Tuesday's Tip/ Searching The Chronicling America Site

     

Great Hall of the Library of Congress

     In my search for ancestors I sometimes find a Google search will bring me to the Library of Congress newspaper site "Chronicling America".  It's a handy resource to have, but the search terms are not highlighted on the page when you come in via a Google search, and directions for searching individual pages is quite complicated, at least for me, to wit:


Searching newspaper pages is also possible via OpenSearch. This is advertised in a LINK header element of the site's HTML template as "NDNP Page Search", using this OpenSearch Description document.
Page search parameters:

• andtext: the search query
• format: 'html' (default), or 'json', or 'atom' (optional)
• page: for paging results (optional)

Examples:

• /search/pages/results/?andtext=thomas
  search for "thomas", HTML response
• /search/pages/results/?andtext=thomas&format=atom
  search for "thomas", Atom response
• /search/pages/results/?andtext=thomas&format=atom&page=11
  search for "thomas", Atom response, starting at page 11 

     Yikes!  I don't think so.  I have discovered however, rather than reading the entire page one can convert the said page to an easily searchable PDF by clicking the PDF button atop the newspaper page image.  You can also do an advanced search once you get to the site, but it's more involved than converting, and sometimes I'm in a hurry--so many ancestors, so little time!