Internet Reviews

Dawn Behrend

Archives of American Art. Access: https://www.aaa.si.edu/.

Seeking a way to understand an artist’s process in creating a work of art? Having access to their early sketches; photographs; correspondence with other artists, collectors, and art dealers; oral histories; and archival collection finding aids could help. The Archives of American Art (AAA) provides a dizzying array of such primary sources for researchers to explore the world of American art.

Originally founded in 1954 at the Detroit Institute of Arts to be a microfilm repository, the AAA soon started collecting and preserving original material. In 1970 it joined the Smithsonian Institution and has since become the “world’s preeminent and most widely used research center dedicated to collecting, preserving, and providing access to primary sources that document the history of the visual arts in America.”

Spanning the past 200 years, the collection holds more than 20 million items related to American art and artists, yet the work of the archives is not static; their collecting specialists continue to seek out new materials to add to the collections. Established in 1958, the Oral Histories Program has recorded more than 2,300 interviews, many including transcripts and some audio excerpts. Since 2005 grants from the Terra Foundation Center for Digital Collections have enabled 270 archival AAA collections containing more than 3 million images to be digitized and posted online.

The real strength of this site is the breadth of digitized items and internal links between them. A search for an artist might yield links to a collection of their papers, oral histories, correspondence, etc., as well as links to items from other collections that relate to the first artist. Comparable art archives have similar search functionality and breadth of material types but fewer items. London’s Tate Gallery Archive has more than 1 million items, but only 75,000 are digitized; and of the 130,000 records in the Hong Kong–based Asia Art Archive, 90,000 are digitized.

The homepage has a clean design centered around a search box, above which are pull-down menus for different browsable categories and other features, such as links to archives podcasts, online exhibitions, blogposts, etc. Of course an excellent resource for art historians, the site also offers curricula designed to incorporate the archives resources into higher education courses. The AAA offers a wealth of resources for art scholars and students alike. — Doreen Simonsen, Willamette University, dsimonse@willamette.edu.

Stanford Emerging Technology Review. Access: https://setr.stanford.edu/.

The Stanford Emerging Technology Review (SETR) is a Stanford initiative that offers accessible analysis of rapidly evolving technologies, helping policymakers and industry leaders understand their potential impacts and implications. SETR makes emerging technological developments understandable to policymakers and the public. For academic librarians, it offers structured, accessible content that can supplement collections in technology, policy, and interdisciplinary studies.

The homepage prominently features the 2025 report, with direct download access and links to summaries of ten key focus areas. Each focus area is a concise version of the report, featuring key takeaways, an overview, over-the-horizon predictions, policy and regulatory issues, and contributing researchers. This format allows students and faculty to quickly grasp authoritative introductions to emerging technologies while retaining the option to consult the full report. Additional resources include the executive summary, foreword, cross-cutting themes, and applications by policy area, as well as The Interconnect, a podcast co-produced by SETR and the Council on Foreign Relations. This multimedia component broadens instructional use cases, especially for libraries curating beyond traditional text-based materials.

Navigation is straightforward, with sections for About, Technology Areas, People, News, and Events, as well as options to subscribe for updates and search. The About section situates the project as a Stanford initiative that supports US innovation leadership, and the People section profiles the leadership, advisory board members, faculty, fellows, and student researchers. The News and Events sections keep the site timely with relevant updates that are filterable by date, author, and focus area.

For libraries, SETR’s value lies in its combination of authoritative expertise and easy-to-use presentation. It can serve as a reference tool, an instructional aid, or an entry point for students to learn about the SETR technology topics. Although its framing emphasizes US innovation leadership, its content is broadly relevant for exploring how emerging technologies intersect with policy and society. Overall, the SETR website is a well-structured platform that merits inclusion in academic library resource lists, particularly for research guides, classroom integration, and policy reference collections. — Ken Fujiuchi, SUNY Buffalo State University, fujiuck@buffalostate.edu.

United States Geological Survey. Access: https://www.usgs.gov/.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) operates under the umbrella of the US Department of Interior to provide public information on scientific research conducted on natural resources and hazards throughout the nation. USGS provides site visitors with detailed maps, articles, statistics, and related materials to educate on natural hazards that impact American waterways, environment, and climate and land changes. This allows users to glean pertinent information on hazards that can impact their lives from a local level to a national level.

The website’s featured stories on the landing page highlight pertinent events that users can directly follow, such as an aftershock forecast from a recent earthquake. Event notifications are also included with watches for severe events, displaying appropriate color coding and links to explain what each color alert means. Other prominent features on the landing page include national mineral resource mapping, links to publications and software, and an entire catalog of all USGS maps with search results showing information from 1943 to today. For users interested in learning more about data and its management, USGS offers several training materials and examples for data collection and analysis. The website also has a wealth of multimedia materials including images, videos, audio, and stereograms.

The site is inviting to users from all educational levels with large text, imagery, and clear instructions on accessing materials, indicating that its intended audience is broader than the scientific community. Site headers assist in navigation in several ways. For example, the Science drop-down menu provides visitors with a multitude of directions to aim their queries—by subject interest, region, or USGS mission. The site further educates users on proper research etiquette in subtle ways. At the top-left corner, a small link displays “An official website of the United States government. Here’s how you know.” This leads to a small drop-down stating the credibility of a .gov domain and how to tell if a link is legitimate.

Overall, the USGS website is a valuable resource for all users, especially those impacted by recent natural disasters and collectors of natural science data. In academic institutions, this site appeals to those in environmental sciences and sustainability. The live data and up-to-date information on natural events can provide significant information for researchers, students, and faculty for their own projects. — Tiffany Messer-Bass, Lenoir-Rhyne University, tiffany.messer-bass@lr.edu.