Colonial State Papers

The UNH Library would like to announce a trial for the Colonial State Papers, which provides access to primary materials related to the English colonization  of North America. The trial is scheduled to run through February 12, 2009. The link for the resource is: http://www.library.unh.edu/scripts/redirect.pl?dbase=367

This resource contains primary source material dating from the late 16th Century through the mid 18th Century.  It includes materials about England’s earliest colonization efforts, early encounters with Native Americans, Atlantic trade, maritime affairs and piracy, as well as ongoing conflicts with other colonial powers, particularly France and Spain.

Please give it a try and let us know what you think. We base our future purchases on the feedback we receive from such trials.

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Free Access to Alexander Street’s Civil War Collections

To help mark the upcoming bicentennials of both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, Alexander Street is offering a month of free access to its Civil War collections. These include: The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries; American Civil War Research Database; and Illustrated Civil War Newspapers and Magazines. They are also including free access to tow databases that provide streaming audio for Civil War era songs and music. The trial is good through April 30, 2008. You can find links to these resources at: http://alexanderstreet.com/resources/civilwar.access.htm

For this trial, use the following user name and password:

username: american
password: bicentennial

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Serial Set Maps, 1817-

Serial Set Maps

The folks at Readex have been digitally pulling historic maps from the nearly 14,000 volumes that make up the U.S. Congressional Serials Set. Currently, they have extracted thousands of maps through 1899 and the work continues.

But to this point, they have not made them very easy to find. I have discussed this with Jen Carroll, our electronic resources librarian, and we’ll be making a direct link to the Serial Set Maps on our databases pages. In the meantime, we have set up a link through our proxy server, so that you can have direct access to this resource: Serial Set Maps.

As with other parts of the Serials Set, this page allows you to search for maps by location, subject, personal name, issuing agency, and date. The other thing to keep in mind: even though the Serials Set had its origins in 19th Century , the Smithsonian and other agencies frequently reprinted historic maps dating back to the Age of Discovery. Hence, you can find maps on the extent of Portuguese colonization in the New World from 1520 or the earliest map to show the territory occupied by the Cherokee (1597). And, as with other parts of the Serials Set, you can save, print, and convert to pdf format. Have fun.

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The Easy Button: Digitized Documents and PDF

Portable Document Format or PDF is a widely accepted file format for exchanging, displaying, and printing documents. Most of the collections of digital documents that we have purchased in recent years feature a PDF function to permit researchers to print or save items. In addition, I have found that it is often faster to save and work with documents as PDFs, rather than to use them online. This is especially true when navigating large files, accessing databases of such documents from home, or using a wireless internet connection. So, the next time you are using Early English Books, America’s Historical Newspapers, or similar products, and response time seems a bit slow, hit the PDF button and see if you can’t make your work go a little faster.

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The Easy Button: The U.S. Congressional Serial Set, 1817-1980

U.S. Congressional Serial Set [restricted to UNH users]

About a year ago, the UNH Library added the U.S. Congressional Serial Set, 1817-1980 from Readex to its digital holdings. Unfortunately, its bland title suggests page after page of dry legalese. On the contrary, this product is a rich and largely untapped collection of primary source material detailing all aspects of American history and culture. When completed, the U.S. Congressional Serial Set will replicate nearly 14,000 volumes and more than 12 million pages from the original 350,000 publications, along with 52,000 maps and thousands of illustrations and statistical tables. It currently has been scanned and indexed through the 70^th Congress (1928), but more is being added all the time.

Digitization not only makes it possible to access over a third of a million publications from your desk-top, it allows full-text searching. Moreover, Readex has added thousands of access points, so that researchers can locate materials by subject, publication type, Congress, and even personal name. And once you have accessed an individual document, the table of contents enables you to identify any tables, maps or illustrations within a document. Some examples of searches:

• Looking under the subject area “Health” can lead you to the sub-heading “Influenza Epidemic (1918-1919)”, where you locate 15 related documents. You can break it down further to track-down legislation regarding “Undertakers and undertakers” or reports on the link between the outbreak and the First World War.

• A search under “Science and Technology” can take you to the 36 documents published as the result of the “Pacific railroad surveys (1853-1856).” Within these you can see maps and illustrations from the survey.

• Within “Safety, Accidents and Disasters” you can identify 89 documents related to hurricanes. You can use sub-headings to narrow it to the 13 documents on the 1900 Galveston Hurricane. Within those documents you may locate maps which document the destruction to the city and local shipping.

The point is: don’t be intimidated by the amount of information contained in the Serials Set. There are thousands of access points that can lead you to information specific to your research. And then there is the full-text searching capability.

So, if you haven’t already, take it for a test drive. If you do have any questions or run into any problems, don’t hesitate to post any questions or comments.

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New Library Trials — Updated 11/6/07

Recently, the Library has received numerous requests for digital content through Alexander Street Press. We have a link to their website through our digital resources page, but most of their content is fee-based and therefore unavailable to our researchers.

In response to these requests, we have a trial set up for all of the content modules currently available as part of its In the First Person series. These include:

• North American Women’s Letters and Diaries: http://libproxy.unh.edu/login?url=http://nwld.alexanderstreet.com

• British and Irish Women’s Letters and Diaries: http://libproxy.unh.edu/login?url=http://bwld.alexanderstreet.com

• Black Thought and Culture: http://libproxy.unh.edu/login?url=http://bltc.alexanderstreet.com

• North American Indian Thought and Culture: http://libproxy.unh.edu/login?url=http://ibio.alexanderstreet.com

• North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries and Oral Histories: http://libproxy.unh.edu/login?url=http://imld.alexanderstreet.com

• and The American Civil War Letters and Diaries: http://libproxy.unh.edu/login?url=http://cwld.alexanderstreet.com

These trials are scheduled to run through the end of this semester, so be sure to share these links with your colleagues and students. Because most of the interest has surrounded North American Women’s Letters and Diaries, we have made the decision to go ahead and purchase it during this semester. Please use this opportunity to use the others and be sure to let us know which should become priorities for purchase in the future.

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Welcome to “Doin’ history”

I am developing this blog as a guide for those, such as myself, who want to learn more about historical research, sources, and documentation in an increasingly complex, yet exciting Web 2.0 world. When I entered graduate school some 30 years ago, there was a recognizable canon of journals, monographs, and reference works. Archival repositories were places you had to visit in order to handle paper-based primary sources.For the student of history today, the environment is both analog and digital. Interdisciplinary is a given, not a choice. And electronic resources, both commercial and non-profit are being developed, utilized, and yes, disappear at a dizzying pace. In my role as an active researcher, teacher, and librarian/archivist, I will do my best to share what I learn in order to facilitate the pursuit of history in this fast-paced environment. However, this is an interactive world and, for the greatest possible benefit, this must be a joint process in which we all share and participate.I’m ready and willing: let’s see how it goes.

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