Founded in 1824 and located in Philadelphia, the Historical Society of
Pennsylvania contains one of the most important archives of material
relating the history of Pennsylvania in the United States. Visitors to
the
site will want to examine the newsletter published by the Society, which
relates details about ongoing events, lectures, and exhibitions, along
with
offering details about new publications related to the state's history.
Researchers will want to examine the Society's online catalog, which is
fully searchable. Equally valuable are a series of drop-down menus that
provide information on utilizing the Society's collections, including
research guides to architectural history, Civil War manuscripts, family
history, and Philadelphia neighborhood history. Also available online
are a
number of online collection finding aids, including "Places in Time:
Historical Documentation of Philadelphia," which provides numerous
scanned
images of the city over its 300-year history. [KMG]
Sponsored by the University of Chicago Library and funded by the
National
Endowment for the Humanities, this online project contains numerous
primary
materials related to the study of the ancient Near East and covers
topics
ranging from archaeology; art history; language; law; and the religions
of
Sumer, Babylonia, Assyria, Egypt, Nubia, and Persia. Currently, the
project
includes full-text editions of 33 seminal works in the field, including
works on Greek athletics and the exploration of Palestine during the
first
decade of the 20th century. For those seeking to read them in their
language
of origin, several of the texts are also available in the original
French
and German. This site will be of great interest to persons hoping to
look
through primary research texts, but find themselves unable to make a
trip to
the University of Chicago Library. [KMG]
This 49-page working paper from the Transnational Communities Programme
at
Oxford deals with the musical expressions of the widespread Dominican
migration that has occurred over the past several decades. Authored by
Hannah E. Gill, the work deals primarily with the musical genre of
merengue
and its ability to evoke the nature of the migration experience for
Dominicans. As Ms. Gill suggests in her introduction, "Popular music,
however, portrays a different perspective of migrant life: one that
emphasizes not transnationalism and migration, but rootedness in
Dominican
geographic locales, identification with traditional Dominican values and
loyalty to homeland." Ms. Gill continues on her work to examine how this
musical expression may in fact question the relevance of some
theoretical
frameworks of transnationalism with which contemporary anthropological
scholarship conceptualizes migration practices. Overall, this is a
refreshing and compelling look at one aspect of international migration
that
is often overlooked or ignored, particularly given the predilection
towards
easily quantifiable measures of the migrant experience. [KMG]
Leonard Bernstein was one of America's foremost conductors and champions
of
classical music in the 20th century, along with composing such works as
_West Side Story_, _Candide_, and his _Mass_. Developed and maintained
by
the Leonard Bernstein Society, this site contains a wealth of printed
interviews, musical excerpts, and other ephemera that will be of great
interest to those with a passion for American music. Visitors to the
site
can explore the sections through a pull-down menu located on the
homepage,
or search for a specific media type under the Browse Site section. A
message
board allows users to post and respond to questions about Leonard
Bernstein,
and the left side of the main page contains news updates about upcoming
performances of his different works. Under the Life's Works section,
users
can access the Red Book, which is a comprehensive and detailed catalog
of
Bernsteins compositions, speeches, and honors, along with a discography
and
selection of recommended recordings. The site is rounded out with a nice
collection of audio clips such as highlights of Mr. Bernstein's
auspicious
debut with the New York Philarmonic, the famed Norton Lectures at
Harvard,
and selections from the Young Peoples Concerts. [KMG]
Opened in 1993, the National Postal Museum is located in the City Post
Office Building in Washington DC. Part of the Smithsonian Institution,
the
Postal Museum also contains a 40,000 volume research library, along with
an
online, searchable catalog of their holdings. Young students will enjoy
the
variety of online games, such as a scavenger hunt, a jigsaw puzzle, and
quizzes about postal history. The site also features seven online
exhibits,
including ones dealing with the stamp issued to commemorate the life of
Roberto Clemente, the role of the mail carrier in the Klondike Gold
Rush,
and those postal service employees who lost their lives aboard the
Titanic.
For those visitors with additional questions about the museum, the staff
has
provided a section of answers to frequently asked questions, such as
"How is
the National Postal Museum funded?" and "How are stamp subjects chosen?"
[KMG]
The Princeton University Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies was
created in 1994 by Stanley N. Katz and Paul DiMaggio, in part "to
address
the serious and damaging deficit in the information and thinking
available
to inform the development and implementation of policies related to arts
and
culture." To this end, the Center's Web site contains a great deal of
material that describes their ongoing and long-term research projects,
along
with information about related awards and fellowships available through
the
Center. The site also has information about their research affiliates,
their
working paper series, and other germane articles and publications. The
site
is rounded out by the inclusion of a helpful page devoted to related
links
dealing with the humanities and cultural studies. [KMG]
