The Scout Report -- Volume 24, Number 29

The Open Library of Humanities (OLH) is a consortium of open-access peer-reviewed journals. This nonprofit publishing platform is based in the UK and had its official launch in 2015. Rather than operating on an article-processing charge model like many open-access academic journals, the OLH is instead funded through a model of Library Partnership Subsidies, which the OLH argues is a more cost-effective approach particularly for research in the humanities. Their extensive academic advisory board includes David Armitage (Harvard), Kathleen Fitzpatrick (MLA), and Peter Suber (Harvard OA Project), among many others. At this time, the OLH publishes, supports, or preserves 23 journals across a range of humanities and social science disciplines. Some examples are The International Journal of Welsh Writing in English, Orbit: A Journal of American Literature, and Architectural Histories, as well as Open Library of Humanities: the OLH's own multidisciplinary journal. This platform and collection of journals will be of interest to librarians and scholars in many disciplines. [JDC]

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As the introduction to this National Library of Medicine online exhibit notes, "[m]eals can tell us how power is exchanged between and among different peoples, races, genders, and classes." In this five-part exhibit, visitors can learn more about how food was grown, traded, and cooked in early eighteenth century North America. Through a variety of artifacts (including an eighteenth-century rolling pin, a couple of pages from Charles Carter's 1732 The Compleat City and Country Cook, and Gilbert Stuart's portrait that likely portrays George Washington's enslaved cook Hercules) this exhibit examines the ways in which food and the violence of slavery were closely intertwined. While white plantation owners relied on the expertise and labor of enslaved individuals in order to eat, "[s]lavery put in place social and culinary boundaries that could separate those who ate from those who worked." This exhibit is accompanied by a number of educational resources for K-12 and higher education instructors. [MMB]

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Those who use geospatial information in their work or research, such as geographers, land use planners, or geologists, may find the Big Ten Academic Alliance Geoportal helpful. This project aims to make geospatial resources more discoverable and accessible to scholars. The Geoportal aggregates publicly-available geospatial resources, which are curated by librarians and specialists at twelve universities in the Big Ten Academic Alliance. These resources include GIS datasets, digitized historical maps, and web services, and each item is also accompanied by descriptive metadata along with links to download or view the full resource. They are easily searchable by both text and map and they can also be browsed by place, data type, and subject. The Geoportal's resources include locations worldwide (including Antarctica), though their coverage is most extensive in the United States. It should be noted that this site does not itself host any data; instead, it serves as a one-stop shop that connects users to data hosted by numerous separate websites. [JDC]

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Thanks to Digital Dante, scholars of The Divine Comedy need not abandon all hope for their research. This rich and extensive multimedia project out of Columbia University began as the brainchild of Jennifer Hogan when she was a graduate student there in the early 1990s, and it was relaunched in 2014 after some years of dormancy. Digital Dante offers numerous avenues for exploring the poet's work, and Dante fans could easily spend many hours doing so. In addition to the full text of The Divine Comedy, in which every canto page is accompanied by illustrations from Columbia University's Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Digital Dante includes over 600 pages of dynamic commentary by editor and Dante scholar Teodolinda Barolini. Another feature is Intertextual Dante, a digital tool conceived by Julie Van Peteghem that aids readers in examining the intertextual references between Dante and Ovid, with plans to add more authors and texts to this tool in the future. The site also includes image and audio collections, video lectures, multiple English translations, and original historical and textual research. [JDC]

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Historians and history aficionados alike will find much to interest them in this digital collection from the Chicago History Museum. While this resource represents only a small portion of the museum's vast collection, those who are unable to visit in person can view many of their most popular and significant holdings through this website. Its contents are divided by type of material, with artifacts, prints and photos, and oral history making up the major categories, and users can search or browse the collections by keyword, date, related events, and several other parameters. Examples from the collection include artifacts that survived the Great Chicago Fire, photos documenting the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, and interviews from the Chicago Cold War Oral History Project. Historians may also be particularly interested in the collection of finding aids that are available on this website, which offers a glimpse of the materials in the Chicago History Museum's archives. The museum adds items to their digital collections regularly, so this resource is worth multiple visits. [JDC]

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Policy makers, grant writers, and public health researchers may be interested in the Neighborhood Atlas, an interactive resource that allows visitors to review the Area Deprivation Index (ADI) of neighborhoods across the United States. The ADI is a numerical measure of public health that was developed by the Health Resources and Service Administration. More recently, a team headed by Amy Kind of the UW-Madison's Department of Medicine adapted the ADI to be used on the level of census blocks. The ADI "includes factors for the theoretical domains of income, education, employment, and housing quality," and, "can be used to inform health delivery and policy, especially for the most disadvantaged neighborhood groups." The Neighborhood Atlas (created by the Applied Population Lab at UW-Madison) allows visitors to view ADI data by census block by selecting a state of interest. The ADI figures for this map are based on the 2013 American Community Survey Five Year Estimates. Researchers may also download this data by creating a free login. [MMB]

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Educators in many grade levels and subjects may be interested in the National Energy Education Development (NEED) Project. This US-based nonprofit got its start in 1980 after National Energy Education Day was established to encourage schools to incorporate energy education into their curricula. Since then, the NEED Project has expanded from a one-day celebration to a comprehensive program whose mission is to "promote an energy conscious and educated society." NEED's website offers well over one hundred curriculum guides and "infobooks" containing data-driven lesson plans and activities for K-12 students that are downloadable as free PDFs. These resources are organized thematically and by reading level, and they can be applied to multiple academic subject areas. Cognizant of the challenges teachers face, NEED offers free curriculum correlations that correspond to the national common core standards and to each state's science standards, and some of their curriculum resources are also available in Spanish. Additionally, NEED hosts local professional development workshops for educators with free registration, and they also have opportunities for students, such as leadership awards and ideas for science projects. [JDC]

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Climate Change in Maine is a story map that documents the human impact of climate change on the residents of Maine. The project was created by a team of Bates College students participating in a class taught by Elizabeth Rush. As visitors navigate this Esri story map, they meet a number of individuals from cities including Lewiston, Phippsburg, and Machiasport. Visitors can learn about these residents' stories through recorded interviews, photographs, and text. In one story, Walter Goss of Mechanic Falls discusses how climate change has impacted his farm. In another story, Dylan Larose of Grey, who owns a bait and tackle shop, explains that the Crystal Lake Fishing Derby was canceled for the first time in 2016 because there wasn't enough ice for ice-fishing. This video explores the question: "How will the cancellation of such events impact the community cohesion given that the derby brings together thousands of people?" [MMB]

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The Gemeentemuseum Den Haag in The Hague, Netherlands is home to over 300 paintings by Piet Mondrian. For art fans who can't make the trip, the Gemeentemuseum and the Dutch digital design company Dept have collaborated to create this excellent online exhibit of Mondrian's life and work. To view this exhibit, visitors can select Discover Mondrian on the site's homepage. From here, visitors will be taken to an interactive, multimedia timeline that allows visitors to explore Mondrian's life and artistic development from his earliest work in Amsterdam (including Evening: The Red Tree, c. 1908-1910 and) until his death in New York in 1944. This timeline, which is comprised of sixteen periods, features a number of Mondrian's paintings along with photographs, maps, and art that influenced Mondrian. For example, in Love of Jazz, visitors can listen to a playlist of some of the artist's favorite jazz tunes. In A Refugee in London, visitors can read Mondrian's reflections of his new home after he fled Nazi-occupied France: "The people [...] are not like in Paris (...) No one is in a rush, everything is calm, not that frantic feeling you get in Paris. Maybe they drink too many aperitifs and too much wine there!" [MMB]

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Justin the Librarian is Justin Hoenke, a rural public librarian who is dedicated to ensuring that residents in communities of all sizes have access to quality library services. On his blog, visitors will find a number of insights, reflections, and tips that may appeal to all public librarians. In one recent post, Hoenke discusses his library's decision to add Nintendo Switch Games to their collection. As he notes, "circulating video game collections will never be your biggest circulating collection, but they will cater to a specific audience that appreciates there being video games available to borrow at their local public library." In another recent post, "Relevant at Any Size: You Just Have to Do It," Hoenke reflects on the unique challenges faced by small rural public libraries and how he and his coworkers meet those challenges. [MMB]

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Many of us have fond memories of a favorite childhood book that we would love to revisit if we could remember the name of the book's title or author. Stump the Bookseller is a project by Loganberry Books, a bookstore in Cleveland, Ohio, dedicated to such mysteries. Here, visitors are invited to explain what they can remember about a book and include tidbits like, "I read this book between 1958 and 1964," and, "it was an old-looking book then, and was not specifically a children's book, more in the style of Lord Dunsany or William Morris." From here, visitors are invited to help the individual identify the book they are looking for. Individuals need to pay a small fee to post a query, but anyone can comment on queries or browse the site's archives for free. Queries are tagged with categories including anthology, picture book, mystery, and fantasy for easy browsing. Visitors also may want to start by viewing queries that have been successfully answered, which are tagged as solved. [MMB]

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In honor of the centennial of World War I, the National Library of Ireland has created this online exhibit dedicated to how the war impacted Irish citizens. This online exhibit, which accompanies a physical exhibit of the same name, is comprised of three slideshows of primary documents. The first of these three slideshows, The Road to War, highlights some of the historic events that contributed to the start of the war, mostly through newspaper clippings. Meanwhile, A Modern War highlights Irish recruitment posters alongside war photographs. Finally, the third slideshow, On Irish Shores, includes a number of photographs and illustrations that demonstrate how the war impacted Ireland. One such photograph documents a team of women who sold cakes, produce, and teas to support the war effort. Visitors can also view a collage that captures a number of victory celebrations in Dublin. [MMB]

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Those interested in early twentieth-century modernity, particularly in the form of art, culture, and literature, may want to give the Modernist Podcast a listen. Each episode features a panel discussion that focuses on a particular aspect of modernity--examples of previous episode topics include modernism and race (Ep. 6), the politics of modernism (Ep. 11), and mapping modernism (Ep. 15). Episodes tend to be from an hour to 90 minutes in length, and panelists are drawn from an international community of modernist scholars in a variety of academic disciplines. The intent of this podcast is for academics to be able to "bring critical debates beyond the bindings of the journal and out from within the walls of the conference" in a way that is more accessible for a lay audience. The Modernist Podcast is hosted by Sean Richardson, a PhD student at Nottingham Trent University (UK) who researches queer geographies of modernism. Listeners can subscribe to the podcast on Soundcloud and iTunes. [JDC]

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New York City's Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) is known for its internationally recognized programs in fashion, art, design, and related fields. This academic institution is also home to the Museum at FIT, which specializes in history-making "directional" fashion and boasts more than 50,000 pieces in its permanent collection. While a number of pieces in their collection date back to the eighteenth century, their strengths lie in modern and contemporary fashion. For those unable to visit in person, the museum also makes a large portion of its collection viewable online. Users can browse the museum's online collection by time period, or they can search by keyword as well as by a range of fields describing the objects and the designers. For those using the collection for research, visitors also have the option to register for a free account and save their favorite pieces to their own personal board. Whether fashion is a personal interest or part of your research, the Museum at FIT's online collection is a valuable resource. [JDC]

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Geotripper is the blog of Garry Hayes, a geology instructor at Modesto Junior College. On this photography-rich blog, Hayes shares a number of geological insights and reflections. In one recent series of posts, Hayes shares photographs and notes from a recent trip through the American Southwest, which included stops at Bryce Canyon, Arches, and Canyonlands National Park. In another recent post, Hayes offers a "geologists' review" of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. As he notes, "As in practically all Hollywood movies, the director mixes up his volcano genres." Hayes has been blogging since 2008, and visitors can explore previous posts by tag. Hayes also invites visitors to submit any geology-related questions that they would like addressed via email for a future blog post. [MMB]

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The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam is an almost 150-year-old museum housed in a nineteenth-century building with an added twenty-first-century wing that's sometimes referred to as "The Bathtub." The museum is now providing online access to the roughly 90,000 artifacts in its collection. While it's possible to search broadly across the collection materials, there are also many ways to limit searching and come up with a manageable browsing list. For example, a search can be limited to only items that have an image, by maker's name, or by format. One downside to the display of collection materials is that after the full description of a work is retrieved, it's not possible to browse the next item in the list; the only choices are to go back to the search hit list or view more works by the same artist. [DS]

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Franz is a multi-protocol, unified messaging solution that allows users to access all their chat and messaging services with a single application. It currently supports Slack, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Google Hangouts, Skype, and numerous other services. Within each individual service, Franz supports an unlimited number of separate accounts. Per their website: "you could even use five different Facebook Messenger accounts at once if some inexplicable reason urges you to do so." With the Franz sync feature, users can synchronize their list of services across multiple devices. Starting with version 5 (the current version), the source code for Franz is available on Github under the Apache license. Franz executables are available on the Franz website for Windows, macOS, and Linux. [CRH]

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Browser tabs provide a convenient way to open multiple sites at once, but many users find them accumulating to the point of becoming overwhelming. Toby is a tab management extension designed to tame large sets of tabs, even making tabs suitable as a replacement for bookmarks. Users can create any number of named collections of tabs. Within a collection, users may also apply tags (e.g., todo, clients, projects, etc.) to individual tabs. Toby allows users to create up to eight tags. Users may also create organizations to contain collections. By using an optional Toby account, users may share these organizations with other users. Toby is available for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. Opera users can also use Toby through the "Install Chrome Extensions" Opera plugin. [CRH]

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Last featured in our 2015-2016 Best of the Scout Report issue, the Refugee Project allows visitors to explore data about refugee resettlement between 1975 and 2017 (courtesy of the UNHCR)

This richly informative and interactive website from the Refugee Project opens with vivid photographs of refugee life and a short explanation of the worldwide refugee situation. From there, readers will want to select "explore" to access the interactive map that tracks refugee migrations, year by year, from 1975 to 2017. Readers may select a year to view the annual number of refugees that were forced to flee their homes, as well as view the affected areas on the map in the form of red circles. From there, hovering the mouse over an area offers more information on the region and conflict. In addition, clicking on the name of the conflict pulls up a more complete description of the circumstances. For example, for the year 1978, selecting Ethiopia Defeats Somali Invasion of Ogaden, pulls up a history and description of that event.

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