Colonial administration records to be released to The National Archives (UK)

The National Archives is working with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to transfer and begin releasing colonial administration records, referred to as the 'migrated archives' between April 2012 and November 2013, in accordance with FCO's published timeline on the FCO website. The first batch will be made available in the reading rooms at The National Archives from Wednesday 18 April 2012. This release will contain records from Aden, Anguilla, Bahamas, Basutoland. Bechuanaland, British Indian Ocean Territories, Brunei, Cyprus, Kenya, Malaya, Sarawak and Seychelles. On Wednesday 18 April 2012, a guide to the first batch of files will be published on The National Archives website and will provide more information on how to search the records

Britain's original information revolution

We may think we are in the middle of a communications revolution: Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Hulu, iTunes. Did any of those mean anything five years ago? But all of them are, in their ways, secondary phenomena. Some of them are image-based, post-literate, but none would work without the foundations of a much deeper communications revolution which swept across Europe 400 years ago. The 17th century is when the Europeans started to write: letters, diaries, journals, notebooks, account books, commonplace books, business correspondence, pamphlets, posters, chapbooks, newspapers. It was the first communications revolution, which both spawned and reflected the most revolutionary century we have ever had - Adam Nicolson

Portland State University's Digital Repository (USA)

Portland State University's Digital Repository is designed to make the work of the University's scholars widely available and ensures that these resources are preserved and organized for the future. It provides a centralized, easily navigable platform for accessing the scholarship of faculty and researchers, including working papers, reports, conference presentations, journal articles, dissertations and theses, and other scholarly materials

LISTen: An LISNews.org Program -- Episode #191

LISTen: An LISNews.org Program -- Episode #191. "This week's episode brings a conference report from Blake Carver followed by a bit of a news miscellany". Previous Podcasts/Programs can be found here

Teen Librarian Monthly: The EDGE Edition

The March EDGE Edition of Teen Librarian Monthly is now available! Featuring articles by:
Sara Grant, Savita Kalhan, Paula Rawsthorne, Dave Cousins, Bryony Pearce, Miriam Halahmy, Katie Dale & Keren David

Radio 4 unveils Shakespeare series (UK)

British Museum Director Neil MacGregor has announced full details of a special 20-part Radio 4 series dedicated to William Shakespeare. Shakespeare's Restless World will explore the bard's life, work and the period he lived in by examining a number of objects from the era. "This series gives us a chance to understand what life was like in the turbulent world of William Shakespeare," Mr MacGregor said. The series starts on 16 April

Internet Archive's 35mm stock footage collection

Internet Archive's 35mm stock footage collection consists of material especially shot for stock footage purposes as well as feature film outtakes and unused material that were conserved for future use in other productions. Rights to this collection are held by Internet Archive. You may download and reuse material under the Creative Commons Attribution License. If you require higher-quality material or a written license agreement, please contact Getty Images for licensing information

Paintings of the Americas

Published to celebrate the highly acclaimed 2010 opening of the Art of the Americas Wing at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Paintings of the Americas, the MFA's first freely accessible web-based catalogue, is a new way to experience one of the world's finest collections of American paintings. Recent scholarship, innovative design, and up-to-date digital publishing technology bring the Museum's spectacular American painting collection to readers as never before - and it's completely free

JSTOR Update - March 23, 2012

JSTOR Update - March 23, 2012. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that enables discovery, access, and preservation of scholarly content

Podcast: 'There is no aspect of government activity on which the State Papers may not throw light': the papers of the secretaries of state 1509-1782

The state papers are the correspondence and papers of the ministers of the Crown during the early modern period. For the first time individuals and personalities emerge from obscurity and we are able to go behind the scenes of government and explore motives, policy-making, and ideas. The state papers are the backbone of early modern records transforming the historians' approach to this lively period. The talk begins with an overview of the state papers, followed by their use over time, and how the State Papers Office was run. The podcast ends with a summary of finding aids available, including what is accessible on State Papers Online. Dr Adrian Ailes is a principal records specialist in early modern records and is particularly interested in local history, the gentry, heraldry and seals. Dr Katy Mair is an early modern records specialist whose research interests include the Jacobites, the history of reading, and the religious culture of women. Her doctorate examined the correspondence of the 16th century gentlewoman Lady Anne Bacon, and focused particularly on her unpublished letters to her sons, Anthony and Francis Bacon

Online Famine archive translated from French (Ireland)

An online archive of stories on the Great Irish Famine from an unusual source has been unveiled at the University of Limerick. Launched by Minister for Arts, Heritage and Gaeltacht, Jimmy Deenihan, the archive translates historic annals from the French language and pays tribute to the French-Canadian Sisters of Charity, or Grey Nuns, who cared for Famine emigrants in Montreal in 1847. The annals are said to contain extensive and highly evocative eyewitness accounts of the suffering of Famine migrants. The archives tell the tale of the harrowing experiences of priests and nuns who went to their aid and sought to provide homes for stricken widows and orphans. The main story in the archive is that of the Grey Nuns, which was published in French in 1898 and has been translated into English for the virtual archive

National Library Week 2012 (USA)

First sponsored in 1958, National Library Week is a national observance sponsored by the American Library Association and libraries across the United States each April. This year's is April 8-14, 2012

Roanoke County Public Library celebrates Japan (USA)

Celebrate Japan! is a partner project with Roanoke County and Roanoke City public libraries to celebrate the Taubman Museum of Art's latest exhibition entitled Friendship Dolls: America and Japan in the 1920s. Between now and the end of May, both library systems will offer a number of Japanese-themed programs for children, teens and adults

Over 1,900 oil paintings from the National Library of Wales join the Your Paintings website

The Public Catalogue Foundation, in partnership with the BBC, has announced that all oil paintings from The National Library of Wales have been added to the Your Paintings website for the nation to enjoy. Your Paintings is a project to create a complete online catalogue of every oil painting in the national collection, whether on display or in store

New digitized reels: border entry records, 1908-1918 and 1925-1935 (Canada)

Library and Archives Canada has announced that you can now access 121,302 new images of immigration records on our website. Before 1908, people were able to move freely across the border from the United States into Canada. Beginning in that year, entry ports were established along the border. From 1908 to 1918, and from 1925 to 1935, border entry records were compiled in a list format to record the names of immigrants. By providing these images online, LAC is now offering all immigration records containing nominal information for immigrants from 1865 to 1935 in its custody. Discover these valuable resources with the Microform Digitization research tool, which allows you to browse, page by page, the border entry records

John Wiley & Sons has acquired Structurae

John Wiley & Sons has announced that it acquired Structurae, a leading online structural and civil engineering database

Wolters Kluwer Health releases first medical journal iPad® App in Pathology

Wolters Kluwer Health has announced the release of an iPad® app for the medical journal, Pathology. The app provides health care professionals with full mobile accessibility to the latest research into all aspects of pathology. Pathology is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, part of Wolters Kluwer Health on behalf of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia

Podcast: Digitised newspapers as sources for family history (UK)

This talk aims to give listeners a demonstration of the recently launched British Newspapers Archive. This database has over 200 UK newspapers, published from 1700-1950, and over 3 million pages - growing daily. Newspapers are frequently the only place where information about local people and events are published, so they are an important resource for the family historian. The talk gives practical examples from these newspapers. It also briefly describes some non-UK older digitised newspaper databases. Ed King has worked for the British Library since 1975. He is currently head of Newspaper Collections at the library. Since 2004, he has been involved with projects to digitise older newspapers in the library's collections. He has been working with many colleagues to realise the British Newspaper Archive, launched late in 2011.

Yale library symposium explores preserving history in the wake of disaster

Titled "Responding to 3-11: Preserving History in the Wake of Disaster," the forum will take place March 27 in the International Room at Sterling Memorial Library. Presented by the Yale Library's Standing Committee on Professional Awareness, and with the support of the Council on East Asian Studies at Yale, the forum will explore the conservation of archives impacted by the disasters, as well as efforts to protect archives from future disasters

Directory of Open Access Journals - recently added titles

Fragments : Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Ancient and Medieval Pasts

China Foundry

Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies

Clinical Medicine Insights : Oncology

Clinical Medicine Insights : Pathology

Clinical Medicine Insights : Pediatrics

Clinical Medicine Insights : Reproductive Health

Clinical Medicine Insights : Therapeutics