This site, which is curated by Salt Lake City web designer Alan Bellows, is a welcome find for those curious about obscure but true stories. The contents are free, the graphics are beautiful, and the writing is, indeed, interesting. For example, Article #361, "The Derelict," focuses its narrative on the sudden death of a luxury cruise ship captain on September 7, 1934. Out at sea with storms...

The situation in Darfur in Sudan has fallen off the mainstream media radar as of late, despite the fact that the situation in that part of the world remains fairly desperate. In February 2005, Human Rights Watch researchers Dr. Annie Sparrow and Olivier Bercault visited Darfur to assess a number of issues in the refugee camps in the region. In doing so, thy collected numerous drawings from...

The Dartmouth College Library has crafted digital collections celebrating some well-known alumni (such as Dr. Seuss) and other topics. This particular collection brings together a very fine set of films documenting activities and events that took place on campus. The items here are divided into two sections: Historical Films (1930s-1960s) and Contemporary Films (2008-2012). The Historical Films...

Data Africa is a project that aims to provide data about African countries that are south of the Sahara. The project is a collaboration between three institutions: the University of Minnesota, the International Food Resource Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), and Datawheel. Together, the University of Minnesota and IFPRI head HarvestChoice, an initiative that aims to "generate data and knowledge...

What does privacy mean in a digital age? Is digital privacy even possible? Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow of governance studies at The Brookings Institution is quite concerned with these questions. This 24-page report on this subject was released in April 2011, and it looks at the nature of what Wittes refers to as "databuse". Wittes argues that when thinking about privacy in a digital age, "we...

David Halberstam: A Teller of Hard Truths http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18288905/site/newsweek/ Poynter Online: How David Halberstam Changed My Life http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=122000 NPR: A Reporter's Memories of Writer David Halberstam [Real Player] http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9790650 "Nashville was my graduate...

Passionate about cartography and maps in general since his youth, David Rumsey has amassed an amazing collection of maps and map-related ephemera over the past several decades. The Scout Report has profiled this site a few times over the past years, and the online David Rumsey Historical Map Collection continues to grow by leaps and bounds. This new site is a perfect way to keep tabs on the latest...

With over 21,000 maps online, the David Rumsey Historical Maps Collection is so vast that it can be hard to keep tabs on all the great new maps that make it to the site. Thus, the Featured Maps area is quite a welcome find for cartographers, geographers, and the just plain curious. Visitors can view all of the recent additions here, which have included collections of map cartouches (or decorative...

In a state where water has been a serious public policy issue for many decades, creating an atlas of water resources and usage was considered an important undertaking. That's just what happened in 1979 when the state of California released this groundbreaking atlas. After its release that year, it was hailed as a major achievement in cartography and scientific endeavor from a variety of groups and...

The world of antique maps and atlases is a wide one, and includes such fine volumes as the exquisite atlas of New Spain created by Alexander von Humboldt in 1811 and Mitchell's School Atlas of 1847. These atlases and hundreds more can be viewed at this site, provided courtesy of the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection. Online since 2000, the antique atlas section is divided geographically into...