Monday, November 16, 2009

In & Out of Amsterdam: Travels in Conceptual Art, 1960-1976

In & Out of Amsterdam: Travels in Conceptual Art, 1960-1976

http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2009/inandout/

This small show from MoMA showcases the work of 10 artists: Bas Jan Ader, Allen Ruppersberg, Jan Dibbets, Gilbert & George, Stanley Brouwn, Hanne Darboven, Lawrence Weiner, Charlotte Posenenske, Ger van Elk, and Sol LeWitt. The exhibit is, in the words of a recent review "odd, offbeat and often thrillingly intelligent." The show captures the essence of the art scene in Amsterdam from 1960-1976, when many avant-garde artists from Holland, the rest of Europe, and the United States congregated there. Several of the works in the exhibition are performance-based, such as Ger van Elk's Paul Klee—Um den Fisch, 1926 (Around the Fish), a set of 8 slides projected on a table, showing the artist eating a fish similar to the one in Klee's more well-known painting (only one frame is shown in the web exhibition). Other works also comment on the fleetingness of time, such as Jan Dibbets' The Shortest Day at my House in Amsterdam, 80 color prints taken at eight-minute intervals between dawn and dusk on the winter solstice in 1970; or Hanne Darboven's 100 Books 00–99, 100 open books, each representing a year in a century, arranged face up on a table. [>From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2009. http://scout.wisc.edu/]

Langston Hughes Papers

Langston Hughes Papers

http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/digitallibrary/hughes.html

A portion of the Langston Hughes Papers are available here on Yale University’s Digital Library site. Hughes' complete papers (1862-1980) are comprised of "letters, manuscripts, personal items, photographs, clippings, artworks, and objects" and are available at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. For the digitized collection, visitors should click on the "See All Images" option on the left hand side of the page to view the nine pages of thumbnail images. Each thumbnail image can be expanded so that visitors can view each image in detail. Each document can also be saved, by clicking "Save" above the thumbnail. The saved images are then moved to a folder that can hold saved images to be ordered, or just viewed again. The folder is called "My Group", and can be found below the pink menu near the top of the page. Visitors shouldn't miss the beautiful poem entitled "For A'lelia" that Hughes wrote for A'Lelia Walker after she died in 1931, and which was subsequently read at her funeral. It can be found in the second row of images, in the first spot, when "See All Images" is selected on the homepage. [>From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2009. http://scout.wisc.edu/]

In Transition: Selected Poems by the Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven

In Transition: Selected Poems by the Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven

http://www.lib.umd.edu/digital/transition/index.jsp

Noted editor and literary critic Margaret Anderson once referred to the Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven as "perhaps the only figure of our generation who deserves the epithet extraordinary." The future Baroness was born Else Hildegard Ploetz in 1874 and she came to the United States in 1910. After her husband committed suicide, Else become a part of the Greenwich Village artist milieu, where she began her productive, albeit brief, writing career. The twelve texts offered here by the University of Maryland are related through their themes (which include an interest in emerging scientific technologies) and their publication within "little" magazines. Visitors can get a sense of the background behind the project by reading the “Introduction”, and then moving on to look through some of the works. What is perhaps most compelling about the site is that visitors can make their way through various drafts of each work, along with commentary and other germane details. [>From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2009. http://scout.wisc.edu/]

Vincent Van Gogh: The Letters

Vincent Van Gogh: The Letters

http://www.vangoghletters.org/vg/

The letters written by Vincent Van Gogh have appeared many times before, but this is the first time they have appeared as part of a complete digital edition. This fascinating collection was created by the Van Gogh Museum and the Huygens Institute, and the letters were edited by Leo Jansen, Hans Luijten and Nineke Bakker. On the site, visitors can view 902 letters from and to Van Gogh, complete with detailed annotations and illustrations from the master himself. First-time visitors should definitely click on the "Quick Guide" to get an overview of the site’s holdings, and then they should also take a look at the sections "Van Gogh as a letter-writer", "Correspondents", "Biographical & historical context", and "Publication History". The letters include those from many of his contemporaries, including Paul Gauguin, and of course, those lovely pieces of writing from his brother, Theo. Users can also use the search engine here to look around by keyword. Finally, visitors can also look through the "About this Edition" area to learn about the reading texts included here, the translations, and the annotations. [>From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2009. http://scout.wisc.edu/]

The Virtual Lab Book

The Virtual Lab Book

http://delliss.people.cofc.edu/virtuallabbook/

It can be a real challenge to learn about the foibles and details of lab work, so it is nice to report that Dr. Stephanie Dellis has created this excellent Virtual Lab Book for students beginning the study of molecular biology. The guide is divided into twelve parts, including "Safety in the Molecular Biology Lab", "Minipreparation of Plasmid DNA", and "PCR and Thermacycling". Along with written instructions and particulars, each section also contains a number of helpful diagrams and visual illustrations. Visitors will also want to look at the specialized lab protocols included here, such as "How to Spread a Plate" and "DNA Isolation". [>From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2009. http://scout.wisc.edu/]

Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics Online

Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics Online

http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/

The Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics Online is frequently updated, and is maintained by the United States Department of Justice and the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The site offers over 1000 tables of data from over 100 sources. An interesting and multi-perspective approach to measuring the level of crime can be found in section number three, which is titled "Crime, Victims", and it resides on the left hand side of the homepage. It offers statistics about the frequency of various crimes by presenting data from victimization surveys, and officially recorded offenses. Visitors interested in printing the text, tables, or both, of each section, can download them via a link in each section that immediately precedes the list of the topics of that section. The "Archive" link in the menu across the top of the page, allows visitors to download complete editions of the Sourcebook, going back to 1994. Each section of the books can be downloaded separately, or the entire book for that year can be downloaded as a zip file.[>From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2009. http://scout.wisc.edu/]