http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6484932

Writers block comes up on all of us, and at times, it can manifest itself at the most inconvenient times. The good folks at National Public Radio decided to ask a number of authors about their own experiences with both writer’s block and creating novels, and their findings are contained within the heart of this website. Visitors to the site can peer into the minds of Scott Turow, Blue Balliett, Geraldine Brooks, along with numerous others here. After reading their responses, visitors can also view a list of related web resources, including links to previous NPR stories on the author in question, or they can also chime in with their own questions and comments. Additionally, visitors can sign up to receive notifications of newly added author interviews via an RSS feed. [KMG]

http://www.its.caltech.edu/%7Eatomic/snowcrystals/

Professor Kenneth Libbrecht at Caltech University is very interested in crystal growth and pattern formation in ice. So interested in fact, he went ahead and created this lovely website that documents the very wide, and very interesting world, of “snowflakes, snow crystals, and other ice phenomena.” First-time visitors should look over the “Snowflake Physics” section, which includes a snowflake primer, crystal faceting, and of course, a set of musings on that much-discussed question: “Is it really true that no two snowflakes are alike?” The site also contains a section on “Historic Snowflakes”, which contains the thoughts and insights of Johannes Kepler, Rene Descartes and Robert Hooke (among others) on mysteries of snowflakes and snow crystals. The site is rounded out by clutch of snow activities, snowflake “hot spots”, and a snowflake image for users’ desktops. [KMG]

http://cdsun.library.cornell.edu/

College newspapers can be a veritable treasure trove of information about the cultural and social life of a given institution, and the Cornell Daily Sun is certainly no exception. Recently, the Cornell University Library and the Daily Sun embarked on a new digitization project to provide online access to previous editions of the paper dating back to the year 1880. First-time visitors to the site may want to start by just browsing through some of the back issues in all of their detail. Of course, visitors can also perform advanced and basic searches, but it should be noted that just typing in “Ithaca” will return many, many results. Other interesting searches include “Stalin” and “Saul Alinsky”, and no doubt there are others that will pique the interest of even the most casual user of this site. [KMG]

http://ucblibraries.colorado.edu/music/smp/index.html

Do you know the enchanting song that begins with the lyric “You may talk of golden strands, In the distant foreign lands”? Perhaps not, but if you browse over to the Digital Sheet Music Collection at the University of Colorado you can learn all of the words to “Colorado, My Own”, a ditty which was all the rage in 1916. So far, several hundred pieces of sheet music are currently available, all of which have been selected from the University’s own collection of approximately 150,000 items. Visitors to the site can learn about the digitization process, peruse a list of additional sheet music sites, and of course browse the complete archive of digitized songs by title or theme. [KMG]

http://www.sfmoma.org/kiefer/index.html

Heaven and Earth, a major exhibition by German artist Anselm Kiefer, organized by the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, has traveled to Montreal and Washington DC. SFMOMA, Heaven and Earth's final North American venue, October 2006 - January 2007, presents this interactive web feature to accompany the show. The exhibition includes over 40 paintings, made from the wide variety of materials that Kiefer typically uses in his work - clay, lead, ash, sand, gold leaf, dried plants and bits of machinery, as well as techniques such as melting, rubbing with dirt, and burning. Kiefer's paintings tend towards the monumental - The Hierarchy of Angels, 1986-87, loaned by the Walker Art Museum, is roughly 10 x 20 feet - but the Web feature makes up for its size limitations by allowing you to study details of paintings up close. For example, you can zoom in on the rough hunks of lead that Kiefer calls meteorites in Angels, as well as examining the iconography of another painting, Osiris and Isis, 1985-87. You can also hear Kiefer speak about his work in excerpts of a videotaped interview conducted at the Tate Modern in London, June 5, 2005 [DS]

http://diglib.princeton.edu/xquery?_xq=getCollection&_xsl=collection&_pid=ppl1

Most people have heard of the Manhattan Project, but a great many have probably never heard of Project Matterhorn. Started under the leadership of Lyman Spitzer at Princeton University in 1951, this was the code name given to a controlled thermonuclear research effort. With support from Princeton and the US Atomic Energy Commission, Spitzer began to outline the basic concept for creating the stellarator, which was a device for confining and heating ionized hydrogen gas to release fusion energy for the production of power. Recently, the Digital Collections group at Princeton digitized many of the primary documents associated with this project, and this site represents their fine efforts thus far. On the site, visitors can view the documents that described the proposed stellarator, and other documents which discuss how various particles and bodies might interact within this device. [KMG]

http://www.twentyvoices.com/

Over 85 years have passed since the Armenian Genocide of 1915, but the families of those that endured this event have not forgotten about this tremendous tragedy. This website, designed in conjunction with a recent documentary, tells some of the stories from that time, and it also offers an overview of Armenian life in the Ottoman Empire before and during 1915. First-time users will want to start by viewing the 8-minute video that provides a comprehensive introduction to these events. After viewing this film, visitors can view an interactive section that talks about Armenian life in Turkey. Overall, the website is visually engaging, and one can imagine that it could be well-suited for use in the classroom as part of a discussion on cultural geography. [KMG]

http://www.restaurantdoctor.com/index.html

Most people probably don’t want to hear the words “restaurant” and “doctor” in the same sentence, but for those seeking assistance with managing their own restaurant, hearing those two words together may be just the tonic they require. The restaurant doctor in question here is Bill Marvin, and he has created this site for those seeking free resources that address the mercurial nature of the restaurant business. Visitors can click on over to the “Free Resources” section and take a look at Marvin’s helpful electronic newsletter, which contains insights on everything from maintaining staff morale to dealing with changes in the industry. Additionally, visitors can pose queries on relevant topics on the restaurant forums that are available here. [KMG]