Google Cultural Institute

Google Cultural Institute  makes available rich cultural archives of photographs, videos, and other documents representing a global selection of historic topics. Launched in 2010, the site featured 40-plus exhibits at the time of this review. The institute has worked thus far with 17 partners, including the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and the LIFE Photo Collection, providing funding and expertise to digitize and present online exhibits of their materials. (The institute also plans to open a building with a physical gallery and facilities for speakers.) Based in Google's Paris office, the project has a scope that is distinctly international; the interface supports multiple languages, though videos and other materials are not necessarily translated from the original.

The exhibits, which tend toward the solemn (e.g., apartheid, the Holocaust), are shaped as compelling narratives built on a relatively small number of attention-grabbing images. Hence the main site is better suited to students and casually interested viewers than expert researchers; more comprehensive archives are often found on linked sites operated by the partner institutions.Users may search or browse. The latter option allows navigation (viewing by exhibit, by comprehensive time line, or by partner), sorting (by relevance or date), and limits (for media, source, place, event, or person, depending on the search). The site may be somewhat overwhelming at first glance; however, it offers powerful flexibility for those who invest time in it. The site's explanatory videos include some rather hyperbolic self-praise, but Google's strength has always been in drawing attention to the most interesting and useful materials. Thus, this site could eventually live up to the prediction of becoming "one of those fundamental instruments that all of us use." At this point, it is a good online museum with some remarkable materials. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower- and upper-level undergraduates, professionals, and general audience. -- W. L. Svitavsky, Rollins College. Reviewed in March 2013 issue of ACRL's CHOICE.

Human Body Maps, from Healthline

Human Body Maps, from Healthline.

Healthline's Human Body Maps, created in partnership with GE Healthymagination, is a free, interactive anatomy program that provides access to high-quality medical images. It allows learners to virtually explore the human body by selecting a body segment from a list or detailed index of body regions/systems or by clicking on an image. The site includes mouse-over pop-up boxes to identify body parts and provide links to more information. What is more fascinating and useful is the ability to rotate an image and select the layer of interest: skin, superficial muscles, deep muscles, connective tissues, bones, nerves, vasculature, and lymphatics. The layering allows learners to better understand how different organs and tissues fit together in a particular area of the body. Each component (body segment, organ, muscle, etc.) includes a more detailed description. For example, the description for a muscle contains a description of the muscle, its origin, insertion, vasculature, innervation, and muscle action as well as information on common clinical concerns.Both male and female anatomies are featured. There is no histology or cytology. The site provides links to related Healthline consumer health articles that are reviewed by physicians and animations from Visible Productions. Response time for both the interactive and non-interactive parts of the site is good. Though the site's primary audience is health care consumers, Human Body Maps is excellent for undergraduate health science students. An iPad app is available for $8.99 (single gender) or $14.99 (both genders). Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates, two-year technical program students, and general readers. -- J. M. Miller, University of Toledo. Reviewed in February, 2013 issue of ACRL's CHOICE.

Project Gutenberg.

Project Gutenberg.  Before the controversial Google Books endeavor, the 40-year-old Project Gutenberg  was the first effort to create an online digital library. Unlike Google Books, Project Gutenberg is scrupulous about verifying the copyright status of its works within US law before freely distributing these items. Dozens of titles are added weekly.

The collection is heavily weighted toward literature in English published before 1923, and thus in the public domain, though it has expanded into dozens of languages and several formats including audio books, recorded music, sheet music, still pictures, and video.

Project Gutenberg originally provided works in plain text only, but now has expanded into ePub, Kindle, and HTML formats that are compatible with smartphones and other portable reading devices, including Amazon's Kindle and Barnes and Noble's NOOK. Over 36,000 free e-books are available for downloading or online reading. Volunteers contribute their time to scanning and proofreading the texts.
The Gutenberg catalog is available as automatically generated MARC records for libraries to load directly into their online catalogs to link library users instantly to Gutenberg e-books. Several independently operated non-US affiliates with the same mission have been granted permission to use the Project Gutenberg trademark.
Between them, the Gutenberg group has placed over 100,000 e-books on the Web.

Many Internet efforts are well under way to build digital collections, including the aforementioned Google Books, the Universal Digital Library http://www.ulib.org/ , the Hathi Trust Digital Library http://catalog.hathitrust.org/ , the World Digital Library http://www.wdl.org/en/ , and the Internet Archive http://www.archive.org/ . With a collection of works that is perhaps less extensive than any of these, Project Gutenberg offers both a Web site and texts that are uniquely simple and usable. Summing Up: Essential. Lower- and upper-level undergraduates; general readers. -- M. Sylvia, St. Mary's University. Reviewed October, 2011 in ACRL's CHOICE.

The Naked Scientists: Science Radio and Naked Science Podcasts

The Naked Scientists:
Science Radio and Naked Science Podcasts

Cambridge University professor Chris Smith began The Naked Scientists radio show and Web site in 2000, with international podcasts following in 2005. The physicians and scientists involved in this effort wanted to promote science to the general public in an entertaining fashion, and they have clearly met this goal. They embraced the idea of social media before the term became ubiquitous, allowing fans to participate in online discussion forums in numerous science categories, follow

The Naked Scientists or share content via Twitter, Facebook, etc., call the radio show with questions, and more. As a BBC science radio program, The Naked Scientists is broadcast live weekly on Sundays in the eastern region of England, simultaneously streaming through the Internet or a mobile device. Broadcasts and articles on the Web site discuss topics in a wide range of areas including astronomy, archaeology, biology, chemistry, general science, mathematics, medicine, oceanography, physics, and technology. Many of the radio shows have a Kitchen Science segment in which listeners are encouraged to attempt the experiment at home. Web site visitors can listen to or view over 1,000 interviews with scientists.

As of 2011, there have been over 17 million podcast downloads, which are free from Yahoo!, Google, or iTunes. With a compatible player, one can receive "enhanced podcasts," which include illustrative images and chapters. Previously broadcast shows are available from the Web site or iTunes. Site pages load quickly, and navigation is a snap. This reviewer listened to several podcasts and found them interesting and easy to understand. Similar sites include Scientific American's Science Podcast, with a weekly show and 60-second weekday science news stories, and NPR's Science Friday Neither offers the variety or depth of information that Naked Scientists does. Summing Up: Recommended. General and academic audiences, all levels; two-year technical program students. -- M. S. McCullough, Monroe Community College. Reviewed in ACRL's September 2011 issue of  CHOICE.

The HistoryMakers Digital Archive

The HistoryMakers Digital Archive.
Between 1999 and 2005, Carnegie Mellon University and The HistoryMakers  (Julieanna Richardson, executive director) combined to produce 14,060 stories taken from 700 hours of video about 310 historically significant African Americans.

From the famous--Barack Obama (an Illinois state senator when interviewed) and Julian Bond--to the not-so-famous (Gloria Bacon, a physician who established The Clinic in Altgeld, a medically underserved housing project in Chicago, and banking executive Clark Burrus), the archive spotlights African Americans in a variety of fields and professions. About two-thirds of the interviewees are male. The oral interviews all follow the same format, allowing the interviewees great latitude in responding to standard questions. Easy to navigate, each biography is preceded by a mundane list of likes (favorite color, season, vacation spot) and a printed abstract.

This is followed by a series of separate segments that can be accessed after registering. Though relatively simple, the registration process does include some seemingly intrusive questions (two phone numbers and current salary, which can be declined). Once registered, users can access all the video clips, which include a printed text. Also available is a photo gallery. While watching and listening to each clip (most are only a few minutes in length), one can read the transcript that appears below. The clips provide a personal, individual view of growing up African American. Undergraduates will find the site useful as they investigate African American culture and life throughout much of the 20th century.
The site will help them with research in history, sociology, urban studies, business, arts and entertainment, and sports and medicine. Students will need to supplement material from the digital archive with other sources, as these are personal, individual accounts that should not be generalized to the population as a whole. Summing Up: Recommended. All levels/libraries. -- D. R. Jamieson, Ashland University Reviewed in ACRL's July 2011 CHOICE.

NAACP: A Century in the Fight for Freedom, 1909-2009.

NAACP: A Century in the Fight for Freedom, 1909-2009

The largest single collection at the Library of Congress (LOC) is the NAACP Papers, a vast resource into which virtually all civil rights movement scholars have immersed themselves at some point or other.

Now, the LOC introduces NAACP: A Century in the Fight for Freedom, a Web site that should prove insightful and educational for students and the general public and shows the promise to be a useful resource for scholars if the digitization process helps to bring the vast treasure trove of NAACP resources in the LOC onto the Web.

According to the home page of the easily navigable site, the Web resource "presents a retrospective of the major personalities, events, and achievements that shaped the NAACP's history during its first 100 years." Clicking on the NAACP's Interactive Timeline opens a new page with actor Laurence Fishburne as narrator and tour guide. Clicking further (Enter the Timeline) reveals a US map superimposed with clickable dates. Clicking on a date reveals a box that gives details about the event in question and reveals on another map the places where that event had impact.

Under the Exhibition Items tab, a page allows users to click on various documents available for viewing online. The Web site is still a work in progress, but holds considerable promise as a resource that will bring arguably the LOC's most significant collection to a broader public and will show that archives represent far more than dusty boxes held in storage, but rather serve as a repository for what the past can tell us about who we are and who we have wanted to be. Summing Up: Recommended. All levels/libraries. -- D. C. Catsam, University of Texas of the Permian Basin Reviewed in ACRL's July 2011 CHOICE.

International Center for Research on Women.

International Center for Research on Women.  This Web site provides access to a library collection of over 13,000 reports, books, fact sheets, and policy briefs that focus on gender and women's issues in an international context. It appears that they are narrow in their scope (i.e., women's issues), but the subjects are broad based and global in perspective. The online library has information on scholarly research from the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications, the Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative of the World Health Organization, and the Food and Agricultural Organization of the UN. Contributors are social scientists,

economists, public health specialists, and demographers that have expertise in gender relations. Several authors have a great deal of international experience and come from various parts of the world. One highlight is the tool kits and trainer's guides that provide valuable information on issues such as domestic violence, promoting equality, and HIV prevention and setting up health clinics. This is a great resource for researchers and activists who need fact sheets, surveys, policy briefs, and brochures on global issues with a focus on women and gender; and for scholars seeking new methodological approaches to conducting research on a variety of topics ranging from agriculture practices to property rights for women and determining the cost and impact of intimate partner violence. Several resources lend themselves to identifying best practices,

policy recommendations, and research methodologies in a comparative and global perspective. The Web site is updated regularly, the reports are of high quality, the organization is straightforward, and the print and download options are relatively easy. An excellent resource for students, scholars, practitioners, activists, and policy makers. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above. -- I. Coronado, University of Texas at El Paso  Reviewed in ACRL's September, 2011 CHOICE.