The Scout Report -- Volume 24, Number 48

On November 23, 2018, the US government released Volume II of its Fourth National Climate Assessment report (NCA4), which "provide[s] a thorough examination of the effects of climate change on the United States." This report is a follow up to NCA4 Volume I, which was released in 2017 and focused on assessing the science of climate change. Among the many standout findings of NCA4 Volume II are that "[t]he impacts of climate change are already being felt in communities across the country" and that "annual losses in some economic sectors are projected to reach hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the century" without substantial efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Readers can download the 196-page report in brief in both English and Spanish as a PDF, as well as an eight-page summary containing a high-level synthesis of the report's findings. Individual full-length PDFs of the report's 29 chapters with accompanying PowerPoint slides are also available, as are PDFs of its public reviews and FAQs. NCA4 was produced by Congressional mandate under the Global Change Research Act of 1990, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration led the thirteen federal agencies involved in its preparation. [JDC]

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The spread of misinformation and "fake news" online is a problem that has become increasingly concerning in recent years. Recently, researchers at Indiana University quantitatively "analyze[d] 14 million messages spreading 400 thousand articles on Twitter during ten months in 2016 and 2017" and found "evidence that social bots played a disproportionate role in spreading articles from low-credibility sources." In their article published in the open-access journal Nature Communications on November 20, 2018, the researchers explained how they used the open-source tools Hoaxy and Botometer (created and maintained by Indiana University) to calculate that while only six percent of the Twitter accounts in their random sample of the general population were identified as bots, those accounts were responsible for spreading over 30 percent of low-credibility content. The researchers also note that bot accounts may be targeting influential people with large numbers of followers in the hopes that these people will share the bots' content, lending it a facade of popularity and credibility. This detailed article includes several illustrative graphics as well as links to the code used to conduct its analysis and to supplementary material detailing the study's data sources and methodology. [JDC]

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Researchers and students interested in large-scale interdisciplinary issues with international implications may find the PURE database to be a helpful resource. PURE is the Publications Repository of the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), an independent policy-oriented research institute located in Austria with 23 member countries representing every continent except Antarctica. At the time of this writing, this resource contains more than 7,000 full-text publications, including scholarly articles, reports, and datasets, from dozens of programs such as "Human Settlements and Services Area" and "Transitions to New Technologies." Newly published materials are added to the repository regularly, and its archives date back to the early 1970s. In addition to a simple keyword search, IIASA PURE offers a robust advanced search feature allowing users to narrow their results to specific dates, item types, publication status, and other fields. Visitors may also browse the repository by year, research program, or author. Metadata for items in IIASA PURE is freely accessible and available for reuse. [JDC]

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Begun in 2017 and launched in June 2018, the African Education Research Database (AERD) is "a curated collection of research undertaken in the past decade by scholars based in sub-Saharan Africa." This database, which seeks "to raise the visibility of African research" and lower barriers to accessing that research, is a collaborative initiative between the Research for Equitable Access and Learning (REAL) Centre at the University of Cambridge and Education Sub Saharan Africa (ESSA). Here, readers will find more than 2,200 items (as of this writing) of "social science research with implications for educational policy and practice," including peer-reviewed articles, doctoral dissertations, book chapters, and working papers, all produced since 2007, and the database is regularly updated with new material. Visitors can search and filter AERD by keyword, country, and research methods, and there is also an interactive map showing the number of studies available from each country. While the majority of its contents are in English, the AERD also contains some research in French and Portuguese. [JDC]

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Researchers and students of indigenous studies, American history, and political ecology may be particularly interested in the American Indian Digital History Project (AIDHP). This ongoing initiative was "founded to recover and preserve rare Indigenous newspapers, photographs, and archival materials from all across Native North America." At this time of writing, visitors to this project can browse digitized copies of the influential twentieth-century Mohawk newspaper Akwesasne Notes as well as Honga: The Leader, a newsletter from the American Indian Center, and the project plans to expand its holdings. The goals of AIDHP are to partner with Tribal communities and organizations and to "encourage responsible American Indian research methods and the increased use of Native source materials" in order to "raise the bar on academic and public research on or about Indigenous peoples." AIDHP is led by Kent Blansett, Assistant Professor of History, and Jason Heppler, Digital Engagement Librarian, both at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. [JDC]

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Kindred Britain may especially interest digital humanities scholars and genealogical researchers, but this resource is fascinating for anyone with an interest in British history or culture. Launched in 2013, Kindred Britain provides an interactive interface for exploring the ties between nearly 30,000 historic and contemporary individuals "connected through family relationships of blood, marriage, or affiliation." This rich resource offers multiple ways to explore these connections: dragging the "nodes" of two individuals together to see how they are related, viewing curated connections and stories, or using the search function to look for a specific individual. In addition to its network panel, Kindred Britain also has timeline and map panels and each offer several lenses through which to filter the data, such as gender, historical events, and profession. The complexity of this resource is impressive, and those interested can also read several essays detailing and reflecting on its creation. Kindred Britain was primarily created by Nicholas Jenkins and Elijah Meeks of Stanford University and Scott Murray of the University of San Francisco. Readers should note that this site is best suited for desktop use and may be harder to use on a smaller screen. [JDC]

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The enduring appeal and relevance of ancient Greek and Roman literature has created an abundance of scholarly work in this field, and since the end of the eighteenth century, there have been hundreds of Classics scholars. The Database of Classical Scholars offers its visitors an extensive and fully searchable who's who of the field, providing both biographical and bibliographical information on more than 800 scholars thus far. Each entry in the database is accompanied by a portrait (when available) and a brief "appreciation" of the scholar's career written by an expert. Visitors can also view twelve videos of interviews recorded in 2014 with renowned scholars, such as Elaine Fantham at Princeton University. This ongoing international project has plans to substantially expand its database and will eventually include additional entries for both contemporary and past classical scholars, as well as more interviews. Now housed at Rutgers University, the Database of Classical Scholars has been endorsed by the Society for Classical Studies. [JDC]

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From 1540 to 1835, the Church of England was one of Britain's largest employers and most influential institutions. Since its initial launch in 1999, the Clergy Church of England Database (CCEd) has offered historians and scholars (both academic and amateur) a robust research tool that enables them to search clerical records for more than "155,000 individual clerics or schoolteachers" from over fifty different archives in England and Wales. Visitors can search the database by name and fields such as diocese, location, and date range, and they can browse people, locations, and bishops according to diocese as well. For new users, CCEd provides an extensive section on how to use the database, including information on interpreting career narratives. The helpful reference section contains bibliographies, lists of bishops and locations, and a glossary, and interested readers may also want to check out this resource's blog for updates and its journal for peer-reviewed articles and other research drawing on CCEd. Funded by grants from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, CCEd is directed by Arthur Burns at King's College London, Kenneth Fincham at the University of Kent, and Stephen Taylor at Durham University. [JDC]

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Generations of schoolchildren have been introduced to the story of the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island through Scott O'Dell's Newberry-winning novel Island of the Blue Dolphins. For readers interested in the historical basis behind O'Dell's fictionalized account of a Native American woman who lived alone on an island for 18 years, the Lone Woman and Last Indians Digital Archive provide a wealth of information that is well worth exploring. This archive "collects, transcribes, annotates, and maps more than 450 nineteenth and twentieth-century documents relevant to the story of the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island," offering visitors an in-depth resource that "seeks to facilitate research on the Lone Woman as both a historical figure and as a mythic representation of the American Indian." Readers can search and browse the archive by a variety of fields. The archive also includes discussions of the literary and cultural tropes connected to the Lone Woman's story, as well as an interactive map showing how her story circulated around the world. The Lone Woman and Last Indians Digital Archive was edited by Sara Schwebel, Professor of English at the University of South Carolina, and produced collaboratively with the Channel Islands National Park. [JDC]

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Readers who appreciate mathematics or are fond of historical trivia may enjoy visiting the On This Day feature provided by the Mathematical Association of America (MAA). This fun educational tool allows visitors to choose any day in the calendar year and presents them with a selection of historical events related to mathematics that occurred on that day. These events range from birth and death anniversaries of significant people to career milestones and historic mathematical achievements. For example, on November 30, Isaac Newton became president of the Royal Society in 1703, while on May 24, the French mathematicians Jean Guilloud and Martine Bouyer computed pi to one million decimal places in 1973. Each factoid presented in On This Day is accompanied by one or more links to additional information. Established in 1915, the MAA is "the world's largest community of mathematicians, students, and enthusiasts." [JDC]

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This online exhibition, mounted by the University of Michigan in 2015, extolls the wonders of Jell-O. The exhibition uses materials from the Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive in the University of Michigan Special Collections Library. Jell-O has been manufactured since 1897, so a good deal of documentation is available to tell its story. Curators Nicole Tarulevicz, and JJ Jacobson organized the materials into thematic sections: production, exotic tales, Jell-O Girl adventures, and imagining the other. The exhibition sections all feature advertisements, illustrations from cookbooks, and postcards and other printed ephemera that show glistening molded Jell-O concoctions. Possibly the most fanciful of these is the back cover of a cookbook called "Jell-O, America's most famous dessert" published by the Genesee Pure Food Company (the original manufacturer of Jell-O), which shows the Genesee factory encased in Jell-O. For those who wish to browse the images, it's possible to jump to a gallery section. No recipes for these stunning Jell-O creations are provided; however, there is ample bibliographic detail about the sources of the exhibition that would make it possible to locate recipes. [DS]

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Readers who develop, administer, or create content for websites may want to check out this Google Developers resource on the fundamentals of web accessibility. Here, readers will find the first page of a set of web documents comprising a "concise treatment of [web] accessibility principles and practices." This page serves as an introduction to the concept of web accessibility and its importance, as well as an overview of the rest of this guide, which is "intended to help you understand how you can make your websites accessible and usable for everyone." The pages that follow introduce readers to building content that can be navigated via keyboard rather than a mouse, writing semantics into web pages so that they are compatible with assistive technologies, and styling visual elements so that they are flexible and usable for everyone. This introductory guide is conversational in tone and is accompanied by illustrative images and helpful links to further information. This resource was written by Google Tech Writers Meggin Kearney and Dave Gash with contributions from Alice Boxhall and Rob Dodson. [JDC]

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New Zealand Birds Online offers interested readers a comprehensive resource where they can learn "about all 467 species of New Zealand birds, including all living, extinct, fossil, vagrant and introduced bird species." Visitors who have a particular species in mind can look it up by name on the main page, while those who wish to learn what bird species they saw can try the identify that bird tab, which provides user-friendly identification in three simple steps. Readers can also look up birds by group (using either their common name or scientific), and they may also browse New Zealand's birds by location or conservation status. Individual species pages contain concise yet thorough overviews on their characteristics and ecology, accompanied by numerous images, sound clips, and links to further information. New Zealand Birds Online is managed and edited by Colin Miskelly, an ornithologist and curator of vertebrates at Te Papa, New Zealand's national museum. In addition to Te Papa, this project's partners are the Ornithological Society of New Zealand and New Zealand's Department of Conservation. [JDC]

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Readers interested in the ongoing Brexit negotiations in the United Kingdom and the European Union may want to check out UK in a Changing Europe, an independent, nonpartisan research initiative based at King's College London. This initiative explores multiple aspects of the dynamics between the UK and EU, including the impacts of EU policies, attitudes towards the EU, and differences in public opinion among the various regions of the UK. Readers may wish to begin by perusing the facts or explainers sections for contextual information, while the analysis section offers numerous concise articles on Brexit organized into themes, such as economics, politics, and public policy. Those looking for more in-depth studies and reports will find them in the research papers section, and the video & audio section contains interview clips, podcasts, and infographics. UK in a Changing Europe is directed by Anand Menon, Professor of European Politics and Foreign Affairs at King's College London, and funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. [JDC]

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Why do most women's clothing lack adequate pockets? How did plaid become such a ubiquitous fabric pattern? What can we learn from examining an old, well-worn pair of jeans? These and other questions about our clothes and textiles are examined in Articles of Interest, a six-part mini-series within the podcast 99% Invisible. Each approximate half-hour episode addresses a different aspect of clothing and incorporates interviews with several experts from different disciplines. For example, in "Punk" (Ep. 6), listeners are treated to conversations that include Don Letts, the DJ and videographer who created the documentary Punk: Attitude, the fashion historian Monica Sklar who wrote the book Punk Style, and Claire Wilcox, senior curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Articles of Interest was created by Avery Trufelman, one of the producers on the 99% Invisible team, and aired in September and October 2018. Readers can download and stream all six episodes online, or they can subscribe to 99% Invisible via Google Play, Apple Podcasts, or other platforms. [JDC]

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YaCy (sounds like "ya see") is a peer-to-peer distributed search engine. It can be used in one of two modes: proxy mode and crawling mode. In proxy mode, YaCy runs locally on a user's computer and builds an index of sites that the user has visited. In essence, this mode gives users a content-based search of their browsing history. In crawling mode, users provide a list of domains which are then spidered and indexed. This mode can be used to build a search interface for intranet sites that may otherwise lack one. In crawling mode, users may also opt to enable the peer-to-peer features, sharing their indexed pages with the YaCy freeworld network. A set of video tutorials explaining how to configure and use these different modes is presented in the tutorials section of the YaCy site. In the search portal section, users can obtain a list of the current nodes in the freeworld search network and can try out searches on the network. YaCy can be downloaded for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Links to installation tutorials are provided alongside the installer downloads. [CRH]

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Taiga is an award-winning open source project management platform. It was designed specifically to support Agile development workflows in an integrated, intuitive way. It provides issue tracking, a wiki, task management, team management, and other features, all built around Scrum or Kanban views to help manage a project. Importers for others platforms allow users to pull in data from other platforms like Trello, Jira, Asana, or GitHub. Taiga also provides a REST API that developers can use to interact with Taiga and build their own additional integrations or automation. The hosted version of Taiga provides unlimited public projects and a single three-member private project. Higher levels of service are available for a fee. Alternately, users may install and run Taiga instances on their own hardware following the installation guide located in the docs section of Taiga's support pages. Taiga is free software, licensed under the AGPL v3, with source code available on GitHub. [CRH]

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Originally featured on 2/26/2016, Shakespeare Documented continues to be an excellent, incredibly rich resource for enthusiasts of the Bard, as well as for educators in history, literature, and theater.

This collaboration between the Bodleian Libraries at the University of Oxford, the British Library, the Shakespeare Birth Trust, and the National Archives, which was convened by the Folger Shakespeare Library, is perhaps the largest collection of primary source materials related to William Shakespeare. The exhibit concentrates its considerable erudition on documents contemporary to Shakespeare's life and times. The documents have been organized into four categories: Playwright, actor & shareholder (205 items); Shakespeare the poet (67 items); Family, legal & property records (186 items); and 17th-century legacies (33 items). In addition, within the exhibition section, readers may filter the documents by useful tags such as repository, people, plays & poetry, decade, medium, and highlights. Readers may also sort the collection by oldest to newest or vice versa. For educators looking for primary resources to enliven their lesson plans - or for anyone with a strong affinity for the English language's greatest wordsmith - this website is unparalleled in its depth.

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