The Quilt Index is a growing research and reference tool designed to share access to information and images about quilts provided by an array of contributors. You may search by category including time period, style and technique, location, or fabric.
posted by netbros on Mar 6, 2009 - 11 comments

Circuits are flipping on in the nation's attic. A couple of weeks ago, 31 "digerati" -- like Clay Shirky, Chris Anderson, and George Oates -- dropped in to the Smithsonian Institution for the invitation-only conference "Smithsonian 2.0: A Gathering to Re-imagine the Smithsonian in the Digital Age". Dan Cohen of the Center for History and New Media provides a great summary (and continues to pose provocative questions) on his own blog. Those whose invitations were somehow lost in the mail can play fly-on-the-wall by watching the keynotes, paging through the Flickr pool of envymaking glimpses of their behind-the-scenes lab and collections tours, reading the blog (where Bruce Wyman of the Denver Art Museum lays out a succinct road map for museums using social media), and poking around in the SI's website gallery. Want to cheer on the USA's favorite 163-year-old "Establishment for the increase & diffusion of knowledge" without taking the trip to DC? Thanks to their recent efforts, you can now follow the SI on Twitter, listen to its podcasts, watch its YouTube channel, visit the Latino Virtual Museum in Second Life, or use the FaceBook gifts page to send your best friends their very own pair of Dorothy's ruby slippers, Hope diamond, Negro Leagues baseball, or coelocanth.
posted by Miko on Feb 27, 2009 - 13 comments

HistoryWorld is a general-knowledge website, designed for anyone above the age of about twelve with an interest in history. I found the site searching for dance history, but it includes 400 broad topics with more added all the time. It approaches history as a narrative, making full use of chronology. This is for the student as well as the researcher. [more inside]
posted by netbros on May 23, 2008 - 15 comments

Physical Review Letters' 50th anniversary retrospective promises to be an interesting survey of the physics landscape for the past half-century.
posted by Wolfdog on Feb 27, 2008 - 6 comments

In their own words... Researchers at the National Institutes of Health recall the early years of AIDS, from diagnosis of the then-unknown disease, to discovering the viral cause, and from there to the search for treatments. The site features interviews (including several with virologist Robert Gallo), early publications, and a collection of archived image materials.
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Apr 10, 2007 - 11 comments

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 by daksya on May 20, 2006 - 27 comments

A rabbi, some snails, the color purple, and a 1,500 year old mystery. By puzzling through various sources, a group of researchers and religious scholars think they have found in the mollusk Murex trunculus the source of a purplish dye that was used in ancient Jewish ceremonies over a millennia and a half ago. Murex has been used for the last 3,600 years to make Imperial or Tyrian Purple, a key color in the ancient world. There are many other pigments with their own interesting stories as well.
posted by blahblahblah on Dec 20, 2005 - 15 comments

Eurodocs: Primary Historical Documents from Western Europe.
posted by hama7 on Mar 4, 2004 - 1 comment

Language tree rooted in Turkey.
posted by the fire you left me on Dec 7, 2003 - 28 comments

1957 atomic revolution comic book. Quite a find for 1950s atomic memorabilia enthusiasts. Creepy and educational. Has anyone here ever heard of M.Philip Copp?
posted by Peter H on May 19, 2003 - 10 comments

Religion in Hellenistic Athens, A Medieval Mirror, Losing Face: Status Politics in Japan, Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979-1982 , Refried Elvis: The Rise of the Mexican Counterculture , Freud and His Critics and Memory for Forgetfulness: August, Beirut, 1982 --all are entire online books from the public section of the University of California Press.

I am, like, going so nutso--Jackpot!
posted by y2karl on Apr 3, 2003 - 25 comments

There's One In Every Family: You know that uncle whose name can't be mentioned at table, without loud swallowing, dark looks and deathly silence ensuing? The shady New Orleans grandmother whose photographs have been hastily removed from the family album, though the red stain from one of her garters remains? Call them black sheep or family skeletons, the Internet keeps making it easier and easier to dig them up and out. Outing your forebears and close family members has become an up and coming thing. In other words: I'll show you my black sheep if you show me yours.
posted by MiguelCardoso on Feb 23, 2003 - 31 comments

Don't say nobody told you. Here is NARA's Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, showing every comment, every bill signing, every communication, executive order, and interview the president has made: everything that goes into the history books...
posted by swift on Aug 15, 2002 - 6 comments