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.

Image Permanence Institute. Access: https://www.imagepermanenceinstitute.org/.

Founded in 1985, the Image Permanence Institute (IPI), located at the College of Art and Design at Rochester Institute of Technology, specializes in sustainable preservation practices. IPI has conducted more than 20 years of research in environmental management and has been awarded $1.5 million through multiple research grants. It is “an active preservation program that informs and advances professional-level education and training activities, publications, consulting services, and the development of practice preservation resources and tools.” The information-rich website offers extensive web-based resources, training, and support for preserving cultural heritage collections in libraries, archives, and museums worldwide.

Visitors can learn more about the institute’s services and offerings by browsing six major site sections beneath the homepage banner. Most sections have additional content accessible by drop-down menus. Start at the “Overview” page, where available, before moving on to other pages. Dive into the “Research” section to learn more about “Photographic Print Preservation,” “Film Preservation,” “Digital Print Preservation,” “Collections Environmental Monitoring,” “Sustainable Preservation Practices,” and “3D Printed Materials.”

The “Education” section organizes the institute’s web-based resources in one place. These include the “eClimateNotebook,” “Graphics Atlas,” “DP3—Digital Print Preservation Portal,” “FilmCare.org,” “Sustainable Preservation Practices,” and “Dew Point Calculator.” Persistent links to these resources can be found at the top of any page throughout the site, except for Sustainable Preservation Practices. This section also has pages on upcoming workshops, a webinar archive, and links to publications. Subscribe to the institute’s quarterly e-newsletter to track all the educational and training opportunities offered.

The “Work with Us” page describes environmental management services and preservation consultation services. The “Testing” section of the website offers explanations and pricing for collection testing. Visit the online store to purchase film testing strips, flash drives, various subscription levels of eClimateNotebook, or print titles. Reasonably priced print items related to preservation and storage and a full-color poster illustrating photographic negatives are available. In addition to these items for sale, numerous freely downloadable PDFs of guides and reports are embedded throughout the site.

IPI’s website will appeal to cultural institutions that collect, maintain, and protect vulnerable image collections. Individuals who are the caretakers or curators of family archives looking for tips on protecting personal film or photographic collections may also find the information and resources valuable.—Christa Bailey, San Jose State University, christa.bailey@sjsu.edu

The Roosevelt Institute. Access: https://rooseveltinstitute.org/.

The Roosevelt Institute, established in 1987, honors the legacy and values of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. As a progressive political think tank and the nonprofit arm of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, it has pursued its mission for nearly four decades through fellowships, undergraduate mentoring, public policy research, and funding special projects and exhibits for the FDR Library.

The institute’s website features a simple and uncluttered design, although a newsletter subscription invitation pops up on first entry. From the homepage, users can easily navigate the institute’s core functions. Tabs at the top lead to sections on “Publications,” “Think Tank,” “Roosevelt Network,” “Roosevelt Society,” “FDR Library,” and the institute’s blog and upcoming events. The “About” page provides a brief history and structure of the institute, but distinctions between the Network and Society require further reading on dedicated pages. “About” also lists employees, senior fellows, and board members, many with impressive credentials that add to the institute’s credibility.

The Roosevelt Institute’s publications are a crucial resource for education and research. The “Publications” tab hosts an archive of briefs, fact sheets, reports, testimonies, and working papers from 2015 to the present. This catalog can be filtered by document type, program, or policy topic, with the most recent publications listed first. Most papers include in-text citations and footnotes, often linking to external abstracts or full texts when available. Author information at the end of each piece provides context for assessing expertise. However, the archive lacks a keyword search box, which many researchers expect. Fortunately, the available filters work well, and the small search box at the top right corner of the page does search the full text of publications.

This resource is certainly recommended for librarians and researchers interested in current trends and topics within progressive policy, but perhaps an even greater use case is in undergraduate political science classrooms. While the institute’s scholarly publications and news blog offer valuable information, much of the site focuses on inviting undergraduates and young professionals to join the Roosevelt Network or become Fellows. Educators and mentors of tomorrow’s policymakers should bookmark and share this site.—Katharine Van Arsdale, Adventist Digital Library, vanarsdk@andrews.edu

Victorian Web. Access: https://www.victorianweb.org/.

Victorian Web bills itself as “the internet’s oldest and largest website devoted to Victoriana.” Indeed, established in 1987, it predates the World Wide Web itself and retains the charming (though some may disagree) aesthetic of Web 1.0. While deepest in literature coverage, many aspects of Victorian history and culture are represented.

The site emphasizes the importance of its titular “web.” Embedded links contextualize both primary sources and scholarship “as nodes in a network of complex connections.” While Wikipedia makes a good analog, the site claims any encyclopedia “aims to present a single authoritative view of its subject,” as opposed to their “multivocal” collection. (Though Wikipedia enthusiasts might highlight its multivocality of authorship, in contrast to the highly curated Victorian Web.)

But like Wikipedia, the site’s linked and grouped pages provide ample opportunities for searching and browsing. From the homepage, one may choose among thematic groupings (“Gender Matters,” “Religion,” etc.), lists of authors and genres, and scholarly categories (primary texts, reviews, and bibliographies). Though dizzying in its breadth, readers can either engage briefly or delve deeply into particular topics. Groups of related pages do not provide comprehensive discussions but help build connections and guide additional study.

This review cannot attend to the quality of all site materials (more than 130,000 published items as of 2024). Unfortunately, though the site’s complex editorial history is discussed generally, it is not always clear whether any given text is refereed. While all material apparently comes with the imprimatur of the site as a whole, this may pose challenges for readers in assessing each text.

The website is updated regularly, with a page offering monthly narratives of new additions and related news. As to be expected with an older website, there are broken links throughout its pages.

Victorian Web was developed at Brown University, but it is independently hosted and operated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. An editorial board oversees submission of new and out-of-print materials for potential publication. In soliciting donations for upkeep, no discussion of open access or licensing was apparent, but given the site’s history, it seems safe to assume it has no intention of a different revenue model.

Victorian Web can serve as a portal for many to foster engagement with the Victorian era’s culture and history. It can also be a helpful open access resource both for original primary materials and difficult-to-find secondary research.—John C. Rendeiro, University of Connecticut, john.rendeiro@uconn.edu