Europeana online again!

Europeana is online again in a beta version. Which means, as far as I can tell, that not all the links work, and the search functions are a little wonky. But, even at this stage, it's pretty darn wonderful.



This YouTube video gives an idea of what will be available on the site once it's up and running properly (although their choice of background music is questionable). The other videos listed on the sidebar under theeuropeanlibrary will give you an idea of how Europeana came about, especially this one, which is a little bit dry but try to bear with the speaker until the end when she describes how a search will work. This video made for the American Library Association is probably only of interest to library staff and librarians, but it does provide a nostalgic reminder (pleasant or not) of PowerPoint presentations.

As you may have heard, Europeana crashed badly when it first went online in November. Evidently they vastly underestimated interest in the site. Now they don't expect to be "fully operational" until 2010. In the meantime, wandering around the site should keep you occupied until then.

Or you can search the collections that aren't directly available from Europeana yet. You can find them through the European Library search. Don't expect English everywhere but what is available in any language is amazing.

AngloMania: Tradition and Transgression in British Fashion

This exhibit from the summer of 2006 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art showcases some of the weird and wonderful British fashions, mostly from 1976 to 2006. The descriptions of the really strange wearable? garments are quite straightforward - the fashions themselves are odd, to say the least. An added bonus of this exhibit is the "commentary on the evolution of British fashion" provided by Johnny Rotten (aka John Lydon). His rant is not nearly as stiff as the description indicates.

My favourite designer of the group shown is Vivienne Westwood - mostly because I've thought that she knows she's putting us on. Her fashion collection pieces are much more outrageous than the clothing shown on her website: most of those are quite wearable.

Glass of the Maharajahs at the Corning Museum of Glass

The Corning Museum of Glass doesn't always have a lot of online content for its exhibits but for Glass of the Maharajahs which ran from May to November of 2006, there is a wide range of resources. What the Maharajahs had made of glass was furniture, and there is a good selection of 'objects' on view (objects being designs and the finished furnishing).

The New York Times Review gives a valuable description and history of the making of glass furniture.

Odetta

Odetta died on December 2, 2008, at 77. You can listen to short versions of her songs if you click on Pastures of Plenty on the iLike list to the right. Or, possibly, here.

I found a couple of recent interviews with Odetta. One, from the New York Times is a video interview from 2007 that the NYT used after her death. In it, she sings snippets from a few songs and talks about her life.

In an NPR biographical article from 2005 there is a shorter audio interview in which Odetta sings a short version of 'Home on the Range' which will give you an entirely different view of that song.

A Google search will find lots of links but the Wikipedia entry is pretty good. One of the better links there is Odetta's page (with video clips) at the Oral History Archive of The National Visionary Leadership Project (NVLP). This site, by the way, is an excellent source of educational and informational material about and by African Americans

iLike Music on sidebar

I just added a neat widget to the sidebar. It's a playlist from iLike that plays 30 second song snippets. I hope that they decide to allow longer excerpts since the beginning of some songs don't really give an indication of the content.

I was really happy to find "I am Woman" by Helen Reddy in the iLike catalogue. Her website has full-length Flash copies of her songs so you can hear a 1990 copy of the song as well as the original demo.

Now I just have to figure out how to add to the playlist. I suspect that means joining iLike and having another password to remember.