New Series: Random Things To Inspire

by Lara Sanderson

Hi All,

So this a random series, posted at random times, about random yet postgrad related stuff. It came about because I keep happening on a plethora of resources that may or may not be useful to other people - especially for presentations and/or posters. Some make take a little imagination to think how or when you might like to use the resource or they may simply sit in your consciousness till one day someone asks you a question and you have that "aha!" moment. I'm kinda like the resource Ninja - I pounced when you weren't looking and wrestled you to the ground like this baby bear! Which segues nicely to my first resource website which is actually an online journal that has collated many of the public domain collections in one easy to access site The Public Domain Review.

The Public Domain Review has tapped into many museum collections including the UK National Archives and subsequently their time line for material spans pre 16th Century right up to the 20th Century all of which have fallen out of copyright ergo available to use*. Excitingly they have multimedia content from images and films, to audio for you to explore! Including some cheeky GIFS like the first ever kiss caught on film! Saucy!

 

As part of the collection every fortnight they share long essays written by postgrads and scholars alike on various themes like the smile in portraits. This provides hours of interesting and stimulating reading - great for random bits of knowledge that may be useful in a pub quiz or to inspire you along your research journey. 

“All the effort in the world won't matter if you're not inspired.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Diary

*make sure to check how you can use the materials e.g. modifiable.