"Learning Page" at Library of Congress

[Elizabeth L. Brown]

Cross posted; please excuse the dupilcation.


    LIBRARY OF CONGRESS LAUNCHES ON-LINE LEARNING PAGE
               FOR STUDENTS AND EDUCATORS


     The National Digital Library (NDL) Program has
launched an on-line gateway to its digitized
collections specifically tailored to the needs of
students and educators.

     This new Learning Page can be accessed on the World
Wide Web using Uniform Resource Locator (URL):

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/

The page offers organized help for searching the Library's
primary resource collections that have been on-line
since 1994.

     The Learning Page is part of the Library's effort to
reach a new constituency, the K-12 community, which is not
served in its reading rooms.

     Martha Dexter of the NDL Program's educational services
area said, "We are eager to serve students and educators
with free access to the Library's primary source materials
of rare Americana.  We also look forward to hearing from
this new constituency with ideas on how best to meet
their needs."

     The Learning Page is a project of the NDL Program,
which aims to digitize 5 million items by the year 2000,
in collaboration with other major research institutions.
Tens of thousands of items are already available via the
Library's main homepage:     http://www.loc.gov/

     The Learning Page offers new, education-related help
in searching these collections categorized by the Events,
Topics, People, Time, and Places of American history.  The
Learning Page offers new pathways for teachers and students
to learn about the history of America from the digitized
versions of documents of the Continental Congress,
turn-of-the-century films and Mathew Brady's Civil War
photographs.  "Primary source materials from the Library
of Congress add flesh and blood to the story of history,"
said Bernard Hollister, Illinois Mathematics and Science
Academy (Aurora, Ill.).

     Educators know that history is much more than dates and
facts.  "The picture collections provide a visual history
which engages students in new ways," said Gwen Harrison,
Hammond Middle School (Alexandria, Va.)  Most teachers,
however, have little access to the primary sources that can
make history come alive for students.  Primary sources are
the authentic documents, photographs and manuscripts that
transform history into a well told story.  Through the
Learning Page, students will have help accessing 29,000
photographs, 99 motion pictures, 5,900 documents and 59
sound recordings currently available on-line from the
Library of Congress.  Over the years, items will be
continuously added to the on-line collections.

     The Learning Page also features an e-mail gateway to a
reference librarian and comment sections that support the
exchange of ideas among educators and students.  The page
includes a tutorial on historical detection that encourages
learners to solve a mystery using information found in the
online collections.  An Educator's Page offers files of
teacher generated project ideas for using the Library's
historical collections in the classroom.  Links to other
history- and education-related Web sites for students and
teachers have been included as well.  The launch of the
Learning Page coincides with the release of five digitized
collections from the Library.

        The Learning Page is made possible by a grant from the
W.K. Kellogg Foundation, which is helping the Library
identify educational users of digitized materials to develop
students' research skills and critical thinking.
 _________________________________________________________
*                                                         *
*   Elizabeth L. Brown, M.L.S.                            *
*   Education Section, National Digital Library Program   *
*   Library of Congress, Washington, DC  20540-1025       *
*   ebro at loc.gov                telephone: 202/707-2235   *
*_________________________________________________________*