General Interest
One hundred and fifty years ago, it was not uncommon for a hardy band of New Englanders to move west, then shortly afterwards decide that their new home was deserving of some sort of higher education facility. Many small liberal arts colleges were started in just this fashion. In the decades following these developments, a number of organizations were developed in order to assist those in higher education administration with the process of planning for future growth and expansion of their respective institutions. The Society for College and University Planning, founded in 1965, is one such organization. From the main website, visitors can read about various conferences and symposia sponsored by the Society and learn about its diverse set of publications. One great resource afforded here is the Knowledge section, which contains lists of higher education news media links, a job postings database, a database of approximately 4000 internet links dealing with higher education, and yet another database that links up to the Planning for Higher Education journal. Users may also elect to receive email updates on a number of related issues, including classroom design, town-gown issues, campus heritage preservation, and student services. [KMG]
http://parallelpress.library.wisc.edu/
UW-Madison Libraries' Parallel Press combines book publishing traditions with new technology to provide print-on-demand books and a series of chapbooks (small, inexpensive books featuring the works of authors and poets with a Wisconsin connection). Print-on-demand books parallel the online editions created by the Libraries' digitizing initiatives. Currently, four titles, including David Hayman's A First-Draft Version of Finnegan's Wake (originally published in 1963) and The Book of Beasts (1954), by T.H. White, are available via Parallel Press print-on-demand service. The poetry chapbook series began in 1999 with the publication of four Wisconsin poets (Elizabeth Oness, Max Garland, Katharine Whitcomb, and Andrea Potos) and has continued with six chapbooks per year. A prose chapbook series began in 2002 with American Trilogy. This chapbook consists of historical reproductions of the American Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights, with introductory material by UW Professor Stephen E. Lucas, and an afterword by John P. Kaminski, Director of the Center for the Study of the American Constitution -- published as part of a one year later, university-wide reflection, on the impact of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. [DS]
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/earthasart/
For close to thirty years, a series of Landsat satellites have imaged the Earth's surface, returning images for use in a number of business, education, government, and science applications. Of course, many of these images have a great deal of aesthetic value, as those who look at them find themselves marveling at vast deltas, fjords, and land use patterns around the globe. This fine exhibit from the Library of Congress includes images transmitted from Landsat 7. These images are are also part of an exhibit in the Library's Geography & Map Reading Room that will be on display until December 31, 2003. Visitors to the online exhibit can look at high-resolution images of remote Akpatok Island in northern Quebec, Dasht-e Kevir (which translates as Great Salt Desert) in Iran, the West Fjords in northwestern Iceland, and about thirty-five other images in total. [KMG]
http://gazetteer.hometownlocator.com/index.cfm
A number of sites provide easy access to Census information and topographical features, but the HomeTownLocator Gazetteer is certainly one of the easiest to use, and quite a bit of fun as well. On this site, users may begin by browsing physical and cultural features of the United States, arranged by individual state. From each state listing, visitors may learn about various physical and cultural attributes within each county, such as hospitals, bays, airports, oilfield, and post offices. After browsing a list of each type of feature, visitors may elect to view an aerial photograph of the feature and its environs as well. Census 2000 information may be browsed by city, town, village, county, or zip code, which is yet another nice feature of the site. Also, visitors can use the My House feature to obtain a photo of the street they live on and use a distance finder to calculate the distance between two cities, towns, or zip codes. [KMG]
http://web.inter.nl.net/users/anima/index.htm
The process of chronophotography was the name given by Etienne-Jules Marey in 1882 to describe the time (chronos) photographs of movement sequences. Needless to say, documenting these various temporal processes, whether it was a horse running around a track or people walking, was an immensely difficult procedure. Paying homage to this important predecessor to the modern motion picture, this website contains a host of materials on the various individuals who made substantial contributions to this field during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Along with short video clips, the site contains extended profiles of key individuals, such as Ottomar Anschutz, George Demeny, and A.M. Worthington, who was renowned for his early studies of splashes that involved dropping a ball into a pan containing a mixture of milk and water. One particular additional feature of this interesting site is a section dedicated to providing text and images of early period motion picture machines that were patented in the United States from 1861 to 1897. The patents profiled here range from Coleman Sellers 1861 "new and useful Improvement in the Mode of Exhibiting Stereoscopic Pictures of Moving Objects" to the 1897 patent filed by Thomas A. Edison for a "kinetographic camera." [KMG]
Given the declining schools of fish in many of the world's oceans, interest in aquaculture has grown exponentially in the past few years. The Aquaculture Network Information Center (ANIC) serves as an electronic gateway to thousands of online aquaculture-related resources, and is hosted by Purdue University and the University of Illinois through the Illinois - Indiana Sea Grant College Program. ANIC was started in 1994, and currently contains links to hundreds of aquaculture publications from around the globe, visual media (such as Power Point presentations), calendars of germane conferences and events, and specialty sections for species and production systems. From the ANIC home page, visitors may join discussion groups about aquaculture (organized by species), learn about different aquaculture cultivation systems, and peruse recent and archive publications from the relevant federal, state, and international agencies. For aquaculture neophytes, a FAQ section will answer ever quandary possible about the world of pond management, the perplexity of pond construction, and the inevitable debates surrounding which form of aquaculture production is most appropriate for different regions of the world. [KMG]
http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/feature/indian/index.htm
Under the theme Strengthening the Spirit, the National Register of Historic Places (in tandem with the National Park Service) has developed this site to showcase various historic properties listed in the National Register and National Park units that celebrate the achievements of American Indians and Alaska Natives. The site was also produced to draw attention to National American Indian Heritage Month, and to assist educators with the process of incorporating into the curriculum field trips to these places. Some of the featured places on the site include the Campus Center in Alaska, which served as the location of the Alaska Federation of Natives conference in 1971 and the Southwestern Range and Sheep Breeding Laboratory Historic District in New Mexico, which was a part of a New Deal program to improve sheep breeding. Educators will want to look through the Teaching with Historic Places modules available here that profile additional historical landmarks and sites that capture important aspects of American Indian history throughout the country. [KMG]
