THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

A periodic report from

THE NATIONAL DIGITAL LIBRARY PROGRAM

SEPTEMBER 1995 • NO. 2

On October 13, 1994, the Library received a $3

million grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to help identify instructional uses of

digital materials.

With that goal in mind, in May the National Digital

Library Program awarded a $615,000 contract to the Center for Children and Technology (CCT), an educational

consulting firm that is a division of the Education Development Center.

The Center for Children and Technology in New York

City was founded in 1981. The mission of the CCT is to

provide basic, applied, and formative research and technology development, with the goal of improving education.

According to Suzanne Thorin, the Library’s Chief of

Staff and coordinator for the National Digital Library

Program, “The Library of Congress wants to make its

primary source materials as useful to the K-12 community as possible by providing educators and students

with electronic access to our unique Americana collections.”

Requirements in the one-year contract, which can be

extended an additional two years, include requiring CCT

to survey the use of primary source materials in K-12

schools, review Library collections to determine which

are best suited to meet K-12 requirements, assess the technology readiness of schools, and develop teaching materials for two of the Library’s historical collections.

If the Library exercises the optional two years of the

contract, CCT may develop and produce a CD-ROM of

the Library’s historical collections adapted to the needs

of the K-12 educational community, design curriculum for training teachers on the use of primary source

materials and examine the applicability of materials developed during the first year to introductory-level college coursework.

One of the first efforts of the Center for Children and

Technology was to hold an Educators Forum, on July 27

and 28, to acquaint selected teachers with the project and

to obtain their advice. Forum participants, who represented a variety of schools from around the nation, also

received an initiation to the vast and unique primary resources of the Library.

Although the Library does not serve persons of high

school age or below in its reading rooms, the contents of

the National Digital Library Program are accessible electronically to students in elementary and high school.

Thus the Library “has a responsibility to make sure that

these materials be used effectively by students of all

ages,” said Martha Dexter of the National Digital Library

Program’s educational services area.

The Librarian of Congress, James H. Billington, opened

the forum, telling participants, “Our success—and the

country’s success—will depend heavily on the ability of

educators and librarians to make full use of the highquality cargo the Library puts on the Information Superhighway. We want to know what kinds of collections

are most useful to you and your students.”

Guy Lamolinara

Public Affairs Office

Kellogg Foundation grant gives Library

means to reach out to K-12 audiences

The Center for Children and

Technology is driving the

search for the youngest

potential Superhighway

beneficiaries of the Library’s

“high-quality cargo.”
THE NATIONAL DIGITAL LIBRARY PROGRAM

2 SEPTEMBER 1995

High tech is

nothing new for

the Nation’s

Library and its

librarians

See Evolution, next page

How the electronic

Library evolved

Although the Library’s National Digital Library Program formally beganOctober 13, 1994, with the opening of

its Visitors’ Center (see story, page 3), the

groundwork was laid 30 years ago.

In 1965 the Council on Library Resources

gave the Library a grant that led to the development of machine-readable cataloging. When

users today tap into the Library’s online catalog, available on the Internet, they are seeing

the result of a project that began in the mid1960s.

In 1975 another milestone in the Library’s

effort to make its records available electronically was reached when its first computer for

public use was installed in the Science Reading Room. Two years later, the Online Catalog

Center opened in the Main Reading Room.

Converting the Library’s cataloging records

to machine-readable form progressed so rapidly that in 1982, additions to the “manual”

card catalog were suspended (thought it is still

available), and the automated database became

the official catalog of the Library.

In 1983 an optical disk project was started,

in which the Library tested this technology to

make magazine articles available. This same

technology is now used to support the work

of Congress through the Congressional Research Service.

When the current Librarian, James H.

Billington, was sworn in on September 14, 1987,

his vision of making the Library’s riches “more

broadly available to ever wider circles of our

multiethnic society” propelled the institution

further into the digital age.

Three years later, the Library launched

American Memory, a pioneering effort that

made limited collections of digitized versions

of the Library’s unique resources available to

44 schools, libraries and universities across the

country. This five-year pilot made clear that students, researchers and the public would use

digitized materials, if only they had access.

American Memory, which was distributed

on CD-ROM and video disk, was principally

supported by appropriations from Congress,

with additional support from the private sector. Users were provided access to Civil War

photographs, sound recordings of key American figures, African-American political pamphlets and photographs from the Detroit Publishing Company.

In 1992 the program to digitize treasures of

the Library was extended to its major exhibitions. “Revelations from the Russian Archives”

and “1492: An Ongoing Voyage” were made

available electronically over computer networks, including the Internet. Today the Library has 10 of its exhibitions available on its

World Wide Web server, including “Creating

Culture: Treasures from the Bibliotheque

Nationale de France,” on view in the newly restored Great Hall September 1 through December 30, 1995.

1993 saw the availability of the Library of

Congress Information System (LOCIS) on the

Internet. LOCIS includes the Library’s catalog,

the status of legislation since 1973, copyright

registration records since 1978 and lists of

braille and audio materials for blind and physically handicapped persons.

That same year, LC MARVEL came online.

MARVEL provides a wide variety of information about the Library, organized using a hierarchical menu system, called gopher, plus links

to Internet resources worldwide (address:

marvel.loc.gov; login as “marvel”).

On July 14, 1993, Dr. Billington and Vice

President Albert Gore chaired the Library’s first

major conference on the Information Superhighway, “Delivering Electronic Information in

a Knowledge-Based Democracy.” Rep. Newt

Gingrich, Sen. Bob Kerry and Rep. Edward

Markey also addressed the participants.
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

SEPTEMBER 1995 3

❦

A steady stream of visitors to the Library

of Congress’s National Digital Library

Visitors’ Center have been seeing and

using the latest technology for doing research

in the vast resources of the Library. The Center demonstrates how the Library of Congress

(LC) is supporting Congress and the nation

through new electronic initiatives that provide

extensive and convenient access to the

Library’s collections. The Center is located on

the first floor of the Madison Building.

In the Orientation Theater, visitors can view

a brief video that describes the Library’s electronic services and their role in the emerging

digital library community. In the Demonstration Theater, briefings are held describing LC’s

current and future electronic services. The large

projection system in this theater can display a

variety of services, including the World Wide

Web feature of the Internet. Arranged around

the perimeter of the space are hands-on workstations that allow staff and visitors to try the

technology and services.

The accompanying list—only a sampling—

demonstrates the strong interest in the Center’s

work. To get an appointment to visit the Center, telephone 202/707-4157.

Evolution, from page 2

Several prominent achievements were realized in 1994, including the debut of the

Library’s World Wide Web “homepage” (Uniform Resource Locator: http://www.loc.gov).

LC Web enabled the Library to offer online text,

images, sound and motion pictures from its

unique Americana collections to the public. Six

collections from the American Memory project

Visitors’ Center shows

and tells of commitment

to a Library for all

A SAMPLE LIST OF

VISITORS

TO THE NATIONAL DIGITAL

LIBRARY CENTER

U.S. Congress

House and Senate Members

House Oversight Committee

House Science Committee

Senate Historic Office

U.S. Government Agencies

National Archives

Smithsonian Institution

Major Corporations

IBM

Microsoft

America Online

International and Foreign

Delegations/Visitors

British Parliament

Japan Atomic Energy Research

Tokyo Archives

Embassy of South Africa

Libraries/Educational

Institutions/Students

Danish Royal Library

German National Library

Institute for International Studies

National Library of Lithuania

National Library of Scotland

National Library of Taiwan

Fulbright Scholars

International Congress of

 Medical Librarians

National Endowment for the

 Humanities-Summer Fellows

University of North Carolina

 Library School

Nonprofit Organizations

American Association of

 Retired Persons

American Bar Association

American Rhodes Scholarship

 Board Members

Association of American

 Publishers

Information Industry

 Association

Kellogg Foundation

Kennedy Center

National Museum of

 American History

Media

ABC

C-Span

“MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour”

MCI

National Geographic

The New Yorker

Reuters

Voice of America

Washington Post

are now available, including selected Civil War

photographs; early motion pictures, 1897-1916;

color photographs from the Farm Security Administration and the Office of War Information,

ca. 1938-1944; and the recently recovered notebooks from the Thomas Biggs Harned Walt

Whitman Collection.

concludes on page 4
THE NATIONAL DIGITAL LIBRARY PROGRAM

4 SEPTEMBER 1995

THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Printed on recycled paper.

60 percent reclaimed products.

FIRST CLASS MAIL

POSTAGE & FEES PAID

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

WASHINGTON, D.C.

PERMIT No. G-103

THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

THE NATIONAL DIGITAL LIBRARY PROGRAM

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20540-5250

OFFICIAL BUSINESS

PENALTY FOR PRIVATE USE $300

A PERIODIC REPORT FROM

THE NATIONAL DIGITAL LIBRARY PROGRAM

Reports will be published about 12 times a

year, using gift funds. Comments and

suggestions are welcome.

Editorial Direction

Suzanne Thorin, Chief of Staff

Office of the Librarian

202/707-5220; SUTH@LOC.GOV

Laura Campbell, Director

National Digital Library Program

202/707-3300; LCAM@LOC.GOV

Managing Editor

Caroline Krewson

202/707-5220; CKRE@LOC.GOV

World Wide Web Access

URL: http://lcweb.loc.gov/ndl/per.html

■ Produced by Nancy Brooks Publishing Services ■

ISSN 1083-3978

THIS REPORT

IS ON

THE WEB

House and Senate databases. THOMAS has

been so well received that nearly 1 million transactions are logged by the system monthly.

The Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich,

came to the Library on January 27 to address a

meeting of 30 corporate leaders to discuss the

public-private partnership required for the Library to reach its digitization goals. Rep.

Gingrich urged Congress to allot $15 million

over five years as “seed money,” to be matched

on a 3-to-1 basis by the private sector, for a total of $60 million by the year 2000.

With nearly $20 million in private sector

funds raised for the National Digital Library

Program, the Library is well on its way to reaching its goal—in collaboration with other major

research institutions—of digitizing 5 million

items by the year 2000.

Clearly Congress and the public find the

Library’s electronic initiatives useful: total

transactions for all the Library’s electronic services now average more than 20 million per

month.

Issues of this

report may be

viewed over

the World Wide

Web (WWW)

by visiting the

Library of

Congress’s

Home Page.

Home page URL:

http://lcweb.loc.gov

See report URL

in box below

E-mail feedback:

lcweb@loc.gov

The National Digital Library Program got a

significant boost when, in October 1994, Dr.

Billington announced that the Library had received $13 million in private grants and gifts

to digitize significant portions of the Americana

collections. The announcement was made during the opening of the Digital Library Visitors’

Center, where the Library demonstrates to Congress and the public its electronic initiatives.

Also in 1994, the Library convened a conference on technological strategies for a National

Digital Library with a wide range of distinguished information scientists.

Another milestone was reached on January

5, 1995, with the introduction of THOMAS, the

Library’s legislative information service, named

in honor of Thomas Jefferson (Uniform Resource Locator: http://thomas.loc.gov). This

bipartisan initiative of the 104th Congress is an

online public access system offering legislative

information, including the Congressional

Record and the full text of bills of the previous

and current Congress as well as links to the

conclusion of Evolution, from page 3

Guy Lamolinara

Public Affairs Office