The huge resources of the American Memory Collection by the Library of Congress will be the home base for our "Virtual Americana," and we suggest that you tour the site briefly to get oriented and pay special attention to the "technical information," some of which will be needed later.

• go to American Memory and bookmark the page now for your future reference: http://memory.loc.gov/

• note the "search example of the day"

• click on Collection Finder, where you will find a list of collections by topic, time, place, and format: browse around -- for instance, choose a topic and see where you go

• near the top of the Collection Finder page, you'll find (in small print) "browse a list of Subject Headings": browse around there

• a short way down on the Collection Finder page, in the middle of the page, click on "List All Collections": under the search box on that page, you will see a line allowing you to view the list by either title or keyword and to view the descriptions if you want  -- browse around some more

• back on the main American Memory page where you first clicked on Collection Finder, you will also find a link to the Learning Page: teachers should be sure to browse this section

• go to Technical Information and bookmark the page now for future reference: http://memory.loc.gov/learn/start/howtos.html

• browse all areas of Technical Information but especially "Linking and Bookmarking," which will be needed for virtually every assignment

• in fact, practice linking and bookmarking a few times to get the knack

• go to the American Memory Help Desk and bookmark the page now for future reference: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/helpdesk/