For years, Wired magazine has tapped a bevy of designers and artists in the tech field to craft detailed visions of futuristic objects for a monthly showcase at the close of each issue. Now, after hinting as much in the July edition, it is clear that that the tradition of FOUND has been brought to an end. What better way to say goodbye to this whimsical feature than by taking a look back at the full archived run of the series?
posted on Jul 22, 2008 - View this thread

The Historic American Sheet Music archive at the Duke University Library has over 3000 pieces published in the United States available online, from the 1850s up to 1920. Composers represented include well-known names such as Scott Joplin, Irving Berlin, and John Philip Sousa. All the music is now in the public domain, and may be printed and performed freely. [Note: Language or stereotypes may occasionally be NSFW.]
posted on Jul 22, 2008 - View this thread

WFMU's Free Music Archive, "an online digital library of music that will allow music fans, webcasters and podcasters to listen, download, and stream for free, with no restrictions, registration or fees. And it will all be legal." Still pre-launch, but there's already quite a bit of music available on the site, including a sampler CD.
posted on Jul 15, 2008 - View this thread

Europa Film Treasures is a new window onto the film archivers of Europe, and "All genres are on the playbill! From comedy to science fiction, from westerns to animation, from erotic to ethnological movies..." take some time to explore the European side of carefully preserved film history.
posted on Jul 2, 2008 - View this thread

Every issue of The Times published between 1785-1985, digitally scanned and fully searchable. (Via Wordorigins.org.)
posted on Jun 23, 2008 - View this thread

The Willa Cather Archive is an incredible resource provided by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, including biographies, letters, photos, and even full (often annotated) text of much of her writing, including scholarly editions of two of her greatest (and most famous) works, My Antonia and O Pioneers. About the archive.
posted on May 22, 2008 - View this thread

The University of South Carolina recently completed an ambitious survey of all medieval texts in the state for an exhibit at the university library. All the works were scanned and archived electronically. However, not only can you view the texts online, you can hear the university's chorus sing (MP3) the musical manuscripts.
posted on Mar 18, 2008 - View this thread

G-Archiver is a windows shareware app that backs up your gmail account to your local harddrive. it also does something far more sinister: it emails your username and password to the creator of the program. (via)
posted on Mar 9, 2008 - View this thread

Lyfrau o'r Gorffennol or Books from the Past is a growing online collection of books of Welsh cultural interest which have long been out of print. Some are in Welsh, some in English, all are available to download in a variety of formats or to read online. Found as the collection includes a book on the Adventures and Vagaries of Twm Siôn Cati, the famed bard, genealogist and bandit trickster supreme from Tregaron. It's one of a host of well-presented digital archives built using the multilingual open source Greenstone software suite.
posted on Feb 8, 2008 - View this thread

Changing Times: Los Angeles in Photographs, 1920-1990
posted on Jan 13, 2008 - View this thread

"The Gerald Warner Taiwan Image Collection is a photographic record of a US consul's impressions of urban and rural life in Taiwan under Japanese colonial rule. Totaling 340 photographs and postcards gathered by Warner between August 26, 1937 and March 8, 1941, these images provide a snapshot of Taiwan's hybrid culture of Chinese, Taiwanese, Austronesian, and Japanese influences." [Via]
posted on Jan 12, 2008 - View this thread

Want to study some history and have hundreds of hours on your hands? Don't worry now. We already exhaustive know about the Valley of the Shadow project. But what about Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History, a bilingual English-French archive? If neither of these (vast) subjects tickle your pickle, don't worry...
posted on Dec 27, 2007 - View this thread

Jean Shepherd was one of the greatest storytellers ever to be heard on radio. The Jean Shepherd Project collects recordings of these historic broadcasts, converts them to mp3 files and makes them available to be revisited by his longtime fans and by those who wish to discover what great American storytelling is all about.
posted on Dec 11, 2007 - View this thread

Polanoid "We are building the biggest Polaroid-picture-collection of the planet to celebrate the magic of instant photography." {stolen from notcot
posted on Dec 2, 2007 - View this thread

This is James Savage's spare room, which contains one hundred Apple computers. He has more than 150 in his house and all of them are working perfectly, from an Apple II+ and a Lisa to the latest MacBook Pro. (One entrant among many in Gizmodo's Best Computer Rig contest.)
posted on Oct 4, 2007 - View this thread

The J! Archive is an impressive collection of answers and questions from Jeopardy! It includes not only every answer (of those revealed on the show), but also the correct and incorrect questions supplied by the contestants, how much was wagered on each Daily Double and Final Jeopardy, and the contestant's scores after Single and Double Jeopardy.
posted on Oct 4, 2007 - View this thread

The first time the Simpsons, the iPod and Microsoft were mentioned in the New York Times. Also, Times Square, Marijuana and Googling plus much more (up to 9 volumes so far-scroll down for a list with links) with links to the actual articles or PDFs. Some others are Hillary Rodham, Nintendo, the Drudge Report and the VCR.
posted on Oct 3, 2007 - View this thread

The London Zoo's historic photographic archive went online today. According to news reports, the pictures will be offered for sale to fund conservation programs. Via.
posted on Oct 2, 2007 - View this thread

Hiccups Archive.
posted on Jul 19, 2007 - View this thread

australianscreen launched today. You can view clips from Australian feature films, documentaries, TV programs, shorts, home movies, newsreels, advertisements, other historical footage, and sponsored films produced over the last 100 years, with curators’ notes and other information about each title. [via Margaret and David]
posted on Jul 18, 2007 - View this thread

Telephone Central Office Histories - A fascinating collection of personal anecdotes and histories about telephony from the US and around the world, from The Telephone Exchange Name Project. Coral Cache links -1- -2- (via)
posted on Jun 9, 2007 - View this thread

While looking for ways to digitize old home movies, I came across the Home Movie Depot Video Archives, and was in awe of how much content they have available online. The vendor provides their clients with space to upload their converted movies, and many have done so... to the tune of 80+ pages of albums. You can browse through page by page, or search for specific keywords. [more inside]
posted on Apr 17, 2007 - View this thread

Cashiers du Cinemart. Film Threat's Dave Williams: "a thin, primitive hobby publication with an obvious ax to grind; making it far less interesting than you think it is, and compelling me to conclude it's impossible for you to ever get your shit together...killing one more tree for your pointless, directionless, self-aggrandizing 'zine with nothing to offer is a sad, selfish waste." Best known for the Anti-Tarantino saga, one man's quest to get a director to acknowledge his influences, Cashiers is a great '90s 'zine with archives online.
posted on Mar 20, 2007 - View this thread

The Luce Foundation Center in the recently renovated and reopened National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, is more like a smörgåsbord-cum-antique store, packed in an overflowing archive rather than a more traditional museum layout. The collection is comprised of varying American art styles and genres in intimate display cases, with little in the way of context or reference. (Though the same site in this link is available on computers scattered throughout the gallery for further detail.)
posted on Jan 12, 2007 - View this thread

The Red Hill Guide is an amazingly detailed and well-written compendium of desktop hardware old and new, with a focus on PC and x86 compatibles. Look for your first CPU, hard drive or mainboard.
posted on Jan 6, 2007 - View this thread

A massive collection of live DJ and PA sets of electronic music sorted by year and genre. Enjoy.
(Coral Cache link. Please use this to help archive and propagate the files.)
posted on Dec 31, 2006 - View this thread

A Nazi Christmas Since its most ancient days, the Christmas holiday has been continually reshaped to serve commercial, social, and political ends. These Nazi-era Christmas materials, including an Advent calendar and an essay on how to turn Christian holidays into National Socialist ones, come from the German Propaganda Archive of the Calvin College library. Of course, the Allies also enlisted Christmas in both pop culture and propaganda with cards, V-Mails, and posters.
posted on Nov 29, 2006 - View this thread

"Welcome to the Archive of the Now. The Archive of the Now is an online and print repository of recordings, printed texts and manuscripts, focussing on innovative contemporary poetry being written or performed in Britain. It is part of the Brunel Centre for Contemporary Writing, at Brunel University in west London, UK. At present, the Archive consists of readings by 65 UK-based poets. This number will continue to grow, and includes newly commissioned, recently acquired and historical recordings."
posted on Oct 22, 2006 - View this thread

Full films for legal download: Archive.org has a large number of movies with expired copyrights for download. My favorite is 1936's Things To Come. Other nifty things include classic feature films like Battleship Potemkin and His Girl Friday, and shorts such as Max Fleicher's Superman, Three Stooges and Buster Keaton.
posted on Aug 5, 2006 - View this thread

Schaffer Library of Drug Policy - read the transcripts of hearings held on the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act, or the text of court decisions regarding drug policy, or the well-researched Consumer Unions report on licit and illicit drugs, or the differences between beer and drugs, according to Anheuser-Busch. A huge archive of materials, admittedly compiled from a pro-reform perspective.
posted on May 20, 2006 - View this thread

Advanced Animation by Preston Blair, "the best 'how to' book on cartoon animation ever published." Blair, a Disney and MGM animator, put the book together in 1947 to illustrate the various basic principles of animation, only to have the book pulled from shelves after the rights to use some of the characters were revoked. Animation historian Jerry Beck has been hunting for a first edition of Blair's landmark book for many years. He finally found a copy and is sharing high-quality scans on the Animation Archive. (Archive previously linked in this thread; discovered via this thread.)
posted on May 7, 2006 - View this thread

The Digital Silk Roads Project continues to grow apace with more additions from the Toyo Bunko rare books archive. Now available online, among others, are Les grottes de Touen-Houang, The Thousand Buddhas and several German books, including Chotscho. Unfortunately, all of the high resolution images are greyscale. [related]
posted on May 1, 2006 - View this thread

Sechtl-Vosecek. A collection of photographs taken over the last 150 years are in the process of being digitized. Check out the Sokol costume ball Šibřinky or take a trip from Bechyně to Tábor. Also available is a selection concentrating on Bukhara from the Prokudin-Gorsky Collection. And much, much, more.
posted on Apr 17, 2006 - View this thread

A world of sounds. Despite their difficult URL, The Freesound Project has grown at a rapid pace over the last year, arguably surpassing archive.org's audio library when it comes to sound effects, field recordings, site design, and usability. Now Freesound is combining their sound library with geotagging and Google Maps, allowing users to navigate the world by sound too! (previously on mefi)
posted on Mar 4, 2006 - View this thread

The UCLA Folkmed Database A searchable database of over 200,000 distinct folk medicine remedies for ailments of all kinds. The entries are pretty barebones, but -- oh, oh ick.
posted on Feb 14, 2006 - View this thread

The Pearl A journal of voluptuous reading for discerning readers, hosted in a larger collection of bawdy books, dirty ditties and assorted salacious songcraft. Thrill to cousin-fucking in Sport Among the She-Noodles. Puzzle over endless lashings by old women in Ms. Coote's Confession. Giggle over the protagonist of Lady Pokingham. Note for edification the blasé treatment of homosexuality, both male and female. Memorize limericks that provide both racial and sexual offense for your next social gathering. And learn obscenities you can sneak past all but the most agile editor! Main site also contains hours of mp3s and reams of naughty toasts, drinking songs and folk stories. Other highlights include the ability to compare American ribaldry with earlier British off-colour humour. Some engravings arguably NSFW.
posted on Feb 10, 2006 - View this thread

Hurricane Digital Memory Bank A developing online resource for the collection and interpretation of photos, stories, maps, audio files, and other information related to the hurricanes of 2005. The project was created as a partnership between the University of New Orleans, the Smithsonian/American History and the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, the same people who created the September 11 Digital Archive.
posted on Jan 16, 2006 - View this thread

"The fundamental goal of Oboe is to make all your music available to you on all devices." DVD Jon is onboard. Michael Robertson is behind the project. MP3Tunes has become an MP3Beamer.
via
posted on Dec 7, 2005 - View this thread

The Web's First Shaggy Dog Story Archive Fuckwit says: skip lengthy intro and go direct to archives at margin and click away for mucho chortles on this grand holiday weekend.
posted on Nov 24, 2005 - View this thread

Design Online - a team from the London College of Communication have scanned and indexed all the issues of Design from 1965 - 1974 (via the Design Weblog, which says: "I believe you really need to see and understand the past in order to blaze a new trail").
posted on Nov 17, 2005 - View this thread

Hundreds of hours of unedited interview footage with television pioneers. From the Archive of American Television, previously available via appointment, now available via Google Video. Okay, so maybe Michael J. Fox [video link] is no pioneer, but Norman Lear [video link] is. Also Mister Rogers [video link].)
posted on Oct 28, 2005 - View this thread

Amazing Stories ... every cover of this seminal sci-fi pulp magazine, from 1926 to 1967, plus.
posted on Oct 23, 2005 - View this thread

International Dialects of English Archive
posted on Sep 6, 2005 - View this thread

The Union Makes Us Strong. Articles on British trade union history.
posted on Aug 5, 2005 - View this thread

Archive for the History of Economic Thought
posted on Jul 20, 2005 - View this thread

Odd Books dedicated to that constant source of delight and wonder, the second-hand bookshop. (via)
posted on Jul 15, 2005 - View this thread

OpenCRS - easy access to US Congressional Research Service Reports
posted on Jun 28, 2005 - View this thread

Commies with headphones.
posted on Jun 27, 2005 - View this thread

Edinburgh's Scotsman newspaper has launched a digital archive covering all editions from 1817-1950. There are several stories with an American slant which may be something that interests you. There is coverage on such things as the hanging of the notorious bodysnatchers Burke and Hare. Unfortunately, after viewing the free archives it is a paysite, but I still think it's worth a look as there is easily a couple of hours of interesting reading on the free articles that are included. The set-up and look of this site is brilliant as well.
posted on Jun 4, 2005 - View this thread

Best laid schemes? Back in 1945 the Bruce Plan [click on images for video footage] was a radical proposal to knock down, and then rebuild, the Victorian centre of the city of Glasgow. The city’s slums* would be cleared; new towns* would be established; Glasgow would rise again, triumphant, once again the second city of the Empire*. In 1971*, there were grand visions of the Glasgow of the future; the Glasgow of tomorrow would be a bright, shining new city, and the Clyde* would once again be something to be proud of. A fascinating film archive of the Glasgow of the 20th century. *All links contain embedded video goodness.
posted on May 17, 2005 - View this thread