Archives Society of Alberta launches its blog

The Archives Society of Alberta has launched its blog through the free WordPress.com community at http://www.archivesalberta.wordpress.com/

The RSS feed URL is http://archivesalberta.wordpress.com/feed/

Library and Archives Canada launches blog as pilot project

Not only has the Library and Archives Canada launched a "corporate" Web site (en francais http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/fra/Pages/default.aspx), which seems to be an unnecessary expense and annoying instance of redundancy, they've also set up a blog as a pilot project with the prosaic name of the Library and Archives Canada Blog: A Pilot Project (the URL is actually a better title, The Discover Blog). The first post is dated November 24, 02011.

The RSS feed for the blog is http://thediscoverblog.com/feed/

City of Vancouver Archives does Twitter

The City of Vancouver Archives launched its Twitter feed on September 3, 02009. I'm fairly certain they are the first government archives in British Columbia with this distinction.

The RSS feed URL is http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/61024030.rss

New York State Archives launches RSS news feed

I'm not sure why it is that some government jurisdictions, especially at the state or provincial level, have been slow to adopt RSS as a publicity and outreach tool, so it's good to see that the New York State Archives has launched a RSS news feed (feed URL). According to the announcement (Archives & Archivists mailing list, 02009 07 16),

"Subscribers will be among the first to find out about Archives events, new records brought into the Archives, press releases, resources for state agencies and local governments, and any major changes to the website - such as new guides to records, new educational sites for
teachers and students, and award and grant opportunities."

Illinois shoulders ATLAS (Alliance's Trail to Learning-casts and Syndicated Sites)

Illinois, long a leader in the digital world, has put together another fascinating tool called ATLAS (Alliance's Trail to Learning-casts and Syndicated Sites). A project of the Alliance Library System and LearningTimes, ATLAS, according to announcement posted to various mailing lists,

"is a new set of social media tools ALS is using to promote information and historical photos about Illinois history. ALS and LearningTimes partnered to create this innovative and exciting new model of collaborative digital imaging collections using multimedia and social networking tools to bring historical times to life, and involving a community at large in its creation. The project debuted June 29th with an online conference. A recording of the event is available at http://www.atlaspodcasts.org/webcast-2009-06/. The Cullom-Davis Library at Bradley University will serve as the first partner library to produce additional podcasts on Illinois history to be added to the site. They were involved in the first set of ten podcasts, providing the material for the five from Peoria.

At the heart of the ATLAS project are digital images of historic people, places, documents and objects. The images are combined with audio descriptions and placed on a map of Illinois to produce an engaging new interactive learning model for libraries and their customers. The project began with ten short high-quality podcasts about nineteenth century Illinois and famous women from the first hundred years of statehood. Produced in association with LearningTimes, each podcast spotlights a specific person or topic area. ATLAS visitors are able to mouse over a city in Illinois and select a story of interest, featuring engaging commentary and information. A searchable database allows users to search sound files, narratives and photographs. The programs may be enjoyed right from the ATLAS site, or downloaded to a portable audio player."

The site includes an Add Your Podcast component for those wishing to participate in the building of more online history about Illinois and its people.

Piping the action in records and archives management journals

Pekka Henttonen, Assistant Professor (ERMS), Department of Information Studies, University of Tampere, Finland, has created a Yahoo Pipes that aggregates RSS feeds from records and archives management journals, including the Association of Canadian Archivists' flagship journal Archivaria.

Source: Archives & Archivists (A&A) List, 02008 11 06