American Memory Overview

Transcription

1 1-10 American Memory Overview What is American Memory? American Memory is an online gateway to rich primary source materials relating to the history and culture of the United States. This site from the Library of Congress (LOC) offers more than 11 million digital items from more than 120 historical collections. The collections can be found at A reference guide to the collections, including topics, titles, descriptions, time periods, source types, search/browse capabilities, teaching resources/resource summaries, and additional resources and special presentations, is available at In the coming years, the National Digital Library Program plans to digitize more of the Library's unique American history collections and make them freely available to teachers, students, and the general public over the Internet. What is a Primary Source? Simply put, primary sources are original items or records that have survived from the past, such as clothing, letters, photographs, and manuscripts. Primary sources were created based on a direct personal experience of a time or event. The online American Memory collections are comprised of primary sources. For the purpose of contrast, it is important to note that secondary sources are created by documenting or analyzing someone else s experience to provide a perspective or framework of a past event. Secondary sources are often created long after an event took place and include items such as textbooks, encyclopedias, biographies, and documentaries. Type of Source Primary Source: a source obtained by, coming from, or based on direct personal observation or experience Secondary Source: a source created using information provided by someone else, i.e., using someone's recollection to create the item. Examples art artifacts autobiographies diaries interviews journals letters textbooks encyclopedias biographies monographs documentaries music news footage newspapers photographs poetry speeches

2 2-10 Exploring American Memory The LOC American Memory site is located at: page looks similar to this: The two keys to effectively using the American Memory site are the Collection List and the Search Function. Collection List The American Memory site is not encyclopedic. Rather, it is a large group of special collections organized by broad topics. Reviewing the collection titles and descriptions give you a glimpse at the variety of information included in American Memory. Search Function The Search function allows you to search by keyword for items across all collections or across selected collections. Tips for Searching Search by entering one or more keywords and remember to use search terms that are appropriate for the time period. Results display only items that include ALL keywords entered in the bibliographic record. To search the full text of items in certain collections, you will need to repeat your search in an individual collection. Sometimes you have to be persistent and creative with a search, because there are millions of items the search engine searches through. If you can t find what you are looking for, you might also try your search from the main LOC website (

3 3-10 Reviewing Your Search Results Once your information is retrieved, you can choose from two views to preview the details. List View provides titles of the primary source documents found and the collections within which items are contained Note: the current display view appears in gray, the alternative display view is displayed with an underlined link Gallery View provides thumbnail images or icons to help you recognize the actual sources or source types

4 4-10 How Do I Get a Permanent Web Address for an Item? When you click an item found through a search of American Memory, the web address, or URL, you see in the address bar of your Internet browser is only a temporary link. You will not be able to return to the item using that URL. So, how do you get a real address for an item that you have found? Some items in the American Memory list the permanent URL at the bottom of the bibliographic record. If there is no link there, however, you will need to follow a few steps to locate the permanent link. Internet Explorer : Click View from the browser menu, then click Source. Netscape : Click View from the browser menu, then click Page Source. Safari : Click View from the browser menu, then click View Source. Firefox : Click View from the browser menu, then click Page Source.

5 5-10 Selecting the source means that you want to see the source code for the web page. A new window that has a bunch of computer code in it will pop up (this is HTML language). Don t panic! All you need to do is scroll to the very bottom of that window and look for a URL, possibly with text that reads similar to what is listed below. <!- - The following URL will result in display of this document --> <! > In the example above, you can see there is a web address that we have bolded and highlighted, which is the permanent link to the item. This link will NOT be bolded in the text file window, however, it is always located at the bottom of the page. To save the link, you can either write the address down, copy and paste it into a plain-text document, or bookmark the address. Directions for copying and pasting and bookmarking web addresses are listed below. Copying and Pasting a Web Address into a Plain-Text Document To highlight the link, click just to the left of the h at the beginning of the link and drag your mouse to the right until the entire link has been highlighted. Make sure to begin with http and include all parentheses )). To copy the link, click (PC users right click, Mac users hold down Command/Apple or Ctrl key and click) on the highlighted text and click Copy. Be sure your cursor is pointing somewhere on the highlighted text when trying to copy the link. If the cursor is not pointing on the highlighted text, you may not be presented with the Copy option.

6 6-10 Internet Explorer (PC or Mac): Now go to the top of this same plain-text document a Notepad or TextEdit window and click File from the menu, then click New. Other browsers (PC): Locate the Notepad program try looking in Start > All Programs > Accessories. Then click Notepad to open a new file window. Other browsers (Mac): Locate the TextEdit or Notepad program OSX users try double clicking your Mac HD/My Computer OR Finder icon from the desktop, next double clicking the Applications folder, and then double clicking TextEdit; earlier Mac OS users try clicking the apple at the top left corner of your screen, then clicking Notepad. In the new document window, first click format and then Word Wrap. Now click anywhere in the empty Notepad or TextEdit window (PC users right click, Mac users hold down Command/Apple key and left click) and click Paste. After pasting the URL into the document, be sure to hit Enter or Return. Now return to the bibliographic record of the primary source item and locate the title of the item (found near the top of the record, usually below or above thumbnail images of the items). Use your mouse to highlight the title, then copy it.

7 7-10 Return to your Notepad or TextEdit window and paste the title on the line below the URL. Now click File from the menu, then click Save) in a convenient folder with an easily identifiable name. Before you close the document, you might want to add the proper citation for the primary source item from the bibliographic record and then save the file again.

8 8-10 Copying and Pasting a Web Address into a Microsoft Word Document While you can paste LOC links into Word documents, you often need to take extra steps to ensure that the links are properly recognized by this word-processing program. When pasting a link with parentheses at the end (often part of LOC links), Word sometimes automatically assumes that the end parentheses are not part of the link and does not include them in the document s linkable URL (notice how the end parentheses are not underlined in the link below). To force Word to include end parentheses in the linkable URL, use your mouse to highlight the complete URL, including end parentheses, click the link (PC users right click, Mac users hold down Command/Apple or Ctrl key) and click Copy. Then click the highlighted URL (PC users right click, Mac users hold down Command/Apple or Ctrl key and click) and click Edit Hyperlink. Use your mouse to highlight the URL in the Address text box at the bottom of the pop-up window. Then hold down the Ctrl key and type v (PC users) or the Command/Apple or Ctrl key and type v (Mac users), which will paste the complete URL into the Address text box. Now click the OK button.

9 9-10 Finally, click File from the menu, then click Save in a convenient folder with an easily identifiable name (notice how the complete URL, including end parentheses, is now part of the link below). Before you close the document, it is a good idea to add the proper citation for the primary source item as well, and save the file again.

10 10-10 Bookmarking a Web Address Before you bookmark a web address, make sure you are bookmarking the permanent address of a collection item (see instructions above). Additionally, please remember that the default name for a web page is the web page title located in the upper left corner of your browser window. Because the web page titles of American Memory collection items usually consist of a series of letters and numbers, you should always rename the address before bookmarking it. Once you have copied the permanent web address from the source file window (see instructions above), into the address bar of your Internet browser, follow the instructions for your Internet browser to bookmark the page. Internet Explorer: Click Favorites from the browser menu and then click Add to Favorites. Select a convenient folder and rename the file with an easily identifiable name, then click the OK button. Netscape: Click the icon to the left of the URL in the address bar. Select a convenient folder and rename the file with an easily identifiable name, then click the OK button. Safari: Click the Plus button to the left of the URL in the address bar. Select a convenient folder and rename the file with an easily identifiable name, then click the OK button. Firefox: Click Bookmarks from the browser menu, then click Bookmark This Page. Select a convenient folder and rename the file with an easily identifiable name, then click the OK button. What is the Proper Format for Citing Primary Sources? All primary sources from the LOC used in teacher or student projects must be cited, particularly if the projects using them will be distributed electronically or otherwise. It is a good idea to keep an ongoing list of primary source citations when saving links to items or saving the items themselves. Doing so will save time at the end of the project and ensure that you can always locate items at a later date. The LOC provides guidelines for citing each type of primary source in both MLA-style citation format and Turabian-style citation format. These guidelines can be accessed from the Learning Page section of the American Memory website ( General MLA-Style Citation Format Creator Last Name, First Name, Middle Initial. Title of Work. Title of Complete Work (if applicable). Creation Date. Title of Collection. [URL] [Digital ID] (date of visit). Gardner, Alexander. Antietam, Md. Allan Pinkerton, President Lincoln, and Maj. Gen. John A. McClernand October 3. Selected Civil War photographs, (Library of Congress). [ [cwpb 04339] (May 25, 2005).