DDRS is an enormous database of full-text scanned images of previously classified federal government documents obtained by presidential libraries from various government agencies, including the White House, the CIA, the FBI, the State Department, and others. Nearly every major foreign and domestic event from the years immediately following World War II through the 1970s is covered: the Cold War, Vietnam, foreign policy shifts, the civil rights movement, and more.
Searching: The system defaults to a broad-based keyword query to all documents in the
database for any name, date, word, or phrase. There is also a highly targeted 'advanced search'
which can be focused according to document type, issue date, source institution, classification
level, date declassified, sanitization, completeness, number of pages, and document number.
Images: The documents themselves are a motley collection of memoranda, reports, cables, letters, and other types of documents. Actual facimilie images are also provided, for even though the documents are typed pages, some have been heavily "sanitized" with the censor's black marker, and a good portion have have stamps, scribbles, smudges and cannot be digitally captured accurately.
A bit of history: since 1982, as researchers visited these presidential libraries and
requested documents, the libraries had sent photocopies to Primary Source Media (Gale) which
indexed and published them on microfiche. In 1998, the systematic digitization and online
publication of DDRS was initiated, and every document in the collection has been digitally
scanned. Furthermore, this resulting database has been supplemented with selections based upon
current trends in research.
For on-line, full-text, versions of similiar materials by general topic or event (or access to microform) also see the
Digital National Security Files.
The microfiche versions of DDRS, which includes both
retrospective coverage and coverage to 2007 (including a CD-ROM index) are available, check record for location.
For further information of the classification of government documents, see Declassified Government Documents.
