For those of us interested in digital archives of world cultural treasures, there is new reason to rejoice: a new entry has appeared in the growing list of online sites available to view such material.  The World Digital Library, a website in seven languages featuring works from a dozen countries, was launched at UNESCO’s headquarters on Tuesday.   The library hosts digital reproductions of many rare and unique kind works.  Its main purpose is to spotlight hard to reach, fragile written works, but it also includes early multimedia from the electronic age: film, audio and photographs.

One of the major advantages of the online archive is that it groups  together copies of items that are on the same subjects but whose originals may be in widely different locations.  As with many other digital archives, for now the collection is relatively small, but it is expected to greatly expand as more organizations from different countries come on board.  Read the full story from the Associated Press in Humanity’s Earliest Written Works Go Online by AP.  For more posts on digital archives click the Humanities and Social Sciences category on PolyThinkers Pad.  Also, don’t forget to take advantage of the vast collection of archival material available  to the NYU Poly community via the library’s online databases in the Subject Guides: Humanities and Social Science section.

Europeana, a digital archive combining the collections of libraries and museums, officially went online November 20, 2008, then crashed the next day due to its popularity.  It has been back online in beta form for quite some time now, but it is still not in optimal shape to efficiently serve all the people who wish to use it.   What makes it so popular? It is  a digital collection of European culture. Audio, video, text and image files, including famous paintings and significant documents, can all be found in this multimedia gallery. All works will be copyright free and available for download. The European commission has set a goal of putting ten million items online by 2010.

Europeana is  meant to be a pan-European depository, though the collection is currently dominated by works of French origin.  A similar offering of US cultural works is housed in the Library of Congress’ American Memory.

For links to other free archives of classic texts  and cultural treasures, see Dibner Library’s web resource page on the Humanities and Social Sciences.  Also see Dibner Library’s Humanities bundle on Delicious.

You may be familiar with the Web of Science database and its flagship service, the Science Citation Index.  Commencing in 1960 as a series of print volumes, the Science Citation Index is a unique reference tool that has been invaluable to users, especially those in the academic community, allowing them to  see  which articles have cited an earlier article or an author.   However the Web of Science offers much more than science citations.  It also provides access to the Social Sciences Citation Index and the Humanities Citation Index.  So, say for example, you are reading a great article on the last sonnets of Shakespeare, and you are interested in finding similar articles. A great way of continuing your research is by viewing the bibliography to see what prior articles were cited by the author, then by using the Humanities Citation Index to see what later articles cited the article you are reading. [Read more →]

JSTOR offers a high-quality, interdisciplinary archive of over one thousand leading academic journals across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, as well as select monographs and other materials. The entire database is full-text searchable, offers search term highlighting, includes high-quality images, and is interlinked by millions of citations and references.

Journals are always included from volume 1, issue 1 and include previous and related titles. The most recently published issues (past 3-5 years) are not available. However, users can search this material and link to the publisher’s site or other online source for access.

To learn how to search, browse, and manage citations using JSTOR, watch these video tutorials.

Footnote.com archives historical documents on the web. Some items require a subscription to view, but many are free.  Last week the collection was expanded with a large infusion of World War II material.  The bulk of the collection comes from army enlistment records, but family and friends can contribute information.   The collection also includes photographs, official reports from the period, scanned copies of original documents, and other archival records.

Although the collection is massive, those in charge of the project hope it is only a first step in engaging the hearts and minds of WW II veterans, their friends and relatives, inspiring them to  contribute and preserve their memories, recollections and scanned copies of their archives before they are lost for good.

If you are interested in reading contemporary newspaper coverage of the World War II era, try ProQuest Historical Newspapers, available to NYU Poly community in the library’s database collection.

After digitizing the contents of thousands of old books and finding a way to make money from the project, Google has now set its sights on old magazines.  Thousands of magazines have been digitized and indexed and can currently be searched using Google’s “find a book” search function.  Eventually, magazine search results will be made available via the standard Google search.

This is a worthwhile project and a very valuable service for people doing certain types of research, or who like me are simply fascinated by the exploration of vintage material.  However, as with many Google endeavors, it should also prove profitable and sustainable for all parties involved.  Google will link to the magazine copyright holder’s current site where users will presumably, on occasion, click on ads residing there.   Google will share in some of the advertising profit for leading users to the site.

It is important for researchers to understand that much of the periodical content available online is part of the invisible web that cannot be found by Google or viewed for free.  Fortunately for Poly users, the library subscribes to many databases featuring full text content that is not available for free on the web.  Many of the journals, magazines and newspapers go back to the 19th century.  Try a search using ProQuest Historical Newspapers or American Periodicals Series Online 1740-1900 if you want to experiment.

You can use Google earth to view satellite images of various cities around the world, zooming in and out, turning corners as you please.  But have you ever wondered what it would be like to step back in time?  You can now virtually experience “the grandeur that was Rome.”

You must have the Google Earth software installed on the computer to use this feature.  Rome is a layer over Google earth that you can activate with the click of a mouse button.  The layer allows you to see a detailed 3-d computer model of the city as it looked around the time of Constantine.

As with Google Earth, you can zoom in and out.  Some buildings are extremely detailed while some are sketchier.   As you scroll over the display, information bubbles provide quick facts, but more elaborate detail is available via links to various online reference works.

You may be aware that a settlement was announced between Google and several publishers  and authors.  The agreement will allow Google to sell electronic versions of books that are still under copyright protection, but which are currently out of print. Many books are available for free online viewing and downloading, and many are being formatted for mobile devices, but they are older books that are out of copyright.  The Google service will not be free, they will continue to do what works well for them, ensuring a massive audience for  other companies’ copyrighted holdings and sharing revenue with them.

The Google deal will substantially increase the number of books available for online viewing, but it is only one of several initiatives that are expanding the universe of online books.  Also coming soon is Europeana, an online archive of not only books, but records, films, letters and other cultural treasures.   It will join collections like the Internet Archive, American Memory and Aluka in preserving the world’s cultural heritage and bringing portions of it to a greater audience. [Read more →]

In a good sign for those who appreciate the value of historic texts, the current wave of digitization continues to expand. Timbuktu may be a dusty mud brick village today, but it was once a thriving commercial and intellectual center. Now remnants of its past, in the form of brittle manuscripts found in assorted hard to reach collections, are being digitized for the world to see.  An article appearing in the New York times, profiles the project and notes that the collection will be hosted by Aluka, a nonprofit organization devoted to “bringing knowledge from and about Africa to the scholarly world.”

In order to digitize the manuscript, media technicians from Northwestern University set up a high-resolution digital photo studio amid the dust storms and frequent power interruptions.  Only a few texts are currently available, but in the future, those who pore through the collection of  manuscripts will find that a wide range of topics had captured the attention of Timbuktu scholars, including the sciences, literature, law, and religious practices.

Ever thought of your out dated computer as a work of art? Perhaps you’ll change your perspective after seeing Mark Richard’s remarkable photographs of old school computers.

Richard’s book, Core Memory: A Visual Survey of Vintage Computers, reveals modern technology’s evolution by combining computer history with a series of striking photographs of the world’s most renowned computer collection, the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley.

Pictured above is Apple 1, a far cry from MacBook Air, it’s the first computer built by Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs back in 1976.