The Vatican has launched a new digital library. “At a press conference in the Vatican on Wednesday, a new online digital library was launched, offering access to over a thousand papal documents on communications from the first to the twenty-first century. The initiative, known as the Baragli Project, features papal teachings on communication, translated into different languages, and is geared especially to those working in Catholic education and training centres.”
Monthly Archives: September 2015
Putting a Digital Archive on the Moon
Two companies are teaming up to put a digital archive on the moon. And they want your contributions. “Astrobotic Technology Inc. and Lunar Missions Ltd, the company behind the global, inclusive, not-for-profit crowd-funded Lunar Mission One, have signed a deal to send the first digital storage payload to the Moon. The payload will support Lunar Mission One’s ‘Footsteps on the Moon’ campaign, launched earlier today, which invites millions of people to include their footsteps – in addition to images, video and music – in a digital archive of human life that will be placed on the moon during Astrobotic’s first lunar mission.”
Bing Making TV Show Predictions
Bing is predicting the most popular TV shows this fall. “Using popular search terms from our users and historical data regarding what makes a TV show successful, Bing Predicts these ten shows will lead the season in popularity: The Walking Dead, The Bing Bang Theory, Empire, NCIS, Dancing with the Stars, Grey’s Anatomy, The Flash, Gotham, Supergirl and The Voice.” And I’ve never seen any of those shows so I have no snark to offer.
Library of Congress Upgrades Global Legal Monitor
The Library of Congress has launched an upgraded Global Legal Monitor. “The Global Legal Monitor is managed by editors Connie Johnson and Wendy Zeldin. They are also prolific authors who have each published more than 800 GLM articles. They are two of the 40 authors who have contributed almost 4,500 articles to the Global Legal Monitor.”
TNW On the New Chromecast Audio
Facebook Has 2.5+ M Advertisers
Zow: Facebook has over 2.5 million advertisers. “In June of 2013, Facebook formally announced that it had 1 million advertisers. Then, in February of this year, the company announced 2 million advertisers. And last night, it said it now had 2.5 million. Advertiser growth is clearly accelerating.” And some of them need to learn about geographically limiting their ads, because I’m afraid I can’t vote in any Virginia elections…
The Internet Is Full of Sh – Nah, Too Easy
New-to-me: today I learned there is an online museum of coprolites. (Coprolite is fossilized excrement, and I remember first learning that word from the Rona Jaffe book Mazes and Monsters, and I just admitted to reading Mazes and Monsters. Anyway.) It’s called the Poozeum. OF COURSE IT’S CALLED THE POOZEUM.
Making Better Webinars
Aimed at marketers, but good for anybody: 13 Tips for Producing an Incredible Webinar.
UCLA Researchers Launch LA Energy Atlas
UCLA researchers have launched the LA Energy Atlas. “UCLA researchers launched their new L.A. Energy Atlas today, a free searchable database that combines never-before-released data from energy utilities with public records to reveal previously undetectable patterns about how people, buildings and cities use energy. Researchers from the California Center for Sustainable Communities at UCLA have assembled information in a database that allows users to sort it by household income; building age, size or use; city or neighborhood; energy use per square foot; energy use per capita; and other metrics.”
Finding What You’re Looking for in IA Books
Ancestry Insider looks at a “bug” in the Internet Archive’s book viewer and shows how to work around it. I quoted “bug” because it’s less a bug and more a sub-optimal user interface.
Items From Duke-Peacock Records Digitized
The University of Houston has digitized a number of photos and other items from Duke-Peacock Records. “Almost 100 rare publicity photos and other items that once belonged to Duke-Peacock Records were put online recently by the University of Houston’s digital library, offering an invaluable glimpse into the innermost workings of the most important U.S. record labels of the post-WWII years. Run by the brilliant but tyrannical mastermind Don Robey, Duke-Peacock may not be quite as well-known as Memphis’s Sun Records or Chicago’s Chess Records, but many musicians, historians and record collectors believe it was just as significant.” Musicians represented here include Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, Otis Rush, and Johnny Ace.
Open Library of Humanities Has Launched
The Open Library of Humanities has launched. Here’s how it’s described on its About page: “The Open Library of Humanities (OLH) is a charitable organisation dedicated to publishing open access scholarship with no author-facing article processing charges (APCs). We are funded by an international consortium of libraries who have joined us in our mission to make scholarly publishing fairer, more accessible, and rigorously preserved for the digital future….Our mission is to support and extend open access to scholarship in the humanities – for free, for everyone, for ever.”
Crowdsourcing Data to Research Pediatric Asthma
In development: a database that aggregates information on air quality and pediatric asthma. “A team of University of Utah researchers has received a $5.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering to develop an informatics platform that will make it possible to crowdsource scientific data and, eventually, pinpoint the cause of a child’s wheezing…. [Julio] Facelli, along with co-principal investigator Kathy Sward, Ph.D., R.N., associate professor of biomedical informatics research at the College of Nursing, is leading teams to create an Internet-based ‘infrastructure’ that will enable kids with asthma, parents, doctors and researchers to feed real-time information into a comprehensive database.”
Electronic Records Day is October 10
I had no idea. Apparently Electronic Records Day is October 10. “Electronic Records Day is an opportunity to raise awareness among government agencies, related professional organizations, the general public and other stakeholders about the crucial role electronic records play in our world. Now in its fourth year, E-Records Day was created by the Council of State Archivists (CoSA) as part of its State Electronic Records Initiative (SERI). This year CoSA is promoting an entire week of electronic records awareness leading up to 10/10, with a special focus on electronic communications. Please join CoSA and others in observing E-records day in 2015!”
US Government Now Has Web Design Standards
HEY! This is post #1000.
The US Government now has a set of Web design standards. “The design of every component follows data-informed best practices, found both inside (DigitalGov) and outside (Nielsen Norman group articles) of government. Many components were derived from other agency and style guide patterns; more complex patterns were further tested with end users. We believe agencies should still usability test everything they build, but following the standards will help everyone avoid common pitfalls.”