http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/stern-lincoln/

Alfred Whital Stern was a long-time collector of Lincolniana who bequeathed his entire collection to the Library of Congress in 1953. He was very catholic in his tastes, as he managed to collect sheet music, broadsides, prints, cartoons, maps, drawings, and campaign tickets related to Lincoln's life and times. This truly astonishing collection from the Library of Congress's American Memory project presents over 1300 items with more than 4000 total images from the years 1824 to 1931. First-time visitors may wish to start by reading the essay by Clark Evans titled "Stern's Gift of Lincolniana to the Nation" and then look through some of the thematic galleries. These include "Lincoln's Letters" and "Collection Highlights". After that, they should definitely conduct their own keyword search, and they may wish to start out by typing in "glasses", "Springfield", or "Kentucky". [KMG]

http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/expo/index-e.html

For over 150 years, world's fairs have fascinated the general public with their blend of futuristic optimism and desire to entertain the masses. In 1967, the city of Montreal played host to Expo 67 from April to October. This particular world's fair also set a single-day attendance record when 569,000 visitors came on the third day it was open. The Library and Archives of Canada has created this virtual tour of the fair, complete with information about all the pavilions, activities, and special guests. In the "Pavilions" section, visitors can watch a movie about these unique structures, and also learn about how each country chose to represent their nation at the fair. Another section that's well-worth checking out is the "News Report" area. Here visitors can read some of the news headlines from that heady time. You won't want to leave the site without downloading the Expo 67 logo for your screen saver or checking out the theme song to the fair, "Hey Friend, Say Friend". [KMG]

https://marinelife.noaa.gov/media_lib/index.aspx

The National Marine Sanctuaries Media Library provides access to thousands of images and video clips that tell the story of "America's underwater treasures." On the homepage, visitors can look through the "Photo Galleries" to get a sense of what the site has to offer. There are six galleries here, and they include "Sea Lion Highlights", "Human Impact", "Fish Portraits", and "Scenic Beauty". Visitors looking for specific items can use the "Keyword" search feature and also take advantage of the "Video" search feature. This feature is quite detailed, as users can look through broad categories like "Birds", "Maritime Heritage", and "Plants". Additionally, visitors can look for media images that originate from specific Marine Sanctuaries sites, including Monterey Bay and the Florida Keys. [KMG]

http://www.vaticanstate.va/EN/homepage.htm

On February 11, 1929 the Vatican City State was inaugurated with the signing of the Lateran Accords. With its motto, "A small territory with a great mission", the State is celebrating its 80th anniversary with a number of celebrations this year. This very fine site brings together a veritable cornucopia of information about the Vatican City State, including information about its governance structure, monuments, and philatelic culture. Visitors can start their journey by looking at webcams that provide a top-notch view of St. Peter's Square and the Governorate Palace. Moving on, visitors can also click on the "History" section to learn about the long history of the Vatican, and how the term has been used over the millennia. After that, visitors can click on the "Vatican Media" to listen in to Vatican Radio, and check up on official news releases from the Vatican Information Service. [KMG]

http://www.nps.gov/history/museum/exhibits/eise/index.html

Recently, the National Park Service has been creating a host of new multimedia virtual museum exhibits. This particular site features the life and times of President Dwight Eisenhower by looking into his wartime leadership, his hobbies, and his successful cattle operation at the Eisenhower Farms in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The site makes very effective use of multimedia slide shows, ephemeral items, and historic images to tell the story of Eisenhower's rather diverse pursuits. Perhaps the best place to start on the site is the virtual tour of the Eisenhower's family home in Gettysburg. The home still contains many of the original furnishings, and short of being there, this is a great way to experience its various charms. Moving on, visitors can also view a timeline of Eisenhower's achievements and look through the image gallery, which is divided into thematic sections such as "Early Military Career", "Presidency", and "Campaign". [KMG]

http://www.who.int/topics/tropical_diseases/en/

This World Health Organization website feature focuses on tropical diseases. For visitors unfamiliar with which diseases out there are considered tropical, this website provides informative fact sheets on fourteen different tropical diseases. To view the factsheets, visitors should click on "Fact Sheets on Tropical Diseases", under the General Information heading near the top of the homepage. The fact sheets cover topics such as "Symptoms", "Transmission", "Treatment", "Prevention", "Economic Cost", and "Diagnosis". Under the "Multimedia" heading near the top of the homepage, visitors can click on the link "10 Facts on Neglected Tropical Diseases", to be taken to a slide show, via the link near the bottom of the page entitled "Read More About Neglected Tropical Diseases". The slide show explains that a neglected tropical disease is a disease that costs little to prevent, does not spread to wealthy areas and is of little priority to pharmaceutical companies when it comes to research and development of medicines for them. Under the Statistics heading near the bottom of the homepage, visitors can click on a link to get to the "Global Health Database", which contains "standardized data and statistics for infectious diseases at country, regional, and global levels." [KMG]

http://shakespeare.berkeley.edu/

The University of California at Berkeley's English Department has undertaken the enormous task of presenting "a survey of current information, opinions and visuals about...the original nature of Shakespearean performance during his lifetime, and of its development through four centuries thereafter." Visitors can click on "Performance Galleries" at the top of the homepage to be taken to ten albums of over 900 images. Some of the topics of the albums that you can link to are "Productions from the Sixteenth through the Twentieth Century", "Productions in Britain 1960-1998", and "Unusual Representations of Shakespeare Performances". The albums contain items such as playbills, photos and drawings of performances, and photos of the rebuilt Globe Theatre. On the far left side of the homepage, visitors can click on "Videos" to view a documentary series about Elizabethan life, as well as excerpts of performances staged by the Shakespeare Program of UC Berkeley at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. The videos can be viewed by "Latest", "Most Viewed", "Highest Rated", and "Featured". Visitors interested in other websites that explore Shakespeare performance will want to click on "Relevant Websites" on the far left side of the homepage, to access a link that has 27 Shakespeare performance related websites. [KMG]

http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/exhibitions/Munch/index

Norwegian painter and printmaker Edvard Munch is commonly thought of as a tortured artist, whose personality mirrored his iconic work The Scream. This new exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago is based on recent research that examined Munch's diaries and letters in conjunction with his artwork, to reveal an artist very much in charge of his image, who carefully constructed his own myth. The web exhibition features 30 works by Munch and other artists, selected from over 150 on display at the Art Institute, that can be viewed arranged in themes. "Constructing a Persona" includes two self-portraits: Self-Portrait in Moonlight, a stylized woodcut from 1904, and Self-Portrait with Cigarette, a painting that Munch made in 1895. The "Isolation and Influence" theme presents Munch's work along with that of his contemporaries; Munch's Summer Night: Inger on the Beach in relation to Monet's On the Bank of the Seine, Bennecourt, which Munch may have seen at art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel’s gallery in 1889.
[DS]