EH.N: ANN: St.. Louis Fed Introduces Digitized Archives

[David.C.Wheelock at stls.frb.org]

St. Louis Fed Introduces Digitized Archives

The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis recently introduced the Center for Economic Documents Digitization (CEDD), with a mission to preserve the nation's economic history through digitization. To date, CEDD has digitized more than 300,000 pages of published material and archival collections from the Federal Reserve System and selected partners -- currently, the Brookings Institution, the Government Printing Office and the Missouri Historical Society.

This storehouse of documents includes U.S. government publications, Federal Reserve publications, photographs, manuscripts, and multimedia formats, all available on the St. Louis Fed's FRASER (Federal Reserve Archival System for Economic Research) website: http://fraser.stlouisfed.org.
        
A few highlights from CEED are:

One-of-a-kind collection of papers from William McChesney Martin, the longest-serving chairman of the Federal Reserve (1951-70), including rare newsreel footage from 1935 of Martin on his first day as president of the New York Stock Exchange and an audio recording of phone conversations in the mid-60s between Martin and President Lyndon Johnson;

Survey of Current Business, back to 1921; and  Economic Report of the 
President, back to the first report in 1947. CEDD offers researchers several distinct advantages over other library collections of economic materials.
Everything we've digitized is either in the public domain or offered with 
permission from the original source to publish or post it.  In addition, while libraries or other archives have materials that researchers need, their traditionally physical form limits their availability and access, especially if the material is too valuable or delicate.

Organizations or individuals interested in digitizing relevant economic documents or data, or discussing a prospective partnership with
CEDD, can contact Katrina Stierholz, manager of the St. Louis Fed's
research library, at (314) 444- 8552 or e-mail: Katrina.L.Stierholz at stls.frb.org.