Interests

The years Saturday’s graduates spent at Berkeley were marked by turmoil: days-long campus power outages, devastating wildfires that choked the air with smoke, free-speech demonstrations and national reckonings with economic inequality, police shootings, racism and anti-democratic violence. “Some of (your) most important lessons came from a real-life curriculum no one ever anticipated,” Chancellor Carol Christ told the graduates in her keynote speech. “We are living in a historic moment when everything is shifting about us in ways that will have a profound impact upon the future,” she added. “This may be a perilous time, but so, too, is it a time of creative ferment and possibility, and that is prime time for this public university and for you, our newest alumni.”   (UC Berkeley photo by Keegan Houser)   (UC Berkeley photo by Keegan Houser) 1 / 17 X Xand… more »

"Bring patriotic cheer when you give unique gifts from the National Archives Store. As the exclusive store of the National Archives Museum, we support the exhibition and educational messaging through the development and presentation of a wide variety of high-quality merchandise highlighting the holdings of the National Archives." more »

There are more than 60 live cam themes to check out, arranged in alphabetical order for easy browsing. Highlights include "Project Puffin," "Owl Research Institute," "International Wolf Center," and "Aquarium of the Pacific," among others. Once users have selected a theme to visit, they will be taken to a page with live camera footage. Astronomy buffs, stargazers, and students of all ages will want to check out CosmoQuest, an online community space where citizen scientists can participate in expanding our knowledge of the universe through collaboration with scientists from NASA, OSIRIS-REx, Dawn, and other organizations. Librarians, archivists, and researchers should check out the Digital Scholarship Blog from the British Library (previously featured in the 02-09-2018 Scout Report), which won the 2018 Digital Humanities Award for Best Blog Post or Series of Posts. Wheelmap is a free online map of wheelchair accessible places around the world. On the map, the accessibility of locations is designed through a traffic light system: green for full accessibility, orange for partial accessibility, and red for inaccessibility. Visitors can use the Search bar to find and check the accessibility of nearby locations or filter the search for specific kinds of places (e.g., Transport, Education, Toilets) and degree of accessibility.   more »

Adrienne Cannon writes: I am thinking of the various trips I have taken as a solo traveler when I awaken in a strange location with no companion to talk to. Then I learned to quietly observe life around me (often quite different to my “American” background) even though I wasn’t part of it. Instead of feeling sad about my solitary state I began to treasure those calming moments of contemplation and observation. When I had to schedule appointments during pandemic lockdown and I was one of the few people in a pool, in a class, in the locker room or other places where few people were admitted at the same time, I began to understand that being solitary is not the same as being sad or lonely. In the past, I have made friends on those solo trips by reaching out after too much solitude. And so it seems during those lonely days I have made new acquaintances. They are often a little younger than I am and I happily call on them to join me in my active hours that sometimes outstrip the energies of many of my contemporaries. more »