We start off this week’s “What We’re Reading,” with three newsworthy items: NARA’s recent “Founders Online” report, the appointment of a new director at the Institute for the Study of Europe, and recent bills in Congress on “orphan works.” Next we link to two book reviews, one in which Robert McHenry examines the term “whig history,” and another where Anne Applebaum showcases how mighty (and scathing) the pen can be. Then, we turn to the digital realm, linking to a PowerPoint presentation on “Web 2.0 for Archivists,” and then to a survey on the quality of digital texts. Finally, watch an interview with the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s president Richard Moe, and check out Australian historian Ian Tyrrell’s new blog.

• NARA Issues “Founding Fathers” Report to Congress
  Lee White at the National Coalition for History notes a new NARA report, called “The Founders Online,” that lays out a “plan for providing online access [to the papers of the Founding Fathers of America], within a reasonable timeframe, to researchers, students and the general public”.
• Historian Victoria de Grazia Named Director of Institute for the Study of Europe
  Columbia University recently announced that historian Victoria de Grazia is the new director of the Institute for the Study of Europe.
• Can You Use Orphan Works?
  Stan Katz defines “orphan works” and explains the recent bills in the House and Senate that pertain to them.
• Whig History and Whig Biography
  Robert McHenry at the Britannica Blog takes a look at British historian John Burrow’s book, A History of Histories, and examines the term “whig history.”
• The Blog of War
  Historian and columnist Anne Applebaum demonstrates that history scholarship can be defended with style in a devastating review of Nicholson Baker’s Human Smoke.
• Web 2.0 for Archivists
  This PowerPoint presentation on SlideShare, created by the ArchivesNext bloggers, demystifies Web 2.0 and offers examples of how archivists (though also applicable for historians) can use blogs, podcasts, twitter, Facebook, wikis, and more.
• Evaluating the quality of electronic texts
  Lisa Spiro’s survey of digital sources continues, with a review of the quality, convenience of use, and reputation of the different data sources.
• Richard Moe Interviewed on “The Q & A Cafe with Carol Joynt”
  The National Trust for Historic Preservation’s blog PreservationNation has posted the YouTube video of their President Richard Moe being interviewed by Carol Joynt.
• Ian Tyrrell – Blog
  Ian Tyrrell, an Australian historian whose book Historians in Public is one of the more interesting recent surveys of our discipline here in the United States (see his 2006 interview in Perspectives) just started up his own blog at http://iantyrrell.wordpress.com/

Contributors: David Darlington, Elisabeth Grant, Robert Townsend

This post first appeared on AHA Today.