http://micklestreet.rutgers.edu/index.htm

Walt Whitman always reads well, but on this site he also sounds and looks quite well. The Mickle Street Review brings together audio clips, video recordings, and written scholarship on and about Whitman and the broader world of American Studies. The Review was first published in 1979 and it is based at Rutgers University in Camden. Visitors to the site can browse all of the back issues of the Review, and they can also view the current issue as well. On the homepage, visitors will find the works divided into categories such as "Documents", "Features", and "Essays". One of the more fantastic additions to their site is the digital version of Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, which contains a close reading of the text along with a downloadable Brooklyn walking tour by Jesse Merandy. Moving on, the "Listening Room" contains recordings of Leaves of Grass read by Ralph Bellamy and a version of Song of Myself read by Orson Welles. Finally, the "Viewing Room" contains various adaptations and creative visions of Whitman's works and explorations of his life. [KMG]

http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/

Scholars, journalists and members of the general public will have a field day with the National Science Foundation's Science and Engineering Statistics website. Visitors will note that the data contained within the site includes publications, working papers, data spreadsheets, and analyses divided into broad areas that include "Education", "Federal Government", "Industry", "International", and "Social Dimensions". Users can delve deeper into these broad areas and come up with related publications, policy briefs, and so on. Near the bottom of the page, visitors can look over the "New Releases" area for new reports on federal science and engineering support to universities, research expenditures, and the ethnicity and gender makeup of federal scientists and engineers. Finally, visitors can also sign up to receive their RSS feed. [KMG]

To find this resource and more high-quality online resources in math and science visit Scout's sister site - AMSER, the Applied Math and Science Educational Repository at http://amser.org.

http://www.demos.co.uk/files/LiberalRepublic_web2bb.pdf?1242120969

The Demos organization publishes thoughtful pieces of commentary and research on a variety of topics, including civics, governance, public space, and other related matters. Richard Reeves and Philip Collins authored this 71-page paper, and in it they consider the nature of power and control, and more specifically, the relationship between the people and government. The work was published in May 2009, and is divided into three chapters: "Independence", "Capability", and "Power". The report concludes with a series of notes and references. Perhaps Reeves and Collins say it best when they note, "The 'good society' is not a perfect shape to be carved by the elite out of the crooked timber of humanity. It is created by independent, capable people charting their own course through life." [KMG]

http://collections.stanford.edu/mjf/page.action?forward=home

Summer brings thoughts of outdoor jazz festivals, and fans of the genre flock to places like Newport and Monterey each year to take in a variety of performances. Since 1958, the pleasant seaside town of Monterey has hosted the Monterey Jazz Festival and their vast archives of performances, ephemera, and other materials are housed at Stanford University's Archive of Recorded Sound. With substantial funding from the Grammy Foundation, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, and Save America's Treasures, the Archive of Recorded Sound continues to add to this digital collection. First-time visitors will want to click on the "About the Collection" to learn a bit more about the Festival's history and how to best use the online collection. Next up is the "Collection Highlights", where visitors can view some excellent clips from such masters as Thelonious Monk, Bobby McFerrin, Charles Mingus, and Dianne Reeves. Scholars of the genre will want to use the search feature to look for more details on the over 9,000 performances contained within the archive. Additionally, visitors can create their own user account to bookmark performances of note and save them for future reference. [KMG]

http://fletcher.lib.udel.edu/collections/hmc/index.htm

Over the past several years, the dedicated staff members at the Special Collections Department of the University of Delaware Library have been carefully selecting maps of note to include in this digital collection. The site contains over 330 maps that cover the geographical region from Delaware to West Virginia, including four complete atlases of the Blue Hen state. The homepage presents several different browsing options, including "Browse by Subject", "Browse by Creator", "Browse by Map Type", and "Browse by Date". Visitors will want to note that there are maps of lighthouses, city plans, telephone exchanges, and maps of the University of Delaware campus. The site is rounded out by a finding aid and a bit of material on how the collection was created. [KMG]

http://digital.library.unlv.edu/ntsohp/

Based at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, the Nevada Test Site Oral History Project is "a comprehensive program dedicated to documenting, preserving and disseminating the remembered past of persons affiliated with and affected by the Nevada Test Site during the era of Cold War nuclear testing." From 2003 to 2008, oral history narrators participated in this project, and they included national laboratory scientists, military personnel, Native American leaders, and peace activists. On the homepage, visitors should look through the three thematic sections, including "Contested Landscapes" and "Community of Voices". Through these oral histories and testimonies, visitors can learn about the complex set of processes and experiences surrounding the test site. Along the left hand of the site, visitors can search the collection, make a list of their favorite interviews, and also get assistance with using the site. [KMG]

http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/calcultures/

The University of California Libraries has digitized a collection of images of four ethnic groups in California that have been historically underrepresented by digitized primary source materials. In order to learn about diversity in California in a historical context, visitors should start by checking out the Historical Essays highlighted at the top of the site's homepage. These essays provide brief historical overviews and related images and begin with the period "Before 1768: Pre-Columbian California" and end with the period "1921-Present: Modern California". Once visitors have familiarized themselves with the history they should move on to the main event. The images of the four groups, "African Americans", "Asian Americans", "Hispanic Americans", and "Native Americans" can be found under their own tabs at the top of the page, and are further divided into subcategories. On the far right side of the page are several free Lesson Plans for grades 4-12 that emphasize these underrepresented California cultures, and utilize this database of images and documents. Some of the lessons include "Stealing Home: How Race Relations, Politics and Baseball Transformed Chavez Ravine" and "Los Californios: California's Spanish, Native American and African Heritage". [KMG]

http://www.tvworldwide.com/events/webwise/090226/

Three hundred museum and library professionals from across the United States gathered together in February 2009 to discuss the development of digital resources and how this development affects librarians and information specialists at cultural institutions. This straightforward website includes webcasts of the sessions and is the next best thing to attending the conference as visitors to their site can listen to digital recordings of every session from the 2009 WebWise Conference. Some of the sessions held, in addition to the opening remarks and the wrap-up, include the complicated topics of "Rights and Responsibilities"--that of museum and library collections and users; "Identity and Collaboration"--when collaboration between institutions is impeded and when collaboration threatens to adversely change the "brand" of an institution; and "Chasing the Edge and Maintaining the Core"--the balance between acquiring cutting edge technology while still keeping the core services well maintained. [KMG]