General Interest
http://www.officer.com/publication/pub.jsp?pubId=1
Serving as a sworn officer of the law continues to be one of the most demanding professions in the country, and those in the field will certainly appreciate the website of Law Enforcement Technology. This monthly magazine concentrates primarily on the emerging trends in the field of law enforcement technology, such as the use of computers, refined body armor designs, and of course, improvements in weaponry and forensics. On their website, visitors can read articles about new data management systems, mobile license plate readers, and innovative flashlights. Along with these feature articles, each issue contains information about funding opportunities for law enforcement technology initiatives and new developments in software technology. Finally, visitors can also sign up to receive email notifications about job opportunities and promotional offers. [KMG]
http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/constellation_front/index.html
Over the past few years, NASA has been working on a number of creative and important projects, particularly in the area of new spacecraft construction and design. This website was created to serve as a place the public can learn about Project Constellation, which is the long-term project that will once again take humans back to the moon for a variety of scientific endeavors. From the homepage, visitors can view several Flash-enabled features that demonstrate some of the newly proposed spaceships and also how such vessels will return from the moon. Along with these related multimedia features, visitors can view information on what each of NASA’s ten field centers is doing as part of this ambitious effort. Those seeking additional information should also browse around the “Related Links” area, which includes full resolution images, a Q&A section, as well as a basic fact sheet. [KMG]
http://invinciblecities.camden.rutgers.edu/intro.html
Throughout history, cities have risen and fallen from prominence, and in recent times more attention has been paid to why this ebb and flow persists across the centuries. Documenting this process has increasingly been the province of historians, archaeologists, city planners, sociologists, and of course, photographers. Many photographers have been very interested in the world of post-industrial urban decay, and Camilo Jose Vergara is one of the best. With financial support from the Ford Foundation, this website brings together Vergara’s photographic record of the cities of Camden, New Jersey and Richmond, California in exquisite geographic and visual detail. First-time visitors will want to read through the introduction to the project offered by Vergara, and then perhaps click on the question mark on the homepage for a brief primer on how to use the user interface for each city. At that point, visitors shouldn’t be afraid to look over both cities, as they can zoom in and out around a number of interesting locales, including abandoned factories, old piers, and gated communities. Short of wandering through these cities in a peripatetic fashion, this website serves as an interesting introduction to some overlooked aspects of urbanity. [KMG]
http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/welfare/
Over the past few years, the American RadioWorks has raised the bar for like-minded radio documentary programs, producing thought-provoking and insightful studies on topics such as, Congressional reform, intelligent design, and international adoption programs. In this recently released documentary, John Biewen has created this introspective look into the world of welfare reform in the United States, and how it has affected the lives of five different women and their families. The women profiled come from a host of different backgrounds, and visitors may be surprised at some of the findings that Biewen presents in the documentary. The site also includes an interactive feature that allows users to find out how their own state ranks in terms of welfare and foodstamp recipients, welfare check sizes, time limits, and unemployment rates. Visitors can also look over a list of additional external links of interest and also read the complete transcript of the program. [KMG]
http://www.collectbritain.co.uk/collections/pip/
In our own time, daily newspapers and other such materials provide news, entertainment, gossip, and other such items that seem to both delight and offend many segments of the populace. While it may be hard to believe, the media landscape was once rather devoid of such rags, and the Penny Illustrated was one of the first to hang its journalistic shingle out there, in a matter of speaking. Published between 1861 and 1913, the paper’s publication was “With all the news of the week”, and readers were certainly not disappointed, as it contained a number of sections dealing with sports, recreations, and “Foreign News”. Recently, the “Collect Britain” project at The British Library digitized the entire run of the paper, and placed it online at this website. Visitors can browse through the complete run at their leisure, or they may also wish to look over some of the paper selected as a “Curator’s Choice”. [KMG]
http://americanart.si.edu/americas_art
This companion Web site to a new book of the same title from the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) will serve many readers as well as the book itself. While the web site lacks the large-size, printed reproductions of artwork and introductory texts of the book, it never the less provides reasonable screen resolution images of all of the 225 works reproduced in the book. The web site is organized into 16 chapters, starting with "From Distant Shores", which contains artwork documenting the immigrant experience, and ending with “Toward the Millennium”, which is artwork created in the last 20 years of the Twentieth Century. In addition, the America's Art Web site links into SAAM's online permanent collection. This allows visitors to read caption information from the exhibition labels for each work of art, search on each artist's name to see if there is more of their work in SAAM's collection, use SAAM research databases, and even use the Museum's Ask-a service, Ask Joan of Art. [DS]
It may be difficult for the average consumer to evaluate the sometimes grandiose claims that various supplements, vitamins, and other such products make on their labels and such. One way to learn about products is ConsumerLab.com, which provides independent test results and information in order to assist consumers and healthcare professionals to evaluate such products. The casual visitor will want to begin by looking over the “Latest Results” area on the homepage, which provides some information on their recent tests on melatonin sleep supplements and other related nostrums. Visitors looking for information on specific products will want to direct their mouse to the “Laboratory Test Results” area. Here they can look through a list of product evaluations that include nutrition bars, ginkgo biloba, and the ever-popular echinacea. The site is rounded out by a very nice area on “Recalls and Warnings, which (as its name suggests) includes information on recent notices posted by the Federal Trade Commission and other such agencies. [KMG]
