Timeframes is the image database from the Alexander Turnbull Library, a division of the National Library of New Zealand. The digital collection contains just over 42,000 images, ranging from publications, manuscripts, music, maps, sound recordings, ephemera (including posters, programs advertisements), photographs, cartoons, paintings, drawings and prints. It focuses on the geography, social and natural history of New Zealand, the Pacific and Antarctica from the point of European contact (c. 1642) to the present.

The homepage is user-friendly, yet some items, such as titles and images are not linked, which seems like an odd oversight. They become decorative rather than functional. If you register, the features are much more rewarding. There five top Browse categories organized alphabetically according to Name of people or organizations, Place, Subject, Māori Iwi/Hāpu (Tribe), and Genre of media, style and techniques. Under the A-Z Subject Browse top heading of "children," there are 831 results that include a large variety of sub-categories, from children sewing, to children - tobacco use and children with disabilities. It seems unlikely that all of the images that include children are returned by this search. Another major drawback is that only one search is allowed at a time. Opening multiple windows within the same session to run several searches simultaneously crashes the database.

The basic keyword search for "child" returned over 590 hits, while "youth" only 276. These are quite low considering the size of the database. While incongruously, there were 619 results for "girl" and 705 for "boy," thus these keywords are not consistently cross-referenced with "child." Some of the filtering is a bit generic, but like most research databases, trial and error will reveal how keywords, categories and cross-referencing has been applied by the data masters. Not being able to click on the titles themselves is a flaw throughout the site that can be frustrating. However, Timeframes is in the process of being upgraded with new features, including better search filters and image tagging abilities, which will add to its functionality.

The descriptive text record associated with each image is a part TAPUHI, the database of unpublished (original) manuscript and picture collections of the Alexander Turnbull Library. As much of the Turnbull collection is based on donated materials, it sometimes lacks useful information. For example, the image of film writer/directors Ann and Jane Campion barely includes basic information although these women are certainly around to add to the public record. Similarly, while there are many family and school albums that show candid as well as posed photographs, useful information is at a minimum. There are additional searching capabilities on the TAPUHI database for items that may not yet be online with Timeframes.

With such a variety of media available, a general search sometimes proves to be a bit too expansive. For example, the topic of "child abuse" yields primarily political cartoons. If one is familiar with the current legislation and the debate surrounding it, then these cartoons become valid, but without that context, they seem either disturbing or irrelevant. Narrowing the search by media in the Advanced Search menu can be a little more time consuming, but leads to more easily digestible returns. While the selection of images is in no way comprehensive compared to what is available in the actual collections, the ATL are readily responsive in assisting with researchers' queries. The quality of the images is quite high; most are print ready without any further adjustments.

In keeping with New Zealand's emphasis on biculturalism and adherence to the Treaty of Waitangi, there is information available in English and Māori. Teachers and researchers need to be aware, however, that the language of the database assumes some degree of familiarity with New Zealand culture. "Timeframes includes items of cultural value to Māori people and other New Zealanders. These taonga are carefully selected and carry the mana of their iwi (people), whichever medium may be represented." Definitions of such important cultural concepts as 'taonga' and 'mana' do not follow the disclaimer.

While any database that includes culturally sensitive material, Timeframes itself reveals a contemporary digital New Zealand negotiating its colonial past. In some cases the framework and data reveals continuing issues of perception and memory that affect the Nation as a whole. For example, pictures of Māori children are categorized as ethnographic by default and are not included in the general New Zealand children category.

Timeframes is solely for researching with no mandate for educational programming as such. With typical useful features, such as saved searches, search histories, and a favorite image basket for items to be reviewed or ordered later, teachers or students can create lists of individual items for further research or to share. Ultimately, while there are hundreds of images of children, the database can stand huge improvements on its teaching features and cross-referencing. Otherwise, it is not very functional as a tool for educators.

As a supplement, Matapihi, a database in English and Māori that includes images and information from many New Zealand cultural institutions including Timeframes, can be used to make a more comprehensive search. As well the National Library of New Zealand has general curriculum resources for teachers and students.

Allowing students to be active learners and researchers is an important and integral component of teaching. The Children of the Lodz Ghetto website hosted by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum attempts to provide a hands-on location for such an enterprise. It does so by having distinct areas on its home webpage wherein students can begin tackling a difficult problem: locating missing children who were deported and living in the Lodz (Poland) Ghetto during World War II.

A valuable book of student signatures was given to the ghetto's leader, Chaim Rumkowski, during the Jewish High Holidays in September 1941, two years after the start of the war. This book serves as the foundational research tool, the objective of which is to account for the fates of thousands of students from the ghetto in the following years. The website encourages researchers to try and obtain as much biographical information as possible about the young people listed in the book.

Today's students are given step-by-step instructions in beginning the research, asked to continue to seek out additional information and, probably most importantly, asked to collaborate to review and refine the information collected by others. Thus, the site wants to convey the collective nature of the research enterprise.

Five tabs are located under the webpage's title: "Home," "Student List," "Tutorial," "Research tips," and "My Research." The "How to Use this Site" feature is critical for students with a limited knowledge of the Holocaust. It provides a detailed guide on how to go about beginning the research, with crucial links to websites related to the Lodz ghetto within the Holocaust museum's online sources. These resources will help students proceed with their individual research. An alphabetical list of the more than 1,500 names of children (out of the more than 13,000 children who signed the book) is provided under the "Student List" tab.

The website is relatively easy to navigate. However, the design is a bit cluttered on the home page with duplicate areas for moving to "Research Tip" and "Lists of Students." One potential stumbling block for students conducting research is when they arrive at the student list. It appears that information is available on students in the Lodz Ghetto and subsequent deportation. But locating information beyond deportation appears difficult to obtain. Perhaps additional links within the Holocaust Museum's own website or outside links to other Holocaust-related web pages may encourage students to continue the research beyond the basic information located on the "Lodz Ghetto Inhabitants' Database." Naturally, the basic data needs to be entered before proceeding to further information. However, in order to continue to engage students in the importance and significance of their research enterprise, having additional links that contextualize the information beyond data entry would be helpful.

The alphabetical student lists, with names highlighted of those that are currently being researched, is very user friendly. It is encouraging that when additional biographical information is obtained on an individual, it generates online discussion and comments, perhaps in some cases leading to additional subsequent research on the person.

The website does teach a prospective student the value of beginning research with basic information before proceeding on to additional research. It also teaches that the enterprise is laborious, often perhaps tedious, and collaborative, but, in the end, is critical in enlarging one's understanding of the complexity of the Holocaust.

This website reinforces the idea that beyond the numberless victims, real people, often children the ages of the current student-researchers themselves, were hapless victims. Bringing this message down to the individual level makes the research students do ultimately much more meaningful.

20 June 1766

That in future the Statutary Law that no Children of free Heathen begotten on their female Slaves, whether the Estate be beforehand or not, may be sold, nor the Mothers of those Children, should the Estate be solvent, shall be observed, and it is likewise understood to forbid all Executors and Administrators of Estates without Exception and they are hereby forbidden accordingly to sell Children begotten by Christians on their Slaves whether the Estate be solvent or not; with authority to allow such a Child or Children to follow those who may apply for them and be willing to bring up those otherwise Unfortunates in the Reformed Religion; or in default of such should the children be descended from European Blood, but not otherwise, to give them to the Deacons of the Reformed Congregation in order to be brought up in the Poor House & instructed in the above mentioned manner.

That towards the Encouragement of Fidelity among the Slaves, with regard to those who possess them in property, such of them as rescue their Masters or Mistresses from any great Danger of their Lives or save them from being murdered, or use their utmost endeavor thereto at the risk of their own Lives, must immediately be made free and above all may not be sold either by their Masters, or by Executor or Administrators of Estates.

Children's Drawings of the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939 were produced by children evacuated from the war zones to 'colonies' in other parts of Spain and in southern France. The drawings depict subjects such as the bombing of villages, battle scenes with tanks and planes, events during the evacuations, and daily life in the colonies (or the past). A combined effort by the Spanish Board of Education and the Carnegie Institute of Spain led to the assemblage of a large collection of drawings during the war. Some of these drawings were sent to the United States in 1938 by Joseph A. Weissberger to support a campaign by the American Friends Service Committee to raise funds for further evacuations. The Quaker organization published a collection of 60 of drawings, under the title of And They Still Draw Pictures! (c. 1938), with a prologue by Aldous Huxley. Subsequently the drawings were dispersed among a number of institutions, the majority (609) went to the University of California at San Diego. The 153 drawings accessible on this web site were bequeathed to Columbia University in 1938 by a benefactor who, it is assumed, purchased them at an exhibition earlier that year. They later became part of the collection of the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library. As it happened, a former director of the Library, Angela Giral, was herself an evacuee from the Civil War. In a personal note, she cited Joseph Weissberger's description of the drawings as 'autobiographic pages of un-kept diaries'.

One can browse the collection in three ways: via the whole collection; the children's names; or the provinces where they resided as evacuees. This is helpful for family members trying to trace the work of relatives, but a thematic classification might have been more useful for teachers and researchers. The click of a mouse allows the browser to see a reasonably large version of each drawing, with the detail visible and the colors of the crayons used by the children vividly reproduced. There is also a caption giving the name and (where known) the age of the child, the colony to which they had been moved, and a brief description of the content in Spanish and English. Thus No. 22 explains: "This scene shows the day of the evacuation when, as we were about to climb into the train, we saw an airplane that was already firing and we had to go to a shelter nearby." Drawn by children between the ages of seven and fourteen, the pictures exhibited a considerable disparity between the untutored style of the majority, and the relatively sophisticated technique of a minority. No. 107, 'War Scene', for example, shows a woman grieving over her dead husband in a composition heavily indebted to The Angelus by Jean-François Millet.

There is a short section entitled "About the Collection," which contains little more information on the drawings beyond that summarized above. Hence we are given no help in understanding the context in which the drawings emerged, or the link between the drawings, the circumstances of the war, and the mindset of the children. Nevertheless, one might, for example, pose questions on the children's reactions to bombing, how they were evacuated, their new experiences in the colonies – and differences in the way boys and girls perceived the war. By way of comparison, scholars may find it useful to consult the more in-depth studies of children's drawings in wartime by the specialist in the Nazi occupation of Europe, Nicholas Stargardt. 1 At least the They Still Draw Pictures site gives the link to the web site for the San Diego collection. The latter reproduces the very up-beat introduction by Aldous Huxley. He notes the artistic talent of the younger children, free from what he sees as the dead hand of adult teaching. He also deplores the sad introduction the children received to one of the wonders of the modern age, the aeroplane, as bombs rained down on them from above.

In short, this is a potentially interesting collection that gives a child's perspective on the war, but from a teacher's point of view, there is very little help in ways of deploying it in the classroom.