12/1/2001
By Susan Wenner
Photos and records from regional and state archives are making their way to the Web.
More states, regions and cities are taking their archived records out of moldy basements and stuffy stacks and digitizing them for all the world to see and use.
Pennsylvania, for example, recently launched the Archives Records Information Access System (ARIAS) at <www.phmc.state.pa.us>. This site offers 200,000 images relating to Pennsylvanians who participated in the Revolutionary War, Spanish-American War and World War I. Now 300,000 Civil War and Mexican Border Campaign service-card images are being loaded into the system. Eventually, state officials say, the site will feature millions of digitized records, including 19th-century county birth, death and marriage dockets, and photograph collections.
The Arkansas History Commission has posted the first batch of 13,000 historical images at <www.ark-ives.com/photo/>.