The National Archives safeguards billions of documents and materials created in the course of business conducted by the U.S. government. In addition to these Federal records, the National Archives holds collections of donated historical materials, many of which pertain to and illustrate historical activities of the United States, or document a significant program or activity of the U.S. government.
To help you navigate the universe of records held at the National Archives, we are excited to introduce the third in a series of online finding aid tools: the Donated Collection Explorer!
This next-generation finding aid includes 826 Collections and provides access to over 829,000 digital pages available in the National Archives Catalog. Within the Donated Collection Explorer, you will find donated materials that document significant programs or activities of the U.S. government, materials with historical or intrinsic value, donations from notable military figures, records from polar exploration, wars, and more.
As with our other next-generation finding aids, this data visualization allows you to browse NARA’s holdings by donated collection. Click on any collection name to see an overview of the scans available online, and find links to records in the Catalog, organized by format.
Each Donated Collection page has a progress bar that provides an estimate of the percentage of textual pages that are currently available online.
Give our Donated Collection Explorer a try! We’d love to hear your input on how this might be beneficial to you in your research, and your ideas about how we could further refine our data visualizations for future projects. Also, the data powering our Explorers will be updated regularly, so check back to see what we have added and what changes have been made.
Make History Hub your first stop! You can ask—or answer—questions on History Hub, or see if your question has already been answered.
The Catalog Newsletter
Learn about newly added records and receive tips on using the Catalog's features, functionality, and guides. The National Archives Catalog is the online public portal to our records where you can learn more about our holdings. This email newsletter is delivered on a biweekly basis. Subscribe to the National Archives Catalog Newsletter
