June 20, 1997

Contact:
Guy Lamolinara (202) 707-9217

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New On-Line Collections Debut from Library of Congress

Several on-line collections from the Library of Congress will be available beginning June 28 from American Memory (http://www.loc.gov), a project of the National Digital Library Program that is making freely available on the Internet the most important American history items in the Library. The new collections and collection "previews" are:

• "California as I Saw It: First-Person Narratives of California's Early Years, 1849-1900." Offers 190 books documenting the Gold Rush and the decades of early statehood that followed in individual narratives about travel to and life in California.
• "California Gold: Northern California Folk Music from the '30s." A multiformat ethnographic field collection that includes sound recordings, still photos, drawings and written documents from a variety of European ethnic and English- and Spanish-speaking communities in Northern California.
• "The New Deal Stage: Selections from the Federal Theatre Project, 1935-1939." Playscripts, production materials, photographs, and administrative records selected from the output of a New Deal WPA arts project. Additional materials to be added to this on-line.
• "Panoramic Maps, 1847-1909." This collection preview, which debuted June 9, offers idealized schematic views of towns and cities; a wealth of detail in setting, streets and buildings. The site allows viewers to zoom in on particular areas of the maps. Continuing additions through 1998.
• "Inventing Entertainment: Turn-of-the-Century Motion Pictures and Sound Recordings from the Thomas A. Edison Companies." This is a preview of a collection of early films and recordings from the company formed by the man who invented the phonograph.

The National Digital Library Program of the Library of Congress will offer on the Internet millions of items from the Library's collections by the year 2000, the bicentenary of the Library. Already available are tens of thousands of photographs, including those by Mathew Brady of the Civil War; documents relating to slavery, the civil rights movement and women's suffrage; early motion pictures, including those from Thomas Edison's studio; and sound recordings of prominent Americans.

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PR 97-113
6/20/97
ISSN 0731-3527