Digital Collections of Games

After reading the chapter on Digital games in A Companion to Digital Literary Studies it realized I knew of two digital collections of games right off the top of my head.  I had never thought about a website full of games as a digital collection, but now it makes sense.  As a gamer, I would have to say these would have to be one of my personal favorite digital collections.  The two sites I use most frequently are http://www.realarcade.com and http://www.pogo.com.   Both sites offer a collection of games that the user can interact with, this includes games that are downloadable as well as games that are played strictly online.  The games are divided into catergories: Arcade; Puzzle; Word; Card; etc.  Real Arcade, as well as Pogo, offer the ability for the user to become a member of the gaming community which gives the user more benefits for a small fee.  Pogo and Real Arcade both have newsletters that are delivered to your email address which show you what new games they have as well as games that my be discounted.  I would recommed both of these sites as “FUN” digital collections.

Add a comment September 28, 2008

A beautiful collection I found

I found a collection of photographs that I find just beautiful.  It is a digital collection from the University of Louisville.  The collection is photographs taken by Kate Matthews (1870-1956), a pioneering woman photographer of Pewee Valley, Kentucky.  I personally had never heard of her, but I love photograph collections and was pleasantly surprised when I stumbled across this one.  The collection consists of 431 items.

Kate Matthews is best known for her photographs depicting characters in the Little Colonel series of children’s books written by her friend and neighbor Annie Fellows Johnston.  She relied almost exclusively on her own community and acquaintances as subjects, and her photographs represent her interests in costume studies, literary allegory, and scenes of everyday life.

In an time when few women ventured into photography, Matthews won prizes at the Kentucky State Fair, in contests in Chicago, Columbus, and Pittsburgh, and in other regional and national competitions. She had photographs published in The American Annual of Photography seventeen times between 1896 and 1923. Her photos also ran in The Youth’s Companion, Cosmopolitan, Vogue, Ladies’ Home Journal, Good Housekeeping, Illustrated American, Forward, The Brown Book of Boston and Burr McIntosh Monthly.  Pretty impressive for a woman of this time, especially for one who rarely traveled very far from her home.

Not only is this a lovely collection of photographs, but also an interesting story of a woman who didn’t follow the typical standards and lived her life as she wanted.

1 comment September 18, 2008

Musings on Digital Collections

As I’ve been researching more about digital collections I wonder what makes a true digital collection and what is just a collection of digital items.  While I did get a better understanding after reading Lee’s article, I still feel there are some collections out there that are more digital items than a true collection at least in my opinion.  I guess my question is more who makes the decsion that a collection is worth digitizing?  Just because the collection may be of interest to you does this make it of value?  I guess some of these questions are coming from me pondering what would I like to select for my collection for this class.  I have a few ideas on what I might like to do, but I worry about the overall value of the collection.  I’m sure I will continue to ponder on this subject.

1 comment September 15, 2008

3 of my favorite Digital Collections

Even though I haven’t really thought about digital collections per say I realized some of the sites I visit regularly are actually digital collections.

The first site is Hulu.  Hulu is a site of TV shows, movies and even video game trailers.  Not all TV shows or movies are available, but a wide variety is accessible.  Hulu even has a section called Collections which are collections of TV shows or movies on various subjects, for example: Classic War Movies, 2008 Emmy Nominees-Comedy, Great Sport Cameos, etc.  You can browse both the TV and movie sections to see what is available or you can look at what is popular.  I really like this site because I can re-watch some of my favorite shows, or catch up on episodes I’ve missed.

The second site is iTunes.  iTunes is a site that is a collection of music, videos, audiobooks, movies and games you can purchase to listen to or watch on your computer and iPod.  iTunes also has a wide variety of podcast that you can subscribe to or just browse to listen to at your leisure.  I love the ability to preview songs and albums before I purchase them.  With iTunes you can also listen to songs from around the world, instead of just what is at your local store.

The third site is NetLibrary.  NetLibrary is essentially a collection of e-books.  I discovered this site while preparing for giving tours to the English Comp classes.  I have found all kinds of useful books in this collection.  I was very excited to find a few books Dr. Van Fleet recommended for Reader’s Advisory.  This is an excellent resource to give people access to books they might not have immedate access to otherwise.  NetLibrary even has the abilty for you to create a username which allows you to save books in your favorites to access later.

1 comment September 9, 2008