American
Studies Crossroads Project
Sponsored by Georgetown University in cooperation with
the American Studies Association, this metasite should be the place you
start looking for online information on American Studies. Its stature
within the field can begin to be appreciated by the number of American
Studies web pages within the U.S. and abroad with links to it. Users can
easily access links to organizations, communities and professional resources;
finding aids, directories and indices for American Studies resources,
including abstracts of American Studies dissertations from 1986 to the
present. The site gives links to and information on teaching with technology
and integrating multimedia network technology into the American Studies
classroom, including a comprehensive listing of American Studies academic
programs with websites; and resources for teachers and administrators
of American Studies programs. On the Crossroads greatest hits page, viewers
find links to a fully-searchable subject-based directory of American Studies
links; a collection of syllabi for undergraduate and graduate courses;
employment opportunities in the field; and "Innovistas"-a collection of
innovative online collaborative projects-and MUCH, MUCH MORE!
American Studies
at The University of Virginia
Not to be missed, this site is a rich resource of information
on American Studies at UVA, as a general field of study, and as a source
for scholarly sources and research. UVA undergraduate and graduate course
syllabi including e-texts of assigned readings are online within the "Programs"
icon on the home page. A "Yellow Pages" icon connects visitors to resources
on ethnicity, gender, literature, philosophy/religion, popular culture,
regional studies, social sciences, and science/technology. It also includes
an amazing selection of comprehensive search engines, specialized search
engines, professional associations, American Studies programs, bulletin
boards and news groups, and UVA's electronic courses in American Studies.
There's an online museum for American Studies with numerous changing exhibitions,
including an especially interesting exhibit on the 1893 World's Columbian
Exposition in Chicago as well as an exhibit on "Negotiating American Identity
in the National Portrait Gallery." As part of UVA's ongoing hypertext
project, there is an online library of classic and lost texts, which appear
in full and include links to other materials that either re-contextualize
them or comment on them from a contemporary perspective. The ongoing cultural
maps project has great links to online map collections. Also ongoing,
the Capitol project explores the National Capitol as an American icon.
Finally, the 1930s project looks at this period in U.S. history on film,
in print, and on display.
Theory
and Method in American/Cultural Studies: A Bibliographic Essay
Who is T. V. Reed? I'm not really sure, but his ("T"
stands for Tim) site seems pretty darn good (and it's regularly updated).
I can tell you this about Reed, he teaches theory and method in American
Studies at Washington State University (AMST 513. The University's site
is annotated below.). A shorter version of this online essay was published
in American Studies International in October 1992. This site offers a
bibliography and historiography of interdisciplinary scholarship relating
to theory and method in American cultural studies, and allied fields like
ethnic, women's and queer studies. He starts with a genealogy of American
Studies then takes the plunge into the not-soon-to-be-forgotten Myth and
Symbol school. Following chapters cover interpretive social science theory;
Marxisms; poststructuralist and postmodern theories; theories on gender,
race, sexuality and ability; historical, and literary theories and methods;
British cultural studies; postcolonial and transnational theories; and
a final chapter on theorizing interdisciplinarity. His bibliography features
links to e-texts where available, and online sources, such as an Edward
Said link along with six other online sources in the postcolonial section.
The names of key scholars and theorists, as well as some tricky vocabulary
terms are linked to online biographical sources and dictionaries.
American
Studies at Keele University, UK
Who says you have to do American studies in the U.S.?
With American flags fluttering and Liberty Bells ringing (Okay, so they're
not ringing. It would be good to consider adding some sound, however.),
you would never guess Keele University is cultures away from the homeland,
across the Atlantic Ocean in Staffordshire, England. At least, it is certainly
interesting to see the ways in which the U.S. is viewed from abroad. I'm
especially fond of the "Religions and Cults" section, which is strategically
located below "Korfball" (who knew?) and above "The South" on the "American
Studies Information Super Turnpike" (called a "highway" in the States).
No, really, the information is pretty good. Other topics include U.S.
government, politics, history and space; African America; American literature;
music; sports; cinema and film; cultural studies; and visual arts. There's
a visual arts in America page, a page with information on U.S. environmental
policies and groups; a page with portraits of important American figures
(Dorothy Dandridge is the only woman). Moby-Dick figures large on "The
Whale Pages." And, finally, you won't want to miss "Writing Black" for
literature and history written by and on African Americans. You'll recognize
when you are there by the image of South Carolina's flag, which is linked
to a history of the U.S. Flag. Don't miss the "Flag Etiquette" section.
American Studies
Resource Links at The University of Texas, Austin
The University of Texas at Austin's American Studies
Resources page offers links to some great resources that you won't find
on other American studies sites. From this site, you can check out the
Center for the Study of Southern Culture at University of Mississippi;
the "Making of America" digital library of primary sources in American
social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction (a collaborative
project between the University of Michigan and Cornell University); the
National Council on Public History in Indianapolis with good history and
resource links, including the "Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic
American Engineering Record"; as well as the Vietnam Center at Texas Tech
University. There are popular culture links like Roughstock: A History
of Country Music; online journals like the Journal of Media History and
Jazz and American Culture; archives, museum and library links; and more.
American Studies
at Yale
Yale's American studies homepage includes internet
resources at Yale and worldwide. These include links to an American history/American
studies research guide; the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery,
Abolition, and Resistance; Imaging America, a digital database (still
under construction and not yet available as of 02/20/01) of 250,000+ images
of architecture, painting, sculpture, decorative arts, vernacular imagery
and material and visual culture. Also at this website is "The Formation
of Modern American Culture," a series of three course syllabi, covering
the periods from 1750-1876 (not available as of 02/20/01), 1876-1919,
and 1920 to the present, respectively, and including assignments, links,
images, and timelines. "Route 66: Cruising the American Dream" is a multimedia
senior essay with video and sound clips that takes visitors on a virtual
trip cross-country along the famous highway.
American
Studies at Washington State University
This is a really good site. Lower- and upper-level
undergraduate course syllabi are posted here. Some are more thorough than
others. For example, AMST 471: American Popular Culture includes the course
outline and reading schedule and assignments, as well as links to on-line
resources for the study of popular culture. AMST 513: Theory and Method
in American Cultural Studies is annotated above. There are a number of
web projects posted on topics such as nineteenth-century historical, literary,
and cultural studies; cultural environmental studies; and the multicultural
American West, to name only a few. These projects include excellent information
and links. For example, the nineteenth-century U.S. historical, literary
and cultural studies project is subdivided into the following categories:
historical periods and topics; literary, historical and other course syllabi;
historical documents (including a link to 18th- and 19th-century online
periodicals); nineteenth-century authors and texts; and maps, photographs
and visual culture. In turn, each of these categories includes a wealth
of links to related information on the web. They also have a page of key
off-campus online American studies resources.
Library
of Congress-American Memory Collections
LC's American Memory Collections are magnificent, easily
accessible, although sometimes difficult to read. The home page lists
29 collections in a plethora of topics, with more to come. Among those
online are African American Perspectives: Pamphlets from the Daniel A.
P. Murray Collection, 1818-1907, containing 351 pamphlets; Architecture
and Interior Design for 20th Century America: Photographs by Samuel Gottscho
and William Schleisner, 1935-1955, with 29,000 images; The American Variety
Stage: Vaudeville and Popular Entertainment, 1870-1920, a multiformat
collection including English and Yiddish scripts, playbills, sound recordings,
and Houdini memorabilia. The table of contents lists each collection by
keywords, a description, and broad topic descriptions. It is user-friendly
and easy to download. [By Shelby Shapiro]
Making of America
(MOA)Project, University of Michigan Digital Library and Cornell University
The MOA Project is "a digital library of primary sources
in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction
[sic]." It focuses on education, psychology, American history, sociology,
religion, and science and technology. Users may utilize boolean, proximity
or author-title-subject index searching. The images, enhanced by Optical
Character Recognition (OCR), are readable. Those interested in specific
journals will find a list of the issues contained in the collection; for
each issue, a table of contents leads directly to the specific articles
listed, and once at the article, users may move to specific pages. [By
Shelby Shapiro]
Hagley Museum
& Library
The Hagley Museum and Library focuses on business, technology
and society. Its library contains special collections of pamphlets, trade
catalogues, broadsides and monographs and serials acquired since 1980.
Through this site, users may link to various Delaware state and county
historical societies, as well as the Winterhur Museum and Library. Although
not particularly user-friendly, it remains a valuable resource for those
interested in material culture, technology and advertising. [By Shelby
Shapiro]
PopCultures.Com
Mass Media and Communication Page
Part of Sarah Zupko's Cultural Studies Center, a site
which covers a wide range of cultural studies topics, this page focuses
on the study of media and communications. Started in 1996, this site is
widely regarded as a must-bookmark for those interested in cultural studies.
Although it is rare to see regular updates, the site currently proclaims
to be in the midst of a major renovation. It is well designed, internally
searchable, and easy to navigate. The media page contains three primary
sections. The first, a discussion forum, appears to now be a dead link.
The second, however, is a collection of links to other media studies sites,
including many alternative media projects, media watchdog groups, and
left-leaning media publications. The third section is long list of articles
about media matters. While these are certainly hit and miss, they are
worth a browse when searching for media and communications scholarship.
For every articles that looks like an unpublished graduate seminar paper,
there's a little-known piece by established scholars such as Todd Gitlin,
Noam Chomsky, Doug Kellner, and Michael Schudson.
University
of Iowa Department of Communication Studies Resources
By far one of the most impressive collection of links
for communication studies to be found on the web, the department's website
is well maintained and contains information for any type of interdisciplinary
media research. The site is divided up into fourteen primary categories
which cover almost any conceivable disciplinary direction: advertising;
cultural studies and popular culture; digital media; film studies; gender,
ethnicity, and race; general communications resources; health and science
communication; journalism and mass communication; political communication;
media studies, TV and radio; rhetorical studies, social science resources,
speeches and speechmakers; and visual communication. Particularly useful
are the "Speeches" section's links to online collections of speeches ranging
in topic from the federal reserve board to human rights abuses and the
section on Gender, Ethnicity, and Race in Mass Communication. The latter
divides up into subsections on a number of topics, including Indigenous
Peoples and LesBiGay media resources. The site also connects to a number
of related listservs.
Center for Media Education
The Center for Media Education, or CME, is a national
non-profit organization dedicated to improving the quality of the electronic
media through research, advocacy, public education, and press activities.
This multi-pronged approach to media literacy is reflected in its Web
site. For example, the site includes online versions of the quarterly
publication InfoActive, along with a number of CME policy statements,
reports, and press releases regarding new and traditional media. Further,
the site offers original and insightful resources, including for example,
the Children's Television Act Tool Kit, designed to help users monitor
the implementation of the Children's Television Act. Finally, the site
has formulated an interdisciplinary research agenda for the study of children
and new media. A healthy fusion between solid materials and snappy designs,
the CME site ranks high for scholars, teachers, and policy makers in the
field of mass media.
CTHEORY
CTHEORY is an online, peer reviewed, international
journal of theory, technology and culture. Edited by the pomo theorists
you love to hate -- Arthur and Marilouise Kroker -- and overseen by an
editorial board that includes such notables as Jean Baudrillard and Andrew
Ross, CTHEORY publishes original articles, "event-scenes," interviews,
and reviews on a weekly basis. Bombastic, brash, and jargonistic, the
essays and reviews found in CTHEORY are not for the theory-weary; at the
same time, where else can you find a "work in progress" by Baudrillard?
Although CTHEORY fancies itself a multimedia text, the essays and articles
seldom contain graphics, not to mention animation, quicktime movies, or
sound files. Clean and lean, the site's navigation is easy, its download
time negligible.
ScreenSite
ScreenSite is a deep and well-organized Web site devoted
to the act of studying and teaching film and television. Established in
1994 by Jeremy Butler, the site is sponsored by the University of Alabama,
the Division of Student Affairs, the Department of Telecommunications
and Film, and the College of Communication. The site is divided into four
major sections -- Education, Research, Film/TV Production, and Miscellanea
-- each of which provides various resources and information, ranging from
dynamic syllabi and directories of scholars to original bibliographies,
links to catalogs, and archived logs from Screen-L focusing on such topics
as how to grab stills from video. Further, the site serves as a gateway
to other, more interactive forms of communication, including newsgroups
such as screen.history and screen.theory, an online chat room/channel,
and the popular listserv Screen-L. Following a no-nonsense layout, the
site loads quickly, includes a site-specific search engine, and can be
accessed in eight different languages: English, French, German, Italian,
Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish.
Voice
of the Shuttle: Media Studies Page
Like all of the pages included under the Voice of the
Shuttle, the Media Studies Page is a meta site choke full of links to
interesting academic-related sites on the Web. Established by Alan Liu,
a professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara,
and built and maintained by a cast of -- literally -- hundreds, the Voice
of the Shuttle serves as the academic meta site for the humanities. In
particular, the Media Studies Page is divided into ten sections: journalism,
tv, film/video, CD-ROMs, popular music, radio, comics, Internet broadcast
media, telecom issues, and media theory & history. Although the links
are usually worthy, the site fails to organize them in any manner besides
genre. Thus, when visiting the popular music section, for example, users
will find links to academic journals, commercial radio stations, and the
lyrics of the songs of Richard Thompson, all mixed with an occasional
dead link or two. That said, it is difficult to visit the Media Studies
Page without finding at least one virtual gem.
Popular
Culture Library: Libraries and Learning Resources, Bowling Green State
University
Bowling Green State University has long been known
as one of the premier research institutions for those interested in the
study of popular culture. One of the major reasons for this is their Popular
Culture Library, which was founded in 1969 to "support innovative teaching
and research in cultural studies." The website for the library provides
some very valuable resources, such as the ability to search their collection
holdings, for researchers of popular culture who not located at the University.
One of the most interesting features of the website is the section entitled
"Collection Announcements." This page lists links to announcements for
special popular culture collections housed at the library. The announcements
provide brief summaries of the contents of each collection and several
include links to relevant information. As a researcher of popular culture
of the 19th and 20th century, the Popular Culture Library is one of the
first places you should begin your search.
PopCultures.com:
Sarah Zupko's Cultural Studies Center
and PopMatters.com:
the Magazine of Global culture
These sister sites are maintained by Sarah Zupko and
have received many honors and awards for their content and information.
PopCultures.com is oriented to the academic study of popular culture,
while PopMatters provides intelligent and semi-academic reviews of current
popular culture trends and texts. For general research purposes, PopCultures.com
is an invaluable site that provides everything from links to journals,
articles, and newsgroups, to calls for conferences, academic programs,
and bibliographies related to the subject of popular culture. While PopMatters
is clearly more of a journalistic type site, for those interested in what
is currently going on in popular culture, the site is extremely helpful
and informative.
University
Libraries @ Ohio University: Subject Guides, Popular Culture Research Resources
An exceptionally useful site in that it provides helpful
tools for locating popular culture resources. Offers annotated lists of
indexes, reference sources, journals, Internet sites, and microform sets
that are useful for the popular culture researcher.
American
Popular Culture: Critical Issues, Critical Approaches
This site was created by T.V. Reed at Washington State
University and provides several great resources for those interested in
researching and teaching popular Culture. In addition to a syllabus for
a course he taught on the subject, T.V offers extensive lists of recourses
in sections entitled "Reference Books & Bibliographies on Popular Culture,"
"Collections of Essays on Popular Culture," "Books on Advertising," "Books
on Race & Ethnicity in Popular Culture," and "Books on Gender in Popular
Culture." Reed also includes a link to the "Griffin Catalog Holland Library,
List of Items Under-- "Popular Culture, United States"" which he annotates
as being "a list of over 1,400 U.S. popular culture books and other materials
available at the Holland Library. Using keyword and title searches, you
should be able to find a good deal of useful material on virtually any
topic you choose." Also included is a link to a current and thorough list
of on-line resources maintained by T.V. entitled "TV (Reed's) REMOTE CONTROL"
which separates the links into the helpful categories of Genres, Issues,
Types of Analysis, and General Resources.
History
of Popular Culture: A Guide to Resources & Research on the Web
The Department of History at the University of Colorado
maintains this extensive site, which provides over 200 links to popular
culture resources, particularly those related to the history of the subject.
The links are categorized under the following headings: General Sources,
Art, Automobiles, Foreign Influence, Literature/Poetry, Movies, Music,
Music Videos, and Music Culture, Periodicals, Radio, and Television. However,
very few of the sites listed include annotations and several of these
sites appear to be more fan-based than academic.
Pop
Cult: Site of the Camosun College Popular Culture List
This site, housed at the Camosun College in Canada,
is the home of PopCult, which is a list "devoted to the study of all aspects
of popular culture in all media." While the site offers you the opportunity
to join this list, it also offers a couple of valuable resources. The
most valuable is an expansive list of popular culture related sites. This
list is great because it includes links to all of the major Institutions
that have programs dedicated to the study of popular culture and because
it offers links to sites that are interested in popular culture outside
of, and/or not located in the United States. Every link also features
a helpful annotation.
Beginning
Library Research on Ethnic Identity in the U.S.
Taken from a Stanford Library tutorial, this short
page provides the initial steps to doing library research on ethnicity
and race. It explains invaluable information such as the use of Library
of Congress Subject Headings and offers lists of encyclopedias, bibliographies,
and periodical indexes. Last modified in 1999, this is a great place to
begin, although the terms need to be adapted to your own library's search
engines.
The
Intersection of Race, Gender, and Class
Produced by the Institute for Research on Women at
Towson University this site offers a lengthy bibliography. The authors
claim, "This is the first, unique bibliography which contains items ONLY
if they emphasize the three dimensions of race, gender, and class in their
discourse and analysis." The bibliography may be viewed alphabetically,
topically or thematically. Please note that there are no links to the
sources listed or annotations. The site is clearly laid out.
Ethnic
Studies at the University of Southern California
"Created in 1995 by librarian Dennis Thomison,
the Ethnic Studies web site is maintained by the Doheny Reference Center
at the University of Southern California to provide access to research
resources available through the Internet based on a global perspective
of ethnicity and migration issues." Divided into 26 categories and with
search capabilities this site is a powerhouse of ethnic studies resources.
Various ethnic groups are explored as well as themes. With an academic
focus, the site is clear and well organized.
Race
and Ethnicity Resources on the American Studies Web
Under the "Reference and Resource" section from the
American Studies Association's Crossroads Project housed at Georgetown
University, this is a page of resources on race and ethnicity. Divided
into African American, Asian American, Native American, Latino and Chicano
Studies, and "Other Race and Ethnic Sources" this site provides brief
annotations of such sources as journals, web sources, bibliographies,
and centers. The site is basic in its appearance and annotations, covering
at least eight sources for each grouping.
Center
for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture
Based at the University of Chicago, the center seeks
to move beyond the black/white binary of viewing race into a comparative
and intersectional approach. The "Events" section is updated and thorough.
A fairly good "Resources" section of related sources is provided. At times,
the slow links and uneven information make it a difficult to navigate.
University
of Iowa Department of Communication Studies Links to Resources
The University of Iowa's department of Communication
Studies has provided a strong list of resources. The "Gender, Ethnicity,
and Race in Mass Communication" (further divided into 12 categories) and
"Cultural Studies and Popular Culture" links are especially solid. Please
see the rest of the 15 topics as some others may prove valuable. The website
is easy to navigate and allows you to jump back and forth between lists.
Diversity
Database
Sponsored by the University of Maryland, "this database
contains campus, local, national, and international academic material
relating to the following areas of diversity as defined by the Office
of Human Relations Programs at the University of Maryland: age, class,
disability, ethnicity, gender, national origin, race, religion & sexual
orientation." A general overview of diversity resources is provided in
a well-organized, easily viewable manner. There is a lot of information
here but some links, like those on class, are empty due to lack of sources.
Consortium
on Race, Gender, and Ethnicity
Established in 1998, the Consortium is housed at the
University of Maryland as a "university-wide initiative promoting research,
scholarship and faculty development that examines intersections of race,
gender, ethnicity and other dimensions of difference as they shape the
construction of identities, behavior and complex social relations." This
well-crafted site offers a fairly strong resources page that allows you
to view the links while remaining on the site. The briefly annotated links
include women, diversity, Asian, Latino, Native and African American Studies.
Interracial
Voice
This is an online magazine of sorts published every
other month. Interracial voice states, "This electronic publication advocates
universal recognition of mixed-race individuals as constituting a separate
racial entity and wholeheartedly supported the initiative to establish
a multiracial category on the 2000 Census." Thus, it should be recognized
as a political advocacy site. There is an excellent "Other Sites" list
that provides a list of over 150 related websites on multiracial themes.
Book reviews, editorials, poetry, and links to articles, newspapers, and
current events are also included on this site. This website covers a great
deal of material but may be tricky to navigate with the wealth of information
contained.
Citizens' Initiative
on Race and Ethnicity
This is a conservative group of scholars and activists
which includes Linda Chavez, Abigail Thernstrom, Shelby Steele, and Ward
Connerly. According to the Citizens' Initiative on Race and Ethnicity
(CIRE) mission statement, they have come together to examine race and
its social significance, dialogue, and provide recommendations to improve
race relations, focusing on "education, economic opportunity, crime, social
welfare programs, and legal actions." This is a very basic site that does
not detail the action of the group beyond an outlining a project and a
few response pieces. There are links to some group members and contact
information to the project coordinator.
Center for
Working-Class Studies
Based at Youngstown State University, the Center for
Working-Class Studies began in 1996. "Our web site includes information
about working-class studies as a field of study; information on courses,
research, and programs at YSU; a bibliography on working-class studies;
plus links to other related web sites." The bibliography and links to
other sources provide top-notch information. The site itself is not aesthetically
pleasing yet the "What's Here" section presents the key sources.
SocioSite
Based at the University of Amsterdam, this site is
set up for sociologists and social scientists to see resources on the
internet. The "Social Inequality and Classes" section is relevant to looking
at class. The page has four main links: Inequalities, Classes, Stratification,
and Poverty and two subsets: ActivismSocial Movements and Socialism. There
is a wealth of information provided here. The strength of the site is
its global approach. The site is clear, includes brief annotations, and
is regularly updated.
Museum
and Public History Resources
Links to just about every main stream museum and organization
in the country including the Smithsonian, the Library of Congress and
its American Memory project, the National Museum of the American Indian,
museum organizations, National Endowment for the Arts/Humanities, the
Computer Museum History Center, virtual library museum pages, exhibits
on line, Canadian and other regional material culture resources, with
emphasis on Ohio. This is an easy to use, straight-forward site with only
titles for links. Future links are also listed. This should be a first
stop for links to major organizations and material culture institutions.
Contains good www material culture references. Appears to be a collaborative
effort between Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio, and museum organizations
but no site guide, mission statement or author information is provided.
Art
and Material Culture Resources: American Studies Web
An extensive meta-site mounted by Crossroads project
at Georgetown University, American Studies Resources on art and material
culture. Site contains art and art history links including the women artist
archives, material culture including digitized baseball cards, photography.
Contained within the extensive Architecture section are links to the National
Trust for Historic Preservation and the Building Museum. A link to the
Smithsonian is here, the Whitney Museum, and numerous other museums and
exhibits. This should be a first stop for linking to major institutional
sites and collections for art and material culture resources.
Material
Culture: A Research Guide
This site is a research guide for material culture
studies. Contains information that will help you to use the University
of Delaware Library when researching material culture. Links to special
collections, subject guides, reference resources, and art abstracts. Also
contains links to bibliographic resources including Historical Archaeology,
Winterthur Portfolio, Technology and Culture. The site reflects the interdisciplinary
nature of material culture at the intersection of history, anthropology,
folklore, and the history of science and technology. This means that
relevant materials are widely dispersed throughout the collections.
African
American Studies at The University of Pennsylvania Library
An extensive web site with numerous links. Contains
meta-sites including more than 400 links from the Diversity Database of
the University of Maryland. Includes topical websites such as African
American in Military History, the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia.
Resources include the African American Studies Programs and Research Centers
and Historically Black Colleges. This site contains much more than material
culture.
African
Americans on the Internet. Richter Library, University of Miami
The depth and breadth of this University of Miami web
site ranges from black popular directories, academic directories, e-journals,
organizations, African-American biographies, census data, culture, history,
language, Black Nationalism, civil rights movements, slavery and reconstruction,
African-American literature, African Americans in the Armed Forces. Site
contains Black popular directories such as EverythingBlack, NetNoir, Academic
Directories, African and African American Collections at the University
of California among many, many other links. This is a comprehensive site
that augments general material culture sites with African American source
materials.
Academic
Info About African American History, Museums, Exhibits and Libraries
This site contains links to numerous resources including
the Freedman and Southern Society Project of the National Archives of
the United States, collections from the Schomburg, links African American
Museum Associations and other libraries, research centers, organizations
and archives.
Our
Shared History: Celebrating African American History and Culture
African-American Historic Sites administered by the
National Park Service.
Native
American Links
This Wesleyan University site contains links to Ableza,
the Native American Arts and Film Institute dedicated to promoting, preserving
and protecting traditional and contemporary Native American Arts; American
Indian Exposition, American Indian Studies, Women, Antiques, Press, and
numerous other sites related to material culture as well as contemporary
concerns. Home page provides links to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bibliographies,
research and library collections, Indian Arts and Crafts Association to
cite a few of the extensive, comprehensive resources. The bottom of the
page also has African-American, Asian American, Disabled, Latin American,
Lesbian/Gay and Women links. Site is an indispensable resource for anyone
interested in Native American studies.
A
Material Culture Research Guide to Women's History.
American Women's History provides citations to print
and Internet reference sources, as well as to selected large primary source
collections. The guide also provides information about the tools researchers
can use to find additional books, articles, dissertations, and primary
sources and a digital collection of primary sources. American Women's
History is designed to assist serious researchers, such as history professors,
independent scholars, graduate students, and possibly upper-division undergraduates.
Librarians who assist these researchers may also want to become familiar
with the guide. Site is maintained by Ken Middleton, a reference librarian
at Middle Tennessee State University Library who has a master's degree,
with an emphasis in American women's history, from the same university.
Asian American
Comparative Collection, University of Idaho
Mission Statement, ".there has been an increase in
studies of people of Asian ancestry, primarily Chinese and Japanese, who
immigrated to the West during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Archaeological excavations.have recovered.objects.made in China and Japan.
The need to understand these artifacts, their uses, and the people who
owned them led to the establishment, in 1982, of the Asian American Comparative
Collection (AACC)." Their objective is to obtain examples, or photographs,
of every representative object of Asian manufacture that has been, or
is likely to be, found in an archaeological context in the western United
States and elsewhere. The major artifact classes now represented include
food and beverage containers, table ceramics, opium smoking paraphernalia,
medicinal paraphernalia, gambling-related items, and other personal and
domestic objects. Kooskia (Idaho) World War II Japanese Internment Camp
project is a part of this site.
The Phoebe
A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley
Anthropological approach to material culture. Site
explores the diversity of human cultures from California and around the
world. The museum is a scholarly resource renowned for its collections
from native California, ancient Egypt, and pre-Columbian Peru. The museum
claims that its "research collections are among the finest in North America
and are a major resource for scholars from all over the world." They state
that "extensive documentation of the collections breathes life into cultures
long since extinct, and serves as an accurate record of historic societies."
The museum owns major collections from peoples of the Arctic, Africa and
Oceania. Nearly every culture, past and present, is represented here.
These collections are generally viewed from as anthropological rather
than art historical.
Archaeology
and Material Culture
This is the web page for those of you who can't relate
to either material culture or archaeology. Our own Dr. Paul Mullins of
Indiana University/Purdue University is associated with this site. It's
a fun site that has marvelous links to Archaeological digs, material culture,
journals, organizations, museum and virtual exhibits, on-line references
and popular culture.
African American
Archeology Newsletter links
Home page for New South Associates, a cultural resources
management firm. Page provides links to The African American Archaeology
Newsletter, and a practical guide to Section 106 Compliance.
SOCIAL SCIENCE
INFORMATION GATEWAY (SOSIG)
SOSIG is part of the UK Resource Discovery Network.
The stated purpose of this site is to provide a "trusted source of selected,
high quality Internet information for researchers and practitioners in
the social sciences, business, and law." A list of the SOSIG staff, section
editors, and contact information is available on the "Contacts" page.
The home page is well organized by subject categories in the Social Sciences
and easy to navigate. A help menu and search engine are also available
on the home page. I could not find information on when the page was last
updated. The site offers its own internet catalogue that has been compiled
by their subject experts and a social science search engine, which contains
sources selected by "harvester" software. The major difference between
these two search strategies is that those compiled in the internet catalogue
have been reviewed and contain descriptions written by the subject experts.
Those sources generated in the social science search engine may contain
thousands of links that have not all been reviewed and may be less reliable.
Another useful feature on the SOSIG page is the Social Science Grapevine,
which offers links to training and development opportunities, conferences,
courses, academic departments, other researchers in the field, and a site
to post your CV on line. This site originates from the UK and most of
the researchers listed on the "Likeminds" page are located in the UK.
H-NET: HUMANITIES
AND SOCIAL SCIENCES ON LINE
H-Net is hosted by Michigan State University. H-Net
consists of an international consortium of scholars and teachers whose
primary objective is to advance teaching and research in the arts, humanities,
and social sciences. The "About Us" page provides a list of the editors,
officers, and planning committees, along with contact information. H-Net
sponsors over 100 discussion lists that are screened and moderated by
the list editors. Subscribers are generally professors, teachers, scholars,
graduate students, journalists, librarians, and archivists. The logs of
discussion lists can be searched by month, keyword, author, subject, or
discussion thread. The search page allows searches by discussion networks,
book reviews, web pages, job guide, or academic announcements in the H-Net
database. The "Teaching" page is partially under construction. Some of
the links in this section are inactive and need updating. The on-line
projects page provides useful links to multimedia presentations on a variety
of subjects. The "Announcements" page provides links to conferences, publications,
calls for papers, programs, and workshops. The "Jobs Guide" lists recent
job openings in the social sciences and is updated regularly. The home
page does not indicate when the page was last updated. Most of the sub
pages seem to be updated frequently, except for portions of the "Teaching"
section.
RESEARCH
RESOURCES IN SOCIAL SCIENCE
This page is maintained by Keith Appleby and does not
indicate when it was last updated. A short statement of purpose can be
found at the bottom of the home page. The intent of this site is to "provide
pointers to high quality, reliable, non biased information and data" in
social science subjects, such as Sociology, Political Science, Economics,
Communication, History, Geography, Anthropology and Archaeology, Psychology,
Law, and Philosophy. Sites of questionable reliability are excluded, as
are sites that only provide a list of other sites. There is a link to
Amazon.com on the home page, providing researchers the ability to purchase
books on related topics from that company. The History, Geography, and
Psychology links were inaccessible, with a note that they were being updated.
This page provides some useful and easily accessible links to social science
resources.
ANTHRO.NET: ANTHROPOLOGY
ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB
Anthro.Net provides links and references for anthropology,
archaeology, history, linguistics, psychology, sociology, and other social
sciences. The site's database contains over 40,000 reviewed web sites
and bibliographic references. The search engine does not search the entire
web, but only the selected reviewed sites. The page is maintained by Eric
J. White. Search terms and topics are submitted by site users and do not
reflect the webmaster's interests. The information contained in the site
and the list of topics is biased towards the interests of its users. Proprietary
software is used to find journal articles, bibliographic references, and
topical sites from the database of reviewed sites based on the search
criteria provided by users. The home page states that the site is updated
around the clock. There is no help menu to assist researchers in narrowing
their search.
ACADEMIC INFO:
SOCIAL SCIENCE GATEWAY
Academic Info "is an independent internet subject directory
compiled and maintained by Mike Madin with the assistance of a volunteer
group of subject specialists." The site relies on advertising revenue
to stay on line and is not associated with an academic or commercial organization.
The target audience is the college and university community with a focus
on English language resources, many with an American emphasis. The site
aims to provide links to internet resources relevant to research at the
college level. The site offers a gateway to Social Science resources with
topics in anthropology, archaeology, communication studies, economics,
gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender studies, geography, history, mental
health, political science, psychology, sociology, and women's studies.
The compiler encourages users to submit relevant materials to be added
to the site. The site can be searched by keyword or subject. The "Reference
Desk" provides general reference materials, such as links to online dictionaries,
encyclopedias, and almanacs, as well as a list of internet search engines.
The "Student Center" provides links to such things as colleges and universities,
graduate schools, and financial aid sites. Each page indicates the date
it went on line and when it was last updated. The site is well organized
and easy to navigate.
The following three links were previously annotated
by Mike Lucas. I have basically left them the same, except to add updates.
These should be credited to Mike.
A
SOCIOLOGICAL TOUR THROUGH CYBERSPACE
A Sociological Tour Through Cyberspace is a huge web
site containing a wide variety of information on topics related to sociology.
The site is one of the best sites I found on sociology both for the breadth
of material offered and the organization. The site offers both general
links and information on particular topics in sociology and culture theory.
Some of the site highlights include links to theory specific sites, statistical
resources on the web, online "structure of research paper", and a listing
of general sociological sites with a focus on American Studies. The site
is monitored by Michael Kearl at Trinity University and is definitely
designed for a scholarly audience. A particularly interesting aspect of
the site is the essays and links on particular topics in sociology and
cultural theory such as articles about the "great Sokal hoax" and debate
surrounding it and a general listing the "Sociology of Knowledge". Many
of these topics located near the bottom of the page would be of interest
to American Studies scholars. This is an excellent web site and well worth
a serious look for those interested in the social sciences with a particular
focus on sociology and culture theory.
WESTERN
CONNECTICUT STATE UNIVERSITY LISTS: SOCIAL SCIENCES INTERNET RESOURCES
This site is a general site for connecting to social
science resources on the internet. Front page offers a selected list of
links to interdisciplinary web sites in the social sciences. The site
is easy to understand and uncluttered. I accessed and maneuvered within
the site with very little difficulty. The site was created by J. Bannister
and is administered by faculty and students of Western Connecticut State
University. Sources listed on the page are targeted for scholarly research.
Some of the sources are the university's own representing a bias. Regardless
of this the site is linked to several useful social science search engines
and meta-sites such as SOSIG and the World Wide Web Virtual Library for
the Social Sciences. Several distinctions/awards are listed on the page
including Education Index top site and Suite 101 top 5 web site. Also,
I found that the site was cross-referenced on many other social sciences
pages. One of the best features of the site is the links to the specific
disciplinary pages within the social sciences such as Anthropology and
Sociology. Each of these pages within the WCSU system is excellent. Finally,
the site only offers links to other resources in the social sciences but
is a great place to check out when doing a scholarly search in the social
sciences.
SOCIAL
SCIENCES VIRTUAL LIBRARY
This site was established by Gene Thursby at the University
of Florida and is maintained through the College of Arts and Sciences.
The site appears to be an excellent source for linking to web sites dealing
with the social sciences and its various sub-fields. The most attractive
feature of the site is that it provides an extensive collection of hundreds
of sites listed in alphabetical order. They also offer a brief description
of what each site has to offer. A major advantage to the lists is that
they can be downloaded and printed as a guideline that could dramatically
streamline a scholarly web search. The site seems to be very current as
it was updated on November 20, 2000. This site is an excellent source
to start a general search of social science sites and data sources on
the web.
Nineteenth
Century Documents Project
The Nineteenth Century Documents Project, funded by
the Mellon Foundation and the Furman University Research and Professional
Growth and Faculty Development Committees is a collection of transcriptions
of primary texts from nineteenth century American history focusing primarily
on sectional conflict and transformations in regional identity. The original
texts are in the public domain and may be downloaded for free from the
site. Entries include documents associated with early national politics,
slavery, statistical almanacs, elections, and the Civil War. In addition,
the site provides tools such as word frequency comparison between texts,
and links to related sites.
American
Memory Collection, the Library of Congress
The American Memory Collection, compiled by the Library
of Congress National Digital Library Program, is a gateway to primary
source materials such as documents, films, manuscripts, photographs, and
sound recordings relating to the history and culture of the United States.
While not focused particularly on post 1800 history, over 90 collections
include many searchable resources and themes relating to nineteenth and
twentieth century history including African-American history, architecture
and engineering, the Civil War, the conservation movement, the Depression
Era, folk music and culture, women's suffrage and the WPA.
National Archives
and Records Administration
The National Archives and Records Administration is
a federal agency that oversees the management of all federal records.
The web site includes useful bibliographic finding tools for identifying
their collections and, more useful, an "exhibit hall" which features some
the NARA's special collections. These include, "Picturing the Century,"
an exhibit of photographs from every decade in the last 100 years from
great events to everyday life, with information on how to obtain reproductions,
"Powers of Persuasion, Posters form World War II," and "A New Deal for
the Arts." NARA's website also features a guide to federal records in
the archives, a microfilm catalog search, NARA archival information locator
(NAIL), federal population census rolls, and the Soundex Indexing System
for federal census rolls after 1880.
The New Deal Network
The New Deal Network is a collection of resources dealing
with the New Deal Era and the Great Depression of the 1930s. Over 20,000
items including photographs, political cartoons, and texts (speeches,
letters, and other historic documents from the New Deal period) make up
this searchable database. Useful features include University Syllabi and
on-line projects, bibliographies, essays, multimedia and oral history
resources and links to related resources.
Making
of America
The Making of America is a collaborative effort between
the University of Michigan and Cornell University to make accessible a
significant body of primary resources related to the development of the
U.S. infrastructure primarily between the antebellum period through reconstruction.
The database is a collection of the images of pages of nineteenth century
books and journals. Currently, the project has over two and a half million
pages on-line (approximately 8,500 books and 50,000 journal articles with
19th century imprints). The collection is particularly strong in the subject
areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion,
and science and technology.
Special
Collections Digital Center, University of Virginia Library
The Special Collections Digital Center at the University
of Virginia Library has an outstanding collection of images, photos, manuscripts,
electronic texts, archival collections and digital publications for the
scholar of history post 1800. While some of the collection is devoted
to eighteenth century resources (ie, they have a very good collection
of resources associated with Thomas Jefferson), their resources associated
with 19th and 20th century history include the Holsinger Studio Collection
of digital images capturing turn of the century life in Charlottesville
and Albemarle County, Virginia; the Jackson Davis Collection of African-American
Educational Photographs primarily dating from 1915-1930; historic newspapers
in the special collections; and a collection of Sanborn Fire Insurance
Maps of Virginia.
The
Voice of the Shuttle History Page
The Voice of the Shuttle History Page has an amazing
amount of resources and links associated with 19th and 20th century history.
Resources range from specific to general topics including slavery and
abolition like the Amistad Research Center, and the Museum of Slavery;
the Civil War; the late nineteenth century, the twentieth century, the
anti-Imperialism movement, the FDR Cartoon collection database, WWII and
the twentieth century after 1950.
Primary
Source Media: City Directories Online
(Note: Site has been reorganized; use search function.)
Primary Source Media: City Directories Online has posted
over two hundred city directories from 99 cities across the United States
from the year 1859 through the 1920s and are currently adding more city
directories from 9 major cities (Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit,
New Orleans, New York City, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and San Francisco)
from the period 1860-1865. Primarily useful for researchers who study
the period of heaviest immigration to the U.S., the site has selected
directories from major port cities and transit hubs.
CLAGS:
THE CENTER FOR LESBIAN AND GAY STUDIES
Housed at the City University of New York, The Center
for Lesbian and Gay Studies (CLAGS) is the first "university-based research
center in the United States dedicated to the study of historical, cultural,
and political issues of vital concern to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered
individuals." This site has an unparalleled collection of syllabi and
a comprehensive list of lesbian, gay, and transgender programs. Also unique
is an advocacy page that provides examples of letters, editorials, and
fact sheets that the queer community can draw from as we continue our
efforts to combat discrimination and hate crimes. Cutting edge internet
links and a social activism bent are two of the many strengths of this
site. CLAGS also devotes special attention to Transstudies, a field that
is often marginalized on other LesBiGay sites. Providing a wealth of information
on a well designed, easy to read page, CLAGS offers one of the best sites
for those of us not only interested in gender studies, but also social
change. No search feature.
WOMEN'S
STUDIES: UMBC AND BEYOND
This site doubles as the home page of the University
of Maryland, Baltimore County Women's Studies Department and is THE women's
studies website for online resources. Maintained by Dr. Joan Korenman,
professor of English at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and
editor of WMST-L, the site includes an annotated bibliography of selected
links dealing with women's studies or women's issues, a comprehensive
list of electronic forums and discussion groups, the WMST-L file collection
(an archive of past discussions on WMST-L), links to women's studies programs,
departments, research centers, and Korenman's Center for Women and Information
Technology. This site is all about online resources and how women fit
into cyberspace. Women's Studies: UMBC and Beyond is easy to use and easy
to read. No search feature.
THEORY.ORG.UK:
THEORY, GENDER, AND IDENTITY RESOURCES
This site is maintained by Dr. David Gauntlett of the
Institute of Communications Studies at the University of Leeds. Providing
an online primer on poststructuralist theory, much of the site is devoted
to queer theorists such as Judith Butler and Michel Foucault. Especially
noteworthy is a collection of brief, but provocative book reviews and
discussions on recent works and debates surrounding identity formation.
Don't miss the downloadable trade cards ("creative knowledge you can fit
in your pocket") on bell hooks, Judith Butler, and Henri Lefebvre. Theory.org.uk
includes links to important and popular sites for the queer community
including Queer Resource Directory, International Gay and Lesbian Review,
and PlanetOut. While theory.org.uk should not be mistaken as a comprehensive
site on queer theory or gender, the content and design are playful and
engaging, helping to keep those of us interested in identity issues up
to date. Even though this site is expanded and updated frequently, some
of the links are dead. No search feature.
H-WOMEN
Originally conceived of as an electronic discussion
group for women's historians, this site has grown to include a collection
of syllabi, dissertations, a scholars directory, and reports on new software,
datasets, and cd-roms. Other highlights of this site are an extensive
collection of book reviews and a linked set of archival and manuscript
collections. H-Women also maintains a discussion log that archives all
internal electronic forum correspondence. The currency and quality of
information contained on H-Women is guided by several editors and a board
made up of women's history scholars. This site can be difficult to navigate
and while it includes a search feature, it takes some effort to arrive
at useful search words. With this caution, patient users will be rewarded
by a site full of valuable information.
AMERICAN
WOMEN'S HISTORY: A RESEARCH GUIDE
This site is maintained by Ken Middleton, a reference
librarian at Middle Tennessee State University Library and is designed
to assist "serious researchers" in locating primary and secondary sources
on the history of women. American Women's History: A Research Guide is
organized into five main sections: General Reference and Biographical
Sources, Subject Index to Research Sources, State and Regional History
Sources, Finding Books/Journal Articles and Theses, and Finding Primary
Sources. Included on this site are bibliographic and reference tools such
as biographical dictionaries, listserv directories, encyclopedias, access
to over 90 digital collections of primary sources, and links to little
known internet sites such an UnCoverWEB and ViVa. Best of all this site
provides immediate access to many primary and secondary sources and is
constantly updated (many times on a daily basis) with no dead links. Return
trips often produce new sources for researchers. Among U.S. women's historians,
American Women's History: A Research Guide is considered one of the canonical
websites in the field. Straightforward in design, first time users will
find this site easy to navigate. No search feature.
NEW
YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY RESEARCH GUIDES
New York Public Library (NYPL) publishes research guides
in thirty-four topic areas that provide tips on how to negotiate their
vast collections, scope of their holdings, and suggests strategies on
locating primary and secondary sources. NYPL's guides include annotated
bibliographies of the libraries holdings and may also direct researchers
to other institutions that hold strong collections in a particular subject.
These guides are invaluable "how to do research" tools and even experienced
researchers will benefit by studying them carefully. Two of the thirty-
four research guides provided by NYPL, Gay and Lesbian Studies and Women's
Studies, are especially pertinent to the field of gender studies. All
of the research guides are easy to read, easy to use, and easy to understand.
No search feature.
Gay
and Lesbian Studies: A Research Guide
Gay and Lesbian Studies: A Research Guide is organized
in eighteen subject areas including literature, film studies, memoirs,
periodicals, and classical, medieval, and renaissance history. While each
of these topic areas include extensive annotated bibliographies, titles
published after 1993 are extremely rare. The periodicals collection is
especially strong with many national, regional, and local publications.
A comprehensive list of directories, encyclopedias, and references volumes
is also a strength of this site. Researchers are also directed to the
International Gay Information Center, housed in the main branch of the
library which includes a noteworthy collection of manuscripts and material
culture.
Women's
Studies: A Research Guide
NYPL contains one of the best collections on women
in the United States with massive amounts of primary and secondary sources.
Women's Studies: A Research Guide is more current than its gay and lesbian
counterpart, but still reflects considerable lag time (3 years) when adding
new titles and studies. Women's Studies is one of the few guides that
combines women's studies with women's history and encourages an interdisciplinary
approach to the subject. Annotated bibliographies organized under subject
headings, lists of published catalogues from other research institutions,
microfilm guides, and help in locating primary historical sources are
the strengths of this website.
GERBER HART LIBRARY
Gerber Hart is a new kind of library that also serves
as a community center for queers. With one recently hired full time administrator,
the library is the product of volunteer labor and energy. Interestingly,
this website does not provide any form of online access to the Gerber
Hart collection, but contains the most comprehensive international list
of links to other LesBiGay archives and libraries. Gerber Hart's mission
is "dedicated to meeting the information needs of its unique community
in a safe atmosphere that promotes research, exploration, and discovery."
This library/community center is just beginning to acquire its sea legs,
but is significant because it promotes a new concept in library and archival
organization and management that emphasizes grass roots involvement. While
this site contains information on its own organization, the real focus
is connecting the online user to outside resources-serving as an online
information center for researchers. One glaring weakness is the lack of
attention to transgender issues. Gerber Hart's site is worth checking
out for the graphic design work alone. No search feature.
UNIVERSITY
OF MARYLAND WOMEN'S STUDIES DATABASE
University of Maryland's Women's Studies Database is
an idiosyncratic site with the currency and quality of information relying
on the interests and skills of a single graduate student who devotes 10
hours a week to this project. As a recent past editor, I know from personal
experience that much of this time is consumed by responding to email inquiries
from users with little time devoted to adding content to the site. Additionally,
turnover is high in the editor position and there is no over reaching
structure guiding the content of this site. As a result, there is little
consistency in the type of data that is added or which information is
current. Much of the information is dated and many of the links dead.
Once the user gets past the homepage, this site is deeply stacked with
many overlapping categories. Fortunately, a sophisticated search feature
compensates for this weakness. The current strengths of the Women's Studies
Database are the huge collection of film reviews, comprehensive and current
listings of job opportunities and calls for papers, the poetry section
of the reading room, and a growing database of book reviews. While many
of the syllabi entries are dated, there are some recently added jewels
to be found. For the Women's Studies Database to continue as a meaningful
website for the women's studies community, more time needs to be devoted
to its currency and quality and a stronger sense of mission will have
to be developed.
VOICES
OF THE SHUTTLE: GENDER STUDIES PAGE
Voices of the Shuttle: Gender Studies Page is part
of bigger project whose goal is to provide internet links that apply to
scholars working in the humanities. Established in 1994 by Alan Liu, a
professor of English at University of California, Santa Barbara, the gender
page is organized in four categories: General Resources, Women's Studies
and Feminist Theory, Gay, Lesbian, and Queer Studies, Men's Movement and
Men's Studies, and Cybergender and Techgender. If you believe bigger is
better, this is the site for you because it contains every link that has
anything to do with gender. While the range is unparalleled, selectivity
is not one of Voices of the Shuttle strengths with many overly commercialized
.com sites. The Men's Movement and Men's Studies category makes Voices
of the Shuttle an important addition to this bibliography because no other
gender site is organized using a "men's studies" subject heading. This
site includes a search feature that prevents the gender page from overwhelming
first time users.
Community Web
Community Web, website for the Community and Urban
Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association, has been operating
since August 25, 2000, and some sections in the site are still under construction/
not linked. It provides information for the CUSS members and non-members
about its conventions, online newsletters and other CUSS activities as
well as provides excerpts from CUSS newsletters, photo essays, and other
useful links. The most useful feature of this site is various bulletin
boards containing links to related journals and websites.
Cyburbia
Cyburbia (formerly called PAIRC - The Planning and
Architecture Internet Resource Center), established in 1994, has a comprehensive
directory of Internet resources (currently 8974 links) relevant to planning,
architecture, built environment. It also contains information about related
mailing lists and Usenet newsgroups, and hosts several bulletin boards
for discussions on many topics. It is hosted at the SUNY-Buffalo School
of Architecture and Planning but is now maintained by a program graduate
in Colorado. It has resource directories for architecture and planning,
interactive boards, online magazine, and a link to the SUNY-Buffalo, School
of Architecture and Planning. Although the main site has not been updated
since September 2000, new messages and discussion threads are posted almost
daily on online bulletin boards. It is still well maintained and easy
to navigate with a search engine for on each page.
H-Urban
H-Urban is an international electronic discussion network
hosted by Michigan State University. It was set up in February 1993 at
the University of Illinois at Chicago to enable scholars interested in
urban history to communicate their research interests and current research
topics, and to discuss approaches, methods, and sources. Like other H-net
groups, discussion logs (searchable by subject, month, and phrase) and
reviews are available to everyone from its main page. H-Urban also promotes
teaching urban history/histories to graduate and undergraduate students.
To help design an urban history class, stimulate discussion on teaching,
and offer an overview of current/past academic themes in the field, a
large selection of syllabi (indexed by author, dates, location and subject)
since 1983 is available through H-Urban Teaching Center. The site also
includes a comprehensive list of links to other sites indexed by location
(US and worldwide) and subject.
The Sierra
Club - Sprawl Home
As a section of the Sierra Club website, this site
hosts one of their eight priority environmental campaigns. Sprawl Home
tries to call attention to the problem of sprawl and to help managing
sprawl program and choosing smarter solutions. It examines aspects of
sprawl and its problems in following subsections: overview, population
and sprawl, reports, activist resources, communities, transportation,
articles & research. A survey of sprawl with one example of positive and
negative example in 50 states (http://www.sierraclub.org/sprawl/50statesurvey/states.asp
)seems especially interesting. Although the site has a search engine,
it is somewhat difficult to find resources from the navigation bars.
Sprawl
Guide
The guide currently on the web is its third edition
(posted on June 9, 2000). The original Sprawl Resource guide was posted
in April 1997 and had been updated and reorganized for better navigation
and enhanced contents. Its main purposes are to familiarize people with
key issues of sprawl and to provide links to other Internet resources
on the topic. The site is divided into: Roots, Problems, Solutions, Places,
Resources, Articles, and Books, and each topic is explained and examined,
and some contrary point of view are also offered on the page. Under PLACES,
the guide lists links to 50 states' sprawl information (sprawl photos
are also available in some states). This site is well organized and easy
to use, and useful with many links to related sites on appropriate pages.
The Urban Institute
Website for a Washington, D.C. based nonprofit research
organization. The Urban Institute's goals are "to sharpen thinking about
society's problems and efforts to solve them, improve government decisions
and their implementation, and increase citizens' awareness about important
public choices," and this site lists a number of reports, summaries and
current news related to the institute's research and interests. A large
number of reports, summaries, and commentaries, such as American family
issues, housing issues, and public policy, are categorized and available
in various forms from the Institute's top page (either through a link
or by clicking one of many buttons on the page), and additional research
topics and issues, listed by author and subject, are available under RESEARCH.
It also provides summary, table of contents, comments for the books published
by the UIP.
Yahoo.com:
Urban Studies
This is a part of Yahoo.com, one of the most used and
largest search engines for the Internet resources, listing links for related
areas of studies, journals, institutions, and projects among others. Most
links are annotated briefly. Although the information is not well controlled
and linked sites vary in quality and currency, it still serves as a good
start point.
"Clearinghouse"
of the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training [NCPTT]
This website aims to fulfill the outreach part of the
NCPTT's mission with this comprehensive resource guide [clearinghouse]
for preservationists. It does. According to the site, PTT "develops and
maintains the best current information available to the preservation and
conservation community" in these websites. There is a lot of information
in this metasite, including guides to Internet resources, training and
education opportunities, bibliographies on materials research, job openings,
conference announcements, and funding opportunities. The scope includes
archeology, historic architecture, historic landscapes, materials and
objects conservation, and interpretation. The pages are updated regularly
as evidenced in the conferences and calls for papers section and others.
Each of the 556 databases is searchable. [Sarah Dangelas, 2-25-01]
The Society of Architectural
Historians
The Society of Architectural Historians' Home Page
is a site where one can find information pertaining to the activities
of SAH and other general information pertaining to the history of architecture.
The Society of Architectural Historians, founded in 1940, promotes scholarly
research in the field of architecture and encourages the conservation
of "significant architectural monuments that are an integral part of our
worldwide historical and cultural heritage." One can easily join the SAH
via their Web Page. The page was last updated on January 17, 2001. The
Activities section of this sites is especially rich with information such
as meetings, awards and fellowships, a list of graduate programs in Architectural
History, SAH's online Journal (Journal of the Society of Architectural
Historians), and projects sponsored by the SAH. In addition to the activities
of the SAH, there is another section of this site, Connections , which
discusses the field of Architectural History in general. Here one can
find such information as other Internet resources, related organizations,
conferences, and exhibitions. This page is very easy to use, and the information
is well organized and useful to one looking for information about architectural
history. [Jennifer Blixer] [annotation checked and updated 2-25-01]
Cyburbia.org: Internet
Resources for the Built Environment
Dan Tasman, a Masters student at SUNY Buffalo's School
of Architecture and Planning established these resource pages in 1994.
Though he received his degree in 1996, he does apparently maintain parts
of this site. The site hosts a bulletin board for various thematic discussions
[low amount of activity, but postings are current], and pages for posting
jobs and resumes. However, of all the resources offered here, the most
useful are the external links to websites about the built environment,
specifically to urban planning and architecture [two separate lists of
links]. Although there are certainly dead links, the site does offer a
place to see what's out there, and most do connect. Links are grouped
according to a hierarchy of subjects such as: architecture firms and services,
education and career development, history and preservation, environment,
technology, government, et al. The lists are searchable. **Most important
is that most of the almost 9,000 links in the directories are briefly
annotated. [Sarah Dangelas, 2-25-01]
Vitruvio Architecture
in the Web
This is a huge site that provide a resource for images
of and information about architecture around the world. The pages seem
to have a wealth of information, but I find it most useful if you know
what you're looking for--e.g., a specific building or architect. A statistics
page tells when each area of the web was updated [all within the past
2 months]. Scope includes architecture from the pre-Columbian era through
contemporary and even future designs and buildings. It provides access
through structures, architects, historians, schools, locations, or themes
[such as women architects or architecture and the cinema]. The site also
posts or links to notices of conferences, competitions, and education
programs in architecture. With over 14,000 links and growing, 1,300 images
[public domain], and almost 2,000 pages [as of February 2001], this site
is a good place to begin a search in architectural history or find images.
A free email newsletter will let you know about updates to the pages.
The site is in both English and Italian. [Sarah Dangelas, 2-25-01]
Research
Materials for Architecture and the Built Environment Located in Metropolitan
Washington, DC
This website specifically concerns resources and organizations
in metropolitan Washington, DC, that have documents relevant to architectural
history. The sites are listed alphabetically and are cross-listed in an
index. Index pages provide access by names [people, firms, organizations],
by site or structure, and by location. Each repository included in the
extensive list receives an annotated description of the major holdings,
a summary of the scope of the collection and how it can be accessed, contact
information, policies and hours, and an external link to the site's webpages,
if applicable. It says it was last revised in 1999, however email addresses
allow for interested people to submit additional resources. It is maintained
and hosted by the University of Maryland Architecture Library. It appears
to be extremely useful for those researching local [to Washington] cultural
resources and history. [Sarah Dangelas, 2-25-01]
House
O' Preservation version 4.0
This is a well-designed site for those interested in
Historic Preservation at many stages [beginner to professional]. The site
provides external links and helpful hints and annotations of various web
resources for preservation information. The "basic information" section
introduces the field of preservation and its main resources, and offers
links and hints on research in the field [how to do research, where to
find what documents, preservation organizations, history, philosophy,
etc.]. The "advanced material" section is divided into planning [town
and urban preservation, landscape preservation], law and funding resources,
international [especially British] preservation efforts, and conservation.
A final section on jobs in preservation is helpful. While this site does
not provide hundreds of links, those included are important sites. The
designer and site manager is Aaron Marcavitch, a Master's degree student
in History at the Middle Tennessee State University. [Sarah Dangelas,
2-25-01]
National Park Service:
Park Net
This site is a comprehensive source of information
of original material pertaining to parks across the United States. It
provides locations, seasons of operation, histories, and educational programs.
This page is updated regularly and includes notices of events such as
Black History Month and the Cherry Blossom Festival. One can also find
a complete listing of official US historic, buildings, sites, and districts
via the section of National Register places. Overall, the National Park
Service's Web page is clearly organized and easy to use. One worthy feature
of this site to note is the easy accessibility to specific information
via the main page of the site. [Jennifer Blixer] [annotation updated 2-25-01]
National Trust for
Historic Preservation
The purpose of this website is to inform the viewers
of the many activities undertaken by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
This resource provides opportunities to do research via the section entitled
Preservelink, engage in entertainment through Fun at the Trust, gain information
pertaining to the Trust's many activities, and become a member of the
National Trust. Judging from the current dates on many of the projects,
stories, and conference listing this site must be updated frequently.
I find the site useful for understanding the scope and activities of the
Trust, but no useful as a research tool. [Jennifer Blixer and Sarah Dangelas,
2-25-01]
The International
Council on Monuments and Sites
This Web Page for the International Council on Monuments
and Sites is designed to introduce its users to the purposes and functions
of ICOMOS. ICOMOS is an international, non-governmental association of
professionals dedicated to the preservation of historic monuments and
sites all over the world. Due to the international scope of this organization,
ICOMOS' Web Page is located at mirror sites in Europe and North America
and one can choose the closest site for the fastest results. The site
contains both original information and links pertaining to both ICOMOS
and historic preservation in general. One nice feature about this site
is that the viewer can easily look at the ICOMOS organization by country.
For example, the US/ICOMOS page provides useful information such as material
about its annual conference, internship program, newsletter, courses offered
abroad in historic preservation, and a lists of world heritage sites located
in the United States. This resource was last updated on January 24, 2001
an
