Interested in learning more about what’s new in the Library of Congress’ digital collections? The Signal shares updates on new additions to our digital collections and we love showing off all the hard work of our colleagues from across the Library. Read on for a sample of what’s been added recently and some of our favorite highlights. Click here for previous updates.
What’s new on loc.gov?
Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) Reports
The materials from the OSRD represent original research conducted by the Allies during World War II. The tens of thousands of items in the Library’s OSRD collection include technical reports, drawings, memos, medical research results, and other documents, which were either originally open access literature or which have since been declassified. This online collection presentation includes declassified technical laboratory and field reports as well as other reference material from two of the OSRD’s 25 administrative divisions, Division 12: Transportation and Division 16 Optics/Camouflage.
The material was digitized from the microfilm collection and represents the “most important” research reports found in the hardcopy collection. Information on topics such as amphibious vehicle studies, DUKW design, bridge, ponton and ferry designs and much more, can be found in reports in Division 12 (Transportation). The Optics/Camouflage (Division 16) collection includes reports on topics such as aerial photography, camouflage applications, periscopes and other optical instruments.
Collection updates and migrations
Updated collections this month include the Foreign Legal Gazettes, which now features new issues of from Burkina Faso, the Philippines, and Ecuador. And two new sections were added into the Occupational Folklife Project collection: Training the Troops: Military Role-Players of Fort Polk, Louisiana and Immigrant Women Artists in Oklahoma : Archie Green Fellows Project, 2020-2021.
New datasets
Two new datasets were added to the Selected Datasets collection on loc.gov since our last edition. These are the transcription datasets for the Ordinary Lives in George Washington’s Papers and the Information and disinformation: the World War II rumor project campaigns from the By the People crowdsourced transcription program.
Want to learn more about how to use datasets from the Library of Congress? Check out Datasets at the Library of Congress: A Research Guide to get started!
New Open Access eBooks
800 new openly available publications were added to the collection, including open access e-books and reports. August 2023 marked the anniversaries of two significant events in U.S. history and some highlights from the collection showcase these important milestones:
On August 5th, 1963, all major nuclear world powers accepted the first international nuclear treaty, the Partial Test Ban Treaty (AKA Test Ban Treaty), which agreed to halt all testing of nuclear weapons in any environment except underground and laid the groundwork for future nuclear disarmament efforts, such as those covered in Unfinished business : the negotiation of the CTBT and the end of nuclear testing (see below).
August 18th marked the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920, which officially recognized American women’s right to participate in elections. There are a number of new titles that explore the history of women’s suffrage and studies on gender equality, including Women in the twentieth century; a study of their political, social and economic activities; Bringing equality home: implementing the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women: CEDAW; and the World atlas of gender equality in education (see below).
New digital materials available onsite-only
Have you seen our past blog posts about Stacks? ICYMI, Stacks is the Library’s primary onsite platform for accessing rights-restricted digital content from the Library’s collections. New items are added every week and we invite you to come visit the Library’s variety of reading rooms & research centers to explore the latest releases into Stacks for yourself!
Recent highlights from Stacks include the addition of over 16,000 images from the History of the Philippines Photograph Collection and new issues for the Hairenik and Armenian Weekly newspapers.
Some other selected new titles include Act naturally: the Beatles on film, The baseball mysteries: challenging puzzles for logical detectives, The clever rabbit: an Iranian graphic folktale, Comet madness: how the 1910 return of Halley’s comet (almost) destroyed civilization, Four scores and seven reels ago: the U.S. presidency through Hollywood films, Moondoggle: Franklin Roosevelt and the fight for tidal-electric power at Passamaquoddy Bay, Sea dog, and Solving the Price is Right: how mathematics can improve your decisions on and off the set of America’s celebrated game show.
New materials in Chronicling America
The Library of Congress continues to migrate digitized newspapers into the new Beta Chronicling America collection. There is now a total of 17.1 million newspaper pages available in the new collection (out of 20.6 million pages) representing content from 46 states and territories. The digitized newspapers can be searched at the same time as other digitized collections or can be searched or browsed as a separate collection. Patrons can do a simple or advanced search for keywords or can use the left-side facets to narrow results within a search. We will provide additional updates as we migrate the rest of the collection.
New crowdsourced transcriptions
Nearly 9,200 crowdsourced transcriptions from the By the People “Information and Disinformation: The World War II Rumor Project” campaign are now available on loc.gov. You can use keywords to search these records with transcriptions and view side-by-side text of individual pages (see below). Learn more about the By the People crowdsourced transcription program at crowd.loc.gov and transcribe Library of Congress digital collections for yourself!
!["They say that the war cannot possibly be over inside 2 or 3 yrs at the earliest. Washington would never let the "Big Fellows" down, who have turned their factories into war production. It would take them that long to turn themselves." 55 [*E*] male (salesman) C garage Newark, N. Y. Helen Herman. 8/3/42 Transcribed and reviewed by contributors participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.](https://blogs.loc.gov/thesignal/files/2023/09/duration_WWII_rumor_WNOLOCGOV-1024x459.png)
Leave us any questions or comments below and keep an eye out for our next edition in November!