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Sender: American Memory Fellows <AMFELLOWS@RS8.LOC.GOV>
Poster: "Elizabeth L. Brown" <ebro@LOC.GOV>
Subject: Meeting of Frontiers
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MEETING OF FRONTIERS WEB SITE CHRONICLES PARALLEL
HISTORY OF AMERICA’S WEST AND RUSSIA’S EAST
The parallel 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 is the focus
of a new Web site created by the Library of Congress under a
special congressional appropriation. Beginning December 15, the
site is available at <http://frontiers.loc.gov/>.
"Meeting of Frontiers" includes more than 2,500 items, comprising
some 70,000 images, from the Library's rare book, manuscript, map,
prints and photograph, film and sound recording collections that
tell the stories of the explorers, fur traders, missionaries, exiles, gold
miners and adventurers that peopled both frontiers and their
interactions with the native peoples of Siberia and the American
West. The site is completely bilingual, in English and Russian, and
is intended for use in U.S. and Russian schools and libraries and
by the general public in both countries. Scholars, particularly those
who do not have ready access to major research libraries, will benefit
from the wealth of primary material included in “Meeting of Frontiers,”
much of which has never been published or is extremely rare. Intended
to appeal to students and for use in schools, the site features such
colorful characters as John Ledyard, an acquaintance of Thomas
Jefferson who attempted to walk across Siberia, and Perry McDonough
Collins, a lawyer and businessman who became the American
Commercial Agent to the Amur River in 1856 and who developed a plan,
partially carried out, to build a telegraph link from America to Europe via
the Bering Straits and Siberia.
Collections available in “Meeting of Frontiers” include the Frank G.
Carpenter Collection of photographs from Alaska in the 1910s; the
John C. Grabill Collection of photographs of 1880s frontier life in
Colorado, South Dakota and Wyoming; the Yudin Collection of
papers from the Russian-American Company (1786-1830); and
selections from the Alaska Russian Church Archives.
"Meeting of Frontiers" is a pilot project that was developed in 1999 at
the Library of Congress by a team of Library staff and American and
Russian consultants. The pilot will be expanded in the coming years
through the addition of materials from the Library's own collections,
from the Elmer E. Rasmuson Library at the University of Alaska Fairbanks
and from other U.S. institutions. It will also feature materials from
partner institutions in Russia, including the Russian State Library in
Moscow, the National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg and the
Institute of History of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of
Sciences in Novosibirsk.
"Meeting of Frontiers" is funded by a special appropriation in the
Library's FY 1999 budget, which is intended for the Library to obtain
digital copies of unique and rare materials from Russia and to make
those materials freely available through the Internet. Additional
support for development of the project in Russia is being provided
by the Open Society Institute of Russia. "Meeting of Frontiers" is the
Library's first major digital project involving international material and
extensive cooperation with foreign institutions to obtain materials for
the Library's collections in digital form. It is the first component of an
international digital library that will build upon the Library's National
Digital Library Program (www.loc.gov). The National Digital Library
Program aims to bring more than 5 million items of American history to
citizens everywhere as a Gift to the Nation for the Library's Bicentennial
on April 24, 2000. 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 <http://www.loc.gov> and its 22 reading
rooms on Capitol Hill.
“We will celebrate with pride our first 200 years of Library history,”
said Librarian of Congress James H. Billington. “During that time, the
Library has grown into the world's largest repository of knowledge and
creativity, which it has preserved for all generations of Americans. We
want to take advantage of this opportunity to energize national
awareness of the critical role that all libraries play in keeping the
spirit of creativity and free inquiry alive in our society.”
Please direct questions about this press release to Guy Lamolinara at
(202) 707-9217. Please direct questions about the Frontiers exhibition
to mof@loc.gov
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