National Archives and Footnote Put Paper Records Online
Posted on September 29, 2009 |
The Obama Administration has won kudos for making much of the government's wealth of data and current publications available to all via the Web. But what about the billions of pieces of information that predate the digital era and exist only in paper form? It's going to take a while, because digitizing this information is a tedious and expensive chore,but it is gradually happening.
The Library of Congress has been aggressive in getting its assets online. Now the National Archives & Records Administration has partnerships with Google, Ancestry.com, and Footnote.com to create and make available a growing part of its vast collection. The most recent fruit of these efforts: A large collection of holocaust-related documents just made available through Footnote. Full access to Footnote's data normally costs $11.95 a month or $79.95 a year, but the holocaust collection is free for the month of October.
