Week 1 Online Resource: Sundials (of course!)

For my online SUNDIAL resource, I decided to create two things: a meta-resource of sundial links at Diigo and a blog post compiling information about a specific sundial and its Latin inscription. I was inspired to work on sundials because the Stonehenge video really got me thinking about sundials; see my discussion contribution about Stonehenge for more about that: Stonehenge and Sundials.

DIIGO SUNDIAL LINKS

Diigo is a free social bookmarking service. It allows you to create bookmarks, access them online, and also share them. You can also download your bookmarks in order to have a local copy for back-up. So, I've bookmarked some sundial resources, labeled them (JanuxHSCI sundials) and I am now sharing my Diigo sundials link list here!

The main reason to use Diigo instead of just typing out a list of links to post here is that this Diigo list is DYNAMIC. That is really important! It means that if/when I add new links (which I hope to do; I am very excited about this project), you will see the latest links, and I can also clear out old links that go bad. I can annotate the links, too, as I work my way through them and learn more about them, and you will see my annotations. None of that is possible with a static list that I might type out here. Moreover, if I type out some list here inside Janux, I imagine it will be seen by maybe two or three people (???) and then thrown out at the end of the class (???). Rather than creating something with inherently limited value like that, I prefer to use a tool like Diigo to make my work more useful to myself and to others, both now and over time!

Here are the kinds of links I have included in my Diigo list (appx. 50 links at this time):

• Wikipedia articles (I am a big fan of Wikipedia, both for information and also as an image source)
• Online books from Internet Archive
• Online books from Google Books
• Useful websites, with a preference given to .edu websites

BESTIARIA LATINA SUNDIALS

I've got a long-running Latin blog called Bestiaria Latina, and I add new content to the blog based on topics of interest. So, I have always been interested in sundials and their Latin mottoes, but I never did a series of blog posts about that... but I have started a sundial series now, thanks to this class!

As my first item in the sundial series, I have posted about a lovely sundial from Cornwall, and I will try to add one or two sundials every week. The post has a picture of the sundial, the Latin inscription and an English translation, along with some commentary and additional references. I am really glad that this class prompted me to start this series. I was looking for a new content series to add to my blog this year, and I think sundials will be wonderful! They are a beautiful combination of text and object, and I hope during this class to learn more about the astronomical science of sundials as well.

Pereunt et Imputantur