More on where to get photos...

Here's a posting to print-pubs-l that Mary Ann alerted me to...thanks!
"Many tourist bureaus throughout the U.S., including the Washington
Convention and Visitor's Bureau, have Websites or CDs available with photos
of buildings and sites in their state. In the case of the Washington
Bureau, anyone can use the images as long as the Washington Convention and
Visitor's Bureau (WC&VB) is given credit. Among the listings for other free
sources: http://www.firstgov.gov/Topics/Graphics_State.shtml
links to many individual state and local government sources including DC, the Convention & Tourism Corporation pressroom page,
http://www.washington.org/index.cfm?blnNavView=True
where 300 dpi jpeg downloads may be accessed directly by post or clients
upon registration from any country in the world. . . . . "

Wex

Wex, according to Wex, is "an ambitious effort to construct a collaboratively-created, public-access law dictionary and encyclopedia. It is sponsored and hosted by the Legal Information Institute at the Cornell Law School (http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/). Much of the material that appears in Wex was originally developed for the LII's "Law about..." pages, to which Wex is the successor."
Wex has a clean and attractive interface, and each article includes, on the right side of the page, a nicely ordered "menu of sources" for further reading. (See for example the menu accompanying the death penalty article).

World Almanac e-newsletter

The World Almanac Education Group provides a free monthly e-newsletter. A typical issue includes an overview of the previous months events, birthdays, obituaries, anniversaries, a special feature (this month it's on the death penalty: Thirty Years of Gregg v. Georgia), sports, quotes, and other factual and quick-reference information. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: newsletter@waegroup.com with the subject line reading "SUBSCRIBE." What's in this issue?

More photo stuff

Here's a tip from Marylaine Block's Neat New Stuff: "everystockphoto.com is a search engine for creative commons photos, located in Vancouver, BC. We aim to be a community for designers, developers, photographers and other media publishers who want better, easier access to license-specific media on the web."

Once you've found a good photo, have some fun with Polaroidinizer - you just enter the url of the image, add a text, and Polaroid-o-nizer produces a signed snapshot like the one on the right. Polaroidonizer can also be used for more legitimate purposes, e.g. promotion of embassy/irc events, email invitations, or personalized photos for thank-you notes the Ambassador wishes to send to people he/she has met.

NativeWeb

NativeWeb is a portal to information about indigenous peoples and issues. Here's the annotation from the June 30 issue of the Scout Report :
"A number of websites are dedicated to providing information about various groups and organizations, and NativeWeb just happens to be one of the best known sites dedicated to disseminating information from and about indigenous nations, peoples, and organizations around the world for the past ten years, the site has grown tremendously, and it functions as a very nice clearinghouse for materials ranging from ongoing archaeological excavations to higher education grants for organizations that serve indigenous peoples. With its relatively clean design, the site is easy to navigate, and first-time visitors will appreciate the "In the News" section, which offers selected recent news items that relate to indigenous and native groups around the world. The real substance of the site can be found in the tremendous "resources" section, which contains thematically organized links to high-quality online materials. Finally, visitors can also sign up to receive updates when new resources are added to the site.

Abraham Lincoln: The Lincoln Institute provides support to scholars studying the life of Abraham Lincoln.

Abraham Lincoln: The Lincoln Institute provides support to scholars studying the life of Abraham Lincoln.

See America local

Thanks to a posting by Tara Calishain in the ResearchBuzz newsletter, I found the TurnHere site. It hosts a large number of viewable digital videos about three to five minutes long, each featuring a small town or city neighborhood. Nearly all are in the US, though there is a smattering of films from other countries. Many are frankly commercial, and boost local businesses. (One slightly too cute pet shop is called "Muttopolis.") But the sense of place you get from watching them is remarkable, and I find them far more effective at conveying a sense of America's variety than any number of big-screen travelogues concentrating on the usual tourist places.
The site should go down well with a young audience: many of the videos are aimed at the arts and urban chic crowd. It could be suggested to contacts being sent to the US for the first time as well, to help prepare them for what they will see. Or pass it on as a fun site, which it is.
Access it at:
http://www.turnhere.com/

Tel Aviv IRC

4th of July facts from Census Bureau

In the Census Bureau's series "Facts for Features," a compilation of quick facts for July 4th statistics/trivia buffs.

bibliography: Islam, the People, Culture, and Politics

Here's a new bibliography from the Muir S. Fairchild Research Information Center at Maxwell Airforce Base: Islam, the People, Culture, and Politics

Quikmaps

Quikmaps.com is an amazing tool that makes it easy to create those annotated google maps you see all over the web. Enables you to add markers, colored lines, scribbles and notes to your map, then save it and generate the code you need to paste it into your website . Below is an example of a stroll from the U.S. embassy to the Prime Minister's office in Oslo. To move the map within the frame, just depress the left mouse button while dragging the map. Click on markers for more info. Very useful for creating maps for offsite embassy events, for example. This application seems to work better in IE than in Firefox.

Snapshot USA

The latest ejournal from IIP, Snapshot USA is a very nice collection of essays and facts about aspects of the U.S. that pupils/teachers often ask about. As usual, the IIP reference team has compiled a useful and nicely annotated collection of internet resources for further reading.

Digital library cards

Kevin Kelly's article about accessing librry databases from home is a timely reminder than information doesn't really want to be free, and that even in the most wired societies, a public library is a wonderful service.

Genealogy resource

Although it is a fee-based service, Ancestry.com's digitization of the entire U.S. Federal Census from 1790-1930 might be useful to know about when turning away genealogists in a helpful manner. See also the Wall Street Journal article (06/22/06), "New Ways to Dig For Your Roots Online" Thanks to beSpacific for both of these tips.

Virtual Library Cat

Ernster the Virtual Library Cat at the Hofstra School of Law has a blog where s/he provides library related "News and Views from Ernster, the Deane Law Library Virtual Cat." See this cat's rss feed among the feeds in the left hand column.

Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations

Eigen's Political & Historical Quotations is, by its own account, "the world's largest collection of memorable quotes about and by historians, politicians and other public figures. The collection is designed for the use of students, journalists, teachers, historians, political scientists and the many other people who are interested in politics and political history."

and another....

When it rains it pours...Ralph just alerted me to another great source, this portal to "Free Images on the Web: Photos and Paintings", from the Merriam Library, California State University at Chico. Thanks Ralph!

Good source for free photos

The USDA's Online Photography Center is a wonderful source for U.S. photos that are in the public domain and may be used free of charge. Also includes a "DC landmarks" section, which is great for publishers, journalists, and others who are looking for images representing the U.S. government.

New Pew Report

A new report from the Pew Global Attitudes Project shows renewed decline of the American image abroad: "A year ago, anti-Americanism had shown some signs of abating, in part because of the positive feelings generated by U.S. aid for tsunami victims in Indonesia and elsewhere. But favorable opinions of the United States have fallen in most of the 15 countries surveyed."

Public Conversations

The Public Conversations Project asks "How can political or ideological adversaries engage in constructive conversations despite conflicting values and worldviews?" - a familiar challenge! The guide"Fostering Dialog Across Divides" offers advice to diplomats and others who seek an alternative to the "we're right, you're wrong" approach.

ESL resource, UsingEnglish.com

UsingEnglish.com is a handy site for teachers and others interested in English as a second language. Note also Stewart Clark's site, English Matters

State of the Union Concordance

http://stateoftheunion.onetwothree.net/ This site uses a "tag cloud" to show word frequencies in all State of the Union messages since 1790. A goldmine for anyone interested in the development of rhetoric and content in the SOU during the past 200 years.

NationMaster.com

Came across a review of this statistical web site in CHOICE (June 2006, p. 1808), and it does seem rather useful. CHOICE rates it as "essential": "What sets NationMaster apart from other statistical Web-based databases are its numerous reliable sources and its visual presentation of statistics." Sources include CIA's World Fact Book, the United Nations and the World Health Organization.

http://www.nationmaster.com/index.php

Stumpers-l and project wombat

The old stumpers-l list, for all conceivable reference questions, has been reborn as project wombat, with some useful new features.

Pew on PD

A new book from the Pew Institute, America Against the World, paints a bleak picture of the U.S. image around the world; interviews of more than 90,000 people in 50 countries over a four-year time span suggest that anti-American sentiment now extends beyond U.S. leadership and foreign policies to Americans themselves. Some reviews: Newhouse News, IHT, New America Foundation, CSM, Foreign Affairs See also co-author Kohut's testimony on this issue in the House last November.

Exotic library jobs

I think my job is fairly interesting and unusual as far as library jobs go, but it surely doesn't compete with the Camel Mobile Library of Kenya!

Another fun tool

The Newspaper Snippet Generator is a fun tool that bears some resemblance to the Einstein blackboard tool, reviewed here some months ago. Just type in a text, and the Newspaper Snippet Generator will produce an authentic-looking newspaper article containing your text. With the help of this little tool, it is truly amazing what you can find in ProQuest's Historical Newspapers database!

HTML2PDF

HTML2PDF is a neat tool for creating pdf files out of html pages. Very useful if you'd like to create hardcopy handouts of webpages for presentations, etc. Just enter the url of a webpage, and html2pdf creates a handsome pdf document.

Campaigning on the Blogs

For Washington pols and presidential candidates, a new staffer is becoming indispensable: the Internet specialist.

An article in TIME magazine about the importance of having internet specialists who have contact with bloggers.

Serious games

Wired News reported March 27 that DOS and the USC Annenberg School for Communication had co-sponsored a "Reinventing Public Diplomacy Through Games" competition. 4 finalists have been announced:

Exchanging Cultures: Exchanging Cultures, a diplomatic game built inside "Second Life," was created to facilitate the creating virtual communities and relationships based on the exchange of cultural items like: dances, art crafts, food receipts, architectural models, clothing, cultural routes and images of real original places for travelers and explorers. http://interactive.usc.edu/members/jmfernandez/2006/02/exchanging_cultures_ec_game.html.

Global Kids Island: Fostering Public Diplomacy Through Second Life Global Kids, Inc. envisioned a Public Diplomacy program within Second Life where the youth in the after-school program will spend the month learning about a global issue, experience an interactive and experiential workshop designed to educate about the issue. Their demonstration will be shown at the awards ceremony. For more information on the organization: http://www.globalkids.org/olp/index.jsp.

Hydro Hijinks: Hydro Hyjinks is a class project designed to promote discussion about international water issues and to educate players from around the world about sources of international conflict over water rights. Watch the video tour of the game at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS2JT9IV3CM .

Peacemaker: PeaceMaker is a cross-cultural political video game simulation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which can be used to promote a peaceful resolution among Israelis, Palestinians and young adults worldwide. More information, please visit their website: http://www.etc.cmu.edu/projects/peacemaker/ .

GAO PD report

U.S. Public Diplomacy: State Department Efforts Lack Certain Communication Elements and Face Persistent Challenges, GAO-06-707T, May 3, 2006
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06707t.pdf

(from intro...)
"Public opinion polls have shown continued negative sentiments toward the United States in the Muslim world. Public diplomacy activities--led by the State Department (State)--are designed to counter such sentiments by explaining U.S. foreign policy actions, countering misinformation, and advancing mutual understanding between nations. Since 2003, we have issued three reports on U.S. public diplomacy efforts that examined (1) changes in public diplomacy resources since September 11, 2001; (2) strategic planning and coordination of public diplomacy efforts; and (3) the challenges facing these efforts. We have made several recommendations in the last 3 years to the Secretary of State to address strategic planning issues, private sector engagement, and staffing challenges related to public diplomacy. For example, today's report recommends that the Secretary develop written guidance detailing how the department intends to implement its public diplomacy goals as they apply to the Muslim world. State has consistently concurred with our findings and recommendations for improving public diplomacy, and the department, in several cases, is taking appropriate actions. However, the department has not established a timetable for many of these actions."