Documents ought to be databased; and this section will be developed utilizing Omeka, a database program under development at George Mason University's Center for History and New Media. This section will offer analysis of a few selected documents demonstrating nineteenth century conduct of business including a sample contract, letter, and ledger page.
One of the most effective and user-friendly examples of primary source documents on-line is the presentation of the Adams Family Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society. An explanation of the relevance of the document is aligned with a thumbnail while pop-up windows display the original document and a text version. Certainly disagreements abound among web designers about use of the pop-up—at least, in 1999, Jakob Neilson counted their use as one of the top ten web design mistakes. The design question to explore, in conjunction with content is the alternative, using CSS standards.