National University Library of Iceland: Increased access to older recordings and handwritten texts

National and University Library of Iceland: Increased access to older recordings and handwritten texts. “Bragi Þorgrímur Ólafsson from the National and University Library of Iceland and Unnar Ingvarsson from the National Archives of Iceland presented the Icelandic database in Transkribus. The Transkribus software is made for the purpose of creating an Icelandic base for handwritten texts from the 18th and 19th centuries. The project was carried out in collaboration with experts from the National Archives of Iceland and the National and University Library of Iceland. You can access the Icelandic base by downloading the Transkribus software.”

Open Culture: Behold a Digitization of “The Most Beautiful of All Printed Books,” The Kelmscott Chaucer

Open Culture: Behold a Digitization of “The Most Beautiful of All Printed Books,” The Kelmscott Chaucer. “But what about the most beautiful book? As a contender for that spot, Michael Goodman (previously featured here on Open Culture for his projects on the illustrations of Shakespeare and Dickens) has put forth the Kelmscott Chaucer, including the testimony of no less a literary figure than W.B. Yeats, who called it ‘the most beautiful of all printed books.’ Goodman has also made the book freely available for our perusal on his new web site, The Kelmscott Chaucer Online.”

Time Out Abu Dhabi: New York University Abu Dhabi releases 12 historical photo albums

Time Out Abu Dhabi: New York University Abu Dhabi releases 12 historical photo albums. “In a celebration of the region’s rich past, Akkasah, New York University Abu Dhabi’s photographic archive, has just released 12 digital photo albums showcasing beautiful historic images dating from the 1890s to the 1960s. The over 1,500 photographs and prints from NYU Abu Dhabi’s al Mawrid Arab Center for the Study of Art feature people and landscapes from across the region.”

Texas State Library and Archives Commission: Historical Texas Newspapers Now Available Online Through Texas State Library and Archives Commission Partnership with the University of North Texas

Texas State Library and Archives Commission: Historical Texas Newspapers Now Available Online Through Texas State Library and Archives Commission Partnership with the University of North Texas. “The Texas State Library and Archives Commission (TSLAC) is pleased to announce a new partnership with the University of North Texas (UNT) Libraries. The TSLAC Newspaper Collection is now live and available for free online. More than 4,500 issues of historical Texas newspapers from TSLAC’s collection, published from 1855 to 1930, are available online through UNT’s Portal to Texas History.”

National Széchényi Library: 10,000 digitised pages: the first milestone of the collaboration between the NSZL and the Haydneum

National Széchényi Library: 10,000 digitised pages: the first milestone of the collaboration between the NSZL and the Haydneum . “In connection with the inauguration of the centre, the NSZL and the Haydneum – Hungarian Centre for Early Music have entered into a cooperation agreement, which has resulted in the first 10,000 pages. The aim of the collaboration is to process, manage and revitalise the significant cultural, musical and musicological heritage of Hungary between 1600 and 1850.”

Edinburgh Live: Incredible interactive new website brings parts of Edinburgh back to life

Edinburgh Live: Incredible interactive new website brings parts of Edinburgh back to life. “Using historic street maps, vintage photos, newspaper clippings, post office directory data, and people’s own memories, Old Leith Rediscovered allows locals to explore Edinburgh’s famous port as it was at the end of the 19th century. The interactive site features a zoomable version of Charles Goad’s 1892 Fire Insurance Plan of Leith, which captured the streets and structures of the old Leith in extraordinary detail, giving information on everything from the names of businesses, what they did there and the construction materials used in individual buildings.”

Smithsonian: Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery Reveals Identities of Hundreds of People in Early 19th-Century Portrait Album

Smithsonian: Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery Reveals Identities of Hundreds of People in Early 19th-Century Portrait Album. “The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery has announced the launch of William Bache’s Silhouettes Album, a microsite featuring new research and digitized images for 1,800 cut-paper silhouettes by Anglo-American artist William Bache. In addition to presenting portraits of famous figures like Thomas Jefferson and Martha Washington, the digital project restores the identity of previously unknown individuals rarely encountered in Federal-era portraiture—from traveling entertainers to tavern keepers and dance instructors.”

Irish Examiner: Cork motor dealership archive to be donated to city

Irish Examiner: Cork motor dealership archive to be donated to city . “The archive of Johnson & Perrott, one of Cork’s great family-owned businesses which dates from 1861 when a city centre carriage-building business was acquired by James Johnson, includes company documents, contracts and advertisements, as well as 11 personal diaries and some 200 photographs, negatives and glass plates.”

Cornell Chronicle: Website sheds light on 19th century Black literary culture

Cornell Chronicle: Website sheds light on 19th century Black literary culture. “The site includes 700 poems [Charline] Jao discovered and transcribed from periodicals managed by Black editors in New York City. The site is searchable by publication, title, description, author and other parameters. The website also includes collections of poems focused on themes — from deaths and elegies to hymns and songs to British poets and women poets. Another section showcases a large collection of online and textual resources.”

Washington Post: That dreamy haze in Monet’s impressionist paintings? Air pollution, study says.

Washington Post: That dreamy haze in Monet’s impressionist paintings? Air pollution, study says.. “A new study, published Tuesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, analyzed changes in style and color in nearly 100 paintings by impressionist painters Monet and Joseph Mallord William (J.M.W.) Turner, who lived during Western Europe’s Industrial Revolution in the 18th and 19th century. The study found that over time, as industrial air pollution increased throughout Turner’s and Monet’s careers, skies in their paintings became hazier, too.”

Haverford College: The Early Days of Women’s Suffrage, Archived

Haverford College: The Early Days of Women’s Suffrage, Archived. “The College’s Julia Wilbur collection is composed primarily of her personal journals from 1844 to 1895. The materials were digitized as part of the In Her Own Right project, which contains items that illuminate the efforts of women to assert their rights and work for the rights of others in the century leading up to the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. The project was organized by the Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries (PACSCL) and contains materials from at least 12 institutions.”

University of Stirling: Burns’ influence on working class English writers revealed after the discovery of ‘lost’ works

University of Stirling: Burns’ influence on working class English writers revealed after the discovery of ‘lost’ works. “The influence of Robert Burns saw poets in the north of England writing verse in Scots, say researchers who have uncovered a host of ‘lost’ literary works penned by industrial workers in the 19th Century. The team, led by Professor Kirstie Blair of the University of Stirling, has discovered a deluge of poems, songs and short stories penned by navvies, shipbuilders, railwaymen, factory workers and miners, from Scotland and the north of England, which give unique, first-hand accounts of their lives in the late 1800s and early 1900s.”

US Government Printing Office: GPO Digitizes Historic Congressional Directories From the 1800s

US Government Publishing Office: GPO Digitizes Historic Congressional Directories From the 1800s. The U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) is digitizing historic volumes of the Congressional Directory from the 19th and 20th centuries. The first release includes Directories from 1869–1888, as well as 1993. Additional digitized historic Congressional Directories will be released on GovInfo as they are completed. Historically, the Congressional Directory has been one of the most comprehensive and detailed resources for identifying the components of the three branches of the Federal Government.”

Illinois News Bureau: New website compiles ocean data from landmark 19th-century scientific voyage

Illinois News Bureau: New website compiles ocean data from landmark 19th-century scientific voyage. “The HMS Challenger began a four-year voyage 150 years ago to explore the deep sea and the creatures that lived in it. The scientists aboard the ship discovered thousands of new species and recorded massive amounts of data about the oceans. The treasure trove of information they gathered is now available online in the first comprehensive database of the Challenger findings.”

Cornell Chronicle: Mellon grants $1M to deepen and improve Freedom on the Move

Cornell Chronicle: Mellon grants $1M to deepen and improve Freedom on the Move. “A grant of more than $1 million from the Mellon Foundation will support improvements to the content and functionality of Freedom on the Move (FOTM), a collective digital history project based at Cornell, as well as fostering a research community around the collection. Through FOTM, Cornell is partnering with multiple institutions, including Howard University’s Department of History, to build a free and open archive of all existing ‘runaway slave’ advertisements published in North American newspapers in the 18th and 19th centuries, estimated between 100,000 and 200,000 total. The collection currently contains about 32,500.”