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Extra, Extra! Chronicling America Newspaper Site Revamp

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The Library’s tech elves have been laboring away in their workshop to upgrade the user experience on our Chronicling America website.

Over recent weeks, the Library of Congress has implemented changes to Chronicling America that improve and expand use of historic American newspapers digitized for the National Digital Newspaper Program, a joint project with the NEH.

Most changes are behind-the-scenes, but users will notice some differences – search results as thumbnail images, increased performance, and persistent (i.e., “bookmarkable”) URLs in use throughout the site. In addition, we’ve improved the site to provide open access through standard protocols.

Check out the Upgrade Details page here for more information, and stay tuned for more Chronicling America news.

Comments (6)

  1. Don’t you think it’s a little insulting to refer to your institution’s employees as “tech elves,” especially on the institution’s official blog and Twitter feed?

  2. The upgrade details sound really interesting. Do you have a page that goes into more technical depth on how the three new programmatic interfaces will work? Perhaps with some examples to help encourage others to use the new interfaces?

  3. No offense whatsoever was intended. I always speak highly of my Library colleagues whenever I get the chance — both publicly and privately. I’m amazed by the caliber of people I work with.

    In my mind, “elves” truly do represent a diligent work ethic and the creation of seemingly magical things, whether toys or delicious cookies covered in fudge stripes. That’s the spirit in which my comment was intended.

    I’ve gotten nice comments in the past about the conversational and accessible tone of the blog, which I hope to continue in the future, but constructive criticism is also welcome.

  4. @Brett – we’re working on a page with technical details about the interfaces this week, and will publish it soon.

  5. Hello!
    I am now in Ukraine and what you did worked!
    Light and liberty go together, I agree with this!

  6. Is there an article that tells us how to use the advanced search feature of Chronicling America? Is there a way to not have to reset the date and papers for each search?

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