General Interest
With the recent rise in flu outbreaks both across the United States and the rest of the world, the United States government has developed a broad range of strategies for keeping citizens up to date on the current status of these developments. The Pandemic Flu website is the official US government website for information on the subject (along with coverage of avian influenza) and should be of interest both to the general public and to those working in the fields of public health and policy. First-time visitors may want to begin by looking through the general information area on the homepage. Here they will find answers to basic questions as “What is an influenza pandemic?” and also be able to peruse materials about avian flu and vaccines and medications designed to treat both conditions. Most visitors will also want to learn about the official national strategy designed to both prepare and respond to an influenza pandemic. This document is available from the site’s homepage in its entirety, as is information about what agencies (nationally and internationally) are monitoring outbreaks of these diseases. [KMG]
http://www.nypl.org/research/chss/spe/art/print/exhibits/pressure/index.html
This web site offered by New York Public Library (NYPL) complements an exhibition of relief prints on display October 28, 2005 - January 26, 2006. The site includes a brief history of how relief prints came to be an important part of NYPL's collection, an introduction to the process of relief printing, a dozen prints selected from the show, and an annotated A-Z list of artists whose work is held by NYPL. Many of the prints were originally created to be book illustrations. At the site, you will learn how relief prints are created by inking raised areas of a printing plate, usually composed of wood or linoleum; read biographical notes about artists; or discover the context of various illustrations, such as Fritz Eichenberg's Breakfast at Lowood School, for Jane Eyre. There is also a section on the importance of print clubs in American art collecting. [DS]
http://www.fieldmuseum.org/pompeii/
Described by Pliny the Younger in part as “a fearful black cloud”, the massive eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79 wiped out the settlement of Pompeii. Of course, a number of other small towns were also greatly affected, many of which also had fine architecture and advanced forms of public infrastructure, such as roadways and bridges. The story of the explosion and the subsequent archaeological digs in the area is the focus on this interactive online exhibit created by the Field Museum. A good place to start is the interactive timeline which allows users to move through the events of that fateful day to learn about the progression of the volcanic activity and the reaction by local residents. After looking over the timeline, visitors can learn about each of the cities affected by the eruption, including Oplontis, Herculaneum, and Terzigno. [KMG]
Iceland is a nation with a long and rather unique history, and it is worth noting that it has also been thoroughly mapped and examined by cartographers, explorers, and other such types over the past millennium or so. Fortunately, the Nordic Digital Library Center and the National and University Library of Iceland have joined forces to create this digital archive of all maps of Iceland from before 1900. Visitors who would like some explanation of these materials can seek out a short historical essay on the maps by author Haraldur Sigurosson. The maps themselves are divided up chronologically, headed by explanatory titles, such as “The first maps of Iceland” and “The coastal survey of 1776-1777”. Each map is accompanied by a short passage of text that explains the origins of each map, along with offering information about how each map fits into an emerging sensibility of Iceland’s location in relation to other landforms. Finally, the site is available in both Icelandic and English. [KMG]
http://digital.library.pitt.edu/pittsburgh/
Digital projects that purport to offer extensive primary and secondary source materials on any given conurbation are numerous and this particular digital project on the city of Pittsburgh certainly lives up to its name and stated objectives. Created with funding from the Hillman Library Endowment and the Institute of Museum & Library Services, this collection brings together historic material dealing with Pittsburgh from a number of key sources, including the University of Pittsburgh’s Library System and the Carnegie Museum of Art. A great deal of new material has recently been added to the site, including 26 volumes of Hopkins Real Estate maps dating from 1872 to 1939 and a feature that allows users to explore the existing image database by the photo’s location within one of Pittsburgh’s many colorful neighborhoods. Of course, visitors can use the site’s various finding aids and search engines to find exactly what they want, and also learn about recent additions to the database by perusing the “News” section of the site.
[KMG]
The Land of Lincoln is certainly not lacking in organizations who seek to document the rich history of the area, whether it be the many innovations in farm technology that have arisen out of the creative minds of local inventors or the gritty urban landscapes of the Second City’s nooks and crannies. Fortunately for those with a penchant for these subjects, there is the Digital Past website, which began in 1998 with a partnership with the North Suburban Library System in Wheeling, Illinois. Currently, the digital archive contains over 35,000 items (such as postcards, architectural plans, and personal letters) culled from close to 30 institutions in the area. Visitors may want to take a look at some of their thematic collections of digitized objects and related materials, such as those devoted to the architecture of the North Shore community of Glencoe or a history of the city of Park Ridge. Of course, visitors should feel most welcome to search the complete archive of materials here, which they may do by looking through a list of cities, organizations, and proper names. [KMG]
