The Scout Report -- Volume 24, Number 30

As podcasting has exploded in popularity over the past decade, a number of researchers have become interested in studying this cultural phenomenon. PodcastRE (short for Podcast Research) is a searchable database of over 1000 different podcast feeds. These podcasts are curated, preserved, and cataloged by staff at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Department of Communication Arts and the university's libraries. PodcastRE was founded by Jeremy Morris, a Communications Arts professor at the university. As of this write-up, this digital humanities archive provides links and metadata for over 150,000 individual audio files, some of which date back to 2007. Visitors may search the database and access its metadata and streaming options by conducting a keyword search. Upon conducting an initial search, the results may then be filtered into podcasts or episodes, and advanced search features such as episode length and date range become available. In addition, researchers can request a Researcher Account for access to additional resources, such as original audio files. While intended as an avenue of access to researchers interested in cultural and digital media, PodcastRE will also be of interest to avid podcast listeners. [JDC]

Comment on or rate this resource

Environmental Humanities is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal published by Duke University Press. The journal is edited by Thom Van Dooren, a professor of Gender of Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney, and Elizabeth DeLoughrey, an English professor at UCLA. Environmental Humanities publishes interdisciplinary scholarship, including work by scholars of the humanities and the natural and social sciences, to address environmental topics. This international journal began publication in 2012 and has published nine volumes to date. Recent articles explore conceptual ideas such as the politics of cancer and how the study of ice cores affects discourses of temporality. This journal also publishes the "Living Lexicon for the Environmental Humanities," a series of 1,000-word essays that explore and evaluate particular keywords. For instance, in one such essay, Serpil Opperman, an English scholar at Hacettepe University in Ankara, Turkey, considers how the term installation may "[open] a space to rethink the Anthropocene in terms of effective empathy for the Earth." Environmental Humanities would be of interest to scholars of many disciplines, from environmental studies to semiotics and beyond. [JDC]

Comment on or rate this resource

MIT Global Shakespeares: Video & Performance Archive offers online access to videos of Shakespeare's plays performed worldwide, both on stage and on film, as well as video interviews, written essays, and reviews of many productions. Viewers can browse this extensive collection by play, language, and geographic region. In addition, researchers can also conduct a keyword search. Full-length videos are available for many of the stage productions, and there are also short clips of film scenes. This collaborative project is directed and edited by Peter S. Donaldson, MIT's Ford International Professor in the Humanities, in collaboration with a team of regional editors at universities around the world. This archive is designed to "promote cross-cultural understanding and serve as a core resource for students, teachers, and researchers" and to celebrate Shakespeare as a truly global literary figure whose work can bridge cultures. [JDC]

Comment on or rate this resource

Michigan Sea Grant has produced a fantastic resource to help educators teach their students about Great Lakes science. Teaching Great Lakes Science offers fully-developed lesson plans and activities with accompanying data sets, all freely available and optimized for use in the classroom. These resources are targeted toward students in grades 4-12 and are designed so that teachers can choose to either use the complete module or to mix and match different components based on their instructional needs. Educators can browse these resources by concept (Earth Science, Life Science, Physical Science, Social Science) or by topic (e.g., fish, invasive species, water properties). These lessons and activities utilize guided inquiry to help students develop higher-level thinking skills. In the Teaching Tools section, educators will find tips for creating inquiry-based questions of their own. Another highlight of this resource is the Great Lakes FieldScope, a web-based geospatial tool developed in partnership with National Geographic Education Programs. In providing this excellent resource, Michigan Sea Grant aims to increase scientific and Great Lakes literacy in current and future generations. [JDC]

Comment on or rate this resource

Jeremy Bentham was a philosopher, jurist, and social scientist best known for developing the philosophy of Utilitarianism. The University College in London is home to the Bentham Project, a collaborative effort that aims to "to produce a new scholarly edition of the works and correspondence of Jeremy Bentham." The project is currently headed by Phillip Schofield, a professor of the History of Legal and Political Thought at the university, with contributions from a number of UCL faculty and staff. Since 2010, the project has headed Transcribe Bentham, a crowdsourced effort to transcribe approximately 60,000 manuscripts. On the Transcription Desk page (available via Transcribe Bentham) interested visitors can select manuscripts to transcribe by subject matter (including animal welfare; crime and punishment; moral philosophy; and sexual morality), by time period, or by difficulty level. In addition, researchers can search or browse these manuscripts through a link in the Research Tools section. [MMB]

Comment on or rate this resource

Academics, professionals, and engaged citizens alike can find much to interest them in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Digital Library. This vast repository contains a wide range of material "by and about the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers" for varying audiences. These materials include technical reports, histories, photographs, maps, recreational guidebooks, and multimedia. This regularly updated library is well-organized, easy to search, and covers all the USACE Districts nationwide. Nearly all the materials on this site are freely available to the public for download, with the exception of the USACE's design materials, which are only available to USACE employees. Anyone interested in learning the specifics about a bridge, dam, or other construction projects under federal jurisdiction will find this resource greatly beneficial to their research. [JDC]

Comment on or rate this resource

The growth of digital culture has presented researchers with what may be seen as both a challenge and an opportunity: how to visualize these cultural resources in an effective and engaging way. From 2014-2017, the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam in Germany conducted the cross-disciplinary research project Visualizing Cultural Collections (VIKUS, or Visualisierung kultureller Sammlungen) to address this very question. This website is the result of that project. Here, visitors will find six examples of different graphical user interfaces with descriptions and links to interactive demos, as well as images and descriptions of 18 student projects from the course associated with Visualizing Cultural Collections. The diversity of subject matter and visual style presented in these examples makes this resource appealing to a broad range of disciplines and interests, and non-academics may also find it interesting as well. It should be noted that while this website is in English, a few of the demos linked to it are only available in German. [JDC]

Comment on or rate this resource

Open Science Radio is a podcast dedicated to open-access science research and publishing that might interest scientists and information professionals. The podcast is hosted by Konrad Forstner, a biology researcher and professor of information literacy at the Technical University of Cologne, and Matthias Fromm, a podcaster and self-described "open science enthusiast." While some episodes of this podcast are in German, listeners can access all English-language episodes through the link above. In one recent episode, Forstner and Fromm chat with Jon Tennant, a paleontologist and open-science advocate, about his Open Science MOOC project. In another recent episode, Fromm chats with Felix Schoenbrodt, a psychology professor at Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, about creating incentives to encourage scientists to share their data. [MMB]

Comment on or rate this resource

Readers interested in Jewish culture, art, and history will enjoy this blog authored by staff at the Jewish Museum in New York City. This blog offers readers a glimpse into the museum's myriad exhibits and collections. Recent blog posts feature profiles interviews with artists and curators and videos exploring exhibits and collections. For instance, in one recent blog post, Ruth Andrew Ellenson considers Maira Kalman's 2015 mural In This Life, There Was Very Much. This blog post features a short biography of Kalman and incorporates a number of quotations from the artist. One feature of this blog that may particularly interest readers is the series Objects Tell Stories, which uses objects from the museum's collection to explore Jewish holidays. The Jewish Museum also hosts podcast of "Verbal Description Tours" designed for those with vision impairments. Here, visitors can stream detailed verbal descriptions of exhibits and artwork. This blog is updated regularly several times a week, and interested readers can subscribe to the blog via their Medium platform. [JDC]

Comment on or rate this resource

Think back to a favorite place...do you recall what it sounded like? Sound can be a powerful trigger for memories, and the Cities and Memory project plays with this phenomenon by collecting and mapping user-submitted field recordings along with remixed "sonic reimaginings" of those recordings. Founded by UK sound artist and musician Stuart Fowkes, Cities and Memory has a global scope, featuring contributions from individuals in over 80 countries. Visitors may explore Cities and Memory through a series of global collaborative themed projects, which visitors will find via the Sound Projects tab. These projects, which range from the artistic to the documentary, explore the interconnections between sound and place. For example, "The Next Station" maps the London Underground through sound, featuring field recordings captured at 55 Tube stations (the "city versions") alongside creative sound edits (or "memory versions") that evoke the memory and experience of being Tube passengers. Visitors can also explore this project via an interactive map available on the project's homepage. [JDC]

Comment on or rate this resource

In April 2018, the Pew Research Center published a study examining American perceptions of the internet's impacts on society. This report, based on a nationally representative survey of 2,002 American adults, also investigated how Americans access the internet at home. The study found that while the vast majority of respondents (88 percent) thought the internet has been good for them personally, the portion of Americans who believe that the internet has been good for society has decreased significantly: only 70 percent of Americans in 2018 believe the internet has been good for society overall, down from 76 percent in 2014. The study also found that 20 percent of Americans do not subscribe to broadband internet service at home and rely on smartphones for at-home access, while 11 percent of Americans do not use the internet at all. Interested readers can download the full 12-page report for more details, which includes demographic breakdowns and colorful graphs. [JDC]

Comment on or rate this resource

Mongabay is an environmental and conservation news site with an international focus. Founded in 1999 by Rhett A. Butler, Mongabay publishes news about on wildlife and ecosystems around the globe, with a focus on how human society impacts the environment. In 2012, the registered nonprofit arm of Mongabay was formed "to raise awareness about social and environmental issues relating to forests and other ecosystems." Since then, Mongabay has launched environmental news services specific to Indonesia, India, and Latin America. Mongabay has twice received grants from the MacArthur Foundation, and in 2014 Butler was awarded The Field Museum's Parker/Gentry Award for his work with Mongabay. Visitors to Mongabay will find a well-organized interface with multiple news articles published daily. The site is searchable by keyword, and its main menu organizes stories into categories including Rainforests, Oceans, and Animals & Environment. Meanwhile, story feeds can also be viewed by topics (e.g., Birds, Forests, Palm Oil) or by geographic location. Teachers and parents may also be interested in Mongabay's For Kids section, where they will find educational content for students in the K-5 age range on a variety of ecological topics. Mongabay is available in nine languages. [JDC]

Comment on or rate this resource

Librarians, historians, and those who love physical books may enjoy Book Traces, a crowd-sourced project focused on the handwritten marginalia, annotations, mementos, and errata found in pre-1923 books on university library shelves. These customizations provide a record of how books were read and used by their original owners. Book Traces is led by Andrew Stauffer, an English scholar at the University of Virginia, and is sponsored by NINES (Networked Infrastructure for Nineteenth-Century Electronic Scholarship). This project aims to draw attention to the value printed books hold as historical and social objects and "to engage the question of the future of the print record in the wake of wide-scale digitization." To date, Book Traces has collected over 800 marginalia submissions, which site visitors may browse in order of submission date. Alternatively, visitors may search this collection by book author or type of marginalia. Particularly unique examples include paper doll clothes tucked into The Complete Works of Sir Walter Scott and a copy of The History of the Popes by Leopold von Ranke that includes an inscription written by the thief who had stolen it. [JDC]

Comment on or rate this resource

From the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History comes this online exhibit dedicated to the science and history of color. This exhibit, which accompanies a physical exhibition that ran at the museum in early 2017, consists of four sections: The Science of Color, Making Color, Matching Color, and Using Color. Each of these section consists of a short essay accompanied by a number of fascinating primary documents. For instance, in The Science of Color, visitors can read about the history of scientific theories about color and view pages from Isaac Newton's 1704 Opticks, or, A treatise of the reflections, refractions, inflections and colours of light. Meanwhile, the Matching Color section features a variety of color charts, including Richard Waller's 1686 Tabula Colorum Physiologica and Milton Bradley's 1895 Elementary Color. [MMB]

Comment on or rate this resource

This recent episode of NOVA, which aired on June 27, 2018, examines the devastating 2017 Atlantic hurricane season. Within the course of weeks, Hurricane Harvey unleashed an estimated 30-50 inches of rain to Houston, Texas; Hurricane Irma wreaked havoc on a number Carribean islands and the state of Florida; and Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico and Dominica, causing massive damage and a death toll that some estimate to be in the thousands. As many of these communities continue to confront the aftereffects of these three hurricanes, scientists are working to improve hurricane prediction techniques and understand why so many so-called "superstorms" have developed in recent years. Visitors can watch the new documentary in its entirety through the link above. In addition, this episode is accompanied by a number of related NOVA episodes and news clips that may also interest viewers. [MMB]

Comment on or rate this resource

The Indigenous Collection at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) "includes works from the First Peoples of North America, namely First Nations, Inuit, and Metis" as well as "global Indigenous Art from Africa, Australia, and the Torres Strait Islands." The collection is a combination of traditional artifacts (such as an Anishinaabe thunderbird strap, dating from 1780, decorated with a porcupine quill frieze) and more contemporary works (such as Rebecca Belmore's Rising to the Occasion, a multimedia sculpture in the shape of a dress with a halo above it, created 1987-91). Search can be a bit frustrating because "Indigenous" is simply one of the filters that can be used to limit results retrieved from the entire AGO collection online, and it can be difficult to return to the main Indigenous Collection page after a search. In addition, some items mentioned on the collection's homepage, such 327 boomerangs that were donated to the AGO in 2002, along with more than 1,000 Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artworks, cannot be retrieved in a search. [DS]

Comment on or rate this resource

Falkon is a minimalist web browser built around QtWebEngine, a wrapper around the Blink browser engine at the core of Google Chrome and a number of other browsers. Because it uses the Blink engine, Falkon renders websites essentially identically to any other Blink-based browser. Falkon includes standard features like browser history, bookmarks, and a 'recent sites' list on new tabs. A built-in ad blocker is also included. But there the features largely end, resulting in a relatively lightweight browser that consumes fewer system resources than more full-featured browsers like Firefox or Chrome. Falkon is available for Windows and several flavors of Linux/UNIX. On Windows, Falkon can be installed either system-wide or as a 'portable' application that can run from removable media. Falkon is free software developed as part of the KDE Project and available under the GNU General Public License version 3. Instructions for obtaining source code can be found on the Development section of the Falkon website. [CRH]

Comment on or rate this resource

ShareX is a Windows utility for capturing and sharing screenshots and screencasts. It provides a number of ways to specify what should be captured. Users can select from everything on all displays, a single display, a single window, a single region of a window, and other capture modes. Once an image or movie is captured, ShareX can perform a number of post-processing tasks, including watermarking and text recognition. Completed screenshots/screencasts can be uploaded to one of several dozen services. Links to the uploaded file can be created with a variety of URL shorteners (bit.ly, is.gd, tinyurl.com, and others). Lastly, these links can be shared using a number of social media channels, including Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and Reddit. ShareX is licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3, with source code available on GitHub. Executables can be downloaded for Windows computers. ShareX requires Windows 7 or newer. [CRH]

Comment on or rate this resource

Nineteenth-Century Disability: Cultures and Contexts present primary texts and images on both cognitive and physical disability between the years 1780 and 1914. Authored by over 20 scholars of disability studies, the site includes detailed annotations of over 60 texts and artifacts. These items range from medical instruments (such as an eighteenth-century hearing aid) to literature, both famous (Jane Eyre) and obscure (the fairy tales of Dinah Mulock Craik). Together, these sources create a vivid portrait of how disability was imagined and discussed by medical professionals and artists alike. The Discover section lets readers experience the collection by themes, such as technology, literature, and institutions. For those looking to dive into more scholarship on disability studies and the nineteenth century, the Bibliography provides a mass of sources ranging from online resources to books to scholarly articles and book chapters.

Comment on or rate this resource