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The Gilder Lehrman institute for American history (GLI)
The Gilder Lehrman institute for American history (GLI) based in New York was
founded in 1994 by Richard Gilder and Lewis Lehrman. They aimed at promoting the “study and
love of American History” GLI’s website serves as a teaching resource, an electronic display, a
library and a central warehouse for American history resources
. The institute’s website is an
independent cultural organization that focuses on collecting documents covering US’s history
during the Colonial period, the civil war, the revolutionary, slavery, antebellum and women’s
history during the period up to the present day. It plays a core role of collecting, sharing and
interpreting key artifacts from American history with teachers, students and parents across the
US. It does so by offering an efficient and effective a searchable database of up to sixty thousand
documents. The website is divided into seven main sections: History by era, which allows
exploration of the institute’s historical content, programs and exhibitions, primary sources of
collections that allow browsing, History now, the community that allows parents and students to
connect with others and a section that allows users to learn about the institute, its vision and
mission.
The GLI should aim at improving its website by making it clean and well designed for
easy navigation. For online curriculum, it should focus on literacy by offering a chronological
Randall Stephens, “Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History's New Website,” The
Historical Society (blog), April 11, 2012, http://histsociety.blogspot.co.ke/2012/04/gilder-
lehrman-institute-of-american.html