more extensive, physical exhibit held at the archives from May 1994-February 1995. Historically significant materials, like the letters and correspondence of such notable figures as Eleanor Roosevelt and Jackie Robinson, also are accessible through the online exhibit hall.

Readers may even wish to supplement Distinguished Speaker John Glenn's recent visit to UB by viewing the 1962 "Transcript of Communication from (Glenn's) Friendship 7 Space Capsule" at http://www.nara.gov/exhall/glenn/glenn.html.

Because no two archives are alike, there is no substitute for actually visiting a repository like NARA. However, archival research tools and exhibits available via the Web allow one to develop a sense of the nature and content of material collected at individual archives. See Library and Archival Exhibitions on the Web http://www.sil.si.edu/SILPublications/Online-Exhibitions/ for links to online exhibitions that have been created by other libraries, archives and historical societies.

Sarah Spurgin Witte's Archives and Manuscript Collections on the Internet is located at http://www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/subjects/speccol.html and for an archival "meta index," see "Ready, Net, Go!" at http://www.tulane.edu/~lmiller/ArchivesResources.html.

Of course, do not forget to visit the University Archives at UB, which documents the history of the university and holds special collections pertaining to Frank Lloyd Wright's Darwin Martin House, the Love Canal environmental disaster and Buffalo area women's history. Access the Web site at http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/units/archives/ or visit the University Archives between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday in 420 Capen Hall.

-Brenda Battleson and Austin Booth, University Libraries

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