The Scout Report -- Volume 23, Number 21

Archaeology of the Great War is a project that brilliantly combines valuable primary documents (including archival letters and photographs and archaeological finds) with exceptional design. Every aspect of this website, from the musical selection to the three dimensional images to the animation, is expertly crafted with a great deal of sensitivity and skill. The result is a multimedia resource that allows modern day visitors to learn about a pivotal (and profoundly violent) chapter of history and the importance of archeological research.

Archaeology of the Great War is a poignant, highly interactive website exhibiting recent archeological discoveries from the Argonne region in eastern France, where French and German troops engaged in trench warfare during World War I. The French Ministry of Culture and Communication, in conjunction with French archeologists, archivists, and university faculty, created this website to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the war. During the 1990s, a team of archeologists excavated the former battlefield, unearthing new clues about daily life and death during World War I. Visitors can view these archeological finds alongside archival photographs from the War. This material is helpfully organized into five chapters, which include thoughtful annotations about the significance of these new discoveries. Archeology of the Great War is a powerful resource about the experiences of WWI soldiers, and also demonstrates the role of archeology in recovering new insights about the past. Note: while the text of this site is available in French, English, and German, a few embedded videos are only in French.

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Some of the most fascinating archival collections focus on a single kind of ephemera. These topical collections are entertaining to browse while also offering unexpected insights into the past. Chicago's Busy Beaver Button Museum is one of the finest (and, at times, funniest) collections of ephemera published in The Scout Report this year. This collection of hundreds of pinback buttons spans over a century and includes at once, poignant buttons, political buttons, irreverent buttons, and a few truly dated buttons. The highlight of this digitized collection just might be the Beaver page, which features solely buttons related to beavers.

Ever since pinback buttons were patented in 1896, buttons have been produced and worn for a plethora of reasons, from supporting a politician (e.g. the iconic I LIKE IKE buttons), to commemorating an event, to just showing off the pinner's sense of humor. The Busy Beaver Button Museum exists to document this unique item of cultural expression. Readers may visit the museum in person, in Chicago, or browse the comprehensive online collection here. Categories include Ask Me, which includes the classic "Ask me about..." buttons, Self Referential, which includes buttons that reference the fact that they're buttons, and Sports, Advertising, Political, Innovative, and other descriptive options. There is also a Fan Museum, which allows users to submit their own buttons, as well as browse the buttons of other fans. The News section features blog posts on the history of buttons, such as a great post on the history behind the right to vote, as depicted through buttons. Finally, readers will also find a wonderful book, A Very Brief History of Buttons, which can be viewed for free as a PDF.

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Designed for classroom use, Ice and Sky offers a number of appealing features for K-12 science teachers. However, this exceptionally well-designed multimedia website has a much broader appeal. The website incorporates documentary film, animation, audio, and engaging narrative in a way that makes browsing feel more like watching a movie. In addition to its striking visual appeal, Ice and Sky also contains a wealth of information about scientific research in Antarctica and the importance of this research in understanding our climate.

Ice and Sky is an interactive website about the history of glaciological research in Antarctica. Since the International Geophysical Year (July 1, 1957 to December 31, 1958), scientists have uncovered important details about the Earth's climate by examining the properties of Antarctica's ice. On this website, created by French documentarian Luc Jacquet and the non-profit media organization Wild Touch, visitors can learn about this history through a six-part video. Within each video chapter, educators will also find a number of related resources. These resources include recorded interviews with key scientists, detailed PowerPoint presentations, educational booklets, and short videos. While some of resources are embedded on the site, others can be downloaded through a link on the right side of the browser. Educators may also create their own classroom websites that feature specific resources of their choice. Worth noting: Ice and Sky earned a 2016 Webby nomination as an outstanding educational website.

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Collaborative projects are becoming an increasingly popular way to tap into the diverse perspectives, educational experiences, and understandings of students, scholars, and the general public. The #ImmigrationSyllabus is a website and educational resource that exemplifies the value of such collaborative efforts. We love that this resource is not just helpful for educators; the #ImmigrationSyllabus includes a number of memoirs, films, and online collections that will broadly appeal to anyone interested in the historical roots of this enduring issue.

Nearly two dozen prominent history scholars have collaborated to create the Immigration Syllabus, a rich collection of resources for teaching America's immigration history. Published by the University of Minnesota (home of the Immigration History Research Center) and co-sponsored by the Immigration and Ethnic History Society, the Immigration Syllabus is a carefully curated collection of primary and secondary sources. Collectively, these resources illuminate the voluntary and forced migrations of people to the United States from the colonial era through the present day. This online syllabus is chronologically arranged into fifteen weeks, each centering on a key theme or question. Weekly themes include Why Study Immigration?; Mass Migration and the Rise of Federal Immigration Law; and Family, Gender, and Sexuality. Within each weekly section visitors will find hyperlinks to suggested readings and resources, many of which are digitized and freely available online. This collaborative project may be of special interest to history researchers and instructors working in higher education or advanced high school settings.

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Undark impressed us as an exemplar of scientific journalism. The magazine's content critically engages scientific topics in an accessible and easy-to-digest way. Undark has grown substantially since it was featured in The Scout Report last July and now offers a fantastic variety of long form narratives, video documentaries, editorials, photo-essays, and more. We also commend Undark for its use and integration of various media forms to provide readers with fantastic multimedia content.

"Undark" is what the U.S. Radium Corporation named the glow-in-the-dark - and radioactive - paint it produced for use on watches between 1917 and 1938. Hailed as a great innovation at the time, the paint tragically led to the premature deaths of many young, female factory workers, known today as the "radium girls." Undark, an online publication launched by the Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT this past spring, is dedicated to producing investigative journalism related to science. The editors write, "We appropriate the name ["undark"] as a signal to readers that our magazine will explore science not just as a 'gee-whiz' phenomenon, but as a frequently wondrous, sometimes contentious, and occasionally troubling byproduct of human culture." Edited and published by a team of prominent science writers, including Deborah Blum and Tom Zeller, Undark includes long-form investigative journalism, shorter articles, op-eds, documentaries, and news round-ups. The site has also produces a podcast, Colloquia, which accompanies longer investigative pieces. This online magazine is an especially useful source for those looking to better understand ethical debates in the scientific community.

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The Global Open Data Index was the most shared resource from The Scout Report this past year. Like our readers, we were impressed by this repository of government data from 94 different countries across the globe. These datasets are helpfully organized by country as well as topic, providing an invaluable tool for researchers and journalists. However, this resource will also be of interest to anyone curious about the relative openness of data around the world.

The Global Open Data Index, an initiative of Open Knowledge International, is at once an index of government open data and an assessment of these indexes. As the site notes, "Each year, governments are making more data available in an open format." The Global Open Data Index tracks whether these data are released in a way that is open and accessible to citizens, the media, and the generally curious. The Index ranks countries based on the availability and accessibility of data across 13 categories (including Election Results, Government Spending, and Legislation), displaying the results in an easily navigated infographic and map. Visitors to the site may also view open datasets, when available, by following links on these graphs or by conducting a text search. This makes the Global Open Data Index an excellent one stop shop for national data. Country rankings are updated annually.

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Our followers on social media really responded to this year's special edition of The Scout Report, released in honor of National Library Week (April 9-15, 2017). One resource that stood out was the Museum of Obsolete Media, a unique collection of tools and instruments used to record sound, motion, and information over the past two centuries. This online museum, which is frequently updated by curator Jason Curtis, is bound to provoke feelings of fascination, confusion, and even a twinge of nostalgia.

Over the past century and a half, the introduction of new technologies has dramatically changed the ways that sound, moving images, and data are recorded. These changes have rendered a number of objects and devices obsolete, from the Ambrotype (a photographic technique used between 1855 and 1865) to Little Marvel Records (a distinctive type of record sold only in Woolworth's Department stores between 1921 and 1922) to the Dragon 32 home computer (sold in Wales between 1982 and 1984). The Museum of Obsolete Media, curated by UK-based librarian Jason Curtis, highlights such materials via four collections: Audio Formats, Video Formats, Data Formats, and Film Formats. Within each collection, visitors may view photographs of dozens of obsolete media items. Each item is accompanied by an image and a brief description of its production, use, and eventual demise. Visitors may also enjoy browsing this collection by a series of Lists, which include Formats by Decade of Obsolescence, 10 Sony Formats that Failed, and 1980s Music Gallery.

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This delightful and sometimes cheeky Library of Congress exhibit provides a wealth of information about the history of opera in the United States. We loved #OperaBeforeInstagram for the amazing portrait photography (be sure to click on each image to get a glimpse into opera custumes over the years) accompanied by detailed and often humorous write-ups. ("Her voice was not exceptional, but it served her music honorably and well".)

This whimsically titled online exhibition is brought to readers by the Library of Congress. Staff at the Library mined the Charles Jahant Collection, nearly 2,000 photographs of opera singers from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, to present "a cross section of important singers who performed in the United States." Some of the opera stars were photographed in costume, while others were captured in their street clothes, making the collection of interest to opera aficionados, scholars of clothing and dress, lovers of old photography, and others. Many of the photographs are autographed to Charles Jahant. The approximately 3 dozen exhibition items have been divided into several sections for easy browsing: Operatic Singers in Formal Clothing, French Repertoire, German Repertoire, and Italian Repertoire. The images are accompanied by short IMDB style bios of the singers, for example, Helen Traubel (1899-1972), whose "predilection for radio and night club appearances annoyed the Met management and ended her operatic career in 1953."

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As the team behind The Public Domain Review notes, a large number of archival materials have been digitized over the past twenty years, making it possible for people around the globe to examine and even experience the past. A number of websites have cropped up to curate and provide context to these fascinating archival collections. Among them, The Public Domain Review stands out for two reasons. First, the PDR offers a remarkable diversity of archival materials by inviting contributions from scholars of all disciplines. Secondly, materials are thoughtfully presented, which makes reading an informative and engaging treat.

Whenever any form of media is no longer protected by copyright law, it enters the public domain. The Public Domain Review is dedicated to collecting and curating this material in one place. Launched in 2011, the online journal and not-for-profit project features numerous images, complete books, audio clips, and videos. These materials range from the peculiar to the poignant, providing insight into both everyday life and extraordinary oddities. One can watch a 1916 adaptation of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (the first movie filmed underwater), view a gallery of beards, or read Queen Victoria's teenaged diary. Yet, The Public Domain Review offers more than a collection of intriguing ephemera. The project also publishes long-form essays that contextualize and analyze public domain material. In addition, the site features a monthly Curator's Choice series, where curators from around the world share public domain material from their institution's collections. Interested readers may subscribe to an email Newsletter to receive bi-weekly notifications about the latest article and the most interesting content featured in the Review.

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Data visualization offers engaging ways to view and interpret information. Our favorite network tool this past year does just that, offering users a whole new way to browse Wikipedia. Wikiverse imagines Wikipedia entries as a series of linked objects in space, arranged according to how closely related they are to one another. Wikiverse is perhaps most enjoyable when it reveals the unexpected connections between Wikipedia entries. In doing so, this unique tool exemplifies the ways that data visualization can help us engage with ideas and data.

Wikiverse is a new tool that provides users with a whole new way to browse Wikipedia and explore topics of interest. Created by data visualization engineer, Owen Cornec, Wikiverse allows visitors to visualize and explore links between Wikipedia subjects. The size of the Wikiverse can be controlled by the user, allowing users to explore either one, two, or five percent of Wikipedia. From here, users can explore any topic and see how this topic is linked to others. A list of related topics will appear on the right hand side of the site, or visitors can view the topic as a star in a three-dimensional galaxy. Related topics appear close by and are arranged into clusters, such as Art, Biology, or Geography. As visitors click on stars, full definitions and additional links appear on the left-hand side of the screen. Wikiverse provides a riveting experience, and highlights the interconnections between topics that, at first blush, seem entirely unrelated.

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