Encyclopedia of Local History by Carol Kammen

Author:Carol Kammen [Kammen, Carol]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2012-11-14T16:00:00+00:00

Lastly, embracing and making real a reenvisioned core purpose can be as satisfying as throwing open the windows of a room after a long winter. The rush of fresh organizational oxygen brings the work of the historical society into clearer focus. It can energize board and staff to tackle the complementary challenges so many historical societies face: difficulty finding board members, board leaders, and volunteers; attracting and retaining talented staff; and expanding the base of support.

Go ahead, open the windows.

Anne W. AckersonMuseum Association of New York

See museums, value of; social media; United States, local history in.

Local History. See England, local history in.

local history resources online. Databases are collections of information stored electronically and now usually accessed through the World Wide Web. Many of the most powerful and largest databases are produced by commercial firms and require subscription for access. Libraries, especially large city public libraries, university research libraries, or state libraries, often provide access for their patrons. Reference librarians are familiar with the intricacies of access and are often trained and highly experienced in the use of databases.

Just like printed books, online databases come in a variety of forms and content. New ones are produced every day by commercial firms, historical societies, archives, museums, and occasionally even individuals. Databases can be the equivalent of a print index describing and listing books and articles or they can consist of the sources themselves in scanned (digitized) and searchable form, referred to as “full text.”

America: History & Life (subscription required) is essential for historical research; it’s a continually updated index to books, articles, and dissertations, covering all aspects of the North American past, including local history and state history. It offers a variety of sophisticated search options. For precise, focused local history searching, try using the “advanced search” with the name of a town or county as a subject (use the drop-down menu) and a range of dates in the historical period boxes on the lower part of the screen.

Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com) is a freely available index to scholarly articles on all topics. Google Books (http://books.google.com) is a massive and continually growing collection of scanned books and periodicals. Many older titles (pre-1923) that are now in the public domain can be viewed in their entirety and the full text searched. In both Google Scholar and Google Books, the “advanced search” will provide options for narrowing the focus and getting more precise results. In the case of Google Books, it’s desirable and possible to restrict the results by time period in the advanced search.

*Genealogy databases often overlap with local history. *HeritageQuest Online (subscription required) has two useful components: books, a collection of searchable full-text books relating to biography, family history, and town and county history; and PERSI, a comprehensive bibliography of articles from North American genealogy and local-history periodicals since 1800. The search interface is simple and friendly. *Ancestry.com (subscription required) has many resources for local historians: census records, land ownership records, and many reference tools. Cyndi’s List, www.cyndislist.com, which is free, collects and

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