NEW RESOURCES

Now available: a new digital archive of Australian musical artists. “A new online music archive has been created at the State Library of Western Australia (SLWA) for emerging Perth composers, with a select few also being chosen to break the library’s silence.”

Pyramids, foods, balanced diets? The National Agricultural Library at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has created a digital library of nutrition guidance. “This collection allows users to browse and search the full text of over 900 historical and contemporary federal dietary guidance publications.” I did a couple of text searches. The oldest item I came across was from 1923, and was provided in PDF, MOBI, and EPUB formats.

The city of New York has launched an online database of public notices. “Updated daily, the City Record Online (CROL) is a fully searchable, machine-readable online database of all such notices, including schedules for more than 750 public hearings, land sales and contract awards for the $1.2 billion of goods and services that are acquired by the city each year.”

Either the government of India is getting a lot more efficient at creating databases of country resources, or Google News is getting a lot more efficient at indexing Indian news sources so I’m finding out about them. I’m not sure which one. Anyway, the government of India has created an online database of temples and temple properties in Tamil Nadu. There are almost 4500 temples in the database. “The Hindu religious and charitable endowments (HR&CE) department, acting on a Madras high court order, coordinated with the revenue department to create the database with extensive details of all temples in the state, the land they own, their tenants and encroachments on the properties.”

Oh I LOVE stuff like this. Anybody can look at the super-popular videos on YouTube, but what about the ones which have very few views? There’s an app for that. “…Zero Views for iOS is letting people explore the unseen videos lurking behind all the cute cat clips. Of course, this isn’t an entirely new concept, there are similar websites and apps out there but what I like about Zero Views is the endless stream. It kind of feels like Tinder… If Tinder was filled with badly-lit home movies shot on phones.”

Victorian female prisoner registries have gone online. (Please note that this is “Victorian” as in “area in Australia,” not as in “era in history.”) “The prison records of more than 7,000 Victorian women incarcerated between 1855 and 1934 are available to view online for the first time, thanks to the State Archives. The Public Record Office Victoria (PROV) cleaned and digitised the records, which were then indexed by volunteers over an 18-month period.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Google is finally bringing Tweets to desktop search results (again).

If I never post to ResearchBuzz again, it’s because IFTTT has a Maker channel. “With the Maker Channel, you’re basically building web hooks that trigger other events. For instance, if you press a button on something connected to a Raspberry Pi, that can trigger any of IFTTT’s other actions, for example, press a button and send an email.”

USEFUL STUFF

From Poynter: GitHub tutorials and resources for journalists. “Last year, Clay Shirky used GitHub as a way to report on Occupy Hong Kong. The platform allowed others on the scene to collaborate with Shirky as he reported his piece. What I admire about this approach is that it gave anyone the ability to clone and then modify Shirky’s document — but Shirky had final approval over whether to integrate those changes into the master document.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Google Express is shutting down its two Mountain View and SF delivery hubs. “The move is part of a broader push within Google to revamp the service, which launched in March 2013, after it failed to make a serious dent in a market crowded with Amazon and a myriad of on-demand startups.”

I have never used Spotify, and after reading about this new insane privacy policy, I don’t think I want to. “The streaming service wants access to the sensor information on your phone, which it says would be used for things like knowing whether you are walking, running, or standing still….What is less easy to understand is why Spotify is seeking permission to access your photos, contacts, and ‘media files.'”

Congratulations, UK! According to Google you’re searching for revenge porn. “Large digital billboards around London, paid for by Google, have been spotted by the public – with a surprising revelation displayed for all to see. The brightly coloured boards – which show popular search terms being used – declared boldly that the UK ‘is searching for revenge porn sites’.” If Google feels the need to have a brand awareness campaign in the UK, how about something a bit more useful? Good morning, Internet…

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