The following is a guest post by Mike Saelee, a Digital Conversion Specialist in the Serial and Government Publications Division.
The new image viewer for Chronicling America offers more options to view and manipulate newspaper pages. The new image viewer also offers the same features as the old image viewer, but the components are located in different places.
When you perform a search or browse an issue, you will see a list of issues or pages. When you click on any page image, you will be taken to the image viewer. The image viewer allows you to interact with the newspaper page. Basic information on using the image viewer can be found on “Chronicling America: A Guide for Researchers” under “Download and View Files” and “Images: Clip, Save, and Share.”
Here are the top five tips for using the image viewer.
Rotate Pages for Readability
Newspapers are typically printed in portrait orientation to match the text orientation. Sometimes, they are printed in landscape orientation. However, there are instances where newspapers will publish sideways or upside-down advertisements, images, charts and maps that does not match the main printed text orientation. Instead of adjusting your head to read the text, we recommend using the rotate button in the time right corner.
Use the Gallery View
After performing a search and selecting one of your newspaper page results, you can change the view to “Gallery” in order to see other pages from the same newspaper issue.
If your search term is found on multiple pages of the same newspaper issue, portions of the sentence with the search phrase will appear on the bottom of the page in gallery view.
Only one portion with the search phrase may appear; however, if you select the page, all of the matching search phrases on the page will appear highlighted on the page.
Download Newspaper Pages
At the lower left-hand corner of the newspaper image, there will be a download drop down menu.
The download feature is for capturing the full newspaper page image and comes in a variety of formats: PDF, OCR, JPEG, and JP2:
Clip Images, Articles, or Sections of Newspaper Pages
A scissor icon can be found at the upper right-hand corner of the newspaper image viewer. The scissor icon allows you to crop or “clip” an image, article, or section of the newspaper page as a saved image.
Before you begin clipping, we recommend adjusting the zoom level to focus on the article or image you want to clip.
After clicking the scissor icon, click down and drag the cursor to draw a square or rectangle across the page where you want to clip. You can also adjust the boundaries of the square by grabbing onto the sides and corners of the box. Click the “Clip Image” to save your selection. To cancel, click the “x” button.
Share what you’ve found on Chronicling America!
Aside from downloading and saving pages and clips, there are two ways to share what you’ve found on Chronicling America.
The first way is to share the image (and its citation information). You can get to this option after clipping an image selection. From there, you will be presented with different options for file downloading and sharing.
Most people select the “Download this Image” option located above the image clipping, but there are also two new options. Underneath the image clipping, select “Share.” This will expand and show different sharing options:
The second way is to share the Page link. This can be done on every page in Chronicling America.
At the top right corner of every page on Chronicling America is a share icon. This share functions allows you to share the link to the page you are currently looking at. Sharing the page link will also retain the page view and image rotation you’ve set.
The first two options share the link to Facebook and X. The last option copies the link so you can paste it elsewhere.
This share feature can be especially useful for troubleshooting page and metadata issues. If you see an error on the page and would like to notify our staff, share the link.
The Chronicling America historic newspapers online collection is a product of the National Digital Newspapers Program and jointly sponsored by the Library and the National Endowment for the Humanities. For more guidance on how to use the newly enhanced features of Chronicling America, take a look at Chronicling America: A Guide for Researchers. This guide provides an overview of the collection as well as recommended search topics, search strategies, website features, and frequently asked questions. Try out a search in the new Chronicling America interface today!