Internet Reviews

Joni R. Roberts and Carol 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.

Prints and Photographs Reading Room, Library of Congress. Access: https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/.

The Prints and Photographs division of the Library of Congress contains more than 16 million images including photographs, prints, posters, cartoons, drawings, and architectural and engineering designs. Though primarily focused on the history, arts, scientific innovations, and culture of the United States, several research collections focus on Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East. The collections cover a broad scope, but students of humanities, social sciences, fine arts, and architecture in particular, will find lots to explore.

Beginning researchers unaccustomed to finding aids, named collections, and organizational structures of archival collections will have difficulty navigating the catalog and collections without guidance. Even experienced researchers should consult the search tips available on the “Online Catalog Help” page to improve their search results in the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog. For example, according to the division, “many materials are cataloged in groups, with no itemized listing, and others are not listed in a catalog,” which can cause confusion for inexperienced researchers.

Additionally, it is possible to search for a year or span of years, but there is no precise way to search by date or time period. Researchers should be aware that for some collections’ image rights are restricted by the copyright holder, or the rights have not been evaluated. In this case, it may only be possible to view a thumbnail (.gif) image, rather than an enlarged image (.jpeg) unless researching onsite at the Library of Congress. The “Information for Researchers” page can help researchers differentiate between what services and level of access to the collection is available onsite vs. online.

The “Researcher’s Toolbox” contains lessons and tools for teaching visual literacy and researching images. This section includes a hidden gem for researchers titled “Collections Ripe for Research.” These thematic collections have been identified by staff “because they merit scholarly attention but have so far received relatively little.”

“Lists of Images on Popular Topics” includes collections of mostly architecture, historical events, and portraits with no known restrictions, making it a good resource for browsing and introducing students to historical image collections. The “Collection & Subject Guides” provide collection overviews, context, and search tips, and are currently being transitioned to Library of Congress Research Guides with a clean, modern search interface and improved usability.

The Prints and Photographs Reading Room has a dated aesthetic compared to other Library of Congress pages and digital collection websites such as Digital Public Library of America. However, clear efforts are being made to improve the look and functionality of the site. In the meantime, the content is rich in scope and rife with research rabbit holes for primary source lovers to get lost in.—Mechele Romanchock, Alfred University, romanchockm@alfred.edu

Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). Access: https://cepr.net/.

The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) is a progressive think tank founded by economic scholars Dean Baker and Mark Weisbrot, who both earned doctoral degrees in economics from the University of Michigan. The CEPR advisory board includes two Nobel Laureate economists, Robert Solow and Joseph Stiglitz; Richard Freeman, professor of economics at Harvard University; and Janet Gornick, professor at the CUNY Graduate School and Director of the Luxemborg Income Study.

According to their website, CEPR was “founded in 1999 to promote democratic debate on the most important economic and social issues that affect people’s lives.” The works published on their website include current professional reports, op eds, commentaries, and brief articles to educate the public on topics including workers, inequality, globalization and trade, and US foreign policy. They primarily cover topics affecting the US economy, but they do include select coverage of Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the International Monetary Fund. Some topics like globalization, trade, and sanctions necessarily consider worldwide economic conditions.

The “More” menu includes several “Projects,” which vary widely in depth of coverage. Examples include “Frontline Workers,” offering links to resources CEPR used in their report of workers on the frontline of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. “Blue Collar Jobs Tracker” includes longitudinal data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics state level jobs data from December 2016 to August 2022. “CEPRdata.org” is simply an extract of the American Community Survey. “HealthcareWorkers.us” includes two in-depth reports published on this topic in 2017 and 2019 and commentaries.

Also included in this section are “Calculators,” and “Data Bytes.” CEPR’s Calculators help convert simple numbers into something more comprehensible to the public. For example, the “‘It’s the Budget, Stupid’ Federal Budget Calculator” converts dollar amounts into a percentage of the federal budget. “Data Bytes” are brief articles that explain recently published economic data like unemployment numbers, the CPI, or GDP reports.

This progressive think tank produces quality information to inform researchers about current topics that impact the US economy. The op-eds and commentaries are short and easily understood, and the reports offer more in-depth coverage of select topics.—Kristen Peters, Wittenberg University, petersk@wittenberg.edu

The Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality. Access: https://inequality.stanford.edu/.

The Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality has been providing research, policy analysis, and training on issues of poverty and inequality for more than 15 years. As of this writing, the landing page on the Center’s website contains the report Ending Poverty in California. A Blueprint for a Just and Inclusive Economy. The report provides a 46-page introduction to the mission and work of the center: “to lay out how California can build a just and inclusive economy that provides opportunities to flourish to everyone.” Also on the homepage is a section titled “Research Areas,” which provides descriptions of various issues contributing to poverty and inequality, such as “Health,” “Incarceration,” “Labor Markets,” and “Race and Ethnicity.”

The site offers data about poverty and inequality. The data provided is confined to the California Poverty Measure, a state-specific index of poverty modeled on the Census Bureau’s Supplemental Poverty Measure. Here librarians and patrons have access to an interactive map that provides county-level data for the state of California. For example, in San Francisco County the poverty rate (13%), number of people in poverty (112,000), child poverty rate (8.3%), and poverty threshold for a family of four that rents ($43,000) are listed, and these figures can be compared to those of neighboring counties (Marin, Napa, Contra Costa, Alameda, San Mateo, Sana Clara, etc.) or other metropolitan areas (e.g., Los Angeles and environs).

Granular technical data is available from “Publications,” where researchers have access to the Stanford Center’s publication The State of the Union. This annual poverty and inequality report provides evidence and in-depth analysis on such issues as income and health inequalities, economic mobility, and economic access. The material here is dated as no reports have been uploaded since 2019.

Information on the center’s graduate and undergraduate programs, post-doctoral fellowships and research grants, research partnerships, and conferences are also available on its website.

The Stanford Center of Poverty and Inequality is a worthwhile resource both for patrons researching particular economic issues in the state of California as well as for those researching economic conditions in other parts of the country.—Wendell. G. Johnson, Northern Illinois University, wjohnso1@niu.edu