Tools

Sign up for an OpenID to use when you login to AASHO. With OpenID, you create a single username and password that you can use to log into an increasing number of sites without registering each time. You can use Aquifer American Social History Online without registering, but logging in with your OpenID allows you to save your search histories, set your profile preferences, access a record in its native format, and access metadata transformation tools.
Download and install the Zotero extention. Zotero is a free, easy-to-use research tool that helps you gather and organize resources (bibliography or full text of articles), and then lets you annotate, organize and share the results of your research. Please note that Zotero works only in Firefox.
Enhanced metadata may now be harvested from the portal using the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesteting (OAI-PMH). The baseURL for this service is http://www.dlfaquifer.org/oai. In addition to oai_dc, the supported metadata formats are mods which is the enhanced metadata in the MODS format, and mods_orig which is the unenhanced metadata as originally harvested. The enhanced metadata includes a relatedItem type host which has an xlink OAI GetRecord URL to retrieve the associated collection record in the DLF collections registry. The enhanced metadata also includes an 'asset action package' extension element that points to the associated asset action package. (This is an experimental feature and is not entirely reliable.) In addition, there are added dlf_geo_gazer, dlf_temper, and dlf_user_tagging subject elements, for our value-added geographic, temporal, and social tagging.