Tag Archives: digital content

Worldwide National Library Catalogs | OEDB.org

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National libraries are tasked with the centuries-long responsibility of preserving books and documents that keep a country’s history and heritage safe through war, disaster, and the passage of time. They’re also responsible for sharing these vast and valuable documents with citizens of the country, and the world.

National libraries are the absolute best resource for finding publications within any given country. This is thanks to legal deposit, legislation in many countries that requires publishers to provide the national library with a copy of each publication. In some countries, this even includes digital publications.

Through national library catalogs, you can search all of the publications within a country. Many national libraries also offer extensive digital collections, offering online researchers access to documents of historical importance, official publications, even images and video.

via Worldwide National Library Catalogs – OEDB.org.

The post provides a comprehensive list of Worldwide National Library Catalogs, including 3 from Canada. 

Alternative Search Engine Blekko Launches Major Redesign In Effort To Go Beyond The Usual 10 Blue Links | TechCrunch

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Blekko, the alternative search engine that launched back in 2010, unveiled a major redesign today that uses some of its “slashtag” technology to help users go beyond the usual ten blue links on its competitors search results pages. Blekko now automatically breaks its results down into different categories of curated content.

via Alternative Search Engine Blekko Launches Major Redesign In Effort To Go Beyond The Usual 10 Blue Links | TechCrunch.

blekko

William Fisher, Copyright Spring 2013: Special Event 6, Orphan Works and Digital Libraries – YouTube

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William Fisher, Copyright Spring 2013: Special Event 6, Orphan Works and Digital Libraries – YouTube

The Declassification Engine: Your One-Stop Shop for Government Secrets | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com

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A fascinating article about researchers developing the “Declassification Engine” – a tool to analyze declassified documents in the United States.

In many cases, documents are declassified only because individuals will request them under the Freedom of Information Act, and this often means they’re spread to the four winds. “There are a lot of declassified documents out there. Some of them are in historians’ basements. Some are in specific libraries. Some are in digital archives. And they’re in different formats. No one has systematically collected them into a searchable, usable, user-friendly database,” says Columbia law professor David Pozen.

The Declassification Engine seeks to remedy this, but that’s only the first step. Columbia’s Matthew Connelly first dreamed up the idea when he realized that although more and more government documents are now created in electronic format, a dwindling percentage are declassified in electronic format. The rise of digital records, he told himself, should provide more opportunities for researchers, not less.

See the full article: The Declassification Engine: Your One-Stop Shop for Government Secrets | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com.

Google Takes Street View Trekker And Underwater Cameras To The Galapagos Islands | Tech Crunch

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Google today announced that it has been taking its Street View Trekker – the compact backpack version of its Street View cars – and its underwater Street View cameras to the Galapagos Islands and that it plans to make these images available on Google Maps later this year. The company worked together with the Charles Darwin Foundation, the Galapagos National Parks Directorate and, for the underwater survey, the Catlin Seaview Survey.

via Google Takes Street View Trekker And Underwater Cameras To The Galapagos Islands  | Tech Crunch

Understand the Key Book Publishing Paths (Infographic) | Huffington Post

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How To Get Published: Jane Friedman Outlines The Options (Infographic) | Huffington Post Books.

Book Publishing Paths

Build a Digital Family Tree With These 5 Tools | Mashable

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Build a Digital Family Tree With These 5 Tools | Mashable

The article reviews:

  1. FamilySearch.org
  2. Treelines
  3. Family Village
  4. Grave Sites – Billiongraves.com, Findgrave.com and Legacy.com
  5. Digitized Newspapers

There is also a tool called Family Echo, which is free but very basic and another one called MyHeritage, also free but with more features including sharing and a collaborative tool called Geni.

6 Bookless Libraries | Ellyssa Kroski – OEDB.org

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“As space and budget concerns continue to grow, many libraries are opting to forego building their print collections in favor of providing electronic resources. This new trend toward building digital libraries has been developing over the past several years in spite of the controversy over eliminating print materials. Many people have spoken out against bookless libraries, especially with regard to public libraries, stating that the digital divide will keep many from using library resources and as well as the fact that many publishers won’t sell their publications to libraries in eBook format.” See the full article: 6 Bookless Libraries | Ellyssa Kroski – OEDB.org.

Google Framed As Book Stealer Bent On Data Domination In New Documentary | TechCrunch

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Google Framed As Book Stealer Bent On Data Domination In New Documentary | TechCrunch

Google and the World Brain

Quotable: “From the second it starts, director Ben Lewis’ opinion is clear: Google Books is as an insidious plot for data domination. See, Google didn’t just want to make a universally accessible library. It wanted to use all the knowledge to improve its search and artificial intelligence projects.”

Inside the Internet Archive’s Real-World Home | Mashable

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The Internet Archive is a massive, ambitious effort to digitize the full spectrum of human knowledge. A documentary from Deepspeed Media goes inside the archive to reveal what that looks like in practice. See the full article here: Inside the Internet Archive’s Real-World Home | Mashable.