The Scout Report -- Volume 24, Number 5

Princeton University Press, Hebrew University, and the Einstein Paper Project at the California Institute of Technology have collaborated to create the Digital Einstein Papers, which is an open-access site for The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein. The Digital Einstein Papers feature a number of documents in the Einstein collections at Hebrew University and CalTech, including scientific papers, diaries, lecture notes, interviews, and correspondence. As of this write-up, the collection features most of Einstein's papers published through the year 1923. The papers are arranged chronologically into thirteen volumes. Visitors may choose to read the "black volumes" (in original German with English annotations) or the "white volumes" (completely translated into English). New visitors may want to start by watching a helpful video overview of the collection by editor Diana Kormos Buchwald, available in the about section. Buchwald, who is also a professor of history in the humanities and social sciences, describes some of the highlights in the collection. All documents are available in print-friendly format. [MMB]

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Advertisements had a significant influence on the people of colonial America, just as they do today. The Adverts 250 Project allows individuals to have a glimpse into the world of eighteenth-century advertising: each day, the project posts an advertisement that appeared in a publication exactly 250 years ago to the date. These advertisements are selected by history students at Assumption College in Worcester, Massachusetts and are culled from three online archives: Accessible Archives, Colonial Williamsburg's Digital Library, and Readex's America's Historical Newspapers. Many of these advertisements illustrate the horrors of slavery - the project also hosts a Slavery Adverts 250 Twitter account dedicated to sharing slave advertisements. Other featured advertisements provide insight into eighteenth-century reading habits and culture. One advertisement, published on January 15, 1768, in the New-Hampshire Gazette, announces the release of "Mein and Fleeming's REGISTER FOR NEW ENGLALD [sic] AND NOVA SCOTIA, With all the BRITISH LISTS, AND AN Almanack for 1768." [MMB]

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From the New York University School of Medicine comes LitMed Database: "a collection of literature, fine art, visual art and performing art annotations." This database was launched in 1996 and is currently edited by Lucy Bruell. The database currently contains well over 3,000 resources related to the medical humanities. Visitors may browse these resources alphabetically in the A-Z index, where annotations can be explored by title, author/artist/director, keyword, or genre. Alternatively, visitors can also browse the collection by format (e.g. painting/ drawing; fiction; film, T.V., video). Each entry includes a summary of the item's content along with additional commentary. In addition, entries are tagged with themes for easy browsing. For example, an entry about the television show Downton Abbey includes the tags caregivers, family relationships, trauma, and war and medicine (among others). This database may be especially helpful to educators interested in leading discussions about the portrayal of health and medicine in literature and popular culture. In addition, this database may also be useful for practitioners and patients looking for resources about a specific topic. [MMB]

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The Purdue OWL (Online Writing Lab) offers this helpful collection of resources designed to help individuals understand the writing conventions and best practices of different professional and academic fields. These resources may be especially helpful for students as well as professionals who find themselves writing for new or specific audiences. This collection contains nine different guides - some of which include Professional, Technical Writing, Writing in the Social Sciences, Creative Writing, Writing in Engineering, and Journalism and Journalistic Writing. Many of these guides contain a number of more specific instructions for particular writing tasks. For example, the guide entitled "Healthcare Writing" contains instructions for medical journalism, SOAP notes (a kind of clinical documentation), and for writing patient education materials. [MMB]

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Last featured in the 09-08-2006 Scout Report, the Rossetti Archive continues to be a fine resource for scholars, students, and members of the general public interested in exploring the work of the nineteenth-century poet and artist. This archive is perhaps best explored via the exhibits & objects section, where items are organized into twelve categories. Nine of these categories contain works created by Rosetti, including his double works (containing the piece The Girlhood of Mary Virgin, which encompasses both visual art and poetry), pictures, translations, and correspondence. The three remaining categories include related texts (works by other nineteenth-century writers and artists who influenced Rosetti or, conversely, were influenced by Rossetti) and related works by other artists (which includes illustrations inspired by Rosetti). Visitors interested in conducting their own research will also want to check out the bibliography section. The Rossetti Archive was completed in 2008, so visitors interested in checking out more recent scholarship will want to continue their research elsewhere. [MMB]

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For librarians of all stripes, Circulating Ideas is a regular podcast that, "facilitates conversations about the innovative people & ideas allowing libraries to thrive in the 21st century." This podcast is hosted by public librarian Steve Thomas, is supported by the University of South Carolina School of Library and Information Science, and features interviews with library professionals across the United States. Each episode is approximately 45 minutes in length, and new episodes are released one to three times per month. Recent episodes include a conversation with Bonnie Tijerina of the Data & Society Institute about patron and data privacy; a conversation with Dr. Nathan Carpenter of the Illinois State University's School of Communication about social media literacy; and an interview with Jeffrey Davis, the branch manager of the San Diego Public Library and author of The Collection All Around: Sharing Our Cities, Towns, and Natural Places. All podcast episodes are accompanied by show notes, which include related resources that may be of interest. [MMB]

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Khan Academy offers this collection of online lessons about English language grammar. This collection features a series of video lectures accompanied by practice exercises and unit quizzes. Topics covered in this lesson include the parts of speech and punctuation, syntax, usage, and style. Each topic is broken down into short sub-topics, allowing users to practice and learn at their own pace. Alternatively, instructors can incorporate specific videos or quizzes from this collection into their existing curriculum with ease. This collection may especially appeal to instructors of K-12 Language Arts and instructors of English Language Learners (ELLs) of all ages. [MMB]

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Hosted by Scholastic, this project is dedicated to the world of folklore and fairy tales and would be a valuable resource for teachers of creative writing or those who want to implement this genre into their lesson plans for grades K-12. Myths, Folktales & Fairy Tales contains sections dedicated to each of the three categories and provides advice by and online workshops with published writers. For example, the myth section offers "Myth writing with Jane Yolen," which explores the path of writing one's own myth story in addition to Yolen's biography. Users have the option to explore folklore from around the world and the site contains a wealth of material with a heavy emphasis on strategies for students who are writing their own stories. The homepage contains a link to a teacher's guide and a related booklist, which provides teachers with additional book titles to supplement subject-specific lessons. [JLB]

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Released in 2015, The World in Ten Blocks is the title of both an interactive, online documentary and a film dedicated to a single ten-block stretch of Bloor Street in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The project was created by filmmakers Marc Serpa Francoeur and Robinder Uppal of Lost Time Media and is presented in partnership with The Globe and Mail. Why did the pair choose to focus on this single area (known as Bloorcourt) in Toronto? As this website notes, Bloorcourt is one of the most multicultural neighborhoods in the capital of Ontario. In the interactive documentary that is available on the homepage of the site, visitors are invited to take a virtual tour of Bloorcourt (complete with 360-degree cameras and captions about the history of significant buildings) and "meet" ten business owners in Bloorcourt through a series of powerful story maps. Each of these story maps incorporates photographs and filmed interviews. Through these interviews viewers meet a variety of people who immigrated to Toronto and became entrepreneurs, lending to the diverse and pluralistic character that defines the city. [MMB]

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Photographer Levon Biss and the Oxford University Museum of Natural History have teamed up to create Microsculpture: a captivating collection of magnified images of insects at the museum. As Biss explains, these images are created using a 36-megapixel camera that includes a 10x microscope. Each individual image is created using around 8,000 photographs. Visitors can view these photographs through the explore tab on the upper left-hand corner of the website. Here, visitors can view 32 of these images in detail thanks to a zoom-in tool. As visitors view each image, a scale on the upper right-hand side of the screen provides the actual dimensions of each insect. The collection includes images of the colorful jewel longhorn beetle, the orchid cuckoo bee, the unique Paris peacock, and much more. [MMB]

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Mercury Theatre on the Air was a radio drama headed by Orson Wells and John Houseman. The show released its first broadcast on Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in July 1938 and continued to release shows (later under the name Campbell Playhouse) through March 1940. The show's most famous broadcast aired on October 30, 1938: an adaptation of H.G. Wells's War of the Worlds that led some listeners to believe that Earth had really been invaded by Martians. On this website, visitors can listen to old Mercury Theatre on the Air broadcasts (including the War of the Worlds broadcast) in Real Audio or MP3. These shows include performances of The Immortal Sherlock Holmes, Rebecca, The 39 Steps, The Christmas Carol, and much more. In addition, the website includes a 1937 adaptation of Les Miserables, released as seven radio broadcasts. As the site notes, this earlier production featured many of the individuals who would go on to form the Mercury Players. [MMB]

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From KSMQ in Austin, Minnesota comes Off 90: a television series about the communities that run along the Minnesota stretch of US Route 90, which spans east-west along the southern part of the Gopher State. The show, currently in its eighth season, features numerous interviews with business owners, artists, athletes, craft persons, teachers, and other residents of Minnesota cities including Rochester, Winona, Mankato, and Lake Pepin. As of this write-up, recent episodes of Off 90 feature an exploration of a 100-mile garage sale; a glimpse into the writing community in Mankato, Minnesota; and a remembrance of the 1967 tornado outbreak in southern Minnesota. Off 90 is hosted by Barbara Keith, an artist who calls Lanesboro, Minnesota home. On this website, visitors can watch previously aired episodes from seasons four through eight. Off 90 is a gem of a production and offers a peek into southern Minnesota history and culture. [MMB]

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The University of Texas at Austin's Harry Ransom Center recently released this impressive digitized collection of movie posters released between 1950 and 1974, along with a few un-dated posters. The collection includes posters for 1957's Lady Chatterley's Lover (celebrated as "The Film Without False Modesty!"); 1961's The Parent Trap; a 1966 poster for an Elizabeth Taylor double feature (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Butterfield 8); and a 1972 poster for The Heartbreak Kid. This collection features both classic movies as well as cult titles (such as Five Branded Women). The digital collection currently features hundreds of posters. The entire movie poster collection at the Harry Ransom Centers numbers well over 10,000 - movie fans can expect the digital collection to grow in years to come. [MMB]

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William Melvin Kelley (1937 - 2017) published four novels and a book of short stories between 1962 and 1970. These works, especially his 1962 debut A Different Drummer were met with great critical praise. Despite this acclaim, Kelley's works are often, and curiously, overlooked today. In this long-form essay published in the January 29, 2018, issue of The New Yorker, Kathryn Schulz describes how she stumbled upon Kelley's work when she ran across a copy of Langston Hughes's Ask Your Mama in a junk store. When she opened the book, she found an inscription, penned by Hughes, gifting the book to Kelley. As Schulz begins to read Kelley's work herself, she comes to the conclusion that the writer is, "seldom read today not just because of the weaknesses of his book but also because of their peculiar, discomfiting strengths." Kelley's works were experimental in nature and centered on themes of race and racism in the U.S. In particular, his works interrogated whiteness and explored questions of how white Americans viewed black Americans. This essay, which is also available in audio format, offers short reviews of Kelley's work along with insights about the writer's life and legacy. [MMB]

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For anyone interested in American film history, You Must Remember This is a podcast dedicated to the "secret and/or forgotten histories of Hollywood's first century." Launched in 2014, the show is written and hosted by Karina Longworth with frequent guests from the worlds of film and journalism. Each episode explores a different aspect of Hollywood history, told with the aid of dramatic reenactments and film clips. One recent series of episodes explores the rivalry between Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, tracing the lives of both horror movie stars. Another recent series of episodes investigates the careers of actresses Jane Fonda and the late Jean Seberg: "two white American actresses who found great success (and husbands) in France before boldly and controversially lending their celebrity to causes like civil rights and the anti-war movement." Each episode of You Must Remember This is accompanied by full show notes, which include credits, photographs, and links to all sources. Interested listeners can also subscribe on iTunes. [MMB]

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Art of the Menu is a blog created by the design firm UnderConsideration that showcases what they call the "underrated creativity of menus from around the world." Locations from which the menus are selected include US cities such as Chicago, IL (14 menus); New York, NY (45 menus, although Manhattan is listed separately, with two menus); Pittsburgh, PA; and Minneapolis, MN. About half of the menus are from locations outside of the United States. As you would expect, the menus vary enormously in typography, layout, and binding. Variations range from a wood panel with a burned-on logo at the gastropub State and Lake in Chicago to the gold-stamped leatherette folder of a menu at Sopra Cucina & Bar, an Italian restaurant in Singapore. Another interesting aspect of Art of the Menu is that it uses the Moveable Type blogging platform. Moveable Type is a system that, in 2001, seemed poised to be the dominant blogging software - until Blogger and WordPress arrived in 2003. [DS]

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Mastodon is a micro-blogging service and social network platform similar to Twitter. Unlike Twitter, Mastodon is a decentralized service based on the World Wide Web Consortium's ActivityPub protocol. Users may select any Mastodon server they want, or even host their own. The Mastodon website contains a server selection wizard that allows users to find a server with content moderation policies that are to their liking. The 500-character "toots" are listed in strict chronological order without any optimization to insert advertising or promote particular users. Each toot can be set to one of four tiers of visibility, with the most permissive appearing everywhere and the least only being visible to a specific user. In addition to Mastodon's web interface, which works in any recent browser, numerous client applications are available for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS. The Mastodon server is a free software with source code available on GitHub. [CRH]

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Stylish is a browser extension that allows users to customize the appearance of sites that they visit. A large collection of themes for popular websites is available on the Stylish website. Some of these themes exist to address ergonomic concerns. For example, users working at night may select dark themes for the sites they visit, reducing the sensation of staring into the headlights of a car. Other themes are more whimsical. For example, Star Wars fans may apply Star Wars skins to sites that they visit. Pokemon fans can replace Facebook's reaction icons with their own menagerie. Stylish is available for Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera. [CRH]

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In 1896, the army of Ethiopia successfully fought off Italian invaders and secured the nation's independence during an era of colonialism. Historian Raymond Jonas published a book in 2012 dedicated to this battle and its significance. On this accompanying website, visitors can learn more about the Battle of Adwa by exploring a variety of maps, photographs, and other primary documents. Those unfamiliar with the Battle of Adwa may want to start with About the book, which includes recorded interviews with Jonas. The highlight of this website is the features page. Here, readers will find a variety of materials and ideas that are better suited for web-viewing than in a printed format. These items are useful in not only learning about the Battle of Adwa but also in demonstrating the craft of researching history. For example, in Maps and terrain, visitors can see how Jonas, with the help of his son, used archival maps and GPS in order to construct his own visual interpretation of the battle.

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