http://www.medpagetoday.com

Developed by The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and a team of administrators and physicians, MedPage Today is a clearinghouse of new and compelling medical news information. Along with these accessible and well-written updates, the site also includes “Teaching Brief” articles which help clinicians and consumers to understand the implications of these new discoveries and developments in the medical world. From the left-side of the homepage, visitors can peruse the latest news updates by specialty, including psychiatry, nephrology, pediatrics, and others. Visitors who find that they return to the site frequently may also want to sign up to receive email updates every morning in their inbox. Overall, the site will be of interest to medical practitioners as well as the lay public. [KMG]

http://www.tenement.org/folksongs/
Recently, the Lower East Side Tenement Museum invited digital artists to create works that explore contemporary immigrant experiences in New York City. With the kind assistance of the Institute for Museum and Library Services (along with the J.M. Kaplan Fund), this rather remarkable multimedia collection allows visitors to explore this very vibrant and diverse community through sounds, text, and language. Upon entering the site, visitors are presented with a visual representation of the Lower East Side, overlaid with a series of dots. Each dot represents a different audio sample recorded at that particular location, such as the sound of steam coming up through a manhole cover or a seafood salesman at work. Visitors can toggle these sounds on and off as they see fit, and even create their own “mix” of sounds, if they so desire. In terms of both understanding the culture of urban neighborhoods and interrogating notions of immigration and “belonging”, this website is a tremendous success and may serve as a model for others who wish to follow in this direction. [KMG]

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/whitman/

During his life, Walt Whitman carried around a number of notebooks in which he jotted down his thoughts and feelings. It is estimated that during his life, Whitman created around 100 of these notebooks, and many of them are now in public repositories. This particular collection from the American Memory Project at the Library of Congress affords visitors access to four of these celebrated notebooks. These four notebooks have a rather interesting story, largely due to the fact that they disappeared from the Library in 1942 and were returned only in 1995. For some background material, visitors may want to begin by reading one of the essays about the re-appearance of these works and their subsequent digitization. Visitors might then want to browse through the collection, which includes the first trial lines of what would become “Leaves of Grass” or his 1862 “Hospital” notebook. [KMG]

http://csumc.wisc.edu/

Despite the hand-wringing over the disappearance of local and regional cultures throughout the United States, many traditions and folkways are very much alive and well. One rather distinctive organization that studies and documents these traditions is the Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures at the University of Wisconsin. Drawing on the strengths of the University and their knowledge resources, the website created by the Center contains virtual exhibits, photo galleries, and access to their biannual newsletter on regional culture. The exhibits are quite delightful, and include those that address the bread traditions of Wisconsin and German-American music. The News & Events section of the site is a good place to learn about upcoming lectures, talks, and outreach efforts sponsored by the Center. [KMG]

http://www.scar.org/

Organized by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) is charged with “initiating, developing and coordinating high quality international scientific research in the Antarctic region”. Given their mission, first-time users will not be surprised to find a number of high-quality resources in their publications area, including complete runs of their bulletins, reports, and topical articles, which address such areas as sea-level changes and climate transformation. For those interested in the governance of the region, there is a separate section dedicated to providing information about the Antarctic Treaty. For more general information, visitors would do well to look at the Antarctic Information section, which provides maps of the region, along with some basic statistics and details about the summer and winter research stations operated by various scientific institutes. [KMG]

http://www.cast.org/

Founded in 1984, the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) is an organization that is committed to expanding “learning opportunities for all individuals, especially those with disabilities, through the research and development of innovative, technology-based educational resources and strategies”. On their homepage, visitors can learn about their various initiatives, which include significant research projects, professional development, policy implementation, and publications. The publications area is a good place to start, and visitors can read such articles as “Twenty online resources on reading with comprehension and engagement” and “Teaching students to evaluate Internet information critically”. Visitors may also wish to examine the Teaching Every Student website that CAST has created, as it provides a detailed explanation of the teaching model that they have named “Universal Design for Learning”. [KMG]