Have you ever wanted to fly over San Francisco in the year 1938? Well, now you can in a manner of speaking. Recently, the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection website digitized 164 large format, black and white, vertical aerial photographs taken by Harrison Ryker, a pioneer in aerial photography. The photos are quite remarkable, and visitors can zoom in to see such details as the paint striping...

In the 1936 film, "San Francisco" Jeannette MacDonald sings the film's title song, which of course includes the Gus Kahn-penned lyric "San Francisco, welcome me home again/I'm not at home to go roaming no more." For those who might be pining for Baghdad by the Bay (or for images from the infamous earthquake in 1906), this online collection from the San Francisco Public Library will be most...

NASA astronaut Don Pettit has been a resident of the International Space Center for three missions totaling 370 days. During those missions, Pettit decided to take a number of photographs, which he recently published in the new book, Spaceborne. In December 2016, Chau Tu interviewed Pettit for the Science Friday podcast. Here readers will find Tu's interview with Pettit, alongside a sampling of...

Located along the North Platte River Valley in Nebraska, the Scotts Bluff region is rich in history. The area was traversed by settlers on their way West throughout the 19th century, and it is the subject of this Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary created by the National Park Service. This Itinerary was produced in cooperation with the city of Scottsbluff, the city of Gering, the Nebraska State...

From its origins as a small town on Elliott Bay, Seattle's transformation throughout the 19th and 20th centuries has mirrored that of other conurbations with a waterside orientation. The staff members at the University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections have created this fine online database which documents this transformation, and it is available to all interested parties. The database...

If you have ever wanted to make a collage out of your digital images, Shape Collage 2.5 is a good place to start. Essentially, users place their shots online via the Shape Collage program, and they choose a rough shape for the collage and also select how tightly the photos should be located together. Overall, it's easy to use and visitors will have fun determining if they should make their collage...

The old college grounds and the local surroundings often bring back wistful, nostalgia-drenched memories for many alums and long-time residents. The city of Fayetteville and the University of Arkansas have grown up together in that sense, and this collection of 500 photographs of the city and the campus offer some visual perspective on this subject. The work was funded in part by the Happy Hollow...

The relationship between towns and their higher education institutions is an intriguing one, and it can swing from hearty togetherness to outright antagonism. The relationship between the University of Arkansas and its hometown of Fayetteville has generally been a pleasant one, and this digital collection offers up 500 photographs of both "town" and "gown". The collection is party of their "Shared...

The short course concept was pioneered at America’s great public universities as a way to bring persons in the vocations (such as agriculture and such) back to campus to learn about new techniques in such fields as butter production and ice-cream manufacturing. These days, the short course concept has been extended to all types of pastimes and professions, including photography. This very thorough...

The Spanish Civil War was documented quite well by a range of photographers, and some of the images have become icons of 20th century photojournalism. This particular collection contains 99 photographs that are part of the Spanish Civil War Collection held at Mandeville Special Collections Library at the University of California, San Diego. The photos were taken by photographers attached to...