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.

American Public Health Association. Access: https://www.apha.org.

The American Public Health Association (APHA) is the largest organization of public health professionals in the United States, with roughly 25,000 members. In 2022 the organization marked its 150th year of service to “improve the health of the general public and achieve equity in health status.”

As a pillar in public health, APHA provides many platforms for its members and affiliates to engage in scientific-based discussion to guide public policy. It supports smaller subcommunities—caucuses and support forums—in which members work together on specific public health issues such as human rights or cancer, in addition to shared identities or socially defined groups like the Black Caucus of Health Workers, Caucus on Homelessness, LGBTQ Health Caucus, and Veterans’ Caucus.

Although membership is needed to access the communication platforms and some APHA resources, plenty of information is freely available to the general public. Perhaps the most useful aspect is the health topics and issues that are easily accessible via the main navigation.

Thirty-eight health topics and issues are currently listed, the most prominent of these being “Climate Change,” “Racial Equity,” “COVID-19/Coronavirus,” “Environmental Health,” “Gun Violence,” “Health Equity,” “Vaccines,” “Healthy Housing,” and “Immigrant Health.”

For example, “Gun Violence” offers a succinct one-paragraph summary of gun violence, provides a short video about how public health addresses gun violence, lists ways that action can be taken, and provides a list of resources about gun violence prevention. The resources link to full-text articles from the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH), The Nation’s Health, fact sheets, policy statements, research and data, external advocacy groups, and more.

It should be noted that topic pages almost exclusively link to APHA-produced resources; information produced outside of APHA is rarely incorporated. Also, the amount of coverage for each topic varies.

Another noteworthy aspect of the site is the “News & Media” section. Viewers can access the most recent news released by APHA and AJPH, all of which are available in full text. Public policy researchers and journalists will find the news releases particularly useful.—John Repplinger, Willamette University, jrepplin@willamette.edu

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Access: https://www.consumerfinance.gov/.

Through the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s website, individuals can access reliable, accurate, and timely financial information to assist them in making well-informed decisions and avoiding unfair practices. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was established as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. It is responsible for safeguarding consumers and businesses, upholding federal consumer financial laws, and ensuring fairness, transparency, and competition in the consumer finance industry.

On this website, financial education is covered in depth from childhood through retirement. Various consumer-related topics are covered, such as paying for college and buying a home. A comprehensive guide to each area includes overviews, key terms, checklists, worksheets, blog posts, podcasts, events, webinars, and more. In this collection of materials, complex financial concepts have been simplified into clear, easy-to-understand language. Among the outstanding guides is “Money as You Grow: Help for Parents and Caregivers,” which provides materials to help develop financial literacy from early childhood to adulthood.

The site offers tools and guidance for financial professionals, educators, employers, and social service providers, notably librarians. “Resources for Helping Others,” under the Consumer Education tab, contains authoritative online resources for financial education that libraries can use to promote to their communities, along with programming ideas, outreach materials, training webinars, and a partnership guide. A searchable and browsable “Ask CFPB” section contains hundreds of answers to questions. Several databases and reports can be found in the “Data & Research” section, including a searchable complaint database for consumers. As of this writing, the CFPB has published more than four million complaints.

Additionally, the website provides information regarding the CFPB’s rulemaking process and compliance resources that can be used to assist institutions. To ensure accountability and transparency, the website includes links to the agency’s ombudsman, strategic plans, and audit reports. There are valuable tools on the website, RSS feeds, and a newsletter users can subscribe to for updates. The site can be translated into several languages.

There is so much information on this website that a summary cannot cover everything. Users might find a site map beneficial, but the reviewer could not locate one. The CFPB’s website provides credible financial information in a visually appealing, user-friendly, and accessible format. The site is an ideal place to explore, and everyone can gain insight from it. Those making personal financial decisions or supporting others to become financially literate may find this site particularly useful.—Colleen Lougen, SUNY New Paltz, lougenc@newpaltz.edu

Taube Archive of the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at Nuremberg, 1945–46. Access: https://virtualtribunals.stanford.edu/nuremberg.

One of the wonders of the modern era is the way the internet makes the past more accessible than ever before. The Taube Archive of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg exemplifies this remarkable capability by offering a wealth of historical materials that, until very recently, was available only to scholars with the resources to travel to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, Netherlands. As the main judicial body of the United Nations, the ICJ houses the archival records of the Nuremberg Trials, which brought 21 of the most important Nazi leaders to justice after World War II. Stanford University Libraries and the Stanford Center for Human Rights and International Justice have made these records available online as part of their Virtual Tribunals digital exhibit, which focuses on international criminal tribunal records from World War II to the present day.

The archive contains all manner of records produced by the IMT, including audio recordings of the proceedings, court transcripts, indictments, sentences, and evidentiary films. There are three principal ways to explore the collection: resource type (e.g., audio recordings of proceedings, evidentiary exhibits, official court transcripts), media type (image, audio, text, or moving image), and resource format (e.g., folders, envelopes, film, microfilm). Users can also filter items by date, level, and language.

The distinctions between some of these browsing options, as well as the meaning of some categories, may be confusing to users, particularly those that are not familiar with archival or legal terminology. The lack of transcriptions (both for audio recordings and hard-to-read digitized documents) and the diversity of languages represented are also potential challenges. As a result, the archive is better suited for the dedicated researcher than the casual browser. Lay users may wish instead to browse the Virtual Tribunals exhibit, linked on the “About” page of the Taube Archive, which provides additional historical context and allows users to browse curated collections of documents by defendant and prosecuting country. Researchers, on the other hand, will benefit from the archival structure and comprehensive nature of the Taube Archive. In its meticulous curation of historical artifacts, this archive secures its place as an indispensable window into one of the most significant trials in history.—Katie Maxfield, Wittenberg University, maxfieldk@wittenberg.edu