EBSCO Publishing understands the complex information needs of libraries and offers sound solutions to those needs with a collection of specially designed, comprehensive full text databases, available online via EBSCOhost and via CD-ROM, for each type of library setting. Our reference products offer a familiar, user-friendly interface in addition to sophisticated software and specialized customization options.
Descriptions of light include the basic (from "Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary": "something that makes vision possible")as well as the scientific (also from "Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary": "an electromagnetic radiation in the wavelength range including infrared, visible, ultraviolet, and X rays and traveling in a vacuum with a speed of about 186,281 miles [300,000 kilometers] per second"). "Light," an online exhibition from the van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, examines light and its many definitions from the Industrial Age, 1750 to 1900. The site's main exhibition can be navigated by light source(candle, argand lamp, gas, electric arc, kerosene, and electric
incandescence) or by theme (science, economics, street, home,art, and entertainment). Each section contains images illustrating the concept of light--fireworks and stage lights, prisms and x-rays, silhouettes and the Tiffany lamp--all of which exemplify
the role of light in the Industrial Age. Besides this main gallery,the site provides a discussion forum, a list of related links,and a brief interactive experiment on the effects of light in "Gaugin's Chair," a painting by Vincent van Gogh. "Light" shows
us how artists, philosophers, and scientists from centuries past helped to shape our current knowledge of light.
Known for its magazine and television programs, the National Geographic Society also has established a high-quality, family-friendly website. One of its best features is the Family Geography Challenge, which brings together students, parents, and teachers in an interactive, educational adventure. Using news stories to inspire kids to learn more about the world around them, Family Geography Challenge offers articles, media links, and the "GeoBee Challenge," a series of daily quizzes with questions from the National Geographic Bee.
From the renowned Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago comes Women in Science, an informative website portraying some of the women who work in the museum today. These 13 women include an anthropologist, a geologist, zoologists, botanists, ecologists, biologists, and an exhibit developer. In addition to explaining their jobs and why they do what they do, each one shares her thoughts about how her gender has or has not affected her career. The site also highlights two female pioneers: botanist Margery Carlson, the first female professor at Northwestern University, and explorer Delia Akeley, who along with her husband is responsible for the two large elephants on display in the main hall of the museum. (Akeley's description of "felling the larger of the two" is surprisingly blunt.)
As our robotic future approaches more quickly than ever, this website explores the thought-provoking issues that follow. Visitors can participate in a debate about the ethical issues raised if robots could think with equal or greater capacity than humans. These autonomous machines continue to extend the limits of humanity's reach, from the wreck of the Titanic to the surface of Mars and beyond. Robotics is a fascinating glimpse of today's efforts to build tomorrow's reality.
Eye of the Storm is far more than just another site for American Civil War buffs; this cleanly designed exhibition also tells several stories about the curating of history and the circumstances of war. At the center of the site is Robert Knox Sneden, a private in the Union army attached to the 40th New York Volunteers from 1861 through his liberation from the infamous Andersonville, Ga., prison camp near the end of the war. His own story emerges through the excerpts from his newly discovered journal, which make up the bulk of the site's text. Sneden's writing is fresh, straightforward, and immediate, with all the detail but without the purple prose so typical of 19th-century diaries.
During the Renaissance, it was common for an educated individual to pursue diverse interests in the arts and sciences, and no one was more successful than Leonardo da Vinci. But with increased specialization in both disciplines, such broad mastery has disappeared and our understanding of them has changed, pushing them farther apart. Science is often considered a realm of the rational, while art connotes inspiration.
American Masters, the award-winning television series, profiles well-known practitioners of film and television, literature, music, performing arts, and visual arts in the United States. Because of its access to the show's abundant coverage, the companion website is able to rise above mere supplemental status.
Who do you think you are? That's what Personality, in part, is trying to find out. The study of personality is perhaps one of the most popular armchair (or bar stool) sciences in modern society. In more formal research, it's regarded as a component of psychiatry, psychology, and sociology. Behavior, emotions, genes, and the world at large are all responsible for contributing to what Carl Jung called "the supreme realization of innate idiosyncrasy." Personality explains in somewhat simpler terms the myriad ways in which personality traits are formed and perceived.
Poems That Go demonstrates the captivating results of verses set to multimedia. This online poetry journal presents poems in short, animated presentations, some of which are interactive, and all of which require downloading Flash, QuickTime, or Shockwave.
The Speak Truth to Power organization uses a variety of media—including a website, a book, a traveling photo exhibition, a play, and a television special—to spread awareness of human rights issues and to increase public consciousness. The uniting theme behind these projects is the focus on 50 "human rights heroes," individuals both famous and anonymous who have dedicated their lives to the human rights movement.
Amid the countless subjects available on the Web, the creators of Common-place noticed a lack of early American history coverage. Their solution was to create an online publication with articles, columns, and reviews about the events and culture of the United States before the 20th century.
Current events is the subject of CNNfyi.com, an education site from CNN and Turner Learning. The site has two versions, one for students and one for educators, stocked with articles and photographs from CNN.
Architecture has a substantial social responsibility: The spaces we occupy—where we live and work—necessarily inform how we function. Architects, therefore, "have the power, if we trust them, to transform our lives," says the narrator of In the Mind of the Architect, a remarkable presentation on postmodern and contemporary Australian architecture.
July 28, 1750 was death of Johann Sebastian Bach, arguably the most beloved composer of the Baroque era; throughout the year, commemorative concerts have been taking place around the world. Bach was born into a musical family.
Change Your Mind is part of the National Mental Health Awareness Campaign cosponsored by the American Psychological Association and MTV. This online guide aimed at teenagers is careful to center on general, rather than specific, mental health issues.
Edwin Hubble was an American astronomer who made two groundbreaking discoveries in the 1920s: that there are galaxies distinct from the Milky Way, and that due to the movement of these galaxies, the universe is constantly expanding. The Hubble Space Telescope was named after this esteemed scientist and since its launch on April 25, 1990, has more than lived up to its name by helping astronomers delve further into the mysteries of space.
It's not really a criticism to say that FunBrain.com has too much content--the site just has too many features to explore in only one day. This is an educational game site that will draw you back time and again, regardless of your age or grade level. The selections range from simple preschool color matching to advanced music quizzes to constellation guessing games.
