Ingenious is a new website that brings together images and viewpoints to create insights into science and culture. It weaves unusual and thought-provoking connections between people, innovations and ideas. Drawing on the resources of NMSI, the site contains over 30,000 images which are used to illustrate over 30 different subjects, topics and debates.
The University Libraries medical history resources are located within Special Collections at the George F. Smith Library of the Health Sciences on the Newark Campus, but serve the entire University and state of New Jersey. Primary clientele are UMDNJ faculty, staff, and students. Service is also provided to researchers throughout the state and elsewhere, both nationally and internationally. Special Collections consists of the Barbara Manisty Peck History of Medicine Room, which serves as a resource center for biomedical history in general and the history of the health sciences in New Jersey in particular, and the Stanley S. Bergen, Jr., MD University Archives. The Bergen University Archives documents both the history of the University from its founding in 1954 as the Seton Hall College of Medicine & Dentistry, as well as New Jersey's medical heritage. Special Collections is the only collection in the state entirely devoted to providing resources in the history of medicine in New Jersey.
The University Libraries of the University of Medicine and Dentistry in New Jersey maintains this site to provide researchers with information about its special collections resources. The collections available at the library include university archives, faculty papers, various manuscripts, oral histories, post cards, medical artifacts, and a New Jersey AIDS collection. Only certain segments of the site are searchable, but the site is easy to navigate and their are several helpful finding guides. Historians of medicine and those interested in regional or state-specific records would be well served by this library, and the site can be a useful tool for identifying the availability of desired information before making a research trip.
The John Holland project began in 1992 when I was looking for something I could model using CATIA that could be used for public demonstrations. I decided to build a computer model the USS Holland because 1) it was a small submarine that incorporated most of the systems used in submarines today, 2) it was the first submarine in the United States Navy, and 3) it played a key role in the formation of the Electric Boat Company. I soon learned that little information was readily available. As a result, my modeling project became a research project, a hobby and an obsession.
Gary McCue's John Holland Website is a vast resource on the early history of submarines and the man who became known as the father of the U.S. Submarine Service. McCue worked for a submarine design firm and used the Holland VI as a model for public demonstrations until his investigation of the craft led him into a full research project. The site contains a biographical essay and family information on Holland, descriptions of Holland's designs, summaries competing designers and their ships, drawings, photographs, personal accounts, correspondence, and newspaper clippings. A list of patents attributed to Holland includes a screw propeller, engines, a steering apparatus, and numerous submarine boats and guns. The site is basic and the navigation is not perfect, but the detail and extent of information make it worth a long visit. The site is also noteworthy for some rare information such as first-hand accounts by early crew members and trial reports. The site also provides a bibliography to aid further research.
My first exposure to computers was at age 6 (1963), as a subject in Dr. Patrick Suppes' accelerated mathematics experiment at Stanford. I was taken to a small room with what I now know was a CRT display and an intercom. I was asked to push some keys in response to some shapes on the screen. Afterwards, they showed me around a large room filled with big cabinets, some with lots of blinking white lights. They said it was a "computer" and its name was the "PDP-1". A tall thin man asked me to hit a key on a console to make a "decktape". I had absolutely no idea what a "DEC tape" was at the time, but when I hit the key, a small pair of reels BEGAN TO TURN!! It was a moment I would never forget.
This site is an informal memoir written by Bob Lash, an early member of the Homebrew Computer Club. Homebrew was a computer hobbyist group made famous by contributing to the success of two of it's members, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniac. The site is definitely geared toward enthusiasts who are familiar with the early technology, but those who can invest the time to learn the lingo will find a rich source of information about the underground technology scene that inspired the development of personal computing in the mid-1970s. The site is basic with a simple text narrative wrapped around a few graphics. The links in the site lead mostly to a few images, but there are some links that point to the sites of other early members of the Homebrew community.
The simple idea behind History Lived is to collect those memories, to record the true and complete story of America in the words of the everyday people that make America what it is.
The vast vision of History Lived is for it to transcend that simple idea and to become an unparalleled and unprecedented source for that American story. A place where we can all look to find the heart and soul of our nation. A place where the past reaches out to the present and helps unite us for the long journey into the future.
Recently, many history professionals have envisioned the Internet as an efficient medium for collecting and storing a large amount of historical information. The History Lived Web archive is an effort in this mode. History Lived offers a venue for visitors to contribute personal narratives and images of their lives in order to "record the true and complete story of America in the words of the everyday people that make America what it is." The site then makes the submissions available to visitors by year (on the left of the screen) or by subject category (on the right). The site is just getting off the ground and the first several submissions range in scope from the story of a first love to a memory of the Challenger disaster.
Recently, many history professionals have envisioned the Internet as an efficient medium for collecting and storing a large amount of historical information. The History Lived Web archive is an effort in this mode. History Lived offers a venue for visitors to contribute personal narratives and images of their lives in order to "record the true and complete story of America in the words of the everyday people that make America what it is." The site then makes the submissions available to visitors by year (on the left of the screen) or by subject category (on the right). The site is just getting off the ground and the first several submissions range in scope from the story of a first love to a memory of the Challenger disaster.
The all-inclusiveness of the History Lived could be a benefit or a liability. While casting the net widely means that every visitor has something to contribute, the site may have trouble inspiring visitors to become invested in the site by actually taking the time to type out a narrative. The site's designers have tried to overcome this hurdle by specifically requesting entries on topics of popular interest or national importance, such as the death of Elvis or the fall of the Berlin Wall, and by constructing subject categories about which people may be most nostalgic like "Family," "Heroes," and "Traditions." These efforts have generated a few responses, and surely as the number of entries grows, more people may feel inspired to share. But until reaching this critical mass, obtaining submissions may be an uphill battle.
While History Lived may have trouble generating submission momentum, the site gets A's for most technical aspects. The layout is simple and attractive, and the subdued visual design excludes flashy styling, complicated features, or advertisements. In this sense, the site appeals to an older, more mature audience, as well as audiences who may be less comfortable with the online medium. Simplicity aside, navigation within the site is still a little tricky, requiring visitors to follow as many as four links to get to archived materials. Perhaps the two key organizational features, though, are the links for submissions (available at the top of every page) and the front-and-center list of the most recent submissions on the homepage. The ubiquitous links for submissions mean that information on participating and an email link are always one click away, minimizing obstacles to potential contributors. The list of recent submissions facilitates locating new records, but could also advertise the lack of new material if the same few submissions continue to greet repeat visitors.
Ultimately, History Lived is a good test of online collecting methodology. The site offers an easy submissions process, and organized access to the archived records. If the site can now inspire contributors for a significant body of records, it can become a valuable resource for historians interested in memoirs and personal histories of life in America.
Miles Travis
George Mason University
November 8, 2004
On the morning of Tuesday, January 23, 1849, a young woman ascended the platform of the Presbyterian church in Geneva, N.Y., and received from the hands of the President of Geneva Medical College a diploma conferring upon her the degree of Doctor of Medicine. Thus, after many years of determined effort, Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to complete a course of study at a medical college and receive the M.D. degree.
This is an online companion to an exhibit on Elizabeth Blackwell, the first female M.D., that was held in 1999 at the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland. The site is well designed and easily navigated. The exhibit contains a narrative description of Elizabeth Blackwell's college career, and there are some images of documents such as her Geneva Medical College diploma; however, the images do not have enough resolution to be easily used as a primary sources online. The site is a good background source, and the captions of the images have references to the location of the original documents for visitors who are interested in pursuing further research.
"Experimentalization of life" designates a process that began in Europe around 1800 to reconfigure science, art, and technology. After experimental physiology had established itself as one of the paradigmatic disciplines of the 19th century, psychology and linguistics also became laboratory-based enterprises.
Experimental cultures emerged thereafter in a variety of places, as for example in literary movements relying on automatism, aleatorics, and combination. New media such as photography and film transformed the fine arts and the sciences. Cities became vast fields of experience in which people undertook all sorts of experiments in living.
The project investigates the experimentalization of life with a focus on the material culture of instruments, buildings and supply technologies. In a "Virtual Laboratory", relevant source materials as well as results of ongoing research work are made accessible online.
The Virtual Laboratory is a resource for the history of the human and life sciences (especially psychology) and the "experimentalization of life." In addition to the typical aspects of science and technology, this site adds a dimension dealing with how art intersects these areas. The site is broken into logical sections including, experiments, technology, objects, sites, people, etc. The "people" section contains an extensive collection of career sketches for many important scientists. After each entry, a user can click a link to search the technology database and library for related materials. Other sections offer the same linking capabilities, thereby connecting experiments to concepts to technology to essays and more. This cross-linking makes the large site seem small and easy to navigate. The site archives historical texts and images, as well as new essays. The virtual Laboratory is in English, but much of the archived material is in German.
This is a pilot site for the electronic edition of the correspondence of Linnaeus now being prepared under the aegis of the Swedish Linnaean Society, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Uppsala University and its library, and the Linnean Society of London, in collaboration with the Centre international d’étude du XVIIIe siècle of Ferney-Voltaire. The project is financed by the research foundation of the Swedish National Bank.
Five elements are currently provided:
1. The texts of the letters
2. Summaries, critical apparatus and annotation
3. A list of the letters available and/or cited in the notes
4. A biographical glossary
5. A bibliography of works cited
Over 90 megabytes online of information on alchemy in all its facets. Divided into over 1300 sections and providing tens of thousands of pages of text, over 2000 images, over 200 complete alchemical texts, extensive bibliographical material on the printed books and manuscripts, numerous articles, introductory and general reference material on alchemy.
Largest web collection of digital facsimiles of original documents by Turing and other pioneers of computing. Plus articles about Turing and his work, including Artificial Intelligence.
The documents that form the historical record of the development of computing are scattered throughout various archives, libraries and museums around the world. Until now, to study these documents required a knowledge of where to look, and a fistful of air tickets. This Virtual Archive contains digital facsimiles of the documents. The Archive places the history of computing, as told by the original documents, onto your own computer screen.
This site also contains a section on codebreaking and a series of reference articles concerning Turing and his work.
