Monday, September 27, 2010

Healthcare-Associated Infection Watch

HAI Watch is your resource for collateral and supplies to help keep your organization aware of the importance of health-care associated infection prevention. The following guidelines on hand hygiene in health-care settings and other tips are available now, but keep checking back. New HAI awareness tools will be added on an ongoing basis.

Friday, September 10, 2010

The Art of Ancient Greek Theater (Getty Villa Exhibitions)

The Art of Ancient Greek Theater (Getty Villa Exhibitions)
The Getty Museum provides this glimpse of Greek theater by utilizing both images and audio. Text at the website informs us that "Colorful characters, elaborate costumes, stage sets, music, and above all masks" were characteristic of Greek drama. Examples of images available to view on the site include sculpture and relief depicting actors. Many of these images feature actors wearing masks, such as Statue of an Actor as Papposilenos, dating from A.D. 100-199. In Greek myth, Papposilenos is the father of the band of satyrs that raised Dionysos. There are also over a dozen vessels to view; these vessels were used for various purposes including cooling wine, storage jars, and mixing vessels. The vessels are painted with scenes from the theater, and several are accompanied by audio of curators explaining the iconography. One of the featured items in the collection is a papyrus fragment from 175-200 A.D. with a few lines from a play by Sophocles. The exhibition closes with a reading, in ancient Greek, of an excerpt from this play, entitled The Trackers; a scene in which satyrs also appear, hearing music played on the then-newly invented lyre. >From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2010. http://scout.wisc.edu/
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The Test Ban Challenge: Nuclear Nonproliferation and the Quest for a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty

The Test Ban Challenge: Nuclear Nonproliferation and the Quest for a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
Over the past sixty years, a number of American presidents have attempted to craft a working comprehensive nuclear test ban. This digital collection from The National Security Archive at The George Washington University brings together a host of documents from the U.S. State Department and other agencies to illustrate how "nonproliferation goals shaped U.S. internal discussions of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) from the 1950s through the late 1970s." There are eleven key documents here, dating back to the 1957 draft background paper which identifies nuclear proliferation as the "fourth country" problem. The "fourth country" concept arose as the next country after the United States, Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom to obtain nuclear devices would be the so-called "fourth country". The collection was edited by William Burr and released in August 2010, and it is one that policy experts and diplomacy types will find very intriguing. >From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2010. http://scout.wisc.edu/
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Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Resource: A Biography of America

Resource: A Biography of America
A Biography of America is an impressive undertaking by public television station WGBH and it is designed for high school, college, and adult learners. The site presents America's history as a "living narrative" and by utilizing first-person narratives, photos, film footage, documents, debates and lectures, the video series encourages critical thinking and offers American history as something best understood from multiple perspectives. Visitors will find that the website for Biography of America allows for free streaming of the series, and offers transcripts, exercises, and interactive maps for the 26 half hour lessons. Lesson 15, "The New City", compares the traditional messy growth of cities, such as New York City, with that of the planned, orderly growth of the newer city of Chicago in the late 1800s. The question that is asked to foster critical thinking "What vision of the future city did the fair present," refers to the World's Columbian Exposition. Lesson 26, "The Redemptive Imagination", emphasizes the role of storytelling in the formation of history, and features insights by several contemporary novelists.
>From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2010. http://scout.wisc.edu/
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Exhibitions: Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Remembering the Running Fence / American Art

Exhibitions: Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Remembering the <i>Running Fence</i> / American Art
A curtain of glowing white nylon that winds across the brown earth until it disappears where the land meets the blue sky - this is what images of Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California, 1972-76, an installation artwork created by Christo and Jeanne-Claude depict. Running Fence, stretched 24 1/2 miles through Sonoma and Marin counties in California to end in the Pacific Ocean, was the project of two people, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, for 2 weeks in September 1976. The work had far reaching effects on many people, and has lived on in both memory and documentation. In 2008, the Smithsonian American Art Museum acquired the archives of Running Fence, and "Remembering the Running Fence" presents more than 350 objects selected from the archive. On the website, visitors can view a slideshow with comments where California residents talk about their experience with the fence; read a blog interview with Christo; and peruse hundreds of maps, photographs, and documents including the Environmental Impact Report, which is the first ever created for a work of art. >From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2010. http://scout.wisc.edu/
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Honoré Daumier Digitized Lithographs

Honoré Daumier Digitized Lithographs
Honoré Daumier is celebrated as one of the most trenchant social critics of the modern age. Through the use of the lithograph, he created works which offered commentary on the heady atmosphere of 19th century France. Brandeis University is the home of one of the major collections of his work in the United States, and this digital collection offers over 3,800 items from this trove. The digitization of these works was made possible by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the works were originally donated by Benjamin and Julia Trustman. Visitors can browse the collection by title, subject, or date, and they are also encouraged to create their own search string. To get a sense of the offerings here, new users can start by viewing the lithographs that deal with subjects such as actors, politicians, and Paris.
>From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2010. http://scout.wisc.edu/
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Supreme Court Nominations - Law Library of Congress (Library of Congress)

Supreme Court Nominations - Law Library of Congress (Library of Congress)
This website from the Law Library of Congress provides a great deal of insight into the Supreme Court nominating process, including "Nomination Documents" of those "Confirmed" and "Not Confirmed". There is a chart in each of the previously mentioned sections which includes the date of nomination, date of confirmation or other result, the available nomination "documents" and who they were nominated by and who they replaced. Some of the nomination documents available are "Floor Debates", "Floor Vote", "Hearings", "Senate Floor Statements", and "Executive Report", although they are not all available for all justices at this time. The "Selected Resources" section lists recent Supreme Court nominees, some who were confirmed, and some who were not. Clicking on each nominee will provide a set of links that provide different resources for each nominee; resources include "Articles/books by", "Congressional Documents", and even "Video" of some of the nominees featured here.
>From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2010. http://scout.wisc.edu/
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Cincinnati Art Museum | The Collection

Cincinnati Art Museum | The Collection
The Cincinnati Art Museum has a long and storied history, and their collection includes works by a variety of artistic masters, old and new. This website provides interested parties with access to items from their permanent collection, courtesy of a grant from the Harold C. Schott Foundation and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The works here are organized into ten different themes, including "Photographs", "Art of Africa", and "American Decorative Arts". The "American Decorative Arts" is worth a look, and it contains items from the Rockwood Pottery Company, which was established in Cincinnati in 1880, and is still in business. In the "European Painting & Sculpture" visitors shouldn't miss works like the portrait of Philip II by Titian. Visitors will also appreciate the easy to use search engine and the accession and provenance details which are provided for each item. >From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2010. http://scout.wisc.edu/
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Digital Comic Museum

Digital Comic Museum

The mission of this site is to provide as close to a free resource as possible where users can easily download public domain golden age comics without the need to ask or worry about searching the net for them.

U.S. Greenhouse Gas Inventory | Climate Change - Greenhouse Gas Emissions | U.S. EPA

U.S. Greenhouse Gas Inventory | Climate Change - Greenhouse Gas Emissions | U.S. EPA

EPA develops the national greenhouse gas inventory each year to track the national trend in emissions and removals since 1990. The national greenhouse gas inventory is submitted to the United Nations in accordance with the Framework Convention on Climate Change Exit EPA Disclaimer. In preparing the annual emissions inventory report, EPA collaborates with hundreds of experts representing more than a dozen U.S. government agencies, academic institutions, industry associations, consultants and environmental organizations.

Please see the 2010 Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks for a detailed analysis of all U.S. emissions and removals. You may also download the Executive Summary (PDF) (26 pp, 249K, About PDF), which includes an overview of recent trends, anthropogenic sources and sinks of greenhouse gases and an explanation of the relative importance of emissions and removals from each source category.

UMDL - 4th of July Speeches

UMDL - 4th of July SpeechesThe Fourth of July Orations Collection contains published pamphlets of addresses made on Independence Day from 1791-1925. The speeches explore topics central to the developing United States in the first 150 years of its existence and include themes such as honoring the generation that fought in the Revolutionary War, westward expansion, national politics, the Civil War, civic duty, religion and other concerns current throughout the nineteenth century. Several pamphlets focus specifically on the fiftieth and one-hundredth anniversaries of the Declaration of Independence in 1826 and 1876 and contain reports on the progress of the nation since the Revolutionary War.

The majority of the pamphlets were published in New England, with Massachusetts being the most heavily represented state. However, the collection also includes pamphlets from other states, such as Tennessee, Louisiana, North Carolina, Illinois, and Indiana. Foreign countries such as Canada, France, and Italy are also represented, and the collection also includes a speech made in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1854, almost one hundred years before statehood. The collection is of interest to scholars of American social and political history, and it provides a sweeping demonstration of the ways in which the concept of America has changed through several formative events in the nation.s history.