OpenSource.com launched by Red Hat

Red Hat, the purveyors of Red Hat Linux and other products, have launched OpenSource.com as a "community service." According to the About page, "opensource.com is where we explore what happens when the open source way is applied to the world." Though that sounds very Zen-like and mystical, there's lots of practical information and news here about how open source is being used in government, by business, education and the legal profession. The Open Source Initiative is completely different and there is a link to it on OpenSource.com

Google Social Search Goes Live (original blog post by David)

According to this SearchEngineLand article by Matt McGee, Google Social Search is now live and contains more features than when it originally debuted in Google Labs in October 02009. Danny Sullivan examined the Google Labs offering in his article "Google Social Search Launches, Gives Results From Your Trusted 'Social Circle'" (October 26, 02009).

You need to have a Google Account and be signed in in order to take advantage of this new search results option. The announcement on the Official Google Blog is worth reading as it includes a video introduction.

Apple iPad meets Star Trek

I swear I saw the new Apple iPad lurking in the background of the most recent Star Trek film. Apple's own advertising even displays the film being viewed on the iPad. Certainly the concept and design of a thin, large-screen computer tablet has been a prop in some science fiction films and TV shows (not that I can name one off the top of my head), so I hope the iPad does well. The pricing is certainly interesting.

I'd be happy to have one sent to me for review.

OCLC WebJunction group Google Wave for Libraries

I set up an OCLC WebJunction group called Google Wave for Libraries on January 21, 02010.

Roundup of real-time search engines

In my latest submission on January 15, 2010 to Searcher: The Magazine for Database Professionals I briefly looked at work Google is doing with real-time search. Since the whole article was about a number of new (most within the past two years) Google services and products that focused on the end user, I thought I'd expand the real-time search topic by simply listing many of the other choices you have. Most of these search engines either routinely track Twitter tweets (feeds) or are solely devoted to tweaking the tweets in different ways.

• Aardvark is a Q&A social search engine, ask questions and people answer, simple and profound, maybe. Not quite real-time, but even bigger news for Aardvark was its acquisition by Google on February 02010 as part of Google's stronger engagement with the social networking world.


• Bing (Microsoft) has a special Twitter page


• Buzzzy.com launched on February 16, 0210, a week after Google Buzz launched, and billed itself as the world's first search engine for Buzz. It also searches a number of other real-time sources, including Twitter.


• Collecta, which also has a MySpace Site Search. A mobile-specific version of Collecta was launched in early March 02010


• CrowdEye lets you follow people, what's next, StalkerEye


• itpints, funny name, real-time results


• jahoot, "search the socialsphere in realtime"


• Kosmix has a Yahoo! style presentation of real-time search results and you do your own searches


• OneRiot is the search engine and the company's name and the company is partnering with Yahoo! to bring real-time search to that site


• Scoopler, another contender for the most realist of real-time search


• Sency sounds sensible doesn't it


• socialmention, "real-time social media search and analysis"


• TipTop is another Twitter-based search engine


• Topsy, "a search engine powered by tweets", that is, Twitter feeds


• Twazup is another Twitter search engine


• Tweetmeme is all about the hottest tweets and links on Twitter


• Twittorati is "where the blogosphere and twittersphere meet"


• Twingly includes a Microblog Search a la Twitter and any others that dare to model themselves on that service


• Twitter Search is Twitter's own search engine of its users feeds


• Yauba.com, "The World's First Privacy Safe, Real-Time Search Engine TM"

For a great roundup of real-time search sites and what it means, as of July 02009, see Danny Sullivan's lengthy article "What Is Real Time Search? Definitions & Players" on SearchEngineLand.

ICA-AtoM virtual appliance

Artefactual Systems of New Westminster, BC, Canada, the company developing the ICA-AtoM archival management system on behalf of the International Council of Archives has released the ICA-AtoM virtual appliance. It takes a page out of the company's Archivematica, the open archival information system for digital preservation, the ICA-AtoM virtual appliance allows you to run and access the application using your Web browser from within the Sun VirtualBox.

50 Cool Search Engines for Serious Readers

50 Cool Search Engines for Serious Readers is an annotated listing of specialized search engines broken down into five categories: eBooks; Books to Swap, Sell and Buy; Rare Books; Book Reviews and Community and Libraries.

January/February 02010 issue of D-Lib Magazine available

The January/February 02010 issue of D-Lib Magazine available. The Web site also has a fresh, great new look.

British Columbia 1885 photo mystery: O.C. Hastings & G.M. Dawson photos

Posted the following on the Yahoo! Groups PhotoHistory this morning (January 19, 2010), as well as to my David Mattison blog and this blog:

I was sent two scans from a UK individual that are most intriguing and currently pose a photo mystery. Here's what I know so far based on the photos themselves, archival descriptions and digitized, published content freely accessible to me.

In 1885 the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) geologist Dr. George Mercer Dawson visited northern Vancouver Island and environs, including Alert Bay on Cormorant Island. He took a few photos at Alert Bay in early August 1885 that are described on the Library and Archives Canada Web site as part of the GSC records it preserves. The Royal BC Museum has copy prints of at least three of the Dawson photos, including the two images I was sent.

The mystery is that the scans I was sent show both the Dawson photos on a cabinet card mount with the markings, front and back, of Victoria commercial photographer O.C. Hastings. My supposition is that Hastings processed Dawson's negatives as Dawson, according to his GSC report, once he returned to Victoria remained there for about three weeks working on preparations for the Colonial and Indian Exhibition that was held in London, England, in 1886.

I've uploaded one of the Dawson / Hastings photos to Camera Workers at http://cameraworkers.davidmattison.com/showmedia.php?mediaID=234&mediali\nkID=368

What I'm hoping to find is evidence in a diary or correspondence of Dawson that he purposefully allowed Hastings to market his photos. Some of Dawson's personal records are at McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, and his GSC field notebooks and correspondence are at the Library and Archives Canada.

If anyone on this group can research this on my behalf  I'd be happy to reciprocate with research in archival records here in Victoria, BC.

As a followup, I wrote that I'd discovered that Dawson's fieldbooks are available on microfilm at the Library and Archives and that I'd arrange to borrow the reel (C-4845) that covered his 1885 work.

Here is the photo in question:

Review of the Year 2009 and Trends Watch, Information Today

Information Today, the publishing company that issues Searcher: The Magazine for Database Professionals, which I've been extremely fortunate to have published with since May 2002, offers its insights into past events in the information industry and upcoming trends through Paula J. Hane's Review of the Year 2009 and Trends Watch--Part 1 (January 4, 02010) and Review of the Year 2009 and Trends Watch--Part 2 (January 7, 02010). I'm pleased to see that two of her What's Hot for 2010 items are "Collaboration" and "The Wave (Google Wave, that is)-new real-time communication and collaboration tool", both of which were the focus of my current submission to Searcher, which I've grandiosely titled "Time, Space and Google: Towards a Real-Time, Synchronous, Personalized, Collaborative Web." If it's accepted for publication I expect it would appear in the March 2010 issue.

WebWise 02010 Conference, Denver, CO, March 3 to 5, 02010

The WebWise 02010 conference for libraries and museums is coming to Denver, Colorado, USA, from March 3 to 5, 02010. The conference theme is "Imagining the Digital Future."

Update for 02010 05 22:

1. Webcasts of the Webwise 02010 sessions are available.


2. Many of the presentations will also be published in a summer 02010 issue of First Monday.

Preserving the Memory of the World International Symposium, UBC, Vancouver, BC, March 12, 02010

From the announcement on the ARCAN-L mailing list (02010 01 12):

Following the great success of last year International Symposium, the University of British Columbia Student Chapter of the Association of Canadian Archivists, on March 12, 2010, will hold a whole day International Symposium entitled "Preserving the Memory of the World." Under the auspices of the UNESCO Memory of the World (MoW) Program, which inspired its content, the keynote will be given by a representative of the MoW program, and every speech will be about the preservation of some type of documentary heritage, with a strong emphasis on the digital.

The speakers are: Johanna Smith, Jean-Stéphen Piché and Brian Thurgood from Library and Archives Canada, Lothar Jordan from the Kleist-Museum in Frankfurt (Germany) and UNESCO, George Blood from the Safe Sound Archive in Philadelphia, Dato' Sidek Jamil from the National Archivist of Malaysia, Tyler Walters from the Georgia Institute of Technology Library and Information Center, Babak Hamidzadeh from the Library of Congress, and Ken Thibodeau form NARA. The Symposium program can be found at: http://www.slais.ubc.ca/people/students/student-groups/aca/symposium2010/index.html.

The Symposium is free for students, while there is a small fee of $15 for professionals, which includes lunch, drinks and coffee breaks. We will be accepting cheques in advance, and cash or cheques at the door.

The Symposium will take place in the Golden Jubilee Room, on the fourth floor of the Irving K. Barber Centre at UBC, at 1961 East Mall.
Maps and parking information can be found here: http://www.maps.ubc.ca/PROD/index_detail.php?show=y,n,n,n,n,y&bldg2Search=n&locat1=516.

Please RSVP to aca.slais@gmail.com, and/or send a cheque (made out to Association of Canadian Archivists, UBC Student Chapter) to: ACA c/o SLAIS Suite 470 - 1961 East Mall Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1.

Digitized British Admiralty Charts of Canadian Waters at Library and Archives Canada

The Library and Archives Canada announced the release of a tremendous new resource, digitized British Admiralty charts of Canadian waters: "The 3,400 documents, which cover a 150-year period ending in the mid-20th century, represent the largest historical description of Canada's three major oceans and the inland waters of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River. Many of the charts were prepared from surveys undertaken by the elite of the British navy: Admiral Henry Bayfield, Captain James Cook, Lieutenant George Vancouver, Sir John Franklin and Admiral William Parry."

Access is via the series level description, all lower level descriptions or via a list of the digitized documents themselves.