Silicon Republic: Courtsdesk receives £70,000 to build legal database for UK journalists. “Dublin-based Courtsdesk has received £70,000 in funding to build a service supplying listings and outcomes of criminal court cases to journalists in the UK.”
Wales
Shielding: Allowed to leave home – but choosing to stay indoors (BBC)
BBC: Shielding: Allowed to leave home – but choosing to stay indoors. “People across England and Wales with health conditions that make them particularly vulnerable to coronavirus were allowed to spend time outdoors on Monday for the first time in 10 weeks. But some opted to stay at home.”
ITV News: Coal Authority to create single database for safety of old coal tips in Wales
ITV News: Coal Authority to create single database for safety of old coal tips in Wales. “Information about coal tips around Wales will be put onto a single database to better manage their safety. The Welsh Government said it is part of ongoing work to assess the safety of all tips, following landslides during severe weather in February.”
Find. Map. Save: join the search to save thousands of miles of lost historic paths (Ramblers)
Ramblers: Find. Map. Save: join the search to save thousands of miles of lost historic paths. “An estimated 10,000 miles of historic paths – the equivalent of the distance from London to Sydney – are thought to be missing from the map in England and Wales. These historic paths are a vital part of our heritage, describing how people have travelled over the centuries, yet if they are not claimed by 2026, we risk losing them forever. We want to build a movement of ‘citizen geographers’ to help find all these missing rights of way before it’s too late.”
Business News Wales: National Library of Wales to Lead on Welsh Wikipedia Project
Business News Wales: National Library of Wales to Lead on Welsh Wikipedia Project. “The 12-month pilot project is funded by the Welsh Government and will see the library’s National Wikimedian working with Menter Iaith Môn, WJEC and subject specialists. Together, they will identify the 100 most important events and themes studied for the subject of history in Welsh primary and secondary schools and develop techniques to structure relevant information regarding the topics to publish on the Welsh Wikipedia.”
Jewish communities: ‘Race against time’ to preserve south Wales history (BBC)
BBC: Jewish communities: ‘Race against time’ to preserve south Wales history. “Efforts have begun to preserve 250 years of Jewish history in south Wales, after historians warned there was a ‘race against time’ to record stories. The Jewish History Association of South Wales (JHASW) has been awarded a grant of almost £55,000 from the National Lottery Heritage Fund.”
Slate: Welsh Wikipedia Gives Me Hope
Slate: Welsh Wikipedia Gives Me Hope. “Google announced in February that it had expanded its offerings in Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drive to include Welsh. And Google Translate—infamous since 2009 for its Scymraeg, or scummy Welsh—has, according to the BBC, recently taken a great leap forward in terms of the accuracy and quality of its Welsh translations. Morlais and others attribute this in part to the fact that there are now more than 100,000 articles on the Welsh version of Wikipedia, known as Wicipedia.”
BBC: Wales’ national broadcast archive gets £4.7m grant
BBC: Wales’ national broadcast archive gets £4.7m grant. “A £9m project to create a national broadcast archive is set to go ahead after securing a £4.7m lottery grant. The National Heritage Lottery money follows an initial £160,000 grant awarded last year to develop the scheme.”
News from Wales: Welsh Social Media Network “Tŵt” Now Open to the Public
News from Wales: Welsh Social Media Network “Tŵt” Now Open to the Public. “Tŵt is built on open-source technology and connects to a network of networks that boasts two million members, providing an instant audience and source of connections for new users. Unlike other social media platforms, the interface is fully available in Welsh and supports the use of non-English text.” This appears to be a singularly-purposed Mastodon setup.
University of Glasgow: White Paper raises concerns about access to the nation’s digital past
University of Glasgow: White Paper raises concerns about access to the nation’s digital past. “People are struggling to access a treasure trove of the UK’s modern digital archives due to physical, technological and legal barriers, academics have warned in a White Paper published today. The paper says that unless regulations are changed to take account of user needs in the fast-paced modern world then this priceless national digital resource could become obsolete for future generations.”
Business News Wales: £1 Million for Museums, Archives and Libraries in Wales
Business News Wales: £1 Million for Museums, Archives and Libraries in Wales. “In addressing the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) Wales Annual Conference last week, the Deputy Minister for Culture, Sport and Tourism, Lord-Elis-Thomas, announced that museums, archives and libraries in Wales will benefit from nearly £1 million Welsh Government capital funding to develop and enhance their facilities and services.”
BBC: BBC urged to increase National Broadcast Archive for Wales funding
BBC: BBC urged to increase National Broadcast Archive for Wales funding. “The BBC should commit more to the running costs of a new National Broadcast Archive for Wales, the deputy minister for culture has said. Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas has refused to commit funding for the project at the National Library of Wales because of fears over its long-term sustainability. He told the assembly’s culture committee the BBC needed to increase its financial support for the plans in order to proceed.”
BBC: National BBC broadcast archive in Aberystwyth in doubt
BBC: National BBC broadcast archive in Aberystwyth in doubt. “Plans to create a broadcast archive for Wales have been thrown into doubt after the Welsh Government withdrew support. The £9m project at the National Library of Wales (NLW) in Aberystwyth was due to become home to 160,000 recordings from the BBC Wales programme archive.”
BBC: Guide to help book lovers explore Welsh locations
BBC: Guide to help book lovers explore Welsh locations. “Book lovers will no longer have to rely on their imaginations to picture the scene of novels set in Wales thanks to a new website. Literary Atlas plots locations in stories set around the country, allowing readers to explore some of the places integral to the plot.”
UK Fundraising: New database unites public information on charities in England & Wales
UK Fundraising: New database unites public information on charities in England & Wales. “A free, open source charity data portal, CharityBase, has launched, providing public information on the activities, locations and finances of the 168,000 charities registered in England and Wales.”
