The state of New Jersey is going to publish a database of teacher ratings, but not ratings for specific teachers. “The data, which will be released next week, will allow parents to see how many teachers in a school received each of the four possible ratings. It will not include performance ratings for specific teachers, the state said.”
The government of Uganda has started a gender-based violence database. “NGBVD is an online management information system that is designed to collect, store and analyze Gender Based Violence (GBV) data in both humanitarian and non-humanitarian settings. The web based software, according the Ministry for Gender, Labour and Social Development will also make GBV incident reporting and response services more evidence based.”
A Tokyo company is going to digitize a collection of historic globes from France and put them online. “Dai Nippon Printing Co. will digitally copy 55 of the historic terrestrial and celestial globes in the National Library of France’s collection so that people can view them on screen. The globes were handcrafted in Europe and the Middle East from the 11th to the 19th centuries, are extremely valuable, and include a 15th-century copy of the world’s oldest terrestrial globe.”
Want to play with a bunch of in Google Docs? there’s an add-on for that. “Available as a free add-on via Google Docs, Extensis Fonts provides a panel where you can browse, preview and apply fonts directly from within Google documents.”
Universities are teaming up to create a digital archive of the Baltimore protests. “To date more than 1,200 items have been donated to the archive including photographs, videos, and eyewitness oral histories. A website has been set up by Denise Meringolo, an associate professor of history at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County to display the historical archive.”
Oooh, another fun find from Peta Pixel. This time it’s an archive of Leica photography magazines. There are 70 issues available and they date back to 1949. The site includes a 52-page PDF index of all uploaded issues which gives a detailed table of contents. Someone put a heck of a lot of work into this. Beautifully done. Pro tip, when you’re using the archive, click on a cover and then click horizontally to browse the issues available. Scroll vertically to browse the PDFs themselves.
The state of Texas has launched a new Web site providing information for parents of special-needs children (PRESS RELEASE). “NavigateLifeTexas.org was built for anyone who needs to find relevant, comprehensive, and accurate information about services in Texas for children with disabilities and special health care needs. The site was designed by parents, for parents, but it’s a valuable resource for caregivers, clinicians, professionals, and support groups as well. A Spanish version of the site is at AvancemosJuntosTexas.org…. Categories on the website include ‘Diagnosis and Healthcare,’ ‘Insurance and Financial Help,’ ‘Family Support,’ ‘Education and Schools,’ and ‘Transition to Adulthood.’ Visitors can enter their ZIP code to search for support groups, services, and events that are specific to their region. The data provided on the site has been vetted by parents, physicians, parent organizations, subject matter experts, and state agencies.”
Useful to me because I’m a language nerd (and language is ridiculously important in search) – a map of metaphors. “Experts have now created the world’s first online Metaphor Map, which contains more than 14,000 metaphorical connections sourced from 4m pieces of lexical data, some of which date back to 700AD.” Read the help guide.
The Government Printing Office (GPO) has released the Mobile Member Guide app for the 114th Congress. “The mobile Web app provides the public with quick, easy access to information on Members of the 114th Congress; the features include their picture, party affiliation, hometown, home state, and length of service. The app allows users to browse for Members of Congress by last name, state, chamber, or party.”
There’s a new archive available telling the stories of families who went through World War I. “The Army Children of the First World War project was set up as a digital archive to tell the stories of ordinary people who lived through the 1914-1918 conflict. The aim was to inspire both young and old to connect with the events of a century ago. Those behind the site have stuck to their promise of uploading a new image every week and few months on the website is packed with images and postcards written by soldiers on the frontline and sent back to loved ones in Leeds.”
Japanese internment camp archives held at San Jose State University and other California Universities will be digitized. “Over the next two years, San Jose State and 14 other campuses in the California State University system will be digitizing 10,000 documents into a searchable database called the CSU Japanese American History Digitization Project.”
It’s not a new resource per se; the new bit is that it doesn’t cost anything. The Cleveland Jewish News digital archive is now available for free. “On July 1, the Cleveland Jewish News unlocked its Digital Archive, making every story, photograph and advertisement available at the push of a few buttons….Issues of the CJN will be made publicly available online 90 days after publication. CJN digital edition subscribers have immediate access to all content as it is published.” I had to provide my name and e-mail to access, but I didn’t have to set up an account or anything.
History Colorado has launched an online database of selected items in its collection. “The database launched with images of 80,000 items and is continuing to grow. This database is an excellent resource for researchers to find primary sources on Colorado’s history.”
The country of Kenya has a new database to help farmers with seed selection. “Mbegu means seed in Kiswahili language. According to the developers, MbeguChoice, which is the first of its kind in Sub-Saharan Africa, allows Kenyan farmers, agro-dealers and extension workers to analyse information on counties, crops, seasons and crop attributes such as drought-tolerance, disease- and pest-resistance, resulting in a list of suitable seed varieties and where they can be obtained.”
Now available: an annotated database about the papers of Andrew Jackson. “Since 1971, The Papers of Andrew Jackson project has been dedicated to transcribing and publishing Old Hickory’s entire written record. A worldwide search has gathered copies of every known surviving Jackson document, including letters he wrote and received, official and military papers, presidential addresses, drafts, memoranda, legal papers and financial records. Now a fully searchable and annotated database of these documents is available online. The Papers of Andrew Jackson Digital Edition joins a short list of prestigious editorial projects available within The American Founding Era Collection, a digital publication of the University of Virginia Press.” Looks like this is a subscription site.
The ResearchBuzz Firehose is regular RB content presented as individual posts.
For digest-type posts a couple of times a day, please visit ResearchBuzz.
Want to know how to best use the Firehose for content discovery?
Check out this handy article.