How One Historian Stopped Worrying and
Learned to Love the Internet. Robert Griffith
When the World Wide Web first emerged,
less than ten years ago, its arrival was accompanied by predictions (and on
the part of some, fears) that libraries would soon become obsolete. Clearly,
that has not occurred, nor is it likely to occur in the near future; however,
libraries have been dramatically changed by the advent of new
technologies. New databases and increasingly
sophisticated search engines have transformed how historians search for
even traditional print sources. These databases range from the
online catalogue of one's own library or (more frequently) consortia of
libraries, to the vast storehouse of records available through the Library of Congress or such
organizations as the
Online Computer Library
Center (OCLC) and the
Research Libraries Group
ABC-CLIO's large historical
databases, previously available on CD, may now be searched online at
subscribing institutions. ("Cold War" produced 3,183 hits in America:
History and Life and 2,707 hits in Historical
Abstracts.) New databases have also revolutionized
access to the description and location of primary sources. It is
now possible to search the holdings of the National Archives
through the rapidly expanding archive Web site, which includes (among many
other things), an online version of the Guide to Federal Records in the National
Archives of the United States, as well as a prototype of the
Archives’ future online guide, the National Archives Information
Locator (NAIL). Historians also
may now seek information about manuscript collections by consulting the
Library of Congress's online, searchable version of NUCMC, which
includes entries to the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections
since 1986. Archives
USA published by Chadwyck Healey, includes a
searchable database for NUCMC since its inception in 1959 and also
provides some 50,000 records from Chadwyck-Healey's microfiche collection of
finding aids. A number of organizations, among them the Research Libraries
Group and the California
Digital Library are exploring ways of improving access to
primary materials. For historians of the Cold War, as for scholars
generally, such databases bring to the desktop the ability to search
enormous bibliographic and archival collections. They also require new
skills on the part of scholars and students and new partnerships between
faculty members and technologically savvy librarians.
I can only touch on the Web sites (and services) offered by national libraries and archives around the world. Ready, Net, Go! Archival Internet Resources, a Tulane University Web site serving professional archivists, contains an extensive "meta index," or index of archival indexes such as the European Archival Network or UNESCO's Archives in the World. Examples of national archive Web pages include the Bundesarchiv Online (Germany), the Österreichische Staatsarchiv (Austria), the Archives Nationales of France and Great Britain's venerable Public Record Office. Cold War historians will find information of interest at the NATO archives (see below), and at the Historical Archives of the European Communities in Florence, which holds archival collections dating from the founding of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1951, through the creation of The European Union (EU) by the Maastricht Treaty. ArcheoBiblioBase: Archives in Russia is an overview (online) of Russian Archives, drawn from the ArcheoBiblioBase information system on archival repositories in the Russian Federation, maintained by Patricia Kennedy Grimsted in collaboration with Rosarkhiv, the Federal Archival Service of Russia. For the more detailed print edition, see Grimsted, Archives of Russia: A Directory and Bibliographic Guide to Holdings in Moscow and St. Petersburg (Armonk, NY, and London: M.E. Sharpe Publishers, 2000). For background on Soviet archives, see especially Grimsted's report, "Archives in Russia Seven Years After," Research Report 20, on the Cold War International History Project Web site. The Web site of the O