Internet Reviews

Joni R. Roberts and Carol A. Drost

Joni R. Roberts is associate university librarian for public services and collection development at Willamette University, email: jroberts@willamette.edu, and Carol A. Drost is associate university librarian for technical services at Willamette University, email: cdrost@willamette.edu

Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Access: https://beinecke.library.yale.edu/.

The Beinecke Library of Yale University is one of the best-known repositories of archival manuscripts and rare books. It was opened in 1963 as a gift from three Yale alumni, and annually hosts more than 200,000 researchers, students, and program attendees. In recent years, the library has greatly expanded its online presence to make its collections more widely accessible.

The library’s curatorial areas include American literature, German literature, African American arts and letters, American children’s literature, English history and literature, and early, early modern, and modern books and manuscripts. The library holds more than 1 million books, including 180,000 volumes in its glassed book tower, and several million manuscripts. The library has created approximately 1 million digital images of materials in its collections, including a complete Guttenberg Bible.

Digital content represents all areas of the library’s collections. Most of the material is accessible to the public, although some content is limited to Yale users due to copyright or other restrictions. A helpful guide describes best options for searching print books, finding aids to archival materials, and digital images. Not all images are included in the rapidly growing digital collections database, so a search won’t necessarily retrieve all relevant items. A researcher will want to spend time exploring the site and perhaps contact the library about collections or items of specific interest.

Selected materials are organized into online exhibitions, such as American Modernist writers and the Orient, American utopianism, Harlem Renaissance portraits by Carl van Vechten, and information about Bollingen Prize-winning poets (the award is administered by the Beinecke Library). Another section highlights materials across the collections. Examples includes construction photographs of the Union Pacific Railroad; drawings of prisoners from the Spanish slave ship Amistad; manuscripts and letters of playwright Eugene O’Neill, journalist Janet Malcolm, and theologian Jonathan Edwards; and material on Cherokee language, history, and culture.

The library’s main website is well organized, with a modern, tabbed interface that displays well on various devices. Included is basic information about visiting the library, conducting teaching and research, the library’s collections (including curatorial areas, highlights, and information about recent acquisitions), programs (including fellowships and noncredit library classes for Yale students), and general information about the library’s history, mission, and staff. The site is of enormous benefit to scholars, students, and the general public.—Mark A. Stoffan, Western Carolina University, mstoffan@wcu.edu

The Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center. Access: http://carlisleindian.dickinson.edu/.

The Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center is a searchable database of records of the “tens of thousands of young people from Indian communities all across America sent to the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania between 1879-1918.” Founded by Capt. Richard H. Pratt who infamously said “Kill the Indian, and Save the Man” in an 1892 speech, the school’s archives tell the story of the school and the many thousands of students who attended. Digitization is in progress, but there is so much content already available. There is a side menu that takes the user to different collections to browse and search student records, images, publications, documents, “lists & ledgers,” teaching resources, cemetery information, and additional resources. The material comes from the National Archives, Dickinson College, Cumberland County Historical Society, and individual donors.

Center researchers compiled information to display names, dates, and nations as they are recorded in primary sources, and, as such, errors and antiquated ways of referencing native groups may exist. Clarifications were noted in some cases. The entry name uses whatever is most consistently used in the primary sources, usually Western or Anglicized names, though some entries include native names in parentheses.

Most of the files are PDFs and easy to download and read. Images are using Zoomify to view online, which requires Adobe Flash. Downloading images is not very straightforward, but users can right click and choose to “save image as.” Different collections have different filters including artwork, drawing, film negative, glass plate negative, lantern slide, photograph reproduction, photograph B&W, postcard, stereograph, or tintype. These formats are also hyperlinked within records. There are 378 tribe and nation options in a dropdown for student records. In some cases, the tribe or nation is listed as a broader and narrower term, for example a student may have both Nez Perce and Nez Perce (Looking Glass) in their record’s nation field.

The “Teaching Resources” section will likely be of great interest to educators. There are 15 lesson plans which include topics for students on exploring by name, nation, time, and place; student files; comparing arguments; doing close-readings; analyzing documentary films; the school’s involvement with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and allotments; athletics; assimilation; and exploring gender. There are worksheets for secondary school and college/university-level students.—Hilary Robbeloth, University of Puget Sound, hrobbeloth@pugetsound.edu

Dana Foundation. Access: https://www.dana.org/.

The Dana Foundation is a “private philanthropic organization dedicated to advancing understanding about the brain” founded in 1950 by Charles A. Dana and based in New York City. Supported by the Dana Foundation are the global membership organizations, the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives and European Dana Alliance for the Brain. The foundation organizes Brain Awareness Week annually and has a history of providing funding for brain research.

Visitors to the site are invited to “explore the brain with us” and can navigate via the header’s primary menu bar, content area of the homepage, secondary navigation menu, or the search icon to perform a keyword search. Upon selecting a page, breadcrumbs are available to assist with navigation. The site is organized into content about educating the general public about neuroscience, outreach tools to raise awareness of brain research, information about the Dana Foundation, and funding resources.

Dana.org is a substantial source of visually appealing content in a variety of media presented in everyday language. Those visiting the site will find credible information presented by scientists and leading freelance science writers, podcasts, the e-magazine Cerebrum, fact sheets, lesson plans, and information about Brain Awareness Week. Additionally, users can download fun brain activities, such as the “Successful Aging Puzzles” for seniors and “The Mindboggling Workbook” for grades K-3. Materials are available in seven languages. The site is current with the most recent content being within a week to less than a month old. Archives are available for past content, but unfortunately are not searchable. Those seeking research funding will find a tool to search for grants by keyword, program, or year.

The content on the Dana Foundation website is intended primarily for those in the general public, as well as K–12 educators. The lack of peer-reviewed resources, advanced search capabilities, and outreach tools relevant to a college community suggest that the website will be most useful for exploring casual interests in neuroscience. Those in higher education may find the website of the Society for Neuroscience better suited to the needs of academic library users.—Dawn Behrend, Lenoir-Rhyne University, dawn.behrend@lr.edu