The Scout Report -- Volume 24, Number 15

For researchers interested in medieval and Renaissance print culture, the Digital Scriptorium (DS) is a consortium of libraries, museums, and other cultural institutions that is dedicated to digitizing and cataloging their collections of pre-modern manuscripts. These institutions include the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley, the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University, the New York Public Library, and a number of other institutions with rich collections of pre-modern material. As noted on this website, DS is dedicated to making available not only well-known manuscripts but also "unidentified manuscripts that are traditionally unlikely candidates for exhibition or reproduction in print." As a result, DS offers researchers a large breadth of material to explore in one centralized location. Those interested in exploring this collection may want to start by reading the About DS page, which provides information about using and citing the collection. From there, visitors may access the collection through the search or advanced search options. The latter option allows visitors to explore manuscripts by location, language, or data range. [MMB]

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The Museum of Health Care in Kingston, Ontario is located on the site of the Kingston General Hospital - the oldest hospital in Canada. The museum is home to a large collection of artifacts that illuminate the history of health and healthcare, including medical instruments, nursing uniforms, anatomical charts, advertisements for homeopathy, and much more. In their online catalog, visitors can browse hundreds of digitized items by topic (including archival material, dental, psychiatry, and tuberculosis sanitarium, to name just a few). Alternatively, visitors may search the catalog by field, including object name and medical subject heading (MeSH). Visitors may also want to explore two digitized special collections: The Crawford Canadian Dental Collection and a collection from the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada. In addition, the page entitled From the Collection features highlights from this catalog and accompanying materials that may be of interest. [MMB]

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Greg Coleman has worked as a mathematics teacher and coach for fourteen years. He shares his teaching ideas and insights as "Mr. Elementary Math" on Twitter, Facebook, and his blog. Here, math tutors and teachers will find a variety of tips and ideas for supporting elementary-level math learners. Visitors can browse previous blog posts by category: number sense, addition & subtraction, multiplication & division, fractions & decimals, measurement & geometry, and math ideas. In one recent post, Coleman recommends a handful of songs to aid in teaching mathematics to younger students. Another recent post provides advice on how math teachers can save a classroom lesson when their technology fails them at the last minute. While aimed specifically at elementary school math teachers, many of Coleman's ideas may also be of interest to adult educators, tutors, parents, and caretakers. [MMB]

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Renewing Inequality is a project from the University of Richmond's Digital Scholarship Lab that provides information and data visualizations about urban renewal projects that took place in U.S. cities between 1950 and 1966. These visualizations are based on data from the Urban Renewal Project Quarterly (a federal government publication) and from U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) annual reports. As the project team explains on this website, urban renewal projects had the "ostensible goal" of providing better housing for city residents. In practice, these programs displaced hundreds of thousands of individuals, impacting residents of large cities (including Chicago, San Francisco, and New York) along with residents of many smaller metropolitan areas. These policies disproportionately displaced communities of color. On this website, visitors can explore a number of interactive visualizations that illustrate the impact of these policies across the U.S. To learn more about the history of urban renewal policies in the U.S., visitors will want to visit the legislative history and sources & method section of this website. Renewing Inequality may especially be of interest to instructors of geography, history, or public policy. [MMB]

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The Huntington Archive of Buddhist and Asian Art was founded in 1986 by Susan and John Huntington, who both served as art history professors at The Ohio State University. Today the archive, which is currently headed by Gregory Shonk and Aimee Phillips, contains over 300,000 photographs and slides of artwork dating back to the year 2500 BCE. These collections feature "predominantly Buddhist material but also includes Hindu, Jain, and Islamic works as well." Additionally, the archive contains the "largest photographic archive of Nepali art and architecture in the world." Visitors can explore over 200,000 digitized images via the Digital Database Collection, where one can browse by iconography, material (e.g. clay, glass, textile), and religious category (Buddhist, Islamic, Shinto, Hindu, or Jain). Alternatively, visitors may also conduct a keyword search. The archive also offers a number of online exhibitions that may be of interest. The educational resources tab features a variety of slideshows created by John Huntington, along with maps, and the Dictionary of Buddhist Terms (authored by John Huntington and Dana Bangdel). [MMB]

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Northern California's KQED public television and radio station has created a number of high-quality educational resources, including the science literacy-focused Above the Noise (see the 04-19-2017 Scout Report). One of the latest projects of KQED is Deep Look: a series of videos created in collaboration with PBS Digital Studios. Deep Look is dedicated to exploring science and nature questions by exploring natural phenomena in-depth. For instance, one recent episode (not for the faint of heart) explains why ticks are so successful at latching onto humans. Another recent episode investigates the mating rituals of the praying mantis. Visitors can browse previous episodes of Deep Look by exploring thematic playlists, including marine life, creepy crawly, and Deep Look fan favorites. New episodes of Deep Look are released twice a month. [MMB]

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The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is home to a variety of artworks spanning several centuries and includes work from around the globe. Collections include works by Kerry James Marshall, Pablo Picasso, Betye Saar, and many others. K-12 art educators will find a variety of materials to use in the classroom on the museum's teacher resources page. These resources include a series of grade-level curriculum materials designed for students in kindergarten through eighth grade. Each of these curricula guides pairs a handful of artworks with a short essay designed to help teachers incorporate discussion about the artwork into their classrooms. Another highlight of this collection is a series of thematic resources created as part of the museum's Evenings for Educators series. These materials include full lesson plans and lists of additional resources for students. [MMB]

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The American Library Association's Library Information Technology Association (LITA) offers this helpful blog for library professionals who want to stay abreast of developments in library technology. In addition, the blog provides updates about conferences, webinars, and other LITA events. The blog is authored by a number of librarians, including those who work in academic, public, and corporate libraries. The LITA blog also welcomes guest posts from librarians. One recent blog post updated readers about a LITA webinar series regarding privacy in libraries. In another blog post, librarian Mark Beatty explains how he came to be a Jeopardy! contestant. This post includes a link to a delightful American Libraries article that features interviews with librarians who have appeared on the game show. The LITA blog also posts regular updates about job opportunities in information technology. [MMB]

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The University of Illinois's University Archives recently released Mapping History at the University of Illinois: a stunning collection of interactive maps and digitized archival material that illustrate the university's 150-year history. The project, which was led by archivist Ellen D. Swain, architecture professor Marci S. Uihlein, and GIS Specialist James V. Whitacre, consists of three major components. In the campus history section, visitors can take seven virtual tours, each of which presents UIC's campus during a different era. For instance, in the Early Years (1867-1904) tour, visitors can explore archival material from that era, which includes photographs, administrative papers, and early advertisements for the Illinois Industrial University (as the school was known at the time). Visitors can also view an interactive map of the campus (complete with historic maps), created using Esri software. The interactive maps section contains a number of thematic maps that illuminate the school's history, including a map of African American Student Housing, 1930-1950 and a map of Fraternities and Sororities, 1912-1913. The map archives section contains over 500 digitized "maps, drawings, blueprints, and images of the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, and Champaign County dating from the 1850s to the present." [MMB]

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Stuff in Space is a "real-time 3D map of objects in earth's orbit", including satellites and debris. This map was created in 2015 by James Yoder, who used data from Space-Track.org: a website operated by the U.S. Department of Defense. On this map, different kinds of "stuff in space" are color-coded: red for satellites, blue for rocket bodies, and grey for debris. Visitors may also explore different groups of space objects, which include maps of all Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites and their orbits and a map of the debris created by the 2009 collision of the satellites Iridium 33 and Kosmos 2251. In addition, visitors looking to track specific satellites may also conduct a text search of this map. [MMB]

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The Margins is an online magazine published by the Asian-American Writers' Workshop (AAWW), which is "dedicated to inventing the Asian American creative culture of tomorrow." The publication features poetry, book excerpts, interviews, book round-ups, and more. One recent article is an interview with Naben Ruthnum who recently published the essay collection Curry: Eating, Reading, and Race. Another recent article is an excerpt from Sesshu Foster's new collection of prose and poetry entitled City of the Future. Folks looking for new books to read will want to check out the monthly bookmarks feature, which provides short synopses of recently published work by Asian-American writers. Another highlight of The Margins is AAWW TV, where visitors can listen to recorded book readings. [MMB]

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Nick Sturm is a poet, literary scholar, and educator who is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Georgia Tech. Sturm authors Crystal Set, which he describes as "a blog that traces and collects my research and its ephemera." Readers of this blog may find unique archival materials of interest on the topics of the history of poetry, literature, and print culture. Strum is currently working on a book about poet Ted Berrigan, who was part of the New York School of poets; thus, much of Crystal Set is dedicated to other New York School poets. For instance, one recent post highlights the work of poet and visual artist Bernadette Mayer, accompanied by photographs of pages from Mayer's 1980-1981 workbook. Another recent post discusses poet Kenward Elmslie, featuring the cover of his 1971 book Circus Nerves and an undated video recording of Elmslie performing songs at The Poetry Project. [MMB]

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The "Weather Guys" are Steven A. Ackerman and Jonathan Martin, two professors of Atmospheric and Ocean Sciences at UW-Madison. Every Monday, Ackerman, and Martin appear on Wisconsin Public Radio's Larry Meiller Show to answer popular questions about the weather. On this blog, folks curious about the weather can read answers to questions posed on previous episodes of the Weather Guys, including "How severe was our just-completed meteorological winter?" and "Does weather impact beer-making?" Visitors can browse previously addressed questions by category, including climate, seasons, severe weather, and weather dangers. Those interested in listening to the Weather Guys on the Larry Meiller Show will find options for doing so via the listen live link. [MMB]

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The Rare Book Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill offers this blog that highlights interesting items in the collection. This blog is authored by Rare Book Collection staff, who provide helpful context to items through short essays. In one recent post, Laura Van Leuven highlights posters from around the globe that highlight student protests in the year 1968, with particular attention to Mexico 1968 - a pamphlet held in the Rare Books Collection. In another recent post, Van Leuven describes the history of zines, highlighting items from UNC's Sloane Library as well as items in the Rare Book Collection (which is home to the Mexican Comic Collection). Visitors can browse previous entries in the Rare Book Blog by topic tags including English literature, poetry, and early printed books. [MMB]

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For art fans who also love a good mystery story, Empty Frames is the new podcast for you. Hosted by Tim Pilleri and Lance Reenstierna, Empty Frames examines the "most audacious art heist of all time" - the theft of thirteen works from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. On March 18, 1990, two individuals masquerading as police officers entered the Gardner Museum and stole thirteen paintings within 81 minutes. These paintings, which including works by Vermeer, Degas, and Rembrandt, totaled half a billion dollars in value. On Empty Frames, Pilleri and Reenstierna revisit this incident and examine its larger impact on the art community. Interested listeners will find a variety of ways to subscribe to Empty Frames, including Google Play, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. [MMB]

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Many modern websites make extensive use of javascript libraries for interactive content and increasingly for basic page-layout tasks. Rather than keeping a copy of these libraries on their own servers, many website creators will leverage one of the content delivery networks (Google APIs, Cloudflare's CDNJS, MaxCDN, etc). As an unfortunate side-effect, CDN owners have the ability to track users across any websites that use their services. Decentraleyes is a browser extension that keeps copies of the most popular javascript libraries, rewriting requests to CDNs to use the local copies instead. In addition to increasing user privacy, this technique can also reduce network traffic and speed up loading of websites. Decentraleyes is free software, released under the Mozilla Public License with source code available on GitHub. Decentraleyes is available for Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera. [CRH]

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Pandoc bills itself as "a universal document converter." It can read input files in nearly twenty markup formats (including Markdown, reStructuredText, textile, and HTML) and convert them to over forty other formats (including docx, odt, epub, tei, and many, many more). A diagram of the built-in conversions is shown on the bottom of Pandoc's "about" page. These format conversions can be used to bring content to new devices. For example, a user could download the HTML of a web page and convert it to an ebook for offline reading. Pandoc can also be used for document production. For example, users can write presentation slides in Markdown using their favorite text editor, then use Pandoc to generate a PowerPoint presentation. The same Markdown file can also be used to generate a reveal.js version of the presentation that can be uploaded to a website. Pandoc understands the Citation Style Language (CSL) of citationstyles.org and can also generate bibliographies for academic work. Pandoc is a free software, released under the GNU General Public License with source code available on the "installing" page. The "installing" page also lists installers for Windows, macOS, Linux, and BSD operating systems. [CRH]

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In honor of the conclusion of 2018 National Library Week (April 8th-14th), we'd like to revisit this fabulous exhibit from Digital Public Library of America about the history of U.S. public libraries. We initially featured this website in our April 2017 special issue in honor of National Library Week, which we published on 04-07-2017).

In the introduction to this online exhibition, the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) notes that libraries have historically been viewed as a central part of democracy: "The ability to access free information has become a core ideal of what it means to be an American citizen, despite periods of historic inequality." This tension between the democratic ideal of public libraries and the realities of ongoing inequality in the United States is the center of this exhibition about the history of libraries in the United States. This exhibition is organized into seven thematic sections, such as Beginnings (which features a digitized copy of the Library Company of Philadelphia's 1754 charter); A Profession for Women (which includes numerous photographs from the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including a snapshot of a "packhorse library carrier" from Kentucky); and Segregated Libraries (which highlights a recorded interview with librarian and activist Annie L. McPheeters, who worked for the Atlanta Public Library between 1934 and 1966 and ran an adult education program at the Auburn branch library). Collectively, the thoughtfully annotated items in this collection illustrate the diversity of libraries throughout American history and the role that American citizens have played to ensure that libraries meet the needs of their communities.

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