Doing the Decades:
Group Investigations in Twentieth Century U. S. History

Brief Guide to the Library of Congress Internet Site

1. Explore the home page of the Library of Congress. In particular, examine THOMAS, the legislative search and resources component. What do you find here that might help you learn about historic and contemporary issues of the federal government?

2. Go to the American Memory home page.

3. You can Browse Collections by Topic or use the search box at the top of the page. Try Browse first to get a sense of the overall scope of the collections.

4. Next, look at More browse options to explore each of the media formats. Search (on each media format home page) to locate one item in each format, then print it along with its bibliographic information. For sound recordings and motion pictures, print the page with the bibliographic information.
   • Photos and Prints - Find a photo of a city you know.

   • Maps - Find a map of the same city.

   • Books, Other Printed Texts - Find a document on the U. S. Congress or on work/economy (See if you can see the document image -many are available.)

   • Motion Picture Collections - Find a film on work.

   • Sound Recordings - Find a song or music recording.

5. How would you cite these sources?  Go to the Learning Page and find Citing Electronic Sources for examples.

6. Also on the Learning Page is a link to Internet Resources, a page which has topically organized links to other resources in social studies. Explore this directory and bookmark those resources that might be helpful for you in class this year.

Useful Internet addresses:

• Library of Congress - http://www.loc.gov
• THOMAS - http://thomas.loc.gov
• American Memory - http://memory.loc.gov/
• List all collections - http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/browse/ListAll.php
• Learning Page - http://www.memory.loc.gov/learn
• Citing Electronic Sources - http://memory.loc.gov/learn/start/cite/index.html
• Internet Resources - http://memory.loc.gov/learn/start/inres/index.htmll