A recent profile in the New York Times showcases two artists, working inside and outside academia, who both believe that “better visualization leads to better thinking.” Sculptor Nathalie Miebach “translates weather data and other scientific measurements into three-dimensional objects that accurately display temperature variations, barometric pressure and moon phases, among other things.” Matthew McCrory uses 3-D display to help scientists at Northwestern University visualize their data:
“Undergrads in front of a big 3-D display? They’re going to be pulled in.” But that’s just the beginning. “We are translating computational theoretical data that could not be seen in any other way,” he continued. “Astronomy, chemistry, biology — there isn’t any place we can’t touch.”
The Library of Congress, with the help of UNESCO, recently launched the World Digital Library, an online collection of primary source materials. Contributions have been made by partner institutions in many countries. Content includes, but is not limited to: maps, manuscripts, prints, photographs, architectural drawings, and recordings. The site functions in seven different languages and can be browsed by Place, Time, Topic, Type of Item, and Institution. Browsing results within the Arts & Recreation topic, for example, can then be narrowed by place, time, additional topics, item type, or institution.
Objectives of the World Digital Library include:
- Promote international and intercultural understanding;
- Expand the volume and variety of cultural content on the Internet;
- Provide resources for educators, scholars, and general audiences;
- Build capacity in partner institutions to narrow the digital divide within and between countries.
Many high-quality images are available for download. Some rare books are also scanned in their entirety and available as PDFs, including this second Augsburg edition of Aesop’s Fables.
We’ve made many improvements over the summer in the classrooms and our digital image collections. Our new digital image delivery system offers over thirty thousand images created at the VRC as well as the AMICA digital image collection of 108,000+ high quality images from American art museums.
If you have questions about using these images in classroom presentations, please contact the VRC. We can show you how to use digital image collections (Luna Insight, AMICA, ArtStor, Saskia), presentation software (Powerpoint, Keynote, ArtStor OIV), classroom and scanning equipment.