findingDulcinea

A Search Engine for Educators

Three years ago, we introduced SweetSearch, A Search Engine for Students. It is a bold concept – a human curated search engine that searches only Web sites that have been evaluated by research experts. We didn’t apply an algorithm or a filter – we created a whitelist of 35,000 Websites. Reviewers have uniformly praised SweetSearch as an outstanding tool for students.

After we launched, we learned of another group of people that may actually appreciate SweetSearch even more – educators. We continually monitor Twitter and education list serves to learn about the specific search needs of educators, and to make sure we meet those needs. The response has been gratifying:

 

See many more Tweets by educators about SweetSearch.

Teachers are learning that if they search in our reliable universe of sites, they can quickly build their lesson plans, find blogs and advice from fellow educators, and discover primary resources, which are hard to locate using the internal search function of sites such as The Library of Congress or National Archives.

To see typical results for yourself, take a look at the results for these representative terms, then compare them to the results of Google and Bing:

Holocaust

Differentiated Instruction

War of 1812

Shakespeare Sonnets

World War II

 You'll likely find, as Paul Gilster, a technology journalist, wrote in the News Observer about SweetSearch: “Google or Bing may find many of the same sites, but what I've noticed is that some of the better sites for a particular topic wind up deep in their search results, often outranked by Web pages more commonly used but of inferior quality....I was impressed with SweetSearch's focus on credible scholarship and emphasis on primary source materials.”

SweetSearch has integrated Yolink, a tool that highlights keywords, showing where the term is used and in what context, so that anyone can quickly scan a search results page and easily determine which results will be most helpful for a particular task. See how quickly you can evaluate the full first page of 20 results! The search terms and surrounding context can then be saved, with one click, to a Google Doc (with the link included), EasyBib's citation generator, or a social bookmarking service. So you not only can find what you’re looking for in seconds, but you can be sharing it with colleagues moments later.

For Open Education Resource platforms to succeed, they need to be as easy for educators to use as possible. It's not enough to give educators a long, aggregated list of relevant resources of varying quality; the resources need to be expertly curated, and there must be a function for educators to search within these resources.

That is what SweetSearch provides, at no cost.

 

  

 

 

Mark Moran

CEO

Sweet Sites | Don't Know Much About Music?

In the research section of our Web Guide to Music we’ve touted allmusic, an underrated encyclopedic resource of artist biographies and album reviews. If you’re reading a review of an album on Answers.com or in the iTunes Music Store, it often originates at allmusic.

Stream through your favorites in dozens of genres with Lala, a site that lets you both stream and download music. In a companion piece to this blog post on findingDulcinea, “Enjoying Music on the Web—Legally,” we discussed Lala and a few comparable sites. Lala stands out because of its extensive archive of 7 million songs, including classical, country, classic rock, pop, jazz and indie rock. Artist pages on Lala often include bios, as well as links to similar artists and Lala users who streamed or bought the artist.

Essentials of Music is a classical music destination with composer biographies, MP3 samples of their work and articles on major eras in classical music. The site is based on the W. W. Norton book title, “Essential Classics.”

Parents, get your children educated about classical music with Cincinnati Public Radio’s Classics for Kids, a site with radio shows, audio samples, articles on periods and composers, special features and games.

Mainstream and indie music fans alike will appreciate the new Billboard. The site used to be a hard-to-access database of music charts and news. Now it’s a glossy, colorful, multimedia-filled publisher with interactive music charts, news, interviews, concert coverage and more.

If you like Billboard, be sure to check out “5 Must-Book Music Sites,” a must-read for indie music fans that are just getting their feet wet online. It features five top sites in five categories—concert listings, MP3 blog, music magazine, lyric database and video site—as well as five runners-up.

Liz Colville
Senior Writer
Audience Development

Sweet Sites | Finding News in New Places

Part of my daily role at findingDulcinea is to find news stories that are provocative, educational and informative. We take these stories and try to answer other questions readers might have about the topic. For example, North and South Korea appear to have reached a new chapter in their relationship since the death of former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung in August. But what of the countries’ relationship with the U.S.? How have relations fared since the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950?

We choose stories from a variety of sources, and in our own stories, include information from an even wider variety. But how do we find such a diverse collection of headlines? Below are five interesting sites that I recommend to Web newshounds new and seasoned.

Current has expanded from being an online television station of provocative, user-submitted content; it is also a social bookmarking tool. Users post stories from all over the Web, and the selections speak to the users’ inquisitive eye for quality, thought-provoking stories.

DailyMe syndicates news stories from newspapers around the country, and allows you to customize your own start page. This is a nice full-text alternative to an RSS reader. See the whole story, not just the headline, and see stories in only the topics that interest you.

Smithsonian Magazine isn’t about breaking news or sensational stories; it covers big ideas on a range of topics, loosely categorized into sections such as “People & Places” and “History & Archaeology.” Last week, the magazine’s article on micronations prompted us to profile a few eccentric and innovative micronations in a feature called “What is a Micronation?”

Bing News is Microsoft’s answer to Google News. At first glance, there are a lot of similarities, but Bing has a column off to the left that reads your IP address and brings you local news. The design of the site is cleaner and easier to read, there is a special section for news videos and I often see headlines here that I don’t see elsewhere.

The Slatest is Slate Magazine’s top 12 list of news stories from around the Web. It’s frequently updated, stored for archival perusal and includes the top stories from major news sources in a separate box to the left.

Liz Colville
Senior Writer

Sweet Sites | Refuge From the Apostrophe Apocalypse

Grammar vigilante and candidate for living definition of the word “cantankerous,” Stefan Gatward of Tunbridge Wells, England, has been vandalizing signs so that they display the proper use of an apostrophe. For Mr. Gatward, The Times of London reported, a sign on St John’s Close that reads “St Johns Close” is a symbol of a larger cultural problem.

As the recent findingDulcinea article “What’s Happening to Writing Skills?” reveals, Mr. Gatward is not alone in decrying the decline of language. If only he’d known about the blog Apostrophe Catastrophes, perhaps he’d have put down the pen, snapped a photo and reveled in the support of the syntactical community. Fortunately for language enthusiasts, the Web boasts several oases of grammatical correctness and linguistic love.

The fiercest syntactical debates tend to be transatlantic, but American grammarians can still find a home at World Wide Words, which considers “international English from a British viewpoint.” Michael Quinion, author of “Why Is Q Always Followed by U?” and former columnist for The Daily Telegraph, has collected over a decade’s worth of his own articles on individual words, turns of phrase and eclectic themes, such as “the vocabulary of British lotteries” and “tourism’s lexical legacy.” He also answers questions and reviews books about language, ranging from “The American Heritage Dictionary” to pop-grammar hit “Eats, Shoots and Leaves.” World Wide Words is basically a one-stop shop to satisfy any linguistic curiosity, but if you’re still not sated, his “Other Sites of Interest” provides an exhaustive index of the Web’s offerings.

Reading blogs and columns is one of the best ways to keep abreast of trends in the word world. Schott’s Vocab, a New York Times blog, “explores news sites around the world to find words and phrases that encapsulate the times in which we live or shed light on a story of note.” If you’ve become written-word weary, tune in to actor Stephen Fry’s BBC radio show on language, “Fry’s English Delight,” which recently pondered the meaning of “hallo.”

For more of a community, join alt.usage.english, a large grammar newsgroup that rivals the Secret Service for seriousness of purpose. If you’re too intimidated to participate, take a look at their extensive archive, but beware: their FAQ section alone contains 220 topics.

Jill Marcellus
Senior Intern

Sweet Sites | A Eulogy to Kennedy and Obituaries

Photo: AP

Last night, Sen. Edward Kennedy passed away after a yearlong struggle with brain cancer. Any newswire reveals this much, but only the obituary pages offer a comprehensive look at Senator Kennedy’s life and national importance. Technically an announcement of death, an obituary can also serve as an authoritative biography, and it is often written while its subject is still alive and continuously updated until its fatal debut. Before you tire of the phrase “lion in the Senate,” read the following thoughtful and detailed looks at Senator Kennedy’s life, and bookmark those newspapers’ obituary sections for some excellent biographical resources.

Declaring Sen. Kennedy “a Rabelaisian figure in the Senate and in life,” the six-page New York Times obituary delves scrupulously behind the senator’s public image, offering a detailed, chronological account that balances the discipline of his public career with his private excesses and troubles. After an overview of the circumstances of Kennedy’s death and his recent role in the health care debate, reporter John M. Broder breaks down the phases of the senator’s life, from a youth overshadowed by more powerful brothers to his role as influential statesman. The Times supplements its written obituary with multimedia resources, including a 13-minute video tribute.

Focusing more on his legislative accomplishments and priorities, The Washington Post obituary provides a slightly different emphasis in its extensive coverage of Kennedy, but still wraps up with a thorough and interactive biographical timeline. Reporter Joe Holley also offers his personal reflection on the senator on the Post’s “Post Mortem” blog, which goes behind the day’s obituaries in regular features like “The Daily Goodbye.”

For an international perspective, including details on how he “annoyed several British administrations,” read Kennedy’s obituary in The Daily Telegraph. Interspersing its obit with illuminating quotes and anecdotes, The Telegraph offers a more personal and visceral account of the senator—and of its other obituary subjects—than the American papers do.

Finally, if you would like to research an older or more obscure death than Senator Kennedy’s, the Internet Public Library has written a helpful guide to finding obituaries.

Jill Marcellus
Senior Intern

Sweet Sites | Graphic Gourmet: All You Can "Eat" Online

A screenshot of foodgawker.com

From “Top Chef” to “Julie & Julia,” from the Travel Channel’s “Food Paradise” to New York Magazine’s whopping 82-burger slideshow, delicious food has become the new cultural obsession. But has it also become a treat for our eyes only? Michael Pollan recently fretted so in The New York Times, arguing that proper, wholesome cooking has migrated from the pots and pans of the American kitchen to the Food Network’s primetime lineup.

Don’t tell Pollan, but we’re about to enable America’s food-porn addiction. We researched the tantalizing world of food art, photography and sheer voyeurism on SweetSearch, and turned up the following (sesame) seedy side of the Web. Plenty of sites serve up photographic fodder, but few can beat Photograzing from Serious Eats, foodgawker or the aptly named FoodPornDaily for lush and delectable pictures. Although the latter two sites offer neither more nor less than their URLs promise, the Serious Eats main site features recipes, restaurants and food news from all over the country—in addition to tasty photos, of course. The restaurant-review site Menuism earns honorable mention in the low-hanging but mouthwatering fruit category: It allows users to browse for restaurants by food photos.

As the photographic equivalent of street food or carnival fare, the above sites offer little for a higher-brow palate. Fortunately, there’s a range of food art and food-centric social commentary that caters to the tastes of both voyeur and connoisseur. WebEcoist offers “15 Fascinating Food Artists and Sculptors,” an excellent introduction to food art that features potato chip portraits, elegant butter statues, surreal foodscapes and a “Biscuit City.”

Time Magazine’s feature “What the World Eats” shows 15 families from all over the world with their entire week’s food allowance spread out before them, providing a fascinating look into geographical differences in diet. Similarly, Mark Menjivar’s “You Are What You Eat,” presented by Good Magazine, captures the contents of strangers’ refrigerators, and the simple Tumblr “Hospital Food” collects photos of meals from sickbeds worldwide.

Finally, there are plenty of resources for budding food photographers. Check out Rob Willey’s advice in his Food & Wine Magazine article “Shoot First, Eat Later,” Photojojo’s “The Ten Tastiest Food Photography Tips,” “little nuggets from the front lines of food styling and photography” from the blog “Still Life With” or, for a behind-the-scenes look at a professional in action, watch Cooking Up a Story’s “The Art of Food Photography.”

If you’re still not sated, findingDulcinea offers lots of news and features on food, and don’t miss our Web Guide to Food for recipes, restaurant reviews, special diets and more.

Jill Marcellus
Senior Intern

Sweet Sites | Dear Diary…

What with Facebook, Twitter and confessional blogs, there’s little room for privacy in the Internet age. But thanks to the online publication of historical diaries, Web surfers can now shine that invasive modern light on the darkest pages of the past. The personal diaries we’ve unearthed evoke a sense of personality, society and daily life that is somehow more authentic than the incessant noise of today’s tweets. Explore the diaries below and recapture that increasingly rare feeling of stumbling across something truly secret.

In his harrowing novel “1984,” George Orwell envisions a future society in which a Big Brother state monitors everything, including the minds of its citizens. Readers who loved that book—or perhaps just loved the privacy-free dystopia it critiques—should also love peeking into George Orwell’s personal diary, now available online. The Orwell Prize blog, which also links to things such as an old breakfast menu Orwell might have perused and a Google Map of his travels, includes his diaries from 1938 to 1942 “in real time, 70 years to the day since each entry was originally written.” With tags such as “Anglo-Soviet pact” and “mowed nettles,” the diary offers an insightful glimpse into both the author and the early years of World War II. And, in a retro take on the stereotypical Congressman tweeting how many eggs he had for breakfast, Orwell shares how many eggs his chickens lay each day.

Technological trends may change, but the founding fathers never go out of style. It’s not surprising, then, that the Library of Congress has released the diaries of George Washington online. Stretching from 1748 to the day before he died in 1799, the diaries form a record of “Where & How my Time is Spent,” his oft-repeated goal in writing. Readers won’t find thrilling Revolutionary-era scandal; instead, much of the diary is consumed by agriculture, the weather and his dinner guests. Nevertheless, the diary’s editors admit that though reading them through can be a “tedious exercise,” it is also a “rewarding way to probe the depths… of a man who has come to personify the spirit of America in his time.”

If you were the kid who played Lewis and Clark or Oregon Trail—or if you still play Oregon Trail, for that matter—this is the diary for you. Truly experience the journey West with the diary of photographer William Henry Jackson, which documents his surveying trip in the summer of 1869. Also check out the New York Public Library exhibits “Heading West” and “Touring West” for coverage of the maps and performing artists that characterized westward movement in the U.S.

Jill Marcellus
Writer

Sweet Sites | Not Your Sunday Comic Strip

Thanks to the recession, newspapers are slimming down their funny pages just when people most need the distraction. Fortunately, more and more Web comics are springing up to take their place, and there are plenty of guides to help you find your new virtual Snoopy. Actually, with these comics, you’re more likely to find your new virtual, geeky 20-something with relationship issues. Especially if you check out our personal favorite, the popular xkcd (don’t forget to roll your mouse over each strip for an extra punch line). The following links recommend tons of comics for every sense of humor, and with the extensive archives often available online, your cartoon fix will never have to wait for Sunday again.

Mashable’s “20 of the Best Web Comics” and NPR’s “Annotated Guide for the Understandably Perplexed” are two great introductions to the overwhelming range of comics out there. Although Mashable covers the most popular strips for every taste, NPR’s Glen Weldon simply lists his favorites, encompassing comics such as "surreal crypto-neo-ur-Victorian gags" (Wondermark) to a "breathtaking chronicle of New Orleans before, during and after Katrina" (AD: After the Deluge).  Weldon also provides tips and warnings for the uninitiated: He offers advice on navigating the sites, and warns you about strips devoted to “in-jokes pertaining to matters geeky: video games, comics, sci-fi, fantasy, scantily clad kitten-women.”

Speaking of scantily clad kitten-women, those who find Garfield a bit tame might want to check out Patrick Orndorff’s “10 Great Webcomics You Should Not Share With Your Kids” on Wired.com. If his “adult/bizarre/sophomoric streak” turns you off, then look at Wired's sheepish follow-up post, "Five Webcomics You Can Share With Your Kids."

Finally, if you love illustrated humor but long for the days when Boss Tweed, not Steve Jobs, reigned, the Library of Congress has a fantastic exhibition of cartoon art. Built around the donated personal collection of cartoonist James Arthur Wood, Jr., the site includes everything from 19th-century political cartoons by Thomas Nast to 1980s comic strips.

Jill Marcellus
Writer

Sweet Sites | Interviews and Talks with People Who Should Be Celebrities

Everywhere you turn, you see or hear about Jon and Kate, Lindsay Lohan, Lindsay Lohan's spray tan product, Jennifer Garner's cute kids, and Posh & Becks' shopping outings. These people are celebrities, technically speaking, but there are many other people out there, living and deceased, who were celebrities in their time, or should have been. We've uncovered a number of sites that host interviews and talks with notable people from many walks of life. Some of these Web sites might be familiar to you, but some may appear to be diamonds in the rough!

TED is probably the most well-known site for inspiring, amusing and cool talks with innovative thinkers and leaders. Learn about emerging technologies, the fashion world, religion, medicine, and much more from the Web site of the TED Prize and annual TED Conference.

The Mike Wallace Interview is a collection of interviews by Mike Wallace of "60 Minutes" conducted between 1957 and 1960 and hosted by the University of Texas at Austin's Harry Ransom Center. This generous site features interviews with pioneering people like Frank Lloyd Wright, Gloria Swanson, Eleanor Roosevelt and Aldous Huxley.

Charlie Rose has recently revamped the Web site for his PBS show and now includes free and lengthy archived and recent interview segments with actors, sports stars, economists, politicians, authors and much more.

The Paris Review "Interviews" section features an archive of interview excerpts with authors dating back to the 1950s. They are in text-only format, but very worthwhile.

Liz Colville
Senior Writer
Audience Development

If you're really into lectures, see our previous entry, "5 Must-See Lectures."

Sweet Sites | Swim the Web to Find Water Activities This Summer

It's hot outside; why not head to the water? We're continuing with last week's theme as we go in search of sites to help you find pools, beaches and water sports near you.

Swim.com will help you find a pool, public or private, in your area. The site contains entries from around the world and offers detailed information about each pool, including the pool's shape, whether it contains chlorine and if a lifeguard is on duty.

Keep your kids safe in the water by signing them up for swimming lessons. If you've never learned how to swim yourself, it's never too late to start. Swim.com also provides a database of swim instructors, listing name, years of experience, reviews (if any), rate and distance from you.

If you long for sand between your toes and the splashing of waves, Dr. Beach has just the right prescription for you. Dr. Stephen P. Leatherman provides a beach overview by U.S. region, and also issues a yearly list of the nation's best beaches.

Have fun (mostly) above the water with GORP's Paddling page, which offers resources to plan your next canoeing, kayaking or rafting trip, including information about where to go, what you'll need and how to improve your paddling technique.

Amy Goldschlager
Editor

Find your own "eureka!" sites using SweetSearch.

Consult our Travel Guides for sites to help you with more location-specific fun this summer.

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Sweet Sites | Use the Web to Find Summertime Fun, Wherever You Are

The temperature's warming up and you've got some free time, but you have absolutely no idea what to do with this glorious opportunity. Here are some sites that can help you with this high-quality problem.

Festivals.com allows you to search for U.S. events by region and type, including fairs, sporting events, crafts expos and motor shows. The site is particularly strong on music events; find out who's playing where in a variety of genres from alternative to zydeco.

Whatsonwhen offers information about intriguing events happening across the globe. Search by keyword or browse by destination or event type to learn more about a wide range of activities that includes both the North American Sand Soccer Championships in Virginia and the Baby-Jumping Colacho Festival in Castrillo de Murcia, Spain.

If your summer simply must involve a screaming tour of a roller coaster or a spin on the Ferris wheel, consult Theme Park Insider for help planning your next trip to the amusement park. The site offers reviews, park safety news and advice, tips to shorten your wait on ride lines, hotel information and more. 

Amy Goldschlager
Editor

Find your own "eureka!" sites using SweetSearch.

Consult our Travel Guides if you're looking for sites to help you with more location-specific trip-planning.

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Sweet Sites | Play the Game: Reconnecting with Childhood Games on the Web

Nostalgic for the games you played when you were a kid? Here are three sites that can help you recapture those old memories and potentially share your childhood fun with your own children.

If the happiest moments of your youth involved tossing away all your quarters at the arcade, you might enjoy KLOV (Killer List of Videogames), sponsored by the International Arcade Museum. Search or browse the alphabet for detailed information and images of classics like "Burger Time" and more recent favorites like "Dance Dance Revolution." If you have hundreds of dollars and the floor space to spare, the site also includes whatever eBay listings for the game are available. Those with thinner wallets but deep devotion might be interested in purchasing the game manuals.

If your pulse used to race to the clatter of dice, the fluttering of cards and the march of plastic game pieces, than BoardGameGeek, a database of more than 30,000 board games, is for you. Plug in the name of your favorite board game into the search box for a brief description, images, forums discussing game play and listings for the game on eBay and the site's own marketplace. If you've got information about a particular game that appears to be missing from the site, you can add what you know via an online form.

Maybe you preferred to spend most of your kid downtime outdoors; in that case, visit GamesKidsPlay. The site isn't particularly elegant, but it does have a nice long list of rules for playground games, as well as jump rope and clapping game rhymes. If you're desperate to remember exactly how to play Red Light/Green Light," "Steal the Bacon" or "Spud," this site is an answer to your prayers.

Amy Goldschlager
Editor

Find your own "eureka" sites using SweetSearch.

Consult our Video Games Web Guide for more sites that will connect you with video games new and old.

Sweet Sites | Name That Tune: Nailing Down Music & Lyrics on the Web

It’s a universal experience: there’s a song, or part of a song, that you just can’t get out of your head. Unfortunately, you can’t remember the name of the song or the band who sang it. But fear not: the Internet was invented to solve agonizing conundrums like this. (Okay, maybe the Internet wasn’t specifically designed to help you cope with your earworm problem, but it seems like it might have been.)

Did you first hear the song a few weeks ago as Dr. Gregory House moodily limped/stomped through the hospital or when, for the millionth time, Chuck failed to listen to Sarah and Casey’s instructions to stay in the car and got captured by Fulcrum agents? Then pay a visit to TuneFind, which catalogs the songs used in recent TV shows and new movies. If the song is available on iTunes, the site will direct you there to buy it.

If it’s an older song that’s lodged in your brain, type whatever you remember of the lyrics into Lyrster, a lyrics search engine that indexes more than 350 lyric-hunting sites in English and French. Some of the sites also lead to audio or video clips of the song in question. (I personally was thrilled to find a cheesy video of “Disparue,” a French rock song from 1982 that I encountered during a high-school summer spent in France.)

If you’ve used the two sites above to successfully identify your song, head on over to just hear it, which searches the Web for audio and video of your chosen song. If you’re looking for multiple songs, you can drag each one to the right of the screen and create a playlist.

Just hear it has acquired all the appropriate licenses to ensure that artists receive royalties for their work when you stream their songs; that means you can root out that earworm and feel virtuous at the same time. The site is currently in private beta; you need an invitation to gain membership privileges that allow you to save playlists between visits. However, you can e-mail them and request one.

Amy Goldschlager
Editor

Find your own "eureka!" sites using SweetSearch.

Sweet Sites | Don't Get Fooled Again: Know Fact from Fiction

Know how to tell truth from fiction with help from these three Web sites.
 
Keep your e-mail inbox free of viruses, scams and hoaxes with help from Purportal.com, "debunking bunk since 2001." The site allows you to search various reputable databases and sites that collect information about urban legends, sneaky ways of parting you from your money and various bits of code you just don't want on your computer.  Sources include Snopes, Symantec and Fraud Watch International.
 
Continue on the factual path with Scirus, a search engine for scientific information that indexes journals, scientists' personal pages and coursework. A sister site, SciTopics, offers "research summaries" on a variety of different subjects in the sciences and the humanities, such as chemistry, environmental science and philosophy.
 
Librarians built Infomine, a collection of databases, electronic journals, books and other resources for university-level students and staff. It includes links to both paid and free content, and offers bibliographic information about each site.

Find your own "eureka" sites using SweetSearch.

Amy Goldschlager
Editor

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Sweet Sites | Eye on the Sky (and Under Ground): Sites on Natural Disasters and Emergency Preparedness

Alaska's Mt. Redoubt (Photo: GeoEye Satellite Image/AP)

A few short weeks ago, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana appeared on national television and decried the waste of spending money to observe volcanoes in Alaska. Then Alaska’s Mt. Redoubt erupted. Several times. The current flood threat in North Dakota and Minnesota make it clear that keeping an eye on the situation is vital to preserving people and property from danger and damage.

Floods, volcanoes, earthquakes, tornadoes: Who can keep up? Well, research centers across the globe are dedicated to that very purpose, and many of them provide up-to-date information on disaster news, prevention and relief.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Storm Prediction Center provides an animated map of severe weather patterns moving across the United States, storm reports and FAQs about tornadoes and derechos (windstorms).

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Emergency Preparedness and Response helps you lay out a general disaster plan for you and your family, and provides preparedness steps for specific (and currently occurring) hazards, such as volcanic eruptions, floods and blizzards.

The University of Delaware’s Disaster Research Center doesn’t appear to have much useful information on its own site, but it does link to several other disaster research centers across the globe, including the Aon Benfield UCL Hazard Research Centre (ABUHRC), “Europe's leading multidisciplinary academic hazard research centre,” and the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center.

Learn more about one of nature's most dramatic events in our feature article "Nature Wages War: Volcanoes."

Find your own "eureka" sites using SweetSearch.

Amy Goldschlager
Editor

Sweet Sites | Let's Get Visual: Find Great Images on the Web

Painter Ellsworth Kelly's "Color Panels for a Large Wall" at the National Gallery of Art, 2003. (Photo: Evan Vucci/AP)

One reason the Web has become such an intrinsic part of our lives is that it is not simply a repository of text information. Many times, when you go online to search for something, it’s not words that you’re looking for. Here are three resources that can help you find images.

You can search all the holdings at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., pictured at left, at the museum’s Web site. The collection includes both centuries-old and contemporary European and American paintings, photographs, sculptures and examples of the decorative arts.

A University of Washington database provides images of cities and buildings from various time periods. Search by country, city, style, title, architect, date of construction and other criteria.

In collaboration with various museums, Tufts University offers the Art & Archeology Browser, a database of images and descriptions of coins, vases, sculptures, archeological sites, gems, and buildings.

Amy Goldschlager
Editor

Find your own "eureka" sites with SweetSearch.

Sweet Sites | Don't Know Much about U.S. History? The Government Does

If you're looking for information about American history, you might want to start with resources sponsored by the U.S. government.

The official FBI site has quite a lot of information on American crime. The history section tells the story of the FBI and its role during major periods of American history, from its origins in the early 20th century to today. The headline archives index allows you to browse articles by type of crime.

For more American history resources, consult the National Archives Web site; you can browse the site by topic.

If the government doesn't give you what you want, visit The Internet Public Library; it's got tons of useful links, which can be browsed by subject and subcategories within each subject.

"Women Who Dared" is our tribute to the women in American history. Learn about a month's worth of pioneering American women, including Melissa Etheridge, Marie Curie and Eleanor Roosevelt, in this special Women's History Month section.

Learn about more key players in U.S. history, including the Vikings, Columbus, and Native Americans using the sites in our U.S. History Web Guide.

Amy Goldschlager
Editor
findingDulcinea

Find your own "eureka" sites using SweetSearch.

Sweet Sites | Magazines, Journal Articles, Books and More

Nothing beats a library, but know before you go using the online catalog WorldCat.

Thanks to my last Sweet Sites entry, "Global Resources for Searching Local News," you should now have just about all the newspaper access that you’ll ever need. Here are three more sites that can help temporarily quench your thirst for reading material.

Search for magazine articles that are available for free online via MagPortal. A page on the site lists the magazines available and what articles have been indexed.

If you’ve just got to keep up with the latest scientific discoveries, you’ll find every research paper published in a NIH-funded journal at PubMed Central.

Why wait to go the library to see if they have what you want on the shelf? Visit WorldCat and get information about books, CDs, videos, news articles and digital collections held by more than 10,000 libraries worldwide.

Amy Goldschlager
Editor

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Find your own "eureka" sites using SweetSearch.

Sweet Sites | Global Resources for Searching Local News

As I promised in my last blog entry, I’m sharing sites with everyone who’d like to move beyond simply plugging a bunch of search terms into Google and hoping for the best. Today, my focus is the news.

Often, the best way to learn about a news story is to find out where it happened, and look it up in that location’s local paper. When you’re tired of The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, or the Los Angeles Times, here are some resources that can help you find the local color you crave.

NewsVoyager allows you to search for newspaper home pages by state and country.

Paperboy provides access to more than 6,300 newspapers as well as several magazines; see what’s available in each state and country, browse newspaper front pages or find magazines by subject.

While many daily newspapers allow you to read their current edition for free, most charge for a look at their archives. The Special Libraries Association News Division lists which newspapers have online archives, how far back they go and how much you can expect to pay per article (in some cases, nothing at all).

Amy Goldschlager
Editor

Find more "eureka" search results with our search engine, SweetSearch.

Sweet Sites | January 30, 2009

A key mission of findingDulcinea is to help people search better. Thanks to our new search engine, SweetSearch, that mission has become easier than ever before, because it only includes sites that we at findingDulcinea have vetted. In this new weekly series, which will also appear as a newsletter starting next week, I'll bring you some "eureka" finds from around the Web.

Both Virginia Heffernan of The New York Times and I love TED.com. The site offers high-quality videos of absolutely fascinating talks by innovators in technology, science, politics and the arts.

I also find all kinds of great stuff on university library Web sites. For example, the University of Pennsylvania Library offers an extensive list of useful research links on a HUGE variety of topics. And many universities, such as Harvard, are digitizing at least part of their collections and making them available on the Web.

A link I found at the Harvard site led me to Old Bailey Online. The site offers 250 years' worth of bizarrely fascinating information about the proceedings of London's chief criminal court, as well as tons of historical information about London society.

I love being an intrepid Internet explorer in search of buried Web treasure, and I promise to share what I find, instead of keeping it to myself.

Amy Goldschlager
Editor