Have you ever wanted to view historical documents online? Ever wonder how you can view the historical cases (1901-1921) of the Bureau of Investigation (later known as the FBI)? Or perhaps pictures of the Civil War? Those historical documents (and many many others) are available only in the National Archives, and they cannot be found anywhere on the internet. Fortunately, those days will be over as there is FootNote now.
FootNote is a web2.0 ajax-based archiving service that allows you to find millions of images of original source documents (many of which have never been available online before). You can find Papers of the Continental Congress, Constitutional Convention Records, Mathew B. Brady Collection of Civil War Photographs, Civil War Pension Index and many many more. You might be wondering how they are able to do that. Well, in January 10, 2007, FootNote had made an agreement with the National Archives to digitize and store historic documents (4.5 million pages so far) which permits them to publish the documents on the net. With FootNote, you can view and enlarge documents to add or discover hidden annotations (People, Places, Dates, and Text – which then become searchable), print documents, add documents to your scrapbooks, save document images to your FootNote Gallery, and upload any image from your computer that you want to share with others. FootNote also gives you an opportunity to share your story, ideas or research with others by creating your own “Member Pages”, a place where you can share your knowledge and research with others. You can write what you know, attach original sources that support your story and invite others to collaborate and contribute. You can also embed your own FootNote member card to your website, blog, or external web account(s). Simply copy and paste the code generated by FootNote and embed it to your website. Below is ours.
Overall, FootNote provides an easy to use interface as well as an extensive collection of documents. Unfortunately, not all documents can be freely viewed. Unlimited access to all documents is available only with the paid accounts. The monthly fee is currently $ 9.99 and the annual fee is $ 99.99. You can also opt to pay for only $ 1.99 per premium document image viewing. I believe what FootNote and the National Archives are doing is a noble cause. Papers don’t last forever, and it’s imperative that our descendants have access to these documents in years to come. As an added info, by February 6, the digitized materials will also be available at no charge in National Archives research rooms in Washington D.C. and regional facilities across the country.
To signup for a FootNote account, you can click HERE!
