Good afternoon.
My name is Kathleen McGuigan, and I
want to welcome you to today's episode
of Online Office Hours from
the Library of Congress.
Our focus today is on diving into
digitized manuscript collections on loc.gov.
We're glad you're joining us live, or if
you're watching this through the recording.
These informal sessions are short.
They'll be about a 20 minute demonstration,
and the sessions of [inaudible]
before are being recorded.
You'll have the opportunity to talk to
each other and to the presenters, via chat.
So, let's get started with using chat.
Go ahead and tell us your name, where you're
joining us from, and what and whom do you teach.
As I mentioned earlier, today's
episode is on diving
into digitized manuscript
collections on loc.gov.
Today, you'll discover ways to navigate
and search the online collections.
Plus you'll learn about resources,
such as finding aid and indexes
that can help you make effective
use of these resources.
Our guide today is Kaleena Black, an Education
Specialist on the Learning and Innovation Team.
Danna Bell, also from the same team, is on the
chat, and she is our Education, Ask a Librarian,
and she'll be here to help answer questions and
to serve the URLs from today's presentation.
So, without further delay, I will hand
the mic over to our presenter, Kaleena.
>> Thanks, Kathy.
Hello, everyone.
It's great to be here with you today.
Thank you for being here, and thanks to Sheryl
[assuming spelling] and Kathy for their support.
Like Kathy said, I'm an Educational Resources
Specialist here at the Library of Congress,
and I'm really happy to show you a
more in-depth look at just one section
of the library's website
that's been useful to my work
and my research, and I know many others as well.
I will say that my point of view on
this is as a user and as a researcher.
I'm not a Librarian.
I'm not a Curator.
I'm not responsible for the selection
or the organization of these questions,
nor am I responsible for the architecture.
But I'm just here as someone who has support.
to navigate and explore some
of these collections.
And then my colleagues, will talk to you a
little bit more in-depth about finding these
and other access points, to get the
most out of these available resources.
So, today, for my part, I'm going to share
how you get to these digitized collections
on loc.gov, specifically focusing
on the manuscript collections,
how you might approach these presentation
pages, navigate the page, and search,
and I'll be doing that in the frame of one
collection, one that I've used more heavily
and that I worked on, to develop a feature
resource, and I'll get to that in a second.
So, just to take a step back,
what motivated my research?
Right? We all start with questions and
curiosities and motivations, and really,
it started with Alexander Hamilton.
I will say, I have to confess, that I am a fan
of the musical, and I was fascinated by the use
of manuscripts and specifically, letters and
documents, as story-telling devices, as tools,
and I really wondered about
the underlying primary sources.
So, I wondered where does Hamilton live
at the Library of Congress, and I found --
spoiler alert -- a lot of places.
Sheryl, you can advance through this slide.
There are a couple of primary sources.
So, maps, manuscripts, more manuscripts,
photographs, and lastly, newspapers.
But I'm talking about manuscripts today.
I should say that I'll be using screencaps.
I don't want the site to hiccup too
much, so please bare with me on that.
Next slide, please.
So, one big way to search, and perhaps,
the first way that you might search,
is through the search box on
the Library of Congress website.
So, you can simply type in Alexander
Hamilton, and on the next slide,
you'll see what will pop up first.
Next slide, please.
The very first thing that pops up
is Alexander Hamilton's papers.
So, that's just one way to get to the papers.
On the next slide, you'll see another way.
Next slide, please.
You can access digital collections
from the Library of Congress website.
So, you'll see a circle here with
an arrow, the link on the main page.
Next slide.
And what will show up is something
that looks kind of like this.
These collections are arranged
in alphabetical order.
Some on the next slide, you'll see kind of
where Hamilton falls in the list, right there.
So, no matter what you do, if you click
on that Alexander Hamilton
Papers link, you'll get to this.
Next slide, please.
It looks something like this.
Next slide.
Next slide please.
Next slide.
Next, please.
Okay. This is just the first
[inaudible] about the collection.
I'm going to go more in-depth about the various
sections of this page, because they're --
it's quite a lot to go through, and a
couple of different access points for you.
Select the first tab next, please.
These are the collection items,
exactly what it sounds like.
These are the materials that are made
available in the online presentation.
I'll talk a little about that, and
the last tab is Articles and Essays.
So, for this particular collection,
there's a time line,
chronological events, Alexander Hamilton's life.
But for other collections, there
might be scholarly essays or timelines
or other materials, to supplement
the collection.
So, I'm going to go back to that
first tab, about this collection,
and start with the featured contents.
And I would say, if you have limited
time and you don't have the capacity,
for whatever reason, to slough
through the entire set of papers,
I would start with the featured
items, and I'm going to pick an item
from that collection a little bit later.
If you scroll further down the page, on
the left-hand side here in the red boxes,
you'll see Teaching Resources
-- can you go back one slide?
Sorry.
You'll see Teaching Resources and
within those, there are lesson plans.
There are primary source sets, which our
office [inaudible], Innovation Office,
the curator's put together on various topics.
You'll notice here there's a teacher's guide
on the Constitution, and the primary source set
for Alexander Hamilton, which will be the
ultimate spot of a lot of the research
that I'm talking to you about today, is
another resource that you can explore.
And then below that what
they call Expert Resources,
which can also be, I think, teaching resources.
They're generally geared toward
scholars and researchers.
The Finding aid, that you see at
the top, is what Danna will talk
to you a little bit more about, and then below
that, Founders Online is a good resource,
if you're looking for transcriptions
of manuscripts.
If you're interested in different search terms,
or you're interested in wording as it appears
in letters of founding fathers, Founder's
Online is a project of the National Archives,
and it contains transcriptions of the papers
of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson,
Washington, Hamilton, and others.
That's another resource to use.
And then we'll [inaudible], obviously
The Manuscript Reading Room is where many
of these collections are held, and
the Specialists there are amazing,
so please feel free to use the Ask a
Manuscript Librarian if you have a question.
Okay. Next, please.
And then going further down the page,
are basically categorical descriptions
of what's contained in the
collection, and they call these series.
So, these are basically big groupings.
So, the one that I outlined
is General Correspondence,
so letters that Hamilton received, some
drafts, there's Speeches, Financial Papers,
Family Papers, etc., etc. And these
headings vary from collection to collection.
In some collections, there might be
Receipts or other kinds of financial records,
or there might be awards that that historical
received, or even scrapbooks or clippings.
So, it really -- it really depends.
But you'll see that there's a heading,
and then there's a Summary underneath.
I should say that the Hamilton papers contain
about 12,000 items, and these include letters,
notes, speeches, as you'll see in a little
bit, clippings, that kind of things.
So, there's plenty to get through.
So, if you were to click on
General Correspondence --
next slide, please -- you
would get to this page.
And basically, what you see on the list on
the right here are this big grouping of pages
of manuscripts that you can look
through, if you do have time.
If you are trying to narrow your search, I would
suggest that you either try to narrow by dates.
So, let's say you're looking for materials from
a certain time period, like around the Battle
of York Town or around the Constitutional
Convention or, you know, a particular moment,
you may want to narrow by a set of years.
Or if you have a particular subject
in mind, you can narrow that way.
And even by language.
In this case, the items are available in
English, but for some of the presidential papers
or the manuscript collections, some founding
fathers or some writers wrote in French.
So, they wrote in other languages.
So, if you're looking for
items of a specific language,
that's another search -- way
of searching to consider.
You can also toggle or view items
like as a list or as a slide show.
In the case of manuscripts, I tend to
prefer looking at the results as a list,
but in the case of let's say, like if
you're looking at prints or photographs,
you may want to have little thumbnails
that you can look at more easily.
Next slide, please.
So, this is just one example of an
item in the General Correspondence.
It's actually also in the feature
content, if you are looking there.
And this is just to give you a sense
of what an item page looks like.
So, at the top, you'll see the title.
I know the title is a little bit -- it's
not as descriptive as perhaps you'd imagine,
but if you do go to the next slide, you'll
see there's a second half of the page,
which has more information about the item.
You know, subjects that are associated
with it, the range of when it was created.
In this case, they give you
a pretty large range.
And a title.
I will say that this letter
is pretty interesting.
It was written by Hamilton when he was 12, when
he was in St. Croix, and he wrote to his friend,
Edward, and if you are fans of the musical or
you know the musical, in this letter, it says,
"I'll conclude by saying
I wish there was a war."
And he sort of talks about --
it's almost like he's bored.
It's kind of like a sort of sense of
teenage ennui, you know, in a kind of way.
And one of my favorite things about that letter
is just the way he signs very flourishey,
very ornate, lots of little -- lots of
little circles, which I think is pretty cool.
So, this is like I think a great
letter for your students to explore.
And then on the right-side of this, I just
want to point out the linked subject headings,
which you can also explore,
if you have the time.
I want to show one more item,
under Speeches and Writings,
for those of you who are teaching U.S. History
or Government or Civics, next slide please.
These are Hamilton's notes for his speech
at the Constitutional Conventional,
proposing a plan of government.
And there's -- it's another
draft available here.
So, this is another item that you may want
to look at with your students and analyze,
and I would say that this item and some of the
other items that I included in my first slide,
kind of present at least a starting point for
an understanding in this case, about Hamilton.
Next page, please.
And so, this was the ultimate,
I think, result of --
at least the first few cases of my
research, which is a Teacher's Guide,
basically a primary source set, in which we
compiled primary sources across various formats.
So, manuscripts of course were
a large part of this product.
But also, maps.
So, there's the map [inaudible] I showed
in that first slide, is of St. Croix,
around the time that Hamilton was there.
There's a portrait, if you go to the
link, and you are exploring this page,
there's a portrait of Washington,
Port York Town.
There's maps in here.
There's an article from The Chronical
America, about the Hamilton and Burr duel.
So, there is plenty to explore, but manuscripts
of course were a big part of this project.
Next slide, please.
And this is just to give you a sense of what
the PDF of that document will look like.
And if you're familiar with primary source sets,
this should look very familiar to you already.
Next slide, please.
So, now I'm going to turn it over to
Danna, who's going to get more in-depth
about finding these, and then I'm happy
to answer any questions that you have
or direct them to someone
who knows a lot more than me.
Thank you.
>> Good afternoon.
Unlike books in -- unlike books, materials
and archival collections are
not individually catalogued.
Most people get a little frustrated using
archival collections, but there's no way
that we could individually
catalogue and give an LC Number
to all 12,000 items in Hamilton's papers.
So, to provide access and to help
users navigate these collections,
archivist's provide something
called a Finding Aid.
The Finding Aid gives you background information
on the collection, including the years covered,
the languages in the collection,
and a brief summary
of what's included within the collection.
Sheryl, if you'll go to the next slide for me.
You'll notice, if you look at --
as you look at the slide of the --
the first page of the Finding Aid,
that it says Span Dates and Bulk Dates.
The Bulk Dates are -- include when
material might have been created.
One of my favorite stories from
when I first started with --
at the library was looking at
the Theodore Roosevelt papers,
and it listed materials created in the
1700s, and I had a couple of patrons
that wrote and said, "Wait a minute.
Theodore Roosevelt didn't live at that time.
How can there be papers?"
And it turned out that there were papers that
were from his family, documenting his lineage,
that were part of that collection.
So, don't get confused by the Span Dates,
because material may have been created
after the person was alive or before the
person -- or before the person was born.
Focus in on the Bulk Dates -- I
mean, the Span Dates, I'm sorry --
because that tells you where
most of the material is located.
Okay.
If you go to the next slide, you'll
see that there's a Biographical Note,
and this Biographical Note is the --
you'll also find it on the Hamilton page,
and it gives you the -- his
lifeline, his lifetime.
So, if you're looking for when a specific
event occurred, so that you can search it
in the online collection, you can do that.
Next slide, please.
Next, you'll see something that's
called the Scope and Contents Notes.
And the Scope and Contents gives you
details on how the selection is arranged
and what you're going to find in each section.
So, you're going to see the kinds
of materials that are included
in Hamilton's General Correspondence as Speeches
and Writings, and you'll notice that this makes
up the largest part of the collection.
Additional information is given in the
-- and Sheryl, next slide, please --
the organization of the papers,
and then in the --
next slide, Sheryl -- the more detailed content.
And then, if you click on where it says Digital
Content Available, you'll be taken to where
in the -- where in the online
part of the collection this item
or these sets of items are located.
The thing to remember when
using the online collections is,
the library has scanned the
collections and put them on microfilm,
and did that before they scanned the
collections and made them available online.
To preserve the collection, they're
scanning from the microfilm that was created.
So, you may find that some indexing is
available, and some indexing is not.
The Finding Aid can put you closer
to a set of beneficial resources,
often better than a general search done
using the search box at the top of the --
at the top of the collection homepage.
Excuse me.
Next slide please, Sheryl.
You'll notice that I've moved to
something called The Index Terms.
The Index Terms can lead you to names or
topics that may appear in the collection.
But one of the other cool things about this
is that the Index Terms can also let you know
where these names might be found in
other collections held in the Library,
other manuscript collections held in the
Library, or in the Library's online catalogue,
if you're looking for additional
books or other materials.
If you look in Using the
Collection, you'll find information
on copyright access and restrictions.
You're lucky with this collection,
because there aren't any copyright issues
or access of restriction issues.
But for more recent collections, there may be
restrictions, because of privacy or security,
or the donor may request that the
collection not be made available.
So, you can be aware -- you can be aware
of that when you're using the collection.
Excuse me.
Next slide, Sheryl.
Lastly, there is a search and Finding
Aid function that will search for words
within the Finding Aid and
only within the Finding Aid.
So, if something is not mentioned within
the Finding Aid, it may not be found.
So, be aware of that.
Using the online collections
can be incredibly beneficial,
but can also be creative and interesting.
Kaleena mentioned the Manuscript Division.
I noticed a couple of staff
within the Manuscript Division
are on the call with us today.
We may -- on the webinar with us today.
So, we may lean on them a little
bit, but as Kaleena also said,
please use the Ask a Librarian and
work with the manuscript staff.
They know these collections as well as anyone.
So, if you're having trouble
using a Finding Aid,
or finding what you want,
do use the Ask a Librarian.
And now, I'm going to turn it back
to Kaleena for the last slide.
>> Sure, well this is -- thank you, Danna.
This is an extension, if you want to get more
hands-on, and you want another opportunity,
you may want to explore the
By the People Project.
This is a crowd-sourced transcription
project, and it's just another way for you
to get closer to primary sources.
There are a number of manuscript
collections in there.
One is Abraham Lincoln, under some Rosa Parks
papers, and I know recently, you'd be --
Alan Lomax Collection has opened online, and now
there's a Spanish language Herencia Collection,
I believe it's called that's
available for transcription.
So, I encourage you to -- either do this
on your own or share with your students.
It's a great way to practice reading cursive,
if that's a challenge for your students.
And like I said, just a way to interact
in a unique way with historical documents.
So, with that, next slide.
Thank you very much.
Please, if you have any questions or any
comments, please those of you share them
in the chat box, and thank you so much.
>> Thank you, Kaleena, and thank you, Danna.
That was a whirlwind, but super
interesting dive into searching manuscripts.
So, I want you to thank you for putting
together all those -- all those slides.
I can say honestly that really helps me.
So, thank you.
I wanted to point out -- and it's hard for
me to talk and put something in the chat
at the same time -- I have it ready to
go, and I will do it after I'm done.
[inaudible] we hosted the crowd-sourcing folks,
last week or two weeks ago
on an Online Office Hours.
So, I'll put the recording link into the chat
box, so that you can access information about,
a little bit more about transcription and
crowd-sourcing at the Library of Congress.
So, feel free to type in any
questions that you may have.
As Danna mentioned, we have some folks from
the Manuscript Division on the webinar today,
so if you have something a
little bit more specific,
we might be able to get that addressed.
So, Mary Johnson [assumed spelling] says she
learned several things she did not know before.
Which I did too, to Mary.
So, thank you for backing me up on that comment.
So, I'm actually going to go
ahead and toss a question to one
of our colleagues from the Manuscript Division.
Michelle Krowl [assumed spelling]
is on the line,
and she is a Historian with
the Manuscripts Division.
I did ask her before, I'm putting her on the
spot, if she wouldn't mind saying a few words.
So, Michelle, I'm going to go ahead
and unmute your mic, and I wanted --
so that, it's unmuted now --
and I wanted to ask a little bit
of about working in the Manuscripts Division.
One of the thrills that we always get
in working with educators is hearing
from a subject matter expert at the Library,
talking about what it's like
to work with a collection.
So, I don't know if you want to share any
insights about your role at the Library.
>> Oh, gosh.
Where to even begin, about
working at the Manuscript Division?
One of the things that I think working
with manuscripts at the Library of Congress
that people may not know,
particularly if they're also thinking
about the National Archives, is
that what we collect primarily
in the Manuscript Division are people's personal
papers, and we're collecting from, you know,
centuries worth of historical figures, not
only -- we've got -- we've got 23 Presidents.
We have lots of political figures,
Civil Rights Collection, sports.
We have population culture, Supreme Court.
So, we have a number of collections
that really span the gamut,
in terms of what subject matter is available,
and also, what, you know, the time period, too.
But whereas the Financial Archives, you tend
to find the professional papers or the papers
that someone creates while
they're working in public service
or are official government documents.
The collections at the Manuscript
Division, particularly if they're papers
of particular people, like,
you know, Alexander Hamilton
or my Abraham Lincoln or Theodore Roosevelt.
They may have -- they have a lot of materials
that will reflect on their professional lives,
a lot of correspondence or, you know,
drafts of speeches or something.
But you also find their personal
lives in there as well.
And that's often something that teachers
enjoy bringing to their students.
So, for example, as part of the Alexander
Hamilton papers, you will not only find,
you know, drafts of things that are
related to the Constitutional Convention,
but you'll find his farewell letter
to his wife, Eliza, before he went
and had that fatal duel with Aaron Burr.
In the Theodore Roosevelt papers,
you'll find some of his pocket diaries,
some of the most effective -- affecting
being when his father passes away in 1878,
and then of course, when his
mother and his wife both die
on the same day in the same house, in 1884.
So, if you're looking for personal
sides of people's papers, you know,
the Manuscript Division is a great place to be.
>> Thank you for that.
So, I will throw back out a few of the crowds
and see if there are any questions that you have
for Kaleena or Danna or our
colleagues in the Manuscript Division?
And as we're waiting for questions to come
in, I just want to give an announcement,
for next week's Online Office Hours.
On Tuesday -- as you may know, we're here
on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:00 to 3:00.
We tend to do a small segment
of content, and then we're open
to any questions that you may have.
So, next Tuesday at 2:00, we're going
to explore the history of the Library
of Congress, through primary sources.
And so, we'll be taking a look at how
letters and photographs and different kinds
of primary sources help tell the story of
the national institution of the Library.
On Thursday, we have a special episode
on historical children's books
at the Library of Congress.
So, we're very excited about that.
We'll have Jackie Coogan on,
and she will be talking to us
about different collections
you can access online.
And new -- out yesterday, and it really
hasn't been announced yet, officially,
but our summer webinar, Professional Development
Webinar Series, is starting on May 20th,
and we're calling it Webinar Wednesday.
They'll be one hour of professional
development sessions.
You can see our line-up on May 20th.
We will have Michelle's colleagues
from the Manuscript Division talking
about our newest exhibition, which is
design -- that's actually not our newest.
Our second to newest exhibition, on Women's
Suffrage, and so, we'll hear from Janice Ruth
and Liz Novara, talking about the
materials at the Library of Congress
that go into making that exhibition.
So, we hope that you join us on May 20th.
So, yeah. So, thanks for being here
today, and thank you to our speakers
for putting together a fantastic
presentation and teaching us all something new.
And thank you to Michelle for being
on the spot -- Johnny on the spot.
I really do appreciate that.
So, if we don't have any questions, we can
just call it a day, and we hope to see you
on Tuesday, for a session on looking at
the history of the Library of Congress,
and then next Thursday, on
historical children's books.
So, thank you to everybody.
Have a great weekend.
And as always, thanks for tuning in.