Today’s What We’re Reading features rare civil rights era photos, a “crisis of mediocre teaching,” the pitfalls of big data, and much more!

History Links

Food Historian Savors Washington’s Culinary Heritage

Roll Call features our own Amanda Moniz (assistant director of the National History Center) as she combines local history, early African American cookbooks, and baking.

VCU Releases Rare Collection of Civil Rights Protest Photos

Over 250 photos taken in 1963 at a Farmville, Virginia, civil rights protest have been digitized and incorporated into a new digital exhibit.

Teaching

Educators Point to a “Crisis of Mediocre Teaching”

Vimal Patel discusses the major progress some institutions are making in teaching methods and graduate curriculum.

National Library Week

The Day the Books Went Blank

Digital Humanities

Software and Services for Managing Group Tasks

Here are some useful tips on what to think about when looking for software to help manage collaborative projects.

How to Lie with Data Visualization

A very clear piece on how charts can be manipulated to give a false impression of the meaning of the data they are supposed to be helping the user to interpret.

Eight (No, Nine!) Problems with Big Data

A very clear piece on what we can and can’t do with big data and the pitfalls of thinking it can do too much that puts it in historical context.

This post first appeared on AHA Today.