Are you a US History buff? Have you ever wanted to see a copy of Rosa Parks’ arrest certificate? What about Elliot Ness’ Oath of Office swearing to uphold the Constitution while going after Al Capone? Can I interest you in a letter from Walt Disney to President Nixon requesting an interview? Or maybe Bob Hope’s first curtain call? What about the Homestead paperwork from Laura Ingalls Wilder and her husband’s first home together in the Dakota Territory?
If pieces of American history interest you then you’re in luck. The National Archives has been slowly uploading pieces of America’s history into their Digital Vault. This project was two and a half years in the making and they officially went live a year ago, in February 2008. They currently have 1200 images and many images are multiple pages in length. The Vault includes documents, photographs, posters, letters, sound recordings and moving images all hand selected from the National Archives. It allows visitors to get a behind-the-scenes look into the archives.
Suzanne Isaacs, the digital project coordinator for the National Archives Experience made sure to point out that these archives aren’t a search engine, they’re more like an exhibit – “one that is different each time you visit, encourages creativity and allows you to share your creations with others through email.” They aren’t displayed in a static exhibit format, nor are they organized chronologically or by category. The easiest way to find something particular is to search using either keywords or tags.
The site is said to “mimic historical research in that it insists on and encourages visitor exploration.” Users can also access the archives to create personal movies and posters using the images in the vault that can be shared with others via email – this could be a fun idea for a special birthday celebration or a class project.
Consider yourself warned though, once you start poking around, click on some of the tags and create your “path”, you’ll be on there for quite some time. It truly is both awe-inspiring and fascinating (history can often be like that). And it’s a fun way to kill some time…but you didn’t hear me say that 
