NEW RESOURCES

Now available: an annotated database about the papers of Andrew Jackson. “Since 1971, The Papers of Andrew Jackson project has been dedicated to transcribing and publishing Old Hickory’s entire written record. A worldwide search has gathered copies of every known surviving Jackson document, including letters he wrote and received, official and military papers, presidential addresses, drafts, memoranda, legal papers and financial records. Now a fully searchable and annotated database of these documents is available online. The Papers of Andrew Jackson Digital Edition joins a short list of prestigious editorial projects available within The American Founding Era Collection, a digital publication of the University of Virginia Press.” Looks like this is a subscription site.

The country of Kenya has a new database to help farmers with seed selection. “Mbegu means seed in Kiswahili language. According to the developers, MbeguChoice, which is the first of its kind in Sub-Saharan Africa, allows Kenyan farmers, agro-dealers and extension workers to analyse information on counties, crops, seasons and crop attributes such as drought-tolerance, disease- and pest-resistance, resulting in a list of suitable seed varieties and where they can be obtained.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Google Street View has added a lot of California imagery. “California boasts more than three thousand wineries across the state, and is known for its varietals ranging from buttery chardonnays to big-time zins. Aspiring sommeliers, wine enthusiasts or just those who love a good view can now take a virtual tour of wineries across the state. Enjoy the sunny elegance and wonderful scenery at wineries like William Hill and Wolff Vineyards (we recommend you grab a glass while you browse). Explore the drums where wine is aged at Quintessa Winery before enjoying the open air patios that overlook the green hillsides of northern California.”

You can now share, manage, and create custom maps from Google Drive. “Whether you’re planning your next event, mapping out the best route to visit clients, or sharing the location of your food truck with fans, Google My Maps makes it easy to put your world on a custom map. Starting today, you can access My Maps right from Google Drive on your Google Apps account, so it’s even easier to create, find and share your custom maps.”

Twitter tool ThinkUp now lets you search your Twitter followers. You can search by a variety of ways, including hashtag, company, and emoji.

USEFUL STUFF

Fold3 is giving free access to its Revolutionary War collection until July 15th.

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Crap. USA.gov is no longer going to update its blog. To get updates, you either have to follow them on Facebook (getting updates from a liked Facebook page? Fat chance), Twitter (possible if you’ve got Nuzzel, otherwise you’re relying on timing and luck), or e-mail (here’s hoping USA.gov’s newsletter either dodges a spam filter or doesn’t end up in GMail’s “promotional” tab). With RSS feeds I knew I was going to get USA.gov’s updates. Now? Plllbbbt.

Apple is expanding its mapping fleet to new states. “Apple’s new cities are located in Colorado, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, and Wyoming. Apple will also continue surveying areas in Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New York, Texas, Utah and Washington.”

Former Twitter CEO says Twitter’s new CEO will face “complex challenges”. Gee, you think? “Speaking to the Guardian before his last day at the company on Tuesday, Dick Costolo said that while Twitter had grown revenue by 97% year on year to $1.7bn (£1.1bn), the pressure placed on the company obscured its other achievements in bringing 302 million monthly active users on to the service.”

RESEARCH AND OPINION

I have an Academia.edu account just to ask people to upload papers. And Jonathas Magalhães did! His paper, Social query: a query routing system for twitter, is now available. “Social Query is a new and efficient way to get answers on the social networks. However, the popular method of sharing public questions could be optimized by directing the question to an expert, a process called query routing. In this work, we propose a Social Query System for query routing on Twitter, currently, one of the most popular social networks. The Social Query Systems analyzes the information about the questioner’s followers and recommends the most suitable users to answer the questions.” While Quora is an amazing resource, easily finding experts to answer questions is still a search area that could stand a lot of exploration. Good afternoon, Internet…

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