The Chronicle reported Tuesday about the Catalog of Digitized Medieval Manuscripts. This is a simple, lovely new resource developed by a UCLA professor of English, Matthew Fisher, to identify and index the digital manuscripts that are currently scattered across the web and difficult to find.
It’s a very simple idea, and not one designed for its commercial appeal but surely one that could usefully be applied to, say, North American buildings built before 1800, referencing HABS, statewide surveys, etc., and including fields for name, location (ideally in lat-long format), date, and a link to the resource. It would be simple but labor-intensive to build, and a major boon to scholars and students of early American architecture.
There’s so much material available, I guess we’re back to needing Yahoo!, at least for scholars.
All That Is Solid 