An idea for a digital archives historical research project
The project would use the capabilities and collections of American Memory at the Library of Congress.
Thomas Jefferson and George Washington had diametrically opposed views of the democratic-republican societies that were formed in the 1790s as political clubs that opposed many Federalist policies.
Although both the Washington Papers and the Jefferson Papers are available in Fenwick Library in book form, a search on American Memory for the words "democratic-republican societies" is much speedier and more efficient than using the indexes of the bound copies. The search in American Memory can be set to find both the exact phrase "democratic-republican societies" or can be used to search for just "democratic-republican." It can even search out GW's or TJ's references to Washington's famous phrase "certain self-created societies." All the letters or diary entries where these two men refered to the societies or wrote these phrases can then be rapidly identified.
The digital search also produces high confidence in finding all references.
Additionally, one could use the boolean operator "and" to find references to GW associating TJ or Madison directly with the societies (search would be for "Jefferson" and "democratic-republican societies") or eliminate the possibility that he ever did. This type of search is simply not possible with an index. Such a search could enhance the quality of analysis one is able to present.
Then the letters can be viewed on the computer (sometimes in both original and transcribed format) or one can, as I often prefer to do, use the bound copies to read the letters identified by the American Memory search (to reduce the amount of time spent looking at a computer screen).
The ability to search so rapidly through these collections in a matter of seconds is an immense aid to such a project dependent on finding references to certain words or phrases. American Memory is also ideal because it has both the GW and TJ papers. Also, research can be conducted when traveling or otherwise away from the library, which again saves time.
Posted by ben at November 5, 2004 03:51 PM