Sunday 16 December 2007

50-State Agency Databases - by subject

The ALA gov docs 50-State Agency Databases Registry has launched a new set of subject-focused database collections under the heading of "history". Daniel Cornwall, the Alaska state librarian who spearheaded the project, explains: "Why these topics? Because after making solicitations here, and on govdoc-land on Facebook, more people wanted subject pages for historical materials than anything else. "
The topics so far are: Biographical Databases - Databases that provide biographical sketches of authors, state officials, famous state residents, etc.
Historical Media Databases - Databases that provide online access tophotographs, video, or audio.
Historical Newspaper and Magazine Indexes - Databases that indexarticles in older newspapers, journals and magazine that containhistorical information. These databases will usually lead one tomicrofilmed items that may be obtainable through Interlibrary Loan.
Museum Collection Databases - Catalogs of state museum holdings whichoften have historical notes. Museums listed here are either run by astate or by one of the state's political subdivisions
Official Records Databases - vital records, (birth, death, etc), war pensions, etc.
These pages just launched, and are a little light on content. The Registry volunteers will be adding to these pages soon... as the manager of the Pennsylvania section, I've added a little info but please feel free to make your own additions - it's a wiki!

No comments: