December 24, 2009
John Rylands University Library Image Collections - University of Manchester. "Images of the highlights and treasures from these collections can now be viewed on-line in astonishing detail. Spanning five millennia, the manuscript collections include literary, historical, antiquarian, genealogical, biblical, devotional, ritualistic, medical, scientific, legal and administrative texts in numerous languages. The archives of the Methodist Church and the University of Manchester are well represented, in addition to examples of personal papers and family muniments. The printed book collections encompass almost all the landmarks of printing through five centuries, including magnificent illustrated books, examples of fine printing, landmark works in typography, key historical texts and exquisite bookbindings."
December 8, 2009
Dark Side of a Natural Gas Boom - by Jad Mouawad and Clifford Krauss, New York Times, 7 December 2009. "According to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, which is going through a public review of its new rules on hydraulic fracturing, gas companies use at least 260 types of chemicals, many of them toxic, like benzene. These chemicals tend to remain in the ground once the fracturing has been completed, raising fears about long-term contamination." See also Attorney General Cuomo Announces Agreement With Fortuna Energy Allowing N.Y. Landowners to Negotiate New Natural Gas Leases, Media Center, Office of the Attorney General of the State of New York, 24 November 2009. "Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo today announced that his office has reached an agreement with Fortuna Energy, Inc. (Fortuna) that will allow customers who were misled and ended up extending their natural gas leases with the company to renegotiate their terms. The settlement also stops Fortuna from employing industry-prevalent misleading and deceptive tactics to secure leases from New York landowners."
November 25, 2009
Clicker: What's On Online - "Complete programming guide to Internet television, web originals, music and movies." See A Clicker to Watch TV Online: Finding Your Favorite TV Shows Online by Katherine Boehret, Wall Street Journal, November 24, 2009. "This week, I've been testing Clicker, a free Web site that aims to be the TV Guide for all full episodes available to watch on the Web. It searches over 1,200 sources, so it can index some 400,000 episodes from 7,000 shows. Results include television programs as well as "Web originals," or shows that are native to the Internet and are of broadcast quality. Clicker either plays the video on its site or links you to where this content is shown on another hosting site like NBC or Hulu. If a show isn't available online, Clicker tells you so you don't have to keep hunting all over for it."November 13, 2009
November 3, 2009
Hathi Trust Digital Library - "As of June 12, HathiTrust contained more than 3 million volumes, approximately 15 percent of which are in the public domain." See HathiTrust Launching Full-Text Library of Books by Barbara Quint, Infotoday, October 22, 2009. "Collaboration of 25 research libraries already participating in Google Book Search to produce a shared digital repository for preservation and access to a curated collection. By mid-November, the HathiTrust Digital Library will have a full-featured, full-text search service for 4.3-5 million items. The searches will retrieve bibliographic citations and page references, including those for in-copyright books. Content will extend beyond the digitized copies of books returned to early library partners by Google. HathiTrust is pushing to acquire other digitized special collections from its members, as well as making arrangements for opening access to university press books."
Here are a few selections:In March, 1836, it became important for me to make a journey from Albany to Rome, in the State of New York, with an invalid wife, who was too feeble to bear stage travelling. At that time, the railway was opened from Albany to Schenectady (16 miles), and so far I had its benefit. It required four days to reach Utica (96 miles), at an expense of over $50 for four persons. (p. 16).
On the Hudson River Railway between New York and Poughkeepsie, the width established in the construction for the river side of the track was ten feet outside the outer rail. The object was to prevent a car, on leaving the track, from falling into the river. (p. 89)
October 31, 2009
2009 Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award went to Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World by Liaquat Ahamed, Penguin Press, 2009. ($21.75 for the hardcover at Amazon. The paperback, to be released on December 29th, is $12.15). "The 'beautifully written' history of how central bankers' mistakes led to the Great Depression bowled over the judges and swept away a strong field of finalists to take the £30,000 prize. The prize was awarded on October 29 at a special dinner at London's Victoria & Albert Museum."October 28, 2009
October 10, 2009
September 20, 2009
- Kunsten in beweging 1900-1980 - Rosemarie Buikema en Maaike Meijer, Den Haag, Sdu Uitgevers, 2003.
- Kunsten in beweging 1980-2000 - Rosemarie Buikema en Maaike Meijer, Den Haag, Sdu Uitgevers, 2004.
- De kunst van het overleven. Levensverhalen uit de twintigste eeuw - Wim Willems, Den Haag, Sdu Uitgevers, 2004.
- Nabije vreemden. Een eeuw wonen en samenwonen - Jaap Vogel, Den Haag, Sdu Uitgevers, 2005.
- Veranderingen van het alledaagse 1950-2000 - Isabel Hoving, Hester Dibbits en Marlou Schrover, Den Haag, Sdu Uitgevers, 2005.
- De Stijl 1917-1931: The Dutch Contribution to Modern Art - H.L.C. Jaffé, Amsterdam, J.M. Meulenhoff, 1956. With Plates
- The Golden Compasses: The History of the House of Plantin-Moretus - A History and Evaluation of the Printing and Publishing Activities of the Officina Plantiniana at Antwerp in two volumes by Leon Voet, 1969.
- Het Achterhuis by Anne Frank, Uitgeverij Contact, Amsterdam 1947.
- Holland's Influence on English Language and Literature - Tiemen de Vries, Chicago, 1916. See, in particular, his Introduction and Chapter XI The Influence which Holland Has Exerted on the English Language [p. 97] which contains a list of 448 words compiled by W. de Hoog "introduced into the English language by the Dutch."
- Influence of Low Dutch on the English Vocabulary - E.C. Llewellyn, Oxford University Press, Londen 1936. "The words treated in this book have been collected from the pages of the Oxford English Dictionary and the Supplement to that work."[p. iii]. See Chapter XV: English and Dutch Intercourse in North America. These words come from the Dutch: boom, bowery, sleigh, bindery, cruller, waffle, slaw, mush, pea jacket, cranberry, scrod, yankee, spook, bamboo, soya, cockatoo, monsoon, crawl, bully, bundle, clump, crimp, dapper, decoy, frolic, glib, grim, guess, hustle, luck, measles, morass, outlander, pickle, rack, rant, scone, scrub, skate, slap, sledge, slim, slip, slurp, spare-rib, splinter, sump, wriggle, yammer.
- Journal tenu par Isaac Beeckman de 1604 à 1634. Tome 1: 1604-1619 - Edited by Cornelis de Waard. Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1939. See also Tome 2: 1619-1627, Tome 3: 1627-1634 (1635) and Tome 4: Supplément.
- Literature of the Low Countries: A Short History of Dutch Literature in the Netherlands and Belgium - Reinder P. Meijer, The Hague / Boston, Martinus Nijhoff, 1978. There is a Select bibliography of works on Dutch literature in English, French and German. Meijer was a professor of Dutch Language and Literature at the University of London.
- The Modern Devotion: Confrontation with Reformation and Humanism - R.R. Post, Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1968.
- Moderne kunst in Nederland: 1900-1914 - A.B. Loosjes-Terpstra, Utrecht, Veen / Reflex, 1987. With Black & White Plates.
- Poets, Patrons, and Professors: Sir Philip Sidney, Daniel Rogers, and the Leiden Humanists - J.A. van Dorsten, Oxford University Press, 1962.
- Ritual songs and folksongs of the Hindus of Surinam - Usharbudh Arya, Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1968.
- Texts Concerning the Revolt of the Netherlands - E.H. Kossmann en A.F. Melli, Cambridge University Press, 1974.
- Kunsten in beweging 1980-2000 - Rosemarie Buikema en Maaike Meijer, Den Haag, Sdu Uitgevers, 2004.
Symbol Signs - "The complete set of 50 passenger/pedestrian symbols developed by AIGA is now available on the web, free of charge" from AIGA the professional association for design.
This is Your Lifelog - By Stephen Baker and Arik Hesseldahl, Business Week, September 14, 2009. "For the past 10 years, Bell, a senior researcher at Microsoft, has been leading the life of a digital pack rat. He has been recording the twists and turns of his existence and storing all this information in vast digital files. Bell takes pictures and records his phone conversations. He maps the path of his footsteps and scans every shred of paper worth saving. All this effort is to build an electronic memory, a digital adjunct to the faulty and often delusional one between our ears. In an engaging new book, Total Recall, which Bell wrote with colleague Jim Gemmell, he argues that growing numbers of us - strange though it may sound - will soon be following his lead."
Google's big book case - The Economist, 3 September 2009. "Under the agreement's terms, Google will be free to digitise most books published in America, including those that are out of print. It will then make chunks of text available through its search engine, sell individual e-books, and offer libraries and other institutions subscriptions to its entire database. Google will keep 37% of the resulting revenue and give the rest to a new book-rights registry which will pay copyright holders
April 11, 2009
March 30, 2009
March 8, 2009
March 7, 2009
February 22, 2009
The Diary of Tortov Roddle (Anime) - By Kunio Kato, YouTube [9:59]. His La Maison en Petits Cubes (Robot Communication) won an Academy Award for best animated short film.January 25, 2009
Peoples ArchiveDecember 27, 2008
Gallica 2December 26, 2008
Zensuke - Carries a wide and interesting selection of authentic Japanese products including ceramics, cast iron teapots, trivets, wind chimes and origami paper. Some favorites:December 22, 2008
Hulu - Archived (on-demand) television shows. Selected by the Associated Press as Best of the Web in 2008. See On the Net: Hulu is Web site of the year by Jake Coyle, Associated Press, December 19, 2008. "Hulu hosts more than 1,000 shows, from "Family Guy" to "Saturday Night Live." There are more than 130 content providers, not only NBC and Fox, but Sony Pictures Television, MGM Studios, Lionsgate, Paramount Pictures and PBS. The site's database of full-length films also has grown."December 18, 2008
Au Nain Bleu - Paris toyshop. "Creatuer de jouets depuis 1836." Be sure to download the catalog (telecharger le catalogue en PDF). Look in particular for Swann, the rocking swan (le cygne a bascule) - "a replica of an original model made more than thirty years ago in our workshops, this majestic bird is one of Au Nain Bleu's most classic toys" and the Paris Hausmann dolls' house - a "magnificent three-story wooden dolls' house complete with electricity and decked out in a traditional Parisian style. There are nine rooms for her to arrange, all sumptuously decorated with wallpaper and featuring lights that really work!"December 10, 2008
December 9, 2008
September 27, 2008
Newspapers digitized so far include:
See Digital Librarian: News & Journalism: Historical News Archives for additional resources.
August 20, 2008
April 15, 2008
March 30, 2008
European Library Exhibition - View 300 pictures of the National libraries of Europe. See France, Austria, Greece.March 15, 2008
National Inventory of Architectural Heritage (NIAH) - "Purpose of the NIAH is to identify, record, and evaluate the post-1700 architectural heritage of Ireland, uniformly and consistently as an aid in the protection and conservation of the built heritage." Some examples: Russborough House - County Wicklow. Described as "possibly the greatest Palladian mansion in Ireland and one of the best preserved 18th-century buildings in the whole country"; Rocklands House or Rockland House - Wexford, County Wexford, 1790 - 1795; Ballydownan Cottage - Geashill, County Offaly; Toberdaly House - County Offaly; Lissadell House, County Sligo; Wonderful Barn - County Kildare; and The Burnaby, Greystones - County Wicklow.March 10, 2008
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers - National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP), Library of Congress. You can "search and read newspaper pages from 1897-1910 and find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present." Currently viewable in full-text are newspapers from California, District of Columbia, Florida, Kentucky, New York, Utah, and Virginia. Among New York Newspapers are New-York tribune, The Evening World, and The Sun. See also the Library of Congress press release - Bringing Historic Newspapers to Your Desktop: The National Digital Newspaper Program and Chronicling America and Building the National Digital Newspaper Program, a November 6, 2007 webcast [73 minutes].March 8, 2008
March 7, 2008
March 6, 2008
March 5, 2008
Survey puts Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks and Harriet Tubman high on list of American heroes - Stanford Report, February 20, 2008/ (1:49 minute video).March 4, 2008
Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us - Video by Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Kansas State University. (4:31 minutes on Youtube)March 1, 2008
TED Prize - Awarded to Karen Armstrong, Dave Eggers and Neil Turok.February 17, 2008
Wikia Search - Open source search engine launched January 7, 2008. Read about it here. Miguel Helft writes about it in Wiki Citizens Taking on a New Area: Searching, New York Times, January 7, 2008.December 30, 2007
Read All About It: How Newspapers Got Into Such a Fix and Where They Go From Here - By Paul E. Steiger, Wall Street Journal, December 29-30, 2007. (Steiger is leaving the Wall Street Journal to join ProPublica. "When fully staffed, we [ProPublica] will be a team of 24 journalists dedicated to reporting on abuses of power by anyone with power: government, business, unions, universities, school systems, doctors, hospitals, lawyers, courts, nonprofits, media. We'll publish through our Web site and also possibly through newspapers, magazines or TV programs, offering our material free if they provide wide distribution. Pro Publica is the brainchild of San Francisco entrepreneurs-turned-philanthropists Herbert and Marion Sandler, who along with some other donors are providing $10 million a year in funding. The idea is that we, along with others of similar bent, can in some modest way make up for some of the loss in investigative-reporting resources that results from the collapse of metro newspapers' business model.)December 13, 2007
NPR Music - NPR's beta music site is a rich source for all sorts of reviews, interviews, and performances. See Online: Music: National Public Radio tries a new tune on the Net by Jamin Brophy-Warren, Wall Street Journal, November 17, 2007. Some highlights? Best CDs of 2007. Be sure to listen to the top choices by Steve Seel of Minnesota Public Radio's The Current: 'Scythian Empires' from Armchair Apocrypha by Andrew Bird, 'Gone Gone Gone' from from Raising Sand by Robert Plant & Alison Krauss and 'Start a War' from Boxer. The Artist Index has information on and music by over 2,000 performers. A search for McGarrigle, for example, locates a July 19, 2004 Friends of Emmylou Harris concert, part of the Creators at Carnegie series. Kate and Anna McGarrigle, are accompanied by Emmlou Harris and Rufus Wainwright in some of the songs. The McGarrigles perform "Quand vous mourrez de nos amours"; "Heart Like a Wheel"; "Red Rocking Chair" and "Green Rocky Road" (the last piece starts at 54:00). Contributors: KUT (Austin, Texas); WGBH (Boston); WGUC (Cincinnati); WKSU/Folk Alley (Kent, Ohio); WBGO (Newark, N.J.); WFUV (NYC); WNYC (NYC); WXPN (Philadelphia); WDUQ (Pittsburgh); KPLU (Seattle); KEXP (Seattle); and American Public Media/Minnesota Public Radio.November 27, 2007
Open University - Open Learn - British online courses, many of which are free. Among the most popular units are: Animals at the Extremes: the Desert Environment, Obesity: Balanced Diets and Treatment, Potable Water Treatment, and Children and Violence: an Introductory, International and Interdisciplinary Approach. You can search for freely available course materials or browse by subject. See, for example, Arts & History which has units on Napoleonic Paintings, Delacroix, Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus, Babylonian Mathematics, and Brighton Pavilion. The Brighton unit comes with ample supplementary material in a variety of formats including text, images and videos:November 20, 2007
by Nina Totenberg, NPR, March 12, 2009. [This item added 13 March 2008]
Biomet, DePuy Orthopaedics Inc., Smith & Nephew and Zimmer have deferred prosecution agreements (dpa) with the U.S. Attorney's Office in New Jersey and have listed recipients of payments as required by the settlement to post them prominently on the company's websites. Stryker was not prosecuted because it cooperated with federal investigators, but it was required to post names and amounts on its website. (Stryker posted information in a format that makes it difficult to view or reproduce). See DOJ press release - Five Companies in Hip and Knee Replacement Industry Avoid Prosecution by Agreeing to Compliance Rules and Monitoring. Below are links to the lists (not always "prominently" posted):
November 10, 2007
October 31, 2007
Future Reading: Digitization and its Discontents - By Anthony Grafton, New Yorker, November 5, 2007. Grafton is the Henry Putnam University Professor of History at Princeton University and winner of the 2002 Balzan Prize for History of the Humanities. "The real challenge now is how to chart the tectonic plates of information that are crashing into one another and then to learn to navigate the new landscapes they are creating." In Web Sightings: Adventures in Wonderland "Grafton points to some favorite archives and historical resources."October 17, 2007
October 14, 2007
September 23, 2007
Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana / Vatican Library - Roma. Provides access to online catalog. You can search for and view images (Vedere il documento) in the Multimedia section. For example try a search (general infos) for Roma (over 1400 results) or medaglia (over 150 results). There is a portrait of Aldus Manutius Paulus Filius.September 21, 2007
Times to Stop Charging for Parts of Its Web Site - By Richard Perez-Pena, New York Times, September 18, 2007 - "In addition to opening the entire site to all readers, The Times will also make available its archives from 1987 to the present without charge, as well as those from 1851 to 1922, which are in the public domain. There will be charges for some material from the period 1923 to 1986, and some will be free."August 2007
Bildarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz - "Photo agency of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in Berlin with approximately 12 million images covering the themes Fine Arts, Culture and History." Try a Quicksearch (in the lower left corner) for Personen, Porträts, Interieur, Keramik or Miniatur or search by name (Kollwitz, Klimt, McBride etc.). There is an English interface.May 31, 2007
Encyclopedia of Life Project - "Unprecedented global effort to document all 1.8 million named species of animals, plants, and other forms of life on Earth." See Press Release, May 9, 2007. Partners include the Field Museum of Natural History, Harvard University, Marine Biological Laboratory, Smithsonian Institution, and Biodiversity Heritage Library, and the Missouri Botanical Garden. The project is funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. You can hear E.O. Wilson talk about the Encyclopedia of Life project at the March 2007 TED Conference (22:35 minutes).April 29, 2007
including
Bill McKibben on Deep Sustainability: Building Communities that Actually Work (53 minutes) on April 17, 2006.
There are also interviews by journalist Andrew Blum of participants in the Emerging Voices lecture series. Among the architects interviewed:
April 29, 2007
Critical Metrics - Created by Joey Anuff and Will Kreth, this music discovery site "keeps track of recommendations and playlists across all media so you can easily find, try, and buy the best new music." Reviews are gathered from such sources as the Village Voice, Washington Post, Rolling Stone, Salon, NPR, Spin and Pitchfork. You can play the song right from the main page by clicking on the speaker icon. "We're currently indexing ~22K reviews written by ~1200 reviewers, who over the last 18 months have collectively recommended 15K+ songs via 300+ review/recs sections of around 80 publications and misc media outlets." (from Cool new online playlist generator (BoingBoing, April 20, 2007). Other music review aggregators include the Hype Machine, fiql, MetaCritic and elbo.ws Music Blog Aggregator.April 25, 2007
April 16, 2007
Library of Congress New Search (Beta)"For the first time you can search the largest sections of the Library's site from one search box." Results from American Memory, Library of Congress Online Catalog, the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog, Legislation, Congressional Activity (THOMAS) and the Library of Congress Web site.
March 25, 2007
March 23, 2007
Proceedings of the Old Bailey, London 1674 to 1834 - "Fully searchable online edition of the largest body of texts detailing the lives of non-elite people ever published, containing accounts of over 100,000 criminal trials held at London's central criminal court." Also known as the Old Bailey Sessions Papers. See Digitizing the Hanging Court by Guy Gugliotta, Smithsonian, April, 2007, pp. 66-75.
March 16, 2007
March 10, 2007
You can now browse by subject, author, and title in Making of America (Michigan), a library of over 10,000 digitized texts.March 4, 2007
Arcade Fire - Hear their complete concert at Judson Memorial Church in New York City on February 17, 2007 in NPR's Arcade Fire in Concert. You can hear a lot of this music on Merge Records (click on Listen/Watch and select Arcade Fire from the dropdown menu). See also:February 20, 2007
Introducing the book - YouTube clip from Øystein & Meg (Øystein & I) produced by the Norwegian Broadcasting television channel NRK in 2001. (In Norwegian with English subtitles.)February 5, 2007
Google's Moon Shot: The Quest for the Universal Library by Jeffrey Toobin, New Yorker Magazine, February 5, 2007.January 26, 2007
Existing drug will cure hospital superbug MRSA, say scientists - By Sarah Hall, The Guardian, January 17, 2007. For additional information on methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) see the following:January 22, 2007
Wall Street Journal Markets Data Center - "Vastly expanded". See press release and tour.January 17, 2007
Bulletin of Atomic Scientists - January 17, 2007 press release: "Doomsday Clock" Moves Two Minutes Closer To Midnight. Listen to the Press Conference. Stephen Hawking: "As scientists, we understand the dangers of nuclear weapons and their devastating effects, and we are learning how human activities and technologies are affecting climate systems in ways that may forever change life on Earth. As citizens of the world, we have a duty to alert the public to the unnecessary risks that we live with every day, and to the perils we foresee if governments and societies do not take action now to render nuclear weapons obsolete and to prevent further climate change." The Bulletin Online Special Issue, Volume 63, Number 1, January-February 2007 has articles by Robert H. Socolow, Freeman Dyson, Jonathan Schell, Najum Mushtaq, John P. Holdren and others. In What Can We Do? four experts suggest solutions for dealing with climate change: increase renewable energy production, stop wasting energy, employ market incentives, and find a political will. See also It's five minutes to Armageddon, and Hawking tells the world to wake up by Mark Henderson, [London] Times Online, January 17, 2007.January 5, 2006
Hear Terry Gross interview Sacha Baron Cohen on Fresh Air (WHYY, NPR, January 4, 2007).December 28, 2006
From the Fishouse: An Audio Archive of Emerging Poets - Audio literary journal, founded by Maine poet Matt O'Donnell, showcases emerging poets "reading their own poems, as well as answering questions about poetry and the writing process." There is a list of poets and poems. Bowdoin College and From the Fishouse jointly host a series of poetry readings. The session on May 4th, 2006 featured poet Christian Barter, a graduate of Bates College, and a trail crew supervisor at Acadia National Park in Bar Harbor. Listen to his The Singers I Prefer. Another reader in the series (November 19, 2005) was Brian Turner, a former Army sergeant from Fresno, California and the author of a book of poems about the year he spent in Iraq - Here, Bullet. Listen to his Gilgamesh, In Fossil Relief. Turner was interviewed by Steve Inskeep on Morning Edition (National Public Radio), January 6, 2006 (Iraq Soldier Describes War in Poetry.)An interesting side note. O'Donnell also happens to be an editor of the Bowdoin Magazine. In a small story in that magazine (At the Fish House, Fall 2003, p. 15) he gives a bit of history on the origin of the name. "In early summer, we received an interesting call from College arborist Tim Vail. While working on Orr's Island, he [Vail] stumbled across the writing cabin of Lawrence Sargent Hall '36, the well-known Bowdoin professor who died in 1993. The amazing aspect of Vail's discovery is that the writing cabin sits unchanged from Hall's inhabitance a decade ago...According to Lawrence Hall, Jr., all or at least parts of any of his father's significant works, including the O'Henry Award-winning short story, "The Ledge," were written in "the fish house," as Hall called it (the shed was originally used by local fisherman to dry cod fish)." With Hall's permission, O'Donnell had the writing cabin moved to his property. (See About the Fishouse and the Brunswick Times Record May 25, 2006 story by Elizabeth Brogan - From the Fishouse.)
December 18, 2006
Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum Salzburg (International Mozart Foundation in Salzburg) - Complete works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart are now available for free on NMA Online. See Mozart's entire musical works now free on Net, CNET News, December 12, 2006.Cornell Lab of Ornithology - Macaulay Library - Sound & Video Catalog - Offers over 80,000 sound and video recordings of animals (65,000 sound clips and some 18,000 video clips). See Calls of the wild: More than 80,000 sound and video recordings of animals now available to public online, By Miyoko Chu, Cornell Chronicle, December 14, 2006. Search for the red-winged blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus).
International Tracing Service Bad Arolsen - "The International Tracing Service came into being in its present form through the Bonn Agreements of 6 June 1955. It has the mammoth task of gathering, filing, preserving and processing the personal records of civilians who were persecuted under the Third Reich. Archive now contains over 50 million reference files relating to 17.5 million people." See Revisiting the Horrors of the Holocaust: Millions Of Nazi Documents Are Being Made Available to the Public , 60 Minutes, CBS, December 17, 2006.
Terry Gross interviews Comedic Actor and Writer Ricky Gervais, Fresh Air, WHYY, December 18, 2006. "Gervais is the creator and star of the British TV comedy series The Office, which has been adapted into a hit show [NBC's The Office] starring Steve Carrell. He's [Gervais] won an Emmy, a Golden Globe and three BAFTA Awards. Gervais also writes the Flanimals series of children's books." The interview is 34 minutes long, The Office is discussed about 15 minutes into the interview. (You can watch the NBC episodes online.)
December 16, 2006
Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse -This resource from Washington University School of Law "collects documents and information from civil rights cases in specific case categories across the United States." There are over 1,000 cases in the following categories: Child Welfare, Election/Voting Rights, Immigration, Jail Conditions, Juvenile Institution, Mental Health Facility, Mental Retardation Facility, Nursing Home Conditions, Police Non-Profiling, Police Profiling, Prison Conditions, Public Housing, and School Desegregation. For additional description see Preserving history, St. Louis Today, 12/05/2006 and Using Court Records for Research, Teaching, and Policymaking: The Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse by Margo Schlanger & Denise Lieberman, 75 U.M.K.C. L. Rev. 153 (2006).December 12, 2006
Ms Dewey - Actress Janina Gavankar is the main attraction of this interactive search engine using Microsoft's LiveSearch.December 1, 2006
BibliOdyssey - Stunning images, intelligent commentary and links to sources, gathered by Peacay (aka PK and Paul K). Added 2 November 2007: The Bibliodyssey Book: An Interview With Paul K by Elatia Harris, 3 Quarks Daily, 29 October 2007. See his book - BibliOdyssey: Amazing Archival Images from the Internet (2007), FUEL Design with a Foreword by Dinos Chapman.November 29, 2006
Droog Design - The use of industrial and recycled materials is emphasized by this Dutch design collective established in 1993. "The Droog collection features over 180 designs by over a hundred designers, in the product categories of lighting, furniture, tabletop, kitchen, bathroom, accessory and various. Droog products are chosen or commissioned based on the curatorial criteria laid out by founders Renny Ramakers and Gjis Bakker. They need to combine functionality and conceptual clarity with a keen expression of awareness of cultural and technological references and contexts." Some examples of their products: Birdhouse by Marcel Wanders, 2005; 85 lamps chandelier by Rody Graumans, 1993; Treetrunk Bench by Jurgen Bey, 1999; and Heat wave electric radiator by Joris Laarman, 2003.November 28, 2006
English Short Title Catalogue - British Library. "Bibliographic records for all known British printed material before 1801, held by the British Library and over 2000 other institutions worldwide." See 30 October 2006 Press Release.November 7, 2006
Rainforest - Book of spectacular images by Thomas Marent, a Swiss photographer. (See his frogs, locusts, lantern bugs and carnivorous plants). Book is $26.40 with free shipping at Amazon.com.November 6, 2006
October 29, 2006
Try the beta version of AlltheWeb's Live Search - as you're typing, it's already searching and displaying results. Fast and efficient. Compare it to Google Suggest.
October 28, 2006
MyLifeBits Project - "Gordon Bell has captured a lifetime's worth of articles, books, cards, CDs, letters, memos, papers, photos, pictures, presentations, home movies, videotaped lectures, and voice recordings and stored them digitally. He is now paperless, and is beginning to capture phone calls, IM transcripts, television, and radio." [Update: See This is Your Lifelog by Stephen Baker and Arik Hesseldahl, Business Week, September 14, 2009 and Total Recall: How the E-Memory Revolution Will Change Everything by Gordon Bell and Jim Gemmell, Dutton, 2009.]
Bell is profiled in A Head for Detail in Fast Company's November 2006 issue. "For the past seven years, Bell has been conducting an audacious experiment in "lifelogging"- creating a near-total digital record of his experience. His custom-designed software, "MyLifeBits," saves everything it can get its hands on. For every piece of email he sends and receives, every document he types, every chat session he engages in, every Web page he surfs, a copy is scooped up and stashed away." (A Head for Detail, by Clive Thompson, Fast Company, November, 2006, pp. 73-83.)
Learn more about the project: Digital age may bring total recall in future, CNN, October 20, 2006; Gordon Bell and Jim Gemmell - A look into Microsoft's Bay Area Research Center, a 43 minute video by Charles Torre and Robert Scoble for Microsoft's Channel 9. Jim Gemmell is a developer at the Microsoft Research Center in San Francisco, who is working with Jim Gray and Gordon Bell on MyLifeBits. Other videos on the project include Jim Gemmell - Sensecam, and its role in MyLifeBits (5:48 minutes, 8/21/2005); Roger Lueder - Developing MyLifeBits (6:50 minutes, 8/21/05); and MyLifeBits: The Memex Vision and Some Implications of Storing Everything Personal, a 45 minute presentation by Gorden Bell, IT Conversations, November 11, 2004.
September 27, 2006
Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas - Full-text of the out-of-print book edited by Philip P. Wiener, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973-74. Topics include nature, humanity, art, history, politics, religion and philosophy, math and logic. Made available by the Electronic Text Center at the University of Virginia Library. A comparable resource is the Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophySeptember 15, 2006
Landmark Trust - Over 200 historic buildings in Britain are available for rental, usually by the week. "The Landmark Trust is Britain's best kept secret. Little known outside of England, it relies on word of mouth for publicity. Its Head of Letting estimates that a mere 10 per cent of Landmark bookings come from overseas and only half of those are from the United States and Canada combined. (Living Like a King by Mary R. Miley, British Heritage, February March 1999, Vol. 20 Issue 2, p50.)In Sleeping Where Keats Died (Wall Street Journal, April 8, 2006. pg. P.4) Barry Newman describes a house near the Spanish Steps in Rome where poet John Keats died of tuberculosis in 1821. Newman rented this Landmark Trust property on Piazza di Spagna for $570 a night. Other Italian properties include the Casa Guidi in Florence where Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning lived in 1847, Sant'Antonio in Tivoli, near Rome, and Villa Saraceno in Venice.
In Live-In History: Vacationing in a Landmark (Wall Street Journal, Aug 22, 2006. pg. D.6) Bill Coles describes his stay in Auchinleck House in Ayrshire, Scotland, the birthplace of James Boswell. He tells you about other interesting Landmark properties: Luttrell's Tower in Hampshire ("as follies go, is an absolute beauty"); Freston Tower in Suffolk; Fort Clonque, in the Channel Islands; Crownhill Fort in Devon; Gothic Temple in Buckinghamshire; and the Pineapple in Dunmore, Scotland. Emma Tennant describes many of the properties in Superbly stopping the rot, The Spectator, March 11, 2000. Jonathan Glancey describes the Grange, the former home of Augustus Welby Pugin, In bed with Pugin (the Guardian, June 5, 2006.
Other gems: Castle Bungalow (Peppercombe, near Bideford, North Devon) a 1920s bungalow with a spectacular view of the sea; Whiteford Temple (Cornwall) sleeps two, has an open fire place, a small garden and "a fine open view, looking towards the estuary of the Tamar in the distance;" Marshal Wade's House, Abbey Churchyard, Bath, which sleeps four, is the "nearest to Florence you get in England, with stunning views...;" Egyptian House (Cornwall); Elton House (Bath); East Banqueting House (Chipping Campden); Field House (Minchinhampton, Gloucester); the Old Parsonage (Iffley, Oxford); Prospect Tower (Belmont Park, Faversham, Kent); and Fish Court Apartment (Hampton Court, London). You can visit the buildings during Open Days. There is an Availability List and a Late Availability List but the best descriptions can be found in the Handbook which you can order for $25, refundable if you book, from The Landmark Trust USA, 707 Kipling Road, Dummerston, Vermont 05301 (802-254-6868). A Landmark Trust price list from 1991 in my possession states that "really well-behaved dogs are welcome at most places..." There are newsletters (pdf files): Spring 2006, Autumn 2005 and Spring 2005. Take a look, too, at the National Trust Cottages, "a unique collection of over 330 properties in outstanding locations in England, Wales and Northern Ireland" and the Irish Landmark Trust.
September 10, 2006
Digital Librarian: The AdirondacksAugust 8, 2006
Digital Librarian: PrefabsJuly 8, 2006
Music to Soothe the Savage Searcher: Classical Music Databases and Web Resources - By David Mattison, Searcher Magazine, Vol. 14 No. 7, July/August, 2006.June 28, 2006
Musée du quai Branly - This new Paris museum is the result of the combination of two museums - the Musee des Arts Africains et Oceaniens and the ethnographic department of the Musee de l'Homme. There are cultural objects from the Americas (97,372 items); Africa (70,205); Asia (54,041) and Oceania (28,911). Among the strengths of the collection are textiles (over 25,000 items); musical instruments (8,831); and Colonial French history (4,987). You can search the collection, although the search page is a bit difficult to use if you don't know French. Here's how to see some of the objects in the collection: click on Explorer les Collections, select le catalogue des objets from the sidebar menu, then select Voir le catalogue des objets . Under Sélectionner un critère de recherche, select Ethonyme(s) from the drop-down menu and in the Saisir la recherche box type in Sioux. This search retrieves 85 images including a beaded bag (Petit sac en peau. Décor perlé, N° inventaire : 71.1990.174.7), and several pairs of beaded mocassins. For more information about the museum, see How does your gallery grow?: Chirac's new museum of 'primitive art' may have caused controversy. But Jonathan Glancey finds himself seduced by a building with its own forest and 15,000 plants growing up the walls, by Jonathan Glancey, The Guardian. June 26, 2006.; Musée du Quai Branly to be inaugurated by Martin Arnold in Paris, MSNBC, June 19, 2006.June 12, 2006
Cortland Standard - The only daily newspaper in Cortland County, New York, officially launched on June 12, 2006. Selected stories are archived back to May 9th, 2006.May 25
Digital Librarian: Information on the Forest Tent Caterpillar (Malacosoma disstria Hubner) - The Forest Tent Caterpillar has defoliated many areas of upstate New York. See also Skaneateles Lake Photographs.April 9, 2006
Notable New Yorkers - "Audio recordings and transcripts of interviews with ten influential New Yorkers, drawn from the collections of the Oral History Research Office of the Columbia University Libraries. The ten New Yorkers are Bennett Cerf, Kenneth Clark, Mamie Clark, Moe Foner, Andrew Heiskell, Edward I. Koch, Mary Lasker, John B. Oakes, Frances Perkins and Frank Stanton.April 8, 2006
Michigan County Histories - "The Michigan County Histories collection is a collaborative effort of Michigan's Council of Library Directors. The collection is projected to provide access to 192 histories dating from 1866 to 1926. There are 202 volumes in 170 titles currently online." This is a rich resource for genealogy and history research.April 5, 2006
April 2, 2006
Washington Post Radio - Local, national and international news and commentary. See The Sound of A Newspaper: Post Radio Hits the Air by Paul Farhi, Washington Post, March 31, 2006.18 March 2006
Audio Berkman - "A Production of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, is an initiative to let you overhear what leading experts, industry executives, and Internet users have to say about some of the hottest subjects in cyberlaw, technology, and Internet politics." There's an Event Archive. Hear, for example, Brad Patrick's talk on Wikipedia, Wikimedia, and the Law given on January 31, 2006 and David Weinberger's discussion on Web of Ideas: The Authority of Wikipedia on March 15, 2006. University law schools and courts are increasingly providing online webcasts and podcasts. See Case School of Law Lectures, Duke Law School Webcasts, Emory Law School Webcasts, Georgetown University Law School Webcasts, Harvard University Law School Webcast Archive Moritz College of Law - Archived Webcasts, University of Houston Law Center Internet Broadcast Archive, University of Miami School of Law Webcast @ UM Law, and Vanderbilt University Law School Webcast Archives.17 March 2006
Pandora - Customized, personalized radio. Specify a favorite song or artist and their Music Genome Project captures the "unique and magical musical identity." I put in Kate & Anna McGarrigle and the first results were St. Charlene by Hem & Autumn Defense, Galileo by the Indigo Girls and Hands by Jewel. A similar service is Last.fm. Steve Krause compares the two in Pandora and Last.fm: Nature vs. Nurture in Music Recommenders.14 March 2006
WPSI Art Radio - "Internet station of P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, a MoMA affiliate, featuring an MP3 stream of music, talk, and historical recordings and a free on-demand archive of over 500 programs."11 March 2006
Zillow - "Free, instant valuations and data for 60,000,000+ homes." Satellite maps, street maps, property line maps, sale prices of homes, square footage, number of bathrooms.....10 March 2006
At These Parisian Landmarks, Shhh Is the Word - Richard B. Woodward, New York Times, March 5, 2006. Among the libraries discussed are the Bibliothèque Mazarine, Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, La bibliothèque de l'Arsenal and the Bibliothèque nationale de France. (Free registration)Casas Grandes and the Ceramic Art of the Ancient Southwest - Published by the Art Institute of Chicago in association with Yale University Press for the exhibition at the Art Institue of Chicago from April 22 to August 13, 2006. This is a beautiful book with 141 color photographs of pre-Columbian pottery, primarily from private collections. It's $28.35 at Amazon.com (the list price is $45.00). See UNESCO's World Heritage List - Archeological Zone of Paquimé, Casas Grandes.
4 March 2006
Google has a Librarian Newsletter Group - Two issues have appeared so far: December 2005 and January 2006. You can sign up to receive the newsletter. In the January 2006 issue you'll find: How Does Google Determine Which Web Sites Are the Most "Trusted"? by Matt Cutts, a software engineer at Google, and Beyond Algorithms: A Librarian's Guide to Finding Web Sites You Can Trust by Karen G. Schneider, Director, Librarians' Internet Index.South by Southwest Festival - Austin, Texas, annual showcase for independent music. In SXSW Bands you can listen to music by over 900 bands.
25 February 2006
National Gallery of Canada - In Cybermuse there is access to over 10,000 images of works of the Gallery's collection. Try a search for Edge of the Maple Wood by A. Y. Jackson, a landscape painter who was a member of the renowned "Group of Seven". Click on the painting and you'll see a box on the right of the screen. There you can access a biography of the artist, a short audiogiude to the painting and view the entire gallery of his paintings.
