Professional Soldiers ® - Digital resources for researchers

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Digital resources for researchers

Twenty years or so ago, Robert Divine looked at some of his students and wistfully commented that when he was learning his craft, historians had to turn physically the pages of newspapers, magazines, and other documents when researching. He clearly envied--and maybe also resented--that the growing availability of collections on microfilm and microfiche, as well as the expanding number of digital finding aids (such as on-line library card catalogs), increased greatly one's ability to find primary sources and secondary works.

Now, as more resources are digitized it is increasingly clear that the jump from 1990 to 2010 is several orders of magnitude greater than what Divine experienced from his days as a graduate student to a career that earned him the George W. Littlefield Chair.*

Consequently, the purpose of this thread is to provide links to the growing collection of digital archives available on line. The objective of this first post is to provide links to the Library of Congress's (hereafter LOC) growing collection of digital archives available on line, as well as the LOC's efforts to serve as a portal to other institutions' digital archives.

Before turning to the LOC's collections, a couple of general caveats are in order. These advisories are applicable to all digital resources.

First, those using digital archives might benefit from reviewing guidelines on how to document the use of digital materials accessed on line on a case by case basis.

Second, researchers may also benefit from reviewing the terms of use for each and every collection accessed, especially those not controlled directly by the federal government. If the terms of use allow, I strongly suggest that researchers download digital materials for one's own convenience, peace of mind, and risk management.

Third, from what I've seen so far, the archiving of the materials was driven by what was more convenient for those doing the archiving than for the end user. Often, a little patience will go a long way for those who don't have deep pockets or a thick skull and cannot afford to pound one's head against one's laptop.

Fourth, in some cases the search functions of some of the digital archives leave a lot to be desired. Meticulous research may still require the time-tested tactic of looking at every page. (On the upside, doing this kind of research in a place and at a time of one's own choosing beats the hell out of trying to ignore the alarming behavior of a library's denizens.:confused:)

Now, for the LOC's digital archives. (Could I have gotten here sooner? Maybe. But if historians said in ten words what they can say in two hundred, they would not be practicing a dying craft. Oh, that sounds a little bitter...)

The LOC American Memory homepage
List of LOC American Memory holdings by subject

Collections of Interest (YMMV!:p)
A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates
American State Papers, 1789-1838 (38 vols.)
Fifty Years of Coca-Cola Television Advertisements: Highlights from the Motion Picture Archives at the Library of Congress
The Nineteenth Century in Print: The Making of America in Books and Periodicals United States Congress Serial Set (selected documents and reports from 1838 to 1917)

__________________________________________________ _________
* if a professor holding an endowed chair ever invites you to a luncheon funded by the endowment, clear your calendar and go!;)

Have you been using Endnote in combination with Adobe's PDF maker?

I've got all my references stored as local copies (and yes, they ARE backed up!), and arranged through Endnote. With PDF's, it's possible to search the entire collection for words or phrases. And, I can hi-lite and bookmark sections of interest.

Your history references appear to be a good fit for those tools...

There's also a plugin for Endnote called RefViz. It probes the abstract and notes for keywords, then creates a visual map of related material. Since you can see clusterings of items, it becomes possible to create subdivisions of 3-5 references within a work.

Quote:

Originally Posted by nmap (Post 306597)

Have you been using Endnote in combination with Adobe's PDF maker?

The answer to your question is no. I've not upgraded to the most recent version of Endnote nor have I installed the versions that I have onto this machine.

(I was rather disappointed by the functionality of the last version I purchased in comparison to its previous iteration.)

And, proving yet again that they don't call me stupid for nothing, why use documentation software when one can type every reference manually? (This task is slightly less onerous using Microsoft Word 2007. IMO, Microsoft hit it out of the park with Office 2007. YMMV.)

The RefViz plug in sounds promising. I generally run PDFs through Google Desktop and Copernic Desktop Search and between the two I most often find what I need. Also, when dealing with secondary works written by academic historians, one can often find clusters by reading the footnotes first.

In regards to Adobe, which version of Acrobat are you using? I've noticed that the gap between Acrobat 9's standard and professional versions are not as vast as they are between Acrobat 7's respective counterparts.

Also, have you had the opportunity to use Adobe Bridge? It was a throw-in application in Adobe CS2 that can be helpful when looking through a folder with dozens of PDFs.

Thanks for the concept for this thread and the links.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sigaba (Post 306529)

Now, for the LOC's digital archives. (Could I have gotten here sooner? Maybe. But if historians said in ten words what they can say in two hundred, they would not be practicing a dying craft. Oh, that sounds a little bitter...)

Sounds like you should consider going into politics.

Not that I agree with your likely policy positions, but politicians are known for having the same problem. :D

Digital resources for researchers

Quote:

Originally Posted by Surf n Turf (Post 306725)

I also notice that you and nmap have access to expensive software (I priced Adobe) that is not available to the non-academics.

There are ways.... :cool:

Sign up for a course at the local community college. Take something you enjoy. Get the student ID, and then go to such places as http://www.academicsuperstore.com/ and buy to your heart's content. Or - find a course you can teach, talk to the local department chair, and proceed that way.

Failing that, one can often find a relative, friend, or neighbor with a connection to a student. On that, I shall say no more. ;)

I use Endnote 12 and Acrobat 9 pro.

Typing citations is only one issue - keeping everything together is, for me at least, much more important. I have a PDF of every document, all marked up so I can find the salient points easily. I have notes and codes that make searching references lightning quick. And subdividing a mass of references is, for me at least, easier with the software.

For example - I might have the keyword LOC for locus of control. I can pull up all the references with that keyword and double check some connection I want to examine.

I can also store lots of documents for each file entry. So I might have a PDF of a paper, an image of a test instrument (like the LOC questionnaire, a PDF of the test instrument, and a Word version, all in the same spot.

I don't notice reference export capability in the links you mention - however, on some of the databases I use such as ProQuest, one can mark documents and automatically export the necessary information directly to Endnote. BTW - I believe ProQuest has some history publications, if you haven't used it.

Using footnotes from other papers is nice - I found some dissertations on the subject I'm working on, then poached their citations shamelessly. The problem is, they aren't fine-grained enough in all cases. Let's suppose you have 20 references on some small issue - say, student learning in online environments in higher education. But wouldn't it be nice to break those into 4 or 5 logical pieces? RefViz lets one do exactly that. No, it isn't perfect - but as a first run, it works pretty well.

I didn't really need the pro version - but, from time to time, I want to redact some material. I can do that with Pro. In addition, the 9 version does an outstanding job of converting PDF images to searchable text. That approaches must-have status for me.

I haven't tried Bridge. In essence, I try to use Endnote and search capabilities so I don't need to work my way through lots of PDFs. YMMV.

Oh, and there is one other piece of software...my secret weapon, if you will...Dragon naturally speaking. I talk to the computer, it transcribes the material, and life is good. I can use all the nice, big 50-cent words and not have to type them. :D

BTW - an old CS (computer science) rule of thumb is to avoid having more than 8 files in a folder. If you get above that number, consider sub-folders. It makes finding things quite a lot easier...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sigaba (Post 306630)

The answer to your question is no. I've not upgraded to the most recent version of Endnote nor have I installed the versions that I have onto this machine.

Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States

Quote:

Originally Posted by Warrior-Mentor (Post 306652)

Sounds like you should consider going into politics.

Not that I agree with your likely policy positions, but politicians are known for having the same problem. :D

WM--

I don't know if you and I would be that far apart on a lot of issues. For example, while we both have different perspectives on GWOT, we both agree that the U.S. is in (a) a war of necessity and that the conflict is: (b) global in scope, (c) ideological in nature, and (d) generational in duration. While we disagree over (c), the fact that we agree on the other points place us in stark contrast to the Clintonian Democrats who contend that we are not really at war.

That being said, I don't think I'd be effective in today's political arena. I was inculcated with what Louis Bronlow called "a passion for anonymity." These days, too many politicians want the spot light. Besides, what I really want to do is direct.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Surf n Turf (Post 306725)

Sigaba,
Lacking your eloquence, and propensity to say in three paragraphs, what could be said in one sentence :D

Oh, the barbs and arrows! I can only imagine what would be said if I didn't edit every post at least twice for length.

In any case, thank you for adding to the collection.

Quote:

Originally Posted by nmap (Post 306728)

nmap--

I could have not said no more better myself.

I do offer the following caveat. It is in the best interest of each end user to have a copy of software installed on his or her machine as well as the required license key and also a copy of the receipt. Having all three can prevent a lot of heartache when (not if) an application starts to run sideways and one needs to make repairs.

The public papers of the presidents (PPP) are collections of a president's public statements, announcements, speeches, and open letters. One should note that the collections are not as comprehensive as the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents or its current iteration, the Daily Compilation of Presidential Documents. These compilations include a variety of documents that are administrative and/or technical in nature. (Can you guess during whose administration the change was made from a weekly publication to a daily one? Yes, I know that correlation is not causation but still, are the production costs of a daily publication the best use of public funds during a time of extended economic crisis?)

In my opinion, PPPs are underutilized by academics who are driven to find inside information. While the drive is understandable, especially among historians, it can cloud the fact that much of what is unknown will remain unknowable during the lifetime of a researcher studying contemporary events.

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents (1993-2009)
Daily Compilation of Presidential Documents (2009-present)
UCSB American Presidency Project (1929-present)
Truman
Eisenhower [use UCSB link]
Kennedy
Johnson [use UCSB link]
Ford [use UCSB link]
Carter [use UCSB link]
Reagan
Bush the Elder
Clinton
Bush the Younger
The forty fourth President of the United States of America

Comment: IMO, the search engine for the Truman PPPs is the most robust of the lot and is the same engine used for UCSB American Presidency Project. The short coming of the UCSB site is that it has so many resources moshed together. This moshing means that a researcher may need to be so specific in his or her searches that a researcher's fourth best friend--luck--may be shut out when it is most needed.

A few links I find useful:

The Vietnam Center and Archive at Texas Tech University

http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/

World War 2 Database

http://ww2db.com/index.php

Imperial Japanese Navy

http://www.combinedfleet.com/kaigun.htm

The American Experience

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/

Texans in the Civil War

http://www.angelfire.com/tx/RandysTexas/index.html

National Archives and Records Administration Holdings

http://www.archives.gov/research/

How To – Video Instructions

Oral histories I

A caveat. I strongly advise that researchers using oral histories keep in mind that what is said about an event or an experience years after the fact does not always square with what an informant said, thought, or did at the time. The human memory is a tricky thing.

American Century Project - St. Andrew's Episcopal School, Potomac (virtual archive, ACP homepage is here.)

Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley, Regional Oral History Office (ROHO) (partial list of subject areas, ROHO homepage is here. Note: getting to an actual transcript will require a few clicks of the mouse.)

Center for the Study of the American South, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Southern Oral History Program (interviews, program home page is here.)

LOC Veterans' History Project

Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia, Presidential Oral History Project

This project includes collections from the administrations of Carter, Reagan, Bush the Elder, and Clinton.
The project also includes a handful of special projects that may be of particular interest. These special projects include:
- Senator Edward M. Kennedy
- Lloyd N. Cutler
- A Falklands War roundtable
- A congressional affairs symposium

Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia, Presidential Recordings Program (transcripts and tapes, end users can find teaching materials and contact information at the program's home page, here.)

A comment. Over the years, the architecture of the Miller Center's webpage and file naming convention have changed a few times. These changes have made the ability of a researcher to use file utilities like Mozilla's DownThemAll! to pull down all of the center's records less efficient (although the latest file naming convention makes more sense). If one is so inclined to harvest the site, I suggest so sooner rather than later.

The Vietnam Center and Archive Oral History Project (index page)

The Internet Sacred Text Archive

http://www.sacred-texts.com/index.htm

I enjoy this collection of E-books (free, online). Australian-centered but many of the classics available.

Project Gutenberg Australia
a treasure-trove of literature
treasure found hidden with no evidence of ownership

http://gutenberg.net.au/

Also "The Online Books Page: ARCHIVES AND INDEXES. A good one-stop-shop for links to multiple archives.

http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/archives.html

Sources on U.S. military history

A member of this BB provided a treasure trove of resources a few years back in a thread located here.

The PDF versions of the scanned documents I have seen need to be processed through text OCR software before they can be searched in Adobe Acrobat/Adobe Reader.

Some years back, QP Snaquebite provided the location of a very useful portal here. This portal provides links to other websites dealing with historical as well as contemporaneous issues. While some of the links have not been maintained, those that remain are worth the time it will take to find them.

The Eisenhower Presidency

In addition to the resource mentioned in post #8, above, one can find the digital version of volumes 14-21 of the Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower here.

These volumes, covering both of President Eisenhower's administrations, were originally published as a part of Johns Hopkins University Press's twenty-two volume collection of Eisenhower's papers.

ETA: The provided link no longer works. I will update it if I find one that does.