U.S. Coast Guard Logbook Scan-a-Thon

The featured scanning project from the National Archives Innovation Hub focuses on logbooks of the U.S. Coast Guard vessels that served in the Vietnam War. These vessels participated in Operation Market Time, an effort to patrol the South Vietnamese coast to keep supplies from reaching North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong forces. The logbooks contain … Continue reading U.S. Coast Guard Logbook Scan-a-Thon

Make Access Happen

The National Archives and Records Administration has been able to accomplish some incredible digitization and outreach work over the years due in part to contributions and support by anonymous donors and the National Archives Foundation. Two examples of this are the World War I Wartime Films project, and the Ratified Indian Treaties vault digitization project. … Continue reading Make Access Happen

The Forgotten Irish: Irish Emigrant Experiences in America

On the eve of the American Civil War, 1.6 million Irish-born people were living in the United States, most in the major industrialized cities of the North. The stories of 35 Irish families whose lives portray the nature of the Irish emigrant experience are captured in Damian Shiels’ new book, The Forgotten Irish: Irish Emigrant … Continue reading The Forgotten Irish: Irish Emigrant Experiences in America

Launching the Beta Program for our Remembering WWI App

Today we’re launching the public beta program for the Remembering WWI iPad app, which puts newly digitized primary source materials into the hands of teachers and museum professionals nationwide. The app is a product of a two-year collaboration among the National Archives, the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, the National WWI Museum, and others, … Continue reading Launching the Beta Program for our Remembering WWI App

By the Numbers: Digitization and Citizen Engagement

The National Archives’ Strategic Plan includes the ambitious initiative to digitize our analog records and make them available for online public access. With over 12 billion pages of records in our holdings, this is no small undertaking. As we work to make more of our holdings available online, it is also important to see how … Continue reading By the Numbers: Digitization and Citizen Engagement

What’s New in the National Archives Catalog: British Photographs of World War I

As part of our efforts to digitize photographic and moving image records related to World War I and World War II, we recently digitized a series of British Photographs from World War I (1914-1918) and made them available in our online catalog. This series of photographs taken by British photographers depicts the military activities and … Continue reading What’s New in the National Archives Catalog: British Photographs of World War I

What’s New in the National Archives Catalog: WWI Photographs

The National Archives recently embarked upon a large scale digitization project, focused on photographic and moving image records related to World War I and World War II. These public domain records are being digitized through a gift to the National Archives Trust Fund with the goal of making them more accessible for everyone to use, … Continue reading What’s New in the National Archives Catalog: WWI Photographs

What’s New in the National Archives Catalog: Photographs from the Battle of the Bulge

The National Archives’ Strategic Plan includes the bold initiative to digitize our analog records and make them available for online public access. Our new digitization strategy outlines the many approaches we will use to achieve this goal, and I am proud share with you the results of some of our recent digitization work. Recently digitized … Continue reading What’s New in the National Archives Catalog: Photographs from the Battle of the Bulge

Creating a 21st Century Museum for the Mind

In a recent Wall Street Journal piece on the digital Einstein Papers Project, Walter Isaacson, waxed poetical about the “tingling inspiration of seeing original documents.”  Every day I am lucky to witness that “tingling” in the Rotunda of the National Archives as visitors stand in line to be in the presence of the Charters of Freedom.  On … Continue reading Creating a 21st Century Museum for the Mind

The Scan Plan: Our Strategy to Digitize the Vast Holdings of the National Archives

The National Archives’ Strategic Plan includes a simple, but audacious initiative: to digitize our analog records and make them available for online public access. We have over 12 billion pages of records, so yes, this is our moon shot. To achieve this goal, we know we need to think in radically new ways about our … Continue reading The Scan Plan: Our Strategy to Digitize the Vast Holdings of the National Archives