NARA’s Record Group Explorer: A New Path into NARA’s Holdings

This post was written by Pamela Wright, Chief Innovation Officer. With billions of pages of records, there’s no question that the holdings of the National Archives are vast. The breadth can be intimidating to researchers and online users, especially first-time users, who may not have familiarity with the organization and management of archival material. One … Continue reading NARA’s Record Group Explorer: A New Path into NARA’s Holdings

New Search Feature: Optical Character Recognition (OCR)

This post is from the September 5th issue of the National Archives Catalog Newsletter. With more than 92 million pages of digitized records available to search in the National Archives Catalog, we are always working on ways to improve search results to better help you find what you’re looking for. That’s why we’re excited to … Continue reading New Search Feature: Optical Character Recognition (OCR)

Transcriptions Reveal Life in the Trenches

If you are familiar with our Citizen Archivist program, you know that we encourage online volunteers to transcribe digitized historical records held in the National Archives Catalog. We often say that these transcriptions help unlock history by improving search results, readability, and access to historical records. So how exactly are your contributions unlocking history? A … Continue reading Transcriptions Reveal Life in the Trenches

Become a Wiki Scholar! Work with records from the National Archives to expand coverage of women’s suffrage in the United States in Wikipedia

Today’s post comes from Pamela Wright, Chief Innovation Officer. At the National Archives, we are continually seeking new ways to share the wealth of history in our physical and digital holdings. Initiatives like our Citizen Archivist Dashboard create new opportunities and avenues for the public to engage with our records. We also take the heart … Continue reading Become a Wiki Scholar! Work with records from the National Archives to expand coverage of women’s suffrage in the United States in Wikipedia

Tag it! Introducing the National Archives Facebook Chatbot

Today's post comes from Pamela Wright, Chief Innovation Officer. What do you get when you have an audacious strategic goal to have one million records enhanced by citizen archivists in the National Archives Catalog and an idea to try something new on a social site? You create a Facebook Messenger Chatbot, of course! This American … Continue reading Tag it! Introducing the National Archives Facebook Chatbot

Innovation Hub Celebrates 300,000th Page Uploaded to Catalog

Today's post comes from Catherine Brandsen, National Archives Innovation Hub Coordinator Earlier this month, the Innovation Hub uploaded its 300,000th page for inclusion in the National Archives Catalog. Amazingly, this milestone took less than three years to achieve. Digitization opens up access to our records. Of the 13 billion paper records in the National Archives, … Continue reading Innovation Hub Celebrates 300,000th Page Uploaded to Catalog

Help Contribute by Scanning U.S. Coast Guard Records from the Vietnam War in the Innovation Hub!

Today's post comes from Jessica Soden, National Archives Technician & former Innovation Hub Coordinator Detailee During my time as the Innovation Hub Coordinator detailee, the National Archives added deck logs from United States Coast Guard cutter vessels (USCGC) involved in the Vietnam War (RG 26, Entry 330; NAID 559642) to the list of records that … Continue reading Help Contribute by Scanning U.S. Coast Guard Records from the Vietnam War in the Innovation Hub!

Why do we engage Citizen Archivists?

Today's post comes from Pamela Wright, National Archives Chief Innovation Officer. Earlier this week we posted an invitation to help transcribe records in our holdings and it has sparked some thoughtful conversations about the role of crowdsourcing at the National Archives. For this specific crowdsourcing campaign we featured several “missions” that we wanted citizen archivists … Continue reading Why do we engage Citizen Archivists?