Support the Lincoln Archives Digital Project

The Lincoln Archives Digital Project has been hard at work for over 12 years digitizing and placing the records of the Lincoln Administration online. No federal funding, no grants. But plenty of hard work. In our thirteen years of work, we have digitized almost 1 million records. We have placed over 45,000 online, along with maps, photographs, political cartoons, newspapers, and podcasts. All of this is available freely to the global community. I have worked for over 13 years, no salary, no federal funding or grant monies coming in. While this project is massive, it is completely doable. We would be further along, if we had financial support. Like any other project, there are costs. It is costing approximately $200 per month to keep the website online. Eight hours per day is spent at the Archives digitizing the records, and another eight hours is spent working on placing records online.Many of the Lincoln scholars state that this should be freely accessible to the world because it is for the betterment of man. If you are using the resources of this project, realize that hard work, and personal sacrifice has been made to make this available to all. There is no other website, which will provide you with all executive, legislative, judicial, and military records created during the Lincoln Administration in one database with full search capabilities for the over 12 million records we are estimating exist. Instant access to related documents in the hundreds of record groups, and millions of entries will allow scholars to wisely use their time to research the NARA records, from the comfort of home, without travel or lodging expenses. The inventory of every document within the entries, unlike the hours required at the Archives to pull each document from the box in search of those records you desire with an online viewing of the document, in its original format is at your fingertips.

There is no question that hard work and dedication is lacking, it is funding to assist with labor costs and hosting requirements. One Lincoln scholar told me that “the difference between his job and mine, is that he gets paid, and I don’t”.

This is a project worthy of the support of the Lincoln community. Although the project was endorsed by the Lincoln Bicentennial Commission in 2007, there has been no financial support. If each person contributed $15 per month, we could hire additional scanning staff, and get records online much faster.

We need to purchase new Epson large format scanners. The Epson scanners we have are wearing out. A refurbished Epson GT-30000 scanner will cost $600. We need four scanners, two for Archives I, and two for Archives II. We sure would appreciate those who value this project to donate towards purchasing these four scanners. Or, if you are feeling like sending an early Christmas present to the project, you can click below to send a scanner gift to the project. It will be very much appreciated. If 160 people will donate $15, I can purchase those four scanners. If 160 people donated $30, I can purchase the four scanners and pay for the website to be online for one year. It takes a village to make these projects happen. I need your support! 🙂

http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/ProductQuickSpec.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&infoType=Specs&oid=36150012&category=Clearance+Center

Go to http://www.lincolnarchives.us and donate today!  Help make this project successful!

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What exactly does it take to create a digital library?

For ten years the Lincoln Archives Digital Project has been hard at work to provide you with the rich resources of the National Archives online for your use.

First we have to request the records, which are not indexed or inventoried, in any way.  The records in the boxes are bifolded, sometimes trifolded.  The record has to be flattened, scanned, refolded, and placed back in the box, in the order it was found.  The document is placed in an Excel spreadsheet to provide an inventory, along with data from the document, which is placed in the database, to enable full search capabilities.

The records are organized in the same manner, just like they are at the Archives.  Records are organized in many ways.  Chronological, alphabetical, by case file, by state, by department.

Once the records are placed online, they are transcribed.  Tragically, cursive is not being taught in schools.  In a decade most of the younger generation won’t be able to read these records.

Metadata and keywords are added to each document to make it possible for the related records in the 20 million plus documents to be able to link in a matter of seconds.

Scanning.  We use Epson G10000 scanners.  Every document is scanned at 600 dpi, 24 bit for preservation purposes.  In most cases, we are able to scan approximately 30 documents per hour.

The website is hosted on an Amazon cloud.

This project has not received any federal funding.  We depend on you, the user, to donate to the project.  We hope that you will appreciate the hard work that has gone into the project and help provide the funds necessary to pay the monthly hosting costs, and enable us to hire additional staff to help scan and provide IT and Development.  We can’t do it without you.

What are you getting that you can’t get at the National Archives?  Just about everything.  You have 24/7 access to these records from the comfort of home, minus the dust, of course!  The records are searchable.  Unlike Fold3 and Ancestry, these records are in color, in their original format.  And they are available online, free of charge.

In your lifetime, you will never be able to spend the hours required to view the over 20 million records that are available at the National Archives.  For those who live either outside of D.C., or in another country, the funding necessary to fly to D.C., the housing costs, food, etc. and the time you will need to devote searching through boxes that have no inventory, are immense.

There is NO advertising on the website.  No distractions, nothing to slow up the process of doing what you come to do on the website, find records and do research.

If you appreciate the work being done to provide these records to you, please donate and help us do the work we are trying to accomplish.

So click on the “Donate” button at http://www.lincolnarchives.us.  Help us get these records online.

Help us make the Lincolnarchives website better!

We want to know your favorite part of the Lincolnarchives website.  We also want your comments on what you would like to see?  What documents you want to see online sooner than later?