Announcement of Additions to Meeting of Frontiers Collection

[danna bell-russel]

Good afternoon,

This announcement is being sent out to a number of lists. Please accept
our apologies for any duplicate postings.


MAPS AND PHOTOGRAPHS FROM ALASKA, RUSSIA ADDED TO "MEETING OF FRONTIERS"
WEB SITE

	Maps and photographs from the Elmer E. Rasmuson Library at the
University of Alaska  Fairbanks, the National Library of Russia in St.
Petersburg and the Russian State Library in Moscow are now available
online at the Library of Congress "Meeting of Frontiers" Web site,
<http://frontiers.loc.gov>

	"Meeting of Frontiers" is a congressionally funded project to create a
bilingual, English-Russian digital library that chronicles the
experiences of the United States and Russia in exploring, developing and
settling their frontiers and the meeting of those frontiers in Alaska
and the Pacific Northwest.  With these additions, the site includes
approximately 80,000 images from the project partner institutions in the
United States and Russia.  These items -- rare books, maps, manuscripts,
photographs, films and sound recordings -- tell the story of the
explorers, fur traders, missionaries, exiles, gold miners and
adventurers who peopled these frontiers and their interactions with the
native peoples of Siberia and the American West. 

	The Library of Congress is lending high-resolution digitizing equipment
to libraries in Moscow, St. Petersburg and several Siberian cities to
use in scanning unique and rare materials relating to the frontiers
theme.  The Library is also working with the University of Alaska
Fairbanks to acquire digital copies of rare materials relating to
Alaska.  Scanning operations in Siberia will be carried out with support
from the Open Society Institute of Russia.

	Among the materials added to "Meeting of Frontiers" as a result of
these partnerships are 62 maps that document the discovery and mapping
of Alaska and the North Pacific; Views of Sakhalin Island, an album of 
photographs taken in the 1890s that provide rare glimpses of life in
this Russian penal colony; and The Clipper Ship Razboinik, an album from
the  photograph collection of Czar Nicholas II  that documents the 1889
Arctic voyage of the clipper Razboinik (Pirate). Other collections are
being digitized and will be added to the "Meeting of Frontiers" site in
2001-2002.

	"Meeting of Frontiers" is the Library's first major digital project
involving international material and extensive cooperation with foreign
institutions to obtain digital images for the Library's collections.  It
is the first component of "International Horizons," an international
digital library project that builds upon the Library's National Digital
Library Program.

	The Library of Congress, founded April 24, 1800, is the nation's oldest
federal cultural institution. It preserves a collection of 115 million
items -- more than two-thirds of which are in media other than books.
These include the largest map and film and television collections in the
world. In addition to its primary mission of serving the research needs
of the U.S. Congress, the Library serves all Americans through its
popular Web site (www.loc.gov) and its 22 reading rooms on Capitol Hill. 

Please direct any questions to MoF at loc.gov