1912 Goad Fire Insurance Plan now available in Vanmap

Vanmap, a geomatics tool from the City of Vancouver, now includes a layer representing Goad’s 1912 Fire Insurance Plan contributed by the City of Vancouver Archives. The fire insurance plan data is also available through the city's Open Data Catalogue. You can read an extensive description by the city archives about the fire insurance plan.

Royal BC Museum launches crowd-sourcing transcription project

From the announcement circulated to mailing lists such as ARCAN-L:

Today, to celebrate National Volunteer Week, the Royal BC Museum launched Transcribe (transcribe.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca), a crowd-sourcing website that invites the public to transcribe valuable historical records from our archival collection.

Google executive despairs of a digital dark age

People notice when a Google executive talks about a digital dark age. Vint Cerf, an Internet pioneer and Google executive, was speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting and warning of "bit rot" and "digital vellum" to stem the tide of an "information black hole".

Ironically, as The Atlantic reported in its take on this story, there was a fire at a Brooklyn warehouse two weeks ago that

smogged up the Brooklyn ether (and confettied parts of the East River) with "decades’ worth of charred medical records, court transcripts, lawyers’ letters, sonograms, bank checks, and more." Huge swaths of Brooklyn's legal history literally fueled the fire, leaving one Clerk's Office representative to lament of the stacks of data lost: "They're priceless."

Of course archivists and technologists have been arguing for years over the most effective methods for digital preservation to prevent a digital dark age. No one set of methods appear to be accepted among the community. Cerf favors something called Olive (Open Library of Images for Virtualized Execution) under development by Carnegie Mellon University in association with IBM Research. They've had some success in virtualizing software such as Apple's last version of HyperCard and Microsoft Office 6.0.

Good morning IRENE, new hope for early audio formats

The new IRENE Audio Preservation service at the Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC) is the culmination of a decade of research and development at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the US Library of Congress.

The IRENE technology uses a non-contact approach, which eliminates the possibility of damage caused by mechanical contact of a stylus on fragile media.  The process creates ultra-high resolution images of the audio groove structures in either 2D or 3D, and the resulting image files are then processed through software that translates them into an audio file.

NEDCC CURRENTLY WORKS WITH THE FOLLOWING FORMATS:
Wax cylinders, lacquer discs ("acetate" discs), aluminum transcription discs, shellac discs, tin foils, and other rare formats (e.g., Dictabelt, Voice-O-Graph, etc.), and can handle rare, fragile, or damaged media.

LEARN MORE:
About the NEDCC IRENE Service:
https://www.nedcc.org/audio-preservation/about

About the History of the of the IRENE IMLS Grant Project at NEDCC:
https://www.nedcc.org/audio-preservation/history

QUESTIONS about NEDCC's IRENE Audio Preservation Service?
Contact:  Mason Vander Lugt, mlugt@nedcc.orgmlugt@nedcc.org
>
  NORTHEAST DOCUMENT CONSERVATION CENTER
Andover, MA  USA -  nedcc.org
JOIN THE NEDCC E-List for Updates on new IRENE projects and other preservation news you can use:
https://www.nedcc.org/contact/sign-up-for-news

 

Source: ARCAN-L mailing list, 020141120

DataBC, BC Government Open Data site opens

On July 19, 02011, the British Columbia Government launched its Open Data initiative through its DataBC Web site. The data that's currently available appears to be heavily weighted towards geomatic applications. The government is encouraging the creation of Apps and provides links to various Tools "to mashup BC data."

Forvo, a collaborative online pronunciation guide

I was looking for a site that provided an online pronunciation guide to a wide variety of languages. I found it in Forvo. As of October 7, 02010, the site contains "791,131 words 724,689 pronunciations 258 languages." By registering for a free account you can put your own linguistic talents to use.

Added the new Tweet button from Twitter

I read about the new Tweet button from Twitter on TechCrunch that was launched on August 12, 02010 and decided to give it a go as a gadget to replace the TweetMeme button. Tweet away!

Anthologize that WordPress blog, just not your WordPress.com one

Form follows feed promises Anthologize, a new open source blog publishing tool that according to its About page

is a free, open-source, plugin that transforms WordPress 3.0 into a platform for publishing electronic texts. Grab posts from your WordPress blog, import feeds from external sites, or create new content directly within Anthologize. Then outline, order, and edit your work, crafting it into a single volume for export in several formats, including—in this release—PDF, ePUB, TEI.

Please note that Anthologize cannot be installed on blogs hosted at WordPress.com.

Anthologize is a project of One Week | One Tool a project of the Center for History and New Media, George Mason University. Funding provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Google Wave crashes on boulders of public apathy

Google announced on August 4, 02010 that it will no longer be developing Google Wave as a standalone product. As I said on my personal, the Wave has crashed on the boulders of public apathy. This must be disturbing news to Novell whose Pulse product is to include Wave support and happy news to SAP whose StreamWork was seen as a competitor to Wave. For more breaking news about Google Wave check out these Google News search results.

Google Apps for Government

According to this ITI Newslink item (July 29, 02010), Google has announced its Google Apps for Government, "the first suite of cloud computing messaging and collaboration applications to receive Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) certification and accreditation from the U.S. General Services Administration." I wonder if that includes digital archiving/preservation measures and how that functionality will be enabled through cloud computing? Digital archiving/preservation is not one of the features that Google is promoting for this service. At $50 per user per year, you get what you pay for.

TinEye Reverse Image Search

I have not tried a search with TinEye, "a reverse image search engine. It finds out where an image came from, how it is being used, if modified versions of the image exist, or if there is a higher resolution version. TinEye is the first image search engine on the web to use image identification technology rather than keywords, metadata or watermarks. It is free to use for non-commercial searching. TinEye regularly crawls the web for new images, and we also accept contributions of complete online image collections. To date, TinEye has indexed 1,630,532,499 images from the web to help you find what you're looking for." (http://www.tineye.com/about)

Get thee a Web 2.0 OPAC with VuFind release 1.0

From the announcement on the WEB4LIB mailing list (0210 07 16):

VuFind's long beta period is now over. Yesterday [02010 07 15], VuFind 1.0 was released. In addition to improved stability, the new release includes several features missing from the previous release candidate:

* Flexible support for non-MARC metadata formats
* A mobile interface
* Dewey Decimal support
* Integration with Serials Solutions' Summon
* Dynamic "recommendations modules" to complement search results with relevant tips

For all the details and to obtain the software, please visit http://vufind.org/.

Pretty cool stuff, so congrats VuFind team!

Historypin to see the past through Google Maps

In partnership with Google, We Are What We Do, a social action movement based in London, England, created Historypin:

a digital time machine that provides a new way for the world to see and share history.

The site allows users to share images from their personal photo albums, as well as the stories behind them. To date, pictures have been provided from various national archives, as well as diverse contributors including Selfridges, Marks & Spencer, the Royal Albert Hall and Arsenal FC.

Developed in partnership with Google, the site finds a unique use for Google Maps and Street View, meaning pictures can be dated as well as geo-tagged and then 'pinned' into place on top of modern Street View photography.

The result is a fascinating snapshot of the changing face of local streets and well known landmarks and provides a new perspective on historic moments.

The site has ambitions to become the World's largest user-generated archive of historic images and stories, providing easy access to digitised history stretching from the invention of the camera to yesterday.

Source: An historic launch for We Are What We Do and Google, June 7, 02010 and thanks to Peter Kurilecz for his notice on a photohistory mailing list, June 5, 02010

Go local (news) with OpenBlock

While this new open source software project, OpenBlock, is geared at the moment to news organizations and cities in the United States, here's hoping some Canadian news outlets will also pick up on this most promising innovation. OpenBlock code is based on EveryBlock.com, described as a civic news aggregator or hyper-local news.

Version 1.0.9 beta of ICA-AtoM released

May 17, 02010 marks the release date of version 1.0.9 beta of ICA-AtoM with a significant raft of improvements and new features.

Time, Space and Google, Searcher magazine, May 02010

My first post-retirement article for Searcher: The Magazine for Database Professionals was published on May 1, 02010. It's titled "Time, Space and Google: Toward a Real-Time, Synchronous, Personalized, Collaborative Web." I survey many aspects of Google's service offerings that to me signal Google is beginning to own the Web insofar as it's attempting to define your experience of Web time and space through its services. The article is not online for free but will be available through ProQuest and other full-text commercial databases licensed by Information Today.

PREMIS in METS Toolkit released by Library of Congress and Florida Center for Library Automation

From the announcement on DIGLIB (2010 04 23):

The Library of Congress and the Florida Center for Library Automation (FCLA) are pleased to announce the availability of the PREMIS-In-METS Toolbox at http://pim.fcla.edu. The PREMIS-in-METS Toolbox is a set of open-source tools developed to support the implementation of PREMIS preservation metadata in the METS container format.

The Toolbox includes three tools: Validate, Convert and Describe.

Validate will validate a PREMIS or a PREMIS-in-METS document and return a list or errors or a conformation message. PREMIS documents are validated against the PREMIS schema. METS documents containing PREMIS are validated against the METS schema, the PREMIS schema, and the best practice Guidelines for Using PREMIS with METS (http://www.loc.gov/standards/premis/guidelines-premismets.pdf).

Convert will convert between stand-alone PREMIS and PREMIS embedded in METS. A PREMIS document will generate a METS document containing the PREMIS elements in multiple or single METS metadata sections. A METS document containing PREMIS elements in it will generate a stand-alone PREMIS document.

Describe will output a complete PREMIS description of a file, including extensions for format-specific metadata. Describe uses the DAITSS 2 Format Description Service, which in turn uses DROID for format identification and JHOVE for format characterization. The resulting PREMIS document can then be run through Convert to turn it into PREMIS in METS if desired. Types of file formats that are covered are text, image, audio, video and software.

All three tools support various modes of input: a source document or file can be addressed by URL or uploaded. PREMIS and METS documents can also be typed or copied directly into Validate and Convert.

The PREMIS-in-METS Toolkit was developed by FCLA under contract to the Library of Congress. The Toolkit code will be released under an open source license in SourceForge.

Recommended: VMplayer for your virtual machine appliances

I've been trying out virtual macine software that allows me to run Linux distributions on a Windows PC. I discovered that Sun VirtualBox, which was the first one I tried, does not currently support the 64-bit edition of Windows even though the download page indicates it does. The latest release is version 3.1.6. build 59338, which appeared on March 25, 02010. Sun VirtualBox is open source and Oracle, which now owns Sun Microsystems, continues to maintain it. Versions prior to 3.1.6 may have worked on a 64-bit Windows PC.

As an alternative to Sun VirtualBox for those of you faced with the challenge of finding 64-bit VM software, I can recommend the free VMplayer from VMware. While it is not open source, it is a well-supported application and, according to the Web site, there are "over 200 supported operating systems including Windows 7, Chrome OS, Ubuntu 9.04, and many other versions of Windows, Linux, and more." VMware also offers a free Web browser virtual machine application called VMware Server. VMware Server offers many more options for setting up a virtual machine but in my one attempt to get one running, I had no luck. Also, you can only install EITHER VMware Player or VMware Server on a single Windows PC. The installation wizards for both will detect the other.

VMware's Virtual Appliances Marketplace is a good place to start with finding VMware compatible virtual machine appliances.

If you are looking for Linux operating system VM distributions, the best place to begin is with the Linhost VMware Repository.

Blogger Template Designer on Blogger in Draft

Google's Blogger service has been added a number of improvements, including the Blogger Template Designer, available on the Blogger in Draft service, that I'm likely going to switch all my blogs from WordPress to Blogger. One of my main reasons for doing so is that Blogger now permits the monetizing of any Blogger site through services such as Google AdSense and Amazon Associates. The ability to create one's own templates for a unique look is also a huge plus for the designer in me.

Joomla and Drupal for libraries (and archives)

Mark Jordan, head of library systems at Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, replied to a question on the WEB4LIB mailing list about the open source content management system Joomla which led to other replies, including ones about Drupal, another popular CMS for library sites. So here are some of the resources about Joomla and Drupal as content management systems for libraries (and archives).

• Joomla Community Showcase of libraries running Joomla


• Joomla in Libraries "started as a conference presentation for Computer In Libraries 2007 hosted by Information Today" and includes a Showcase of libraries using Joomla.


• drupalib is "A place for library drupallers to hang out" with links to Groups.Drupal: Libraries, Drupal4Lib email list and the LITA Drupal4Lib Interest Group


• Library Technology Guides' lib-web-cats directory of libraries using Drupal and libraries using Joomla; this information is maintained by Marshall Breeding and he welcomes contributions