The Scout Report -- Volume 25, Number 21

Bird-watching is an excellent way to get outside and appreciate nature's biodiversity, even if you live in an urban area. For those who need convincing, the video series Birds of North America offers an engaging introduction into this exciting pastime. This series was launched in March 2019 and is hosted by Jason Ward, a Bronx, New York native who now lives in Atlanta. Ward brings a contagious enthusiasm to the series, which starts off spotting warblers in New York's Central Park, where it later returns for a fun episode featuring Ward's younger brother and competitive birding opponent Jeffrey. Other episodes take viewers behind the scenes of the American Natural History Museum's avian collections and to Cape May, New Jersey, where Ward and other birders he interviews observe peregrine falcons (which Ward likes to call "sky Lamborghinis" due to their speed) and elusive yellow-billed cuckoos. Birding novices should also check out the series' second episode, "How to Use Binoculars." Birds of North America is produced by Topic Media, part of First Look Media. Each video is less than eight minutes long with twelve episodes in the series' first season and a second season in the works. [JDC]

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The Library of Congress is well known and loved for its vast online collections. Readers who find the library's digital enormity overwhelming, as well as those seeking royalty-free images, may appreciate these sets of copyright-free images and other content curated from the library's holdings. Here, visitors will find more than two dozen sets organized by theme, many of which are historical images and ephemera. The themes cover a diverse range of subjects, ranging from cats and dogs to Abraham Lincoln to roadside America, with several themes highlighting various types of historical posters. While most of the collections consist of photographs, documents, and other images, visitors will also find a collection of public domain films from the National Film Registry, as well as a vintage set of classic children's books that can be read online, including The Secret Garden and The Jungle Book. Because the "Library believes that this content is either in the public domain, has no known copyright, or has been cleared by the copyright owner for public use," the items featured in these sets have been deemed "free to use and reuse." [JDC]

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Readers curious to learn about the Old Norse language and Scandinavian mythology would do well to pay Dr. Jackson Crawford's YouTube channel a visit. Crawford is an instructor of Nordic Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder and the coordinator of their Nordic program, and he has also translated The Poetic Edda and The Saga of the Volsungs into English. His YouTube channel features hundreds of videos on various educational topics relating to Old Norse, including Norse mythology, pronunciation lessons, runes, language history, and Norse sagas and poetry, with new videos added often. As an added bonus, many of Crawford's videos are recorded outdoors with views of beautiful Rocky Mountain scenery. Those new to this channel may like to begin with the Most Asked About playlist, which features 13 videos (as of this write-up) providing introductions to speaking, learning, and writing Norse languages as well as to Norse gods and myths. The length of this channel's videos varies widely, with most ranging from five to 15 minutes long and a few that are 40 minutes or longer, and they are intended "for an audience ranging from the curious beginner to the dedicated enthusiast." [JDC]

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The Linda Hall Library in Kansas City, Missouri, bills itself as "the world's foremost independent research library devoted to science, engineering, and technology." Here, readers around the world can access the library's digital collections which boast nearly 250,000 images from its extensive History of Science Collection. These digital collections allow visitors to explore "significant, rare, and fragile items" from the Linda Hall collections, including a 15th-century edition of Pliny the Elder's Naturalis Historia (the library's oldest book), a copy of the esoteric text Canon Chronicus Aegyptiacus owned by Isaac Newton, and one of William Herschel's handwritten notebooks containing his thoughts on optics and mathematics. Readers can also explore more than 20 themed collections (found by hovering over the collections link on the main page), some of which were inspired by previous library exhibitions. Topics are quite diverse and include the lengthy history of parachutes (and related devices), the even lengthier history of technologies for telling time, and a collection that "document[s] the discovery and acceptance of pre-historic man." Visitors can easily search the entire digital collection by keyword and filter the results by collection, creator, date, and subject, and the site also has an advanced search feature to search multiple fields simultaneously. [JDC]

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Carson Gulley was the head chef at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison) Housing Division's Food Service from 1927-1954. Gulley introduced a number of dishes that have been indelibly imprinted in the taste memories of generations of UW-Madison students, notably his fudge-bottom pie. Gulley was the first person of color to have a campus building named after him; the Carson Gulley Commons, a dining hall, remodeled and reopened as Carson Gulley Center in 2013. Gulley was also a civil rights pioneer and one of the first African-American chefs to host television and radio cooking programs. The Carson Gulley Cookbook Collection from UW-Madison Digital Collections is based on Gulley's cookbook, Seasoning Secrets and Favorite Recipes of Carson Gulley and also on printed pamphlets of Gulley's recipes that were distributed to attendees of his TV and radio cooking shows. The fudge-bottom pie recipe can be found on page 106 in the "Desserts" chapter. [DS]

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MentalHealth.gov serves as a one-stop access point for information from U.S. government agencies on mental health problems and supporting resources. Written in approachable language, this project aims to educate the general public, as well as health professionals, policymakers, and school and community leaders. Here, visitors can find basic facts about mental health and information about a number of conditions, such as anxiety and mood disorders, eating disorders, suicidal behaviors, and post-traumatic stress disorder. This resource also provides guidance for ways to talk about psychological well-being, with advice targeting a variety of audiences including parents, educators, young people, and those with mental health problems. Additionally, this site provides links to numerous ways to get help, including resources for veterans, information regarding health insurance, and phone numbers for immediate help. Launched in June 2013, MentalHealth.gov was created as part of the federal government's effort to initiate a national dialogue on the subject. Multiple federal agencies contributed to the content in this resource, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. This site is also available in Spanish. [JDC]

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Educators may be interested in Classroom Mental Health, a resource developed by the University of Michigan Depression Center with the help of high school teachers and administrators. This site is designed for teachers to be "a toolkit you can turn to for mental health information and classroom-tested ideas which you can use to promote a healthier, more productive classroom for you and your students." Visitors to this project will find a variety of guidelines, strategies, and exercises that can be used to help support and encourage psychological well-being among their students. Some are aimed at establishing a mental health-friendly classroom climate, such as ways to normalize discussion of the subject by building it into ordinary lessons. Other tools address how to support individual students, including a list of signs that may indicate a student is struggling with their mental health and guidelines for talking to students one-on-one. Additionally, this site includes self-care tips that may be helpful to everyone as well as ways to work with families to support a student's psychological health. While Classroom Mental Health was created with high school teachers in mind, educators at other levels and parents may also find this site's content helpful. [JDC]

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Readers interested in the history of mental health care may want to check out this large collection of archival material that has been digitized and made publicly available by the Wellcome Library in London. These archives, which total more than 800,000 pages of material, date from the 18th to 20th centuries and consist of documents "relating to psychiatric institutions, mental health organisations and individuals in the UK." Here, visitors can find a variety of materials, such as photographs, patient records, data on hospital staff, and administrative documents. As of this write-up, fifteen separate collections make up these archives, including papers from Ticehurst House Hospital in southern England, Gartnavel Royal Hospital in Scotland (originally named the Glasgow Lunatic Asylum), and the Retreat in northern England, as well as personal archives from figures such as psychiatrist William Walters Sargant and psychiatric social worker Robina Addis. In addition to the archival material, readers will also find links to Wellcome's relevant blog posts featuring stories and articles drawn from the archives. [JDC]

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The nonprofit organization Mental Health America (formerly known as the National Mental Health Association; see the 1-20-2006 Scout Report) has produced annual reports on the State of Mental Health in America since 2015. These reports compile publicly available data across all fifty states and the District of Columbia. Among their diverse goals, these reports aim to "provide a snapshot of mental health status among youth and adults" and to "track changes in the prevalence of mental health issues and access to mental health care." Here, readers will find the organization's most recent report (as of this write-up, the 2019 compilation). This report summarizes and maps survey data ranking states on the rates of mental illness in adults and youth as well as on the accessibility of psychological care. Among the report's findings for 2019, more than 44 million adults in the United States have a mental health condition, and roughly 20 percent of those adults report a psychological care need that is currently unmet. In addition to viewing the current report's contents online, readers can also download printable versions of the current and previous reports as PDFs. [JDC]

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The Mental Illness Happy Hour is a long-running weekly podcast hosted by stand-up comedian Paul Gilmartin, former host of the TBS series Dinner and a Movie. Gilmartin started the podcast in 2011 when he realized that, despite his years of experience as a therapy patient, his depression had unexpectedly returned. Since then, the Mental Illness Happy Hour has grown into an acclaimed and cherished series of intimate, empathetic conversations normalizing discussions of mental health, and in 2018 Gilmartin received a Webby Award for Best Host in the Podcast category. Recent guests include licensed therapist and advice columnist Lori Gottlieb, comedian and podcaster Keith Kingbay, and entrepreneur Elle Huerta, who created the Mend app. As the podcast notes, "It's not a doctor's office. Think of it more as a waiting room that doesn't suck." Visitors may also want to check out the site's blog featuring mental health-related posts by guest authors and Gilmartin, as well as the podcast's online community forum. Those interested can download all of the episodes released in the past year at the link above, and listeners can also subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and other platforms. [JDC]

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Originally featured in the 11-20-2015 Scout Report, The Psych Show has continued to produce entertaining and informative videos on psychology, including dozens of videos on mental health.

Psychology, the study of mind and behavior, is both an academic discipline and applied science. Though the subject is woven inextricably into every aspect of modern life, from psychotherapy to advertising, few people take the time to understand the foundations of this important discipline. Dr. Ali Mattu, a senior clinical psychologist at the Columbia University Clinic for Anxiety and Related Disorders, is seeking to change that with The Psych Show, a fun-filled, fast-paced YouTube channel. Here readers will find episodes dedicated to the psychology behind New Year's resolutions, nostalgia, and why diversity in media matters, among many other topics.

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Drush is a command-line tool that manages Drupal websites. It can create new Drupal sites, update and install plugins, update Drupal core to new versions, clear internal caches, backup and restore Drupal sites, and much more. Using Drush, it's possible to perform most site maintenance tasks from a shell rather than a web browser. More technical users may also extend Drush to add their own custom commands. Web developers may be interested in Drush's generate feature, which produces all the boilerplate files necessary to start creating a new theme or module. Drush needs to be run on a web server under PHP. It runs everywhere Drupal does, typically on a LAMP server. Drush is free software, licensed under the GNU General Public License, with source code available on GitHub. Most Linux distributions include a Drush package. Installation instructions for those that do not can be found in the Install section of the Drush website. [CRH]

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WP-CLI is a command-line tool to manage Wordpress sites. It can create and update Wordpress sites, install and update plugins and themes, perform database operations, and more. Using WP-CLI, Wordpress admins can accomplish most site management tasks without using a browser. The Quick Start Guide (linked from the project's front page) walks through a series of example tasks and provides pointers to more detailed documentation. WP-CLI needs to run on the same server as the Wordpress sites it is managing. It requires PHP 5.4 or later and Wordpress 3.7 or later. The recommended method for installing WP-CLI is to download a PHAR file from the project's website. WP-CLI is free software, distributed under the MIT license, with source code available on GitHub. [CRH]

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