The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries

Tabbed

Overview

The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries contains more than 400 sources of diaries, letters, and memoirs, to provide access to thousands of views on almost every aspect of the war. Collection includes 200 letters written by Amos Wood, his wife Clara, and their three-year-old son, Freddie, illustrating what life was like for a Massachusetts family separated by the war.

Provider:

Alexander Street Press

Posted:

Aug 6, 2015 12:12pm

Updated:

Oct 26, 2017 9:53am

Source

CRL reviews are based on independent research. Information is researched by CRL staff and other specialists at CRL libraries. See CRL Review for additional source notes.

Details

Collection Content

Subject Areas:

Arts and Humanities

Social Sciences

Resource Types:

Correspondence

Diaries

- Denotes data sourced directly from publisher

Content Details:


Data label	fill in info here
Topics covered	American Civil War
Geographic coverage	U.S.
Chronological coverage	1848-1878
Source format(s)	paper (memoirs, diaries, letters)
Total titles	400
Total pages	100,000
Major language (s)	English
Digital collection launch date	2001
Completion date	Complete
Collection ongoing	N
Update frequency	Complete
Available supplements	N

Specifications

Metadata:


MARC records available	Y
Creator of MARC records	Alexander Street
Source for obtaining MARC records	http://alexanderstreet.com/american-civil-war-letters-and-diaries-all-cu...
Fee for MARC records	N
Subject authorities used
Name authorities used	Controlled vocabularies for names are based on AACR2 guidelines, with the addition of "flourish dates" when we could find no birth or death date for an individual ("Pacheco, Paulita, 1943-" or "Abbott, Edward, fl. 1763-1778").

Technical Platform:


Browser compatibility	Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0 or higher; Firefox 3.0 or higher
Authentication options	IP, user name and password, proxy,or referrer URL
Archiving solution (master files)	We use a third-party solution (library can request archival copy should ASP cease ability to provide the data)
Archiving solution (derivative files)	same
Available in web discovery tools	Y
Open url target	N
Federated searching, z39.50	N
Local host option	Y
Usage stats based on Counter code	N

Interface Tools:


Full text displayed	Y
Page images	4000 pages of facsimile
Color images	Y / Nearly 100% are B/W or original sepia color.
Search full text	Y
Advanced search	Y
Search within results	Y
Limit results by dates and/or document types	Y
Display highlighted search terms	Y
Display snippet (search term in context)	Y
Relevance sorting	Y
Save searches	N
Download PDF	N
Download HTML	N
Print page	Y
Print full document	N
Export citations	N
Annotation tools	N
Cross-product searching	N
ILL permitted	Y
Text/data mining permitted	Y
Restrictions on use	Per license terms (authorized users defined, not to be reproduced for commercial purposes, etc.)

Terms and Provider Details

Terms:


Subscription option	Y
Purchase option	Y
Multiple year payments option	Y
Maintenance fees	Y
Hosting charges	Y
Provider notes	n/a

Provider:

Alexander Street Press

Website:

http://alexanderstreet.com/

Main Address:

3212 Duke Street

Alexandria, VA 22314

United States

CRL Review

Collection Content:

The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries contains 100,000 pages of text, including 4,000 pages of previously unpublished manuscript material. It also includes more than 400 sources of diaries, letters, and memoirs, providing access to views on almost every aspect of the war. Collection includes 200 letters written by Amos Wood, his wife Clara, and their three-year-old son, Freddie, illustrating what life was like for a Massachusetts family separated by the war. Users can see and compare, the writings of politicians, generals, slaves, landowners, seamen, and spies. The letters and diaries are by the famous and the unknown, giving both the Northern and the Southern perspectives, along with that of foreign observers. While The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries is part of The American Civil War Online package, CRL is only offering this one part of the package.

Terms:

The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries is available on the Web, either through one-time purchase of perpetual rights or annual subscription. Libraries that purchase perpetual rights will also receive an archival copy of the data. The CRL offer is only for the one time purchase of perpetual access to The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries.

Strengths and Weaknesses:

This product's strength is its search and browse abilities. It uses Alexander Street's Semantic Indexing. With the indexing and newly created thesaurus lists, users can browse the contents of the database by seven tables of contents, including lists by authors, source works, months, places, battles, key personal events, and day by day. Full-text searching of words or phrases can be limited by the writer’s gender, age, allegiance, residence, race, religion, occupation, schools attended, educational level, military rank and status, marital and parental status, age of death, and cause of death. Other search fields include day, week, and month written, geographical location where written, setting (hospital, prison, etc.), battles discussed, even the number of days before death that the material was written. Users can choose to search just letters, diaries, or memoirs.

Sources

Sources for this review include information publicly posted or obtained directly from the publisher; data collected by CRL staff and specialists at CRL libraries; and examination of the digital collection when possible. Other sources are noted where cited. CRL continues to gather additional information on this resource and to solicit critical assessment.

Additional Reviews in Other Sources:

ccAdvisor - Review of American Civil War, The (accessed October 2017)
Previously reviewed in The Charleston Advisor. Ellie Dworak, "The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries," The Charleston Advisor July, 2006, 8(1): 9, (accessed August 2015).

Endnotes:

Most of the information found on this tab was taken from the vendor's description of the product.

CRL Offers & Status

Status	Current	Description
CRL Flagged	no	Potential interest to CRL community
Offer Pending	no	Currently a candidate for CRL offer
Active Offer	no	Currently offered for purchase or new subscription
Trial Access	no	Available for trial
Renewal Offer	no	Currently offered for renewal
Expired Offer	yes	Past offers
Inactive / Declined	no	No longer under consideration by CRL
Reviewed by CRL	yes	Evaluation available by CRL and community
Special Access	no	Member-only access available for a limited time

The complete offer and activity details for this resource are only available to CRL members.

Appendix

Bibliography for The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries.

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