The Scout Report -- Volume 24, Number 13

For researchers and students interested in global biodiversity, the Catalogue of Life is an index consisting of 1.6 million species from around the globe. The catalogue collects this information from over 200 taxonomic databases, which are peer-reviewed by a team of experts. Visitors will find a link to the most recent edition of the catalogue, updated monthly, from the site's homepage. Users can search the catalogue by keyword or browse by taxonomic tree (e.g. Animalia, bacteria, viruses) or by taxonomic classification (e.g. phylum, genus, species). The catalogue is available in twelve languages, including Spanish, Chinese, Portuguese, and Russian. Those interested in using the Catalogue of Life may want to start by taking a look at the resources page, which includes a user's guide and frequently asked questions about the index. [MMB]

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The International Literacy Association publishes three journals: Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, Reading Research Quarterly, and The Reading Teacher. On this website, literacy researchers and instructors can access a number of free resources created by these journals. These resources include a sample issue of each journal. As of this write-up, all sample issues are from the year 2017. In addition, the journals regularly offer a themed virtual journal issue, each of which "center on key themes in literacy education." These themed issues are limited for free for a limited time upon their release. Finally, visitors will also find a handful of open-access articles that may be of interest. [MMB]

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The Petrarchive is dedicated to the digital transcription of the songbook Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, written by Italian Renaissance scholar and poet Francesco Petrarca. The Petrarchive is spearheaded by a group of scholars from Indiana University Bloomington: H. Wayne Storey, John A. Walsh, Isabella Magni, Grace Thomas, Allison M. McCormack, Laura Pence, and Abraham Kim. This project, which is ongoing, "produce[d] six sets of distinctive textual prototypes based on Storey's new edition of the work's 366 texts that comprise the author's poetry book Rerum vulgarium fragmenta." In-depth explanations of the transcription process and examples of trial and error are included by the team. The Petrarchive could serve as a potential resource for those interested in digital humanities tools for research. [JLB]

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From the Centre of Religious and Public Life at the University of Leeds comes the Religion in Public blog. In addition to providing updates about news and events at the Centre, this blog "provides an ongoing analysis of the theme of religion in public life, both locally, nationally, and internationally." New visitors may want to start by heading over to the posts tab, which offers helpful descriptions of each blog section. Highlights include the comments section (featuring reflections from a range of researchers about their research process), photovoice (short essays that incorporate photographs and other images in an analysis of the role of religion in public life), and researcher of the month (a spotlight on the work of a researcher that studies the intersections of public life and religion). Recent posts have included a piece about Christianity and LGBT activism in the continent of Africa and an examination of how World War I shaped Quaker activism in Great Britain. [MMB]

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Africa Diaspora, Ph.D. (or #ADPHD) was created by Jessica Marie Johnson, assistant professor of Africana Studies and History at Johns Hopkins University. #ADPHD is a blog dedicated to "the life and culture of people of African descent in Africa, Europe, and the Americas from the fifteenth century into the late nineteenth - the period of Atlantic slavery and slave trading." On the site's blog, visitors will find news about conferences, scholarly publications, popular publications, digital resources, and more - all relating to Black individuals around the globe. As visitors enter #ADPHD, they can explore entries by category tags including art, digital resources, articles, blogroll, and sources. What is unique about #ADPHD is Johnson's inclusion of historical resources, including recently digitized primary sources, alongside contemporary resources, such as recently published articles and blog posts. In doing so, Johnson demonstrates that Black scholarship and intellectual life has a long and rich genealogy. [MMB]

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The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation offers this extensive collection of lesson plans for K-12 science educators. These lesson plans were designed by DEC environmental educators for classroom teachers as well educators who work in other educational environments. In particular, these materials may appeal to those who work in nature centers, after-school programs, or nature camps. Visitors can browse this collection by grade level: grades pre-k - 3; grades 3 - 6; and grades 6 - 12. These lesson plans, worksheets, and activities address a range of topics including animals, soil erosion, recycling, aquatic science, wildlife conservation, and more. All materials are available for download in PDF format. [MMB]

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Refractory: A Journal of Entertainment Media is a peer-reviewed journal dedicated to optical and audio media technologies used for the purpose of entertainment. These technologies include historical and the contemporary media from cinema, to zoetropes, to computer games. Launched in 2001, the journal is edited by an interdisciplinary team of scholars from around the globe (including scholars of art, communications, media and cultural studies, and film studies) and is published by Screen and Cinema Studies, Department of Media and Communication at Swinburne University of Technology Victoria, Australia. On the journal's website, interested readers can check out articles from the seven most recently published issues of Refractory. These recent issues include five themed issues, including issues dedicated to born-digital culture and the television show Penny Dreadful, respectively. [MMB]

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A Whaling Season in Alaska is an interactive documentary film by journalist Zoe Lamazou and artist Victor Gurrey that centers on the lives of people who live in northwestern Alaska, where oil drilling has drastically altered daily life over the past five decades. In particular, the project focuses on the Inupiat community in this region and the importance of spring whaling season in these communities. In this interactive documentary (which accompanies a book by Lamazou and Gurrey of the same title), viewers follow Lamazou and Gurrey as they travel from Fairbanks, Alaska to the cities of Prudhoe Bay, Kaktovik, and Point Hope. Along the way, viewers are introduced, through video interviews, to a number of individuals who live in these communities. These people include Robert Thompson, who is active in the Indigenous Environmental Network in Kaktovik; Flora Rexford, who teaches Inupiaq (the Inupiat language) to children in Kaktovik; and the Killigvuk family, who participate in whale hunting in Point Hope. These interviews are accompanied by photo-journals along with notes from Lamazou's journals and Gurrey's illustrations. The entire documentary is approximately fifty minutes in length. Visitors may also choose to browse the different components of the documentary via the itinerary section. [MMB]

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From Simon (the popular electronic version of the game "Simon Says") to Tamagotchis, handheld gaming devices were ubiquitous during the late 1970s through the early 2000s. Thanks to the Internet Archive, folks nostalgic for these games (or interested in exploring them for the first time) can experience and play a number of games on their computer. The Handheld History collection features 74 handheld video games created between 1978 and 1999, including a 1979 Speak & Spell from Texas Instruments; a handheld Coleco Pacmac game from 1981; a 1988 Back to the Future - inspired game from Tiger Electronics, and much more. Each of these games has been adapted to allow users to play them with a computer keyboard, and those nostalgic for the original games will be happy to learn that all original arcade sound effects are included in these new versions. Each game is accompanied by full cataloging information. Visitors may browse this collection by date published, creator, or views. As of this write-up, the aforementioned Tamagotchi, the global fad of the late 1990s, has proven to be the most popular game in this collection. [MMB]

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Hell's Printing Press is the collaborative blog of the Blake Archive (last featured in the 07-07-2017 Scout Report) and the Blake Quarterly and provides some great examples of how digital humanities tools can be used in English literature and history. Recent blog posts cover a wide array of topics such as XML markup of digitized manuscripts, video tutorials on how to use digital collections in the Blake Archive, and mirror-writing (reversed writing resembling ordinary writing reflected in a mirror) techniques to make handwritten text more legible. Blog posts usually follow a thought process going step-by-step, which is helpful for someone who is learning these technologies. Contributors to the blog include scholars and researchers from The University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill and the University of Rochester. [JLB]

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This New York Public Library Digital Collections are dedicated to scientific images and illustrations throughout history. These images, which were originally featured in a 1999 NYPL exhibition, include celestial diagrams, medical illustrations, laboratory instructors, and more. In total, this collection features 238 images, which visitors may browse in a number of ways: by topic (including geology, constellations, early works to 1800); by name (the collection features numerous works by Scottish geologist Sir Charles Lyell and by British astronomer John Flamsteed, among others); and by genre (including prints, maps, and woodcuts). Alternatively, visitors may also conduct a keyword search of this fascinating collection. [MMB]

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The Smithsonian Channel is created by Smithsonian Networks, a collaboration between Showtime Networks, Inc. and the Smithsonian Institute that features "award-winning original documentaries, series and ground-breaking programs highlighting America's historical, cultural and scientific heritage." On the channel's homepage, visitors may watch a number of these short documentaries for free. As of this write-up, these freely-available documentaries include: The Lost Tapes: Malcom X (a documentary solely comprised of newscasts, speeches, and other archival footage relating to Malcolm X); Victorian Rebel: Marianne North (a documentary that explores the life and achievements of Marianne North, who traveled across the globe to explore botanical life and create over 1,000 paintings of plants); and An Ocean Mystery: the Missing Catch (a documentary that addresses fish preservation, featuring marine biologist Daniel Pauly). [MMB]

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Lingthusiasm is a new podcast dedicated to all aspects of linguistics, including grammar structures, vocabulary, and "vowel gymnastics," (see episode 17, which explores how your tongue moves in a trapezoid shape to create different vowel sounds). The podcast, released on the third Thursday of every month, is hosted by writer Gretchen McCulloch (who will be releasing a book in 2019 about internet language) and scholar Lauren Gawne (whose research interests include the role of gesture in language and Tibeto-Burman languages). In one recent episode, McCulloch and Gawne talk about words that are allegedly "untranslatable" in other languages (such as the German word schadenfreude). Another recent episode explores swear words across languages. Each episode is accompanied by a list of resources for those interested in further reading. [MMB]

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Preservation Underground is the official blog of the Duke University Libraries Preservation & Conservation Departments. For readers in the libraries and archives world, the blog includes information about new job openings, internships, and conferences that may be of interest. The blog also highlights unique items in the libraries' collection. For instance, one recent blog post features a number of striking illustrations and graphics from the 1946 children's book Egg to Chick. Another recent blog post displays a Civil War era hat that was, unconventionally, uncovered in a manuscript box. Visitors may browse previous blog posts by category, including exhibits, quick pics, and technology. [MMB]

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These days there are a number of phone applications and web extensions dedicated to enhancing the Pomodoro Technique, which involves working for approximately 25 minutes followed by five minute breaks. The website Pomocado is one of the latest options available for this technique. In addition to providing a customizable timer for work sessions and breaks, Pomocado allows users to collect data about how frequently they use the timer tool, which may appeal to those who are interested in mapping out their productivity. Users can then view this data in through two different visualizations. Interested users may use Pomocado for free by completing a registration with their email address. [MMB]

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Silk Interactive Generative Art allows users to create their own artwork by dragging the cursor (or a finger if using the app) across the screen in whatever pattern the heart desires. The pattern that appears can have a variety of effects and colors - allowing the user to "weave" their own design. A color wheel and pattern choices are available in the control bar to the left of the screen. The site allows users to save their designs for future admiration (or criticism) and has the option to go full-screen if accessed on a computer. The Silk app is available for download in the App Store. [JLB]

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For fans of quality science journalism, as well as fans of stunning nature photography, bioGraphic (last featured in the 11-11-2016 Scout Report) is a must-read. In the past month, this multimedia magazine has featured stories on coral reefs, arctic foxes, and much more.

From the California Academy of Sciences comes bioGraphic, a multimedia magazine "featuring beautiful and surprising stories about nature and sustainability." Authored by science journalists, the publication features articles, editorials, photo galleries, and videos. Visitors can browse content by topic including wildlife, places, people, discoveries, and solutions. Recent articles include a long-form piece on the Vilcabamba mountain range in Peru (complete with gorgeous photographs and three-dimensional animation), a video that illustrates how clouds of bats manage to emerge from a cave simultaneously without injuring one another; and a spectacular photograph that demonstrates the camouflaging ability of snow leopards. bioGraphic's engaging content and sleek interface will have wide appeal for anyone interested in learning more about biodiversity around the globe.

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