Steven F. Daniel, NewsBank [parent company of Readex]. “Around the world in 80 documents: International content in 19th-century congressional publications.” Last presentation of the institute! Go Readex, y’all inspired me to blog THE WHOLE THING. That’s a first.
Get this: it’s possible for Jules Verne’s Phileas Fogg (protagonist of Around the World in 80 Days) to go through Readex’s Congressional Serial Set and pull a document on every country he visits during his journey. Not only that, he can pull information on every steamship line involved. Awesome.
Steven takes us through every one of the places that Fogg visits on his travels. We are shown documents relating to:
– the London Penitentiary Congress (1872);
– Paris Commune: Letters from the US Ambassador;
– P&O Steamship Co.;
– Suez Canal at the Philadelphia Exposition;
– Irrigation in India, a letter from the Secretary of the Treasury;
– Elephants, a letter from the King of Siam proposing to populate America’s forests with them;
– Singapore, with photographs from Commodore Perry’s report on his voyage to Japan in the 1850s;
– Hong Kong: Letters from the US Consulate;
– Slavery in China: Letters from Shanhai Consulate;
– Tea in Japan, a letter from the Secretary of State;
– Pacific Mail Steamship Co. (Fogg takes it to across the Pacific, from Asia to San Francisco);
– Railroad across America (a Memorial of the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California);
– Cunard Line [of ships] (Fogg misses this one and has to take another ship);
– Irish labor conditions (a letter from the Secretary of State); aaand
– London Exposition (another letter from the Secretary of State regarding the exhibition of 1871).
Other tasks, projects, fun things to do with the Serial Set:
– write a paper at 2am in your dorm room;
– sail up the Amazon;
– study the antiquities of Easter Island;
– read a biography of the last Emperor of Brazil;
– explore the Congo;
– sail the Dead Sea;
– cool off in the Arctic or Antarctic;
– study the sieve of Sebastopol [vz: Sevastopol] or learn why Bolivia has no seacoast.
What a way to demo a digital document collection. That’s awesome. A great note to leave the institute on. Thank you, Readex.
Okay, some of the other stuff at Readex sounded pretty cool, but this is awesome. (Glad to see you blogging again, too!)