382 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
382 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
culture
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8296365
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-----
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# The best online culture archives
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## As Google launch their new Art Project, Florence Waters looks at how - and
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why - cultural institutions are smartening up their digital reputations.
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![threadsoffeeling.com][1]
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Image 1 of 3
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The Foundling Hospital's online exhibition showcases 18th century fabrics,
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kept as an identifying record of abandoned children: threadsoffeeling.com
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Photo: threadsoffeeling.com
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![Culture archives online - YFA][2]
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Image 1 of 3
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The Eccentric Burglary, an Edwardian trick film shot in Sheffield, 1905 at the
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Yorkshire Film Archive: yfaonline.com Photo: YFA
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![Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid on googleartproject.com][3]
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Image 1 of 3
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A tour through Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid on googleartproject.com
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[![][4]][5]
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By [Florence Waters][6] 4:07PM GMT 01 Feb 2011
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[Comments][7]
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Earlier today I took a tour around the airy light-filled rooms of Prague's
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Museum Kampa, a gallery I know nothing about in a city I've never visited. I
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was, simultaneously, standing in Gallery 9 of the Tate Britain on London's
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Millbank eating a jam bruschetta.
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I was at the launch of [Google Art Project][8], an ambitious immersive online
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cultural museum, which invites you to free virtual tours around 385 rooms
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from17 of the world's major institutions, including the Tate, the New York
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Met, and the Ufizzi in Florence.
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The relationship between technology and cultural institutions are entering
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their "second generation," according to Tate director Nicholas Serrota.
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"Images are no longer just uploaded onto a website, but can be made
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stimulating and engaging," he says.
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The rate at which the world's cultural heritage is being made available in
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digital form has been dramatically accelerated in recent months. In January,
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the EU published [a report][9] which estimated that a "necessary" 100 billion
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Euros would need to be found to fund the "gigantic" task of making Europe's
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archives freely available to all. According to Google's head of print
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partnerships, Santiago de la Mora, there is a great demand for it. "Of our 15
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million digitally archived books, 80% are accessed and used at least once a
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month - that's a significant figure."
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The million dollar - or should I say 100 billion Euro - question is: what
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shape should this ambitious archive project take?
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## Related Articles
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* [Worth a thousand words][10]
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05 Apr 2011
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* [Google's 7 billion pixel masterpieces][11]
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01 Feb 2011
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* [The trouble with Google's Art Project][12]
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01 Feb 2011
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* [Art galleries on Street View][13]
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01 Feb 2011
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* [Visit world's art galleries with Google][14]
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01 Feb 2011
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Google's Art Project does not feel like the answer. Not only expensive, it
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prizes showy new technology over and above each museum's potential as a
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resource. The 17 masterpieces in 7 billion pixels are impressive, but where's
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the information? When there is so much potential online for delving into the
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museum's unseen archives and history, it seems short-sighted to instead offer
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up a lesser version of a walking tour of the gallery. This project, funded
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entirely by Google, feels more like an advert for the internet giant than the
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museums themselves.
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However, if you dig deep you will find all sorts of surprising projects, some
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of them small-scale privately-funded initiatives, offering their own answer to
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this question. Here are 15 of the best:
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**FIVE MOST USEFUL **
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**1. Europeana | [europeana.eu][15]**
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In January the EU published a report, 'The New Renaissance', ruling that by
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2016 "all public domain masterpieces" in Europe should be accessible through
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Europeana. Funded by the EC, the site has already has 15 million items, from
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maps to music, donated by institutions from the British Library to the Louvre.
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**Browse: **Austrian and German libraries have provided an encyclopaedic
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collection of [original audio][16] of Hitler's compelling addresses to the
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Reich.
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**2. Google Books | [books.google.com][17]**
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15 million publications, encompassing the complete works of Shakespeare and
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every page of every issue of Life magazine. Sophisticated tools like 'Wordle'
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and '[Ngram Viewer][18]' are faster and infinitely more engaging than the
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traditional index or database. Sorry Google-phobes, this is definitely the
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most browsable digital library out there.
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**Browse: **[John Cassell's 1864 'Illustrated history of England'][19]
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**3. Moma | [moma.org/collection][20]**
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The most comprehensive digital modern art archive by a single institution to
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date, with images of 34,000 works - the entire Moma collection, including
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quality reproductions of sketches, photographs and ephemera that aren't
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displayed in the galleries.
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**Browse:** some of the earliest artistic photographs ever captured, by
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[William Henry Fox Talbot, including his sublime 1844 image 'Loch
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Katrine'][21] which must be seen in full screen.
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**4. Poetry Foundation | [poetryfoundation.org][22]**
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Essentially a multimedia magazine, but with a compendium of poems, lectures,
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essays and readings, the best of which are the crackly historic recordings of
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modern American poets reading their own work.
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**Browse:** listen to the gravely voice of three-time [Pulitzer Prize winner
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Carl Sandburg][23] deliver frank opinions about television, and perform his
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poem 'For You' to a bemused audience in Chicago, 1956.
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**5. Film archives | [filmarchives-online.eu][24]**
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A fairly dry, but easily navigable and multi-lingual umbrella site for
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Europe's film archives. The news board is worth watching; learn about the
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latest digitised restorations such as the BFI's campaign to get Hitchcock's
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earliest silent films digitised and available online for free.
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**Browse:** Late Victorian and Edwardian film company [Mitchell & Kenyon's
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charming 35mm footage][25] of holiday makers on the Morecambe sea front, 1901.
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**FIVE MOST INNOVATIVE **
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**1. ** **Prado on Google Earth | [google.com/prado][26]**
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Examine up-close the brushstrokes on some of the world's greatest
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masterpieces, from Velazquez to Goya, in three dimensions.
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**2. The Foundling Hospital | [threadsoffeeling.com][27]**
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More than 4,000 babies were left at the Foundling Hospital between 1741 and
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1760. A small object or token, usually a piece of fabric, was kept as an
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identifying record. This is a touching online-only exhibition of the contents
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of the museum's fabric archives, photographed in exquisite detail so that you
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can see the threads. [Until 6 March 2011]
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**3. 'I Remain' | [digital.lib.lehigh.edu][28]**
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A lovingly-compiled collection of hundreds of historic letters - many of them
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have been photographed with envelope still intact - spanning five centuries,
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and featuring records from great historic figures from Orson Welles to Bach.
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**4. Van Gogh's Letters | [vggallery.com/letters][29] **
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You could fork out £450 for the Thames and Hudson book of Van Gogh's recently
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publicised illustrated letters - or, conveniently, you can view all 902
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letters, translated, here.
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**5. Donald Judd library | [library.juddfoundation.org][30] **
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The artist's meticulously arranged collection of 13004 books has been
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recreated virtually, in illustrated form. Even if you don't like minimalist
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sculpture, it's worth seeing because it's beautifully conceived and a
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sophisticated example of just what's possible for artist's legacies online -
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if they have a wealthy foundation behind them.
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**BEST OF BRITISH **
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**1. ** **Tate | [tate.org.uk][31]**
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The Tate's online archive is still full of holes, but it is one of the most
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forward-looking. John Stack, head of Tate.org.uk, says that "the next level of
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museum experience is online". He is currently working with curators and
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lawyers to explore new ways of presenting "the artists voice" online, through
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sketchbooks, letters, video and their very best archive material. The new site
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will launch this Spring.
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**Browse:** ['Archive Journeys': take a tour through the history of the
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Bloomsbury group][32]
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**2. Yorkshire Film Archive | [yfaonline.com][33]**
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My favourite discovery; beautifully restored shorts by amateurs and
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professionals dating back to the 1890s. It's a museum in its own right, a
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journey through time, a funny and disturbing portrait of life in the north of
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England.
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**Browse:** [The Eccentric Burglary, an Edwardian trick film shot in
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Sheffield, 1905][34]
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**3. Archive of the Now | [archiveofthenow.org][35]**
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This compendium might as well be called 'What is contemporary British poetry?'
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A lecturer at Brunel University, Andrea Brady, has had the simple but
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enlightened idea of compiling an ever-growing archive of readings by well-
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respected poets living and working in Britain today.
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**Browse: **Recorded after a party, in the early hours of the morning, a
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remarkable, highly charged [audio clip of British poet J.H.Prynne reading
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'Cocaine' by John Wieners][36].
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**4. Archive of irreverent miscellanies | [digitalmiscellaniesindex.org][37]**
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Oxford's Bodleian library is home to the largest collection of out of print
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eighteenth-century poetic miscellanies in the world. This three-year project,
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still under way, aims to make them all available online, including 'An
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Extempore upon a Faggot', a ditty laden with sexual innuendo and attributed to
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John Milton.
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**Browse:** [Audio samples of eighteenth-century musical miscellaneity][38]
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**5. Peel Street Caves | [via nottingham.ac.uk][39] **
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In 1892 the 200m-long caves became a tourist attraction known as 'Robin Hood's
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Mammoth Cave', a former sand mine beneath the city. They are now closed to the
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public, but, courtesy of the Nottingham Caves Survey, you can take a journey
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through digitised 3D laser scans of the dimly-lit caverns. Who could possibly
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not be curious?
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**Browse:** [Peel Street Caves][39]
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_Have you found any? Please leave links to your own discoveries in the comment
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box below_
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[X][40] Share & bookmark
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Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz
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[What are these?][41]
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* Share: [Share][40] [ ][42] [ ][43]
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[Tweet][44]
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/8296365/The-best-online-culture-
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archives.html
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Telegraph
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## [Culture][45]
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* ### [Technology »][46]
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* ### [Art »][47]
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* ### [Art Sales »][48]
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* ### [Books »][49]
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* ### [Culture News »][50]
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[X][40] Share & bookmark
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[What are these?][41]
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Share:
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* [ ][40]
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* [ ][42]
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* [ ][43]
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* [Tweet][44]
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* Advertisement
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![][51]
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telegraphuk
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Please enable JavaScript to view the [comments powered by Disqus.][52] [blog
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comments powered by Disqus][53]
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Advertisement
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### [The Hay Festival][54]
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The latest news, pictures and features on The Telegraph Hay Festival
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[![Telegraph Hay Festival][55]][54]
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Culture Most Viewed
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* TODAY
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5. ['Margaret Thatcher' actress Janet Brown dies][60]
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var puffs_8120648 = new Array();
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