Instructional Session for Turning Points in American History: The VTDNP and Online

Newspaper Research

Tom McMurdo, VTDNP Project Librarian

Introduction to UVM Library Resources

Tom McMurdo, VTDNP Project Librarian

I’m Tom McMurdo, and we will be working together

this morning.

Bailey/Howe Library

Did you know that as a Vermont K-12 educator that you can get a UVM

Library card for free?

From the main page, click “Circulation information”

“Any educator at a Vermont K-12 institution may get a K-12 Educator Borrower Card. The faculty member's supervisory district or private school's administrative office must have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with us before the faculty member can obtain a borrower card.”

With a K-12 Educator Borrower Card you can:

• Check out up to 10 books at a time • Use non-circulating collections (reference,

periodicals, microforms and Special Collections

• Get reference assistance and public use resources

Without a K-12 Educator card you have access to all these things but you cannot check out books. To get a K-12 Educator card, complete an authorization form and submit it to B/H Circulation. That form should be available from your school administrative district or your school’s administrative office.

Beyond Books

The Center for Digital Initiatives

CDI: Vermonters in the Civil War

The CDI has more great historical Vermont content, including photographs, videos, and sound recordings. I encourage all of you to take a look around.

Special Collections: Open to the Public

Special Collections has some incredible items

Medieval Books

Unique Art Books

Circulus Sapientiae, Newark, VT, Janus Press, 2001

Cicero, illuminated leaf, 1375-1425

Vermont Digital Newspaper Project

http://library.uvm.edu/vtnp/

Questions?

Let’s talk about searching for newspapers online.

The Vermont Digital Newspaper Project, Chronicling

America, and Northern New York Historical Newspapers

Tom McMurdo, VTDNP Project Librarian All are 100% freely available, paid for by state and federal tax dollars.

The Vermont Digital Newspaper Project

(VTDNP)

http://library.uvm.edu/vtnp/

• Federally funded in 2010 to digitize 100,000 pages of historical Vermont newspapers over a two year period.

• Newspapers are from 1836-1922 period. • We produced nearly 130,000 pages without any additional

funds. • Titles selected by an advisory committee. Titles from 10 of

Vermont’s 14 Counties. • Applied for continuation grant to produce an additional 100,000

pages. Grant will run from 2012-2014.

The National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP) and Chronicling America

• Vermont is one of 25 states plus the District of Columbia in the program.

• VTDNP newspapers are served on Chronicling America. Nearly 5 million pages are now available.

• Newspapers are keyword searchable and freely available. • The NDNP is funded by the National Endowment for the

Humanities and administered by Library of Congress. • Goal is to eventually include every US state and territory.

Let’s take a look at Chronicling America:

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/

Or search “chronicling America” in a search engine (Google, Bing, etc.).

Copy this URL in your browser:

Chronicling America

Basic Search On Chronicling America. Try your last name or an ancestor’s last name:

Basic Search On Chronicling America

Dr. James H. Ingalls Married Ella J. McMurdo in 1905.

Dr. James H. Ingalls Married Ella J. McMurdo in 1905.

Notes about searching and browsing in Chronicling

America

Keywords are generated by using a computer program to “read” the scanned pages. With old newspapers and 19th century hand-set, hand-pressed pages, some keywords are missed. Don’t think that when you are searching you are getting EVERY instance of your keyword.

Notes about searching and browsing in Chronicling

America

Searching is improving all the time with advances in Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. Still, there are just some old newspapers that are going to be missed. I encourage you to use the browse function in addition to the keyword search.

Now let’s take a look at Northern New York Historical Newspapers:

Copy this URL in your browser:

http://news.nnyln.net/

Or search “Northern New York Historical Newspapers” in a search engine (Google, Bing, etc.).

NNYHN has over 2.3 million pages from 1817-2009.

With over 2 million pages covering nearly 200 years, this is a great resource for historical research. Take some time out to explore the site on your own after this class. Try various search methods in different counties to see what you can find!

Questions?

10 Minute break

Research in Practice:

The Emancipation Proclamation

This painting by Henry Louis Stephens depicts a man reading about the Emancipation Proclamation in a newspaper.

Research in Practice: The Emancipation Proclamation

Research questions: 1.What was the immediate reaction to the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863? 2. Does the reaction differ in the Confederacy, the North, and West of the Mississippi?

The Emancipation Proclamation became law on January 1, 1863.

To answer our research questions let’s divide into three groups: Group 1: The Confederacy in 1863 – FL, LA, MO, SC, TX, and VA Group 2: Territories, the west and midwest Union states – AZ, CA, KS, MN, NM, NB, OR, UT, WA Group 3: The Union east of the Mississippi – DC, IL, KY, NY, OH, PA, VT

We will do research in Chronicling America: http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/

How many results did you get?

How can you narrow results? Shorter date periods, fewer states. If you had more time would it make sense to browse issues? Browsing may reveal instances of the keyword that weren’t picked up by OCR. Is browsing something your students could do effectively? Examine the content, and see if you can answer the research questions.

Research in Practice: The Emancipation Proclamation

Research questions:

1.What was the immediate reaction to the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863?

2. Does the reaction differ in the Confederacy, the North, and West of the Mississippi? Confederacy: FL, LA, MO, SC, TX, VA Union west of Mississippi: AZ, CA, KS, MN, NB, NM, OR, UT, WA Union east of Mississippi: DC, IL, NY, OH, PA, VT

Research in Practice: The Emancipation Proclamation

Results?

Research in Practice: The Emancipation Proclamation

Discussion and questions

Thank you.

Tom McMurdo, Project Librarian for the VTDNP

Questions after this class: This slide show will be archived on the Vermont Digital Newspaper Project Web Pages, under “Presentations and Tutorials”: http://library.uvm.edu/vtnp/ Email me any time with questions about the VTDNP, Chronicling America, or doing research with online newspapers: tmcmurdo@uvm.edu