New Harvard OCP website

OIS has announced the launch of a new OCP project: Expeditions and Discoveries: Sponsored Exploration and Scientific Discovery in the Modern Age.

The collection showcases maps, published materials, photographs, letters, field notes, and manuscripts related to expeditions undertaken in the 19th and 20th centuries, in which "Harvard University played a significant role -- as underwriter, participant, collector, and repository."

South America, the Pacific islands, and East Asia figure prominently. In addition, there are extensive materials from George Reisner's excavation of Samaria (the capital of the ancient kingdom of Israel), 1908-1910.

The site's main page suggests covers explorations and discoveries 1626-1953, but the earliest materials I was able to find are digitized accounts of Captain Cook's travels. Perhaps the site is intended to grow.

I've also added a link to our delicious account.

Multimedia minus copyright questions

A recent post on Sean Aune's Sitepoint blog , titled 30+ Places to Find Creative Commons Media, is worth reading. For students who are doing multimedia projects, the Sitepoint list is a potential gold mine. And at the very least, it presents some interesting tools to complement our e-resource collections of audio, visual, and primary text materials.

I so wish Yahoo Image Search (which was recently touted as a superior product to Google Images) had a filter for CC materials, but I was glad to be reminded that Flickr does provide that option in its advanced search. Something I didn't know: Google Images allows a similar kind of restriction (also in advanced search mode).

Visual images treasure trove!

Google has digitized the photo archives of Life Magazine , back as far as the 1850s (at least as far as I can tell. According to the host page, most of the images were never published and are thus being made widely available for the first time with this project.

Google tip from the same page: add "source:life" to a search to access images from the Life photo archive.


Note: Check out this photo.
and this photo
and this photo
and this photo
and this photo
or just search harvard library

Requests for Reproductions

If someone wants a reproduction of something which the Harvard College Library owns, and it's not feasible for her to travel here to photocopy or scan the material (or if she wants a publication-quality image), she should fill out an Order Inquiry Form for HCL Imaging Services. After receiving the form, Imaging Services will determine what permission is needed from Harvard for reproducing the item; the patron is expected to obtain copyright permission from the copyright holder, if the material is still under copyright.

Resource to Watch: The LOC's " Commons" Project on Flickr

Interesting report from American Libraries online about "The Commons" project that the Library of Congress  has launched on Flickr.  Users are encouraged to add descriptive tags, which should be an interesting experiment for lots of reasons.

I've added the site to our del.icio.us links.