The National Inventory of Documentary Sources in the United States (NIDS-US)

Abstract

The National Inventory of Documentary Sources in the United States (NIDS-US), produced by Chadwyck-Healey, Inc., provides distribution on microfiche of manuscript collection and archival finding aids, known as registers and inventories. These publications are “tables of contents” to large collections of original documents, which were available from most repositories only on-site or on request. Chadwyck-Healey's on-going publication on microfiche of thousands of registers and inventories from some 300 repositories, with accompanying indexes, has been enhanced by the issuance of compiled indexes to NIDS-US and its companion NIDS-UK on a searchable CD-ROM. The company is now producing ArchivesUSA. which will combine on one CD-ROM the NIDS index, the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections, and information on the general holdings information about some 4,000 archives and manuscript repositories in the United States. The use of NIDS-US is discussed.