NEW RESOURCES

The Antiquities Coalition has recently released a very upsetting map (PRESS RELEASE). “To provide graphical representation of cultural crimes committed by ISIS and other violent extremist organizations in the region, the Antiquities Coalition has created the Culture Under Threat Map, which tracks instances of deliberate targeting of cultural heritage for destruction in the Middle East and North Africa…. The Culture Under Threat Map currently shows nearly 700 heritage sites throughout the 22 states of the Arab League — 209 UNESCO World Heritage and Tentative List Sites (34 of which are in Iraq and Syria), 230 damaged or destroyed sites, and 277 museums.”

Now available a search engine for testing labs located in India. “Founded by Rahul Gupta in September 2015, the company acts as a search engine for testing labs so that business owners can be at an ease. LabGo works in the B2B segment, it lists labs and users can search by just typing a product. The platform also has advanced filters where the type of test, location etc can be entered, let’s just say a user wants to get a microbiological test or chemical test for water they can easily enter the type of test too.”

Lithuania is getting a new modern art museum in 2019, but in the meantime it’s getting an online museum. “[Viktoras] Butkus has collected about 4,000 works of art, mostly over the past six years. They include paintings by surrealist Mikalojus Povilas Vilutis, by Augustinas Savickas — vaguely reminiscent of Chagall — as well as sculptures by Ruta Jusionyte…. Painter Patricija Jurksaityte said the museum would offer a complete map of Lithuanian art unlike the country’s National Gallery, which often displays just a single work from any artist.” The museum’s Web site has an English version (look for the EN link in the upper right corner) so I poked around for a while, and now I really, really want a print of Gintaras Znamierowski’s Victory Boogie Woogie.

Now available: a database that lets you explore what works are assigned in college syllabuses. It was in my Pocket queue already, but thanks to Penny for the tag on Twitter. “Until now. Over the past two years, we and our partners at the Open Syllabus Project (based at the American Assembly at Columbia) have collected more than a million syllabuses from university websites. … This past week, we made available online a beta version of our Syllabus Explorer, which allows this database to be searched.” What work was assigned most often? “The Elements of Style,” naturally!

Hey! The Library of Congress is getting a tap dance archive! “TAP DANCE IN AMERICA, a free Library of Congress online database, will contain the most comprehensive and detailed collection of tap dance documentation on record. LIVE ON FEBRUARY 12, the interactive encyclopedia will include a 3,000 record database searchable by title, date, venue; dancer, choreographer, director, producer and performance medium (film, television, radio, stage, club) as well as by names of ‘tap numbers’ and tap choreographies.”

TWEAKS & UPDATES

GuideStar has revamped its nonprofit profiles. “I’m excited to announce a major milestone in GuideStar’s history. GuideStar’s vision is to drive philanthropy by increasing nonprofit data collection, distribution, and innovation. Today, we take a giant leap toward further achieving that vision. I am happy to officially debut our completely redesigned GuideStar Nonprofit Profiles.”

USEFUL STUFF

I’m not a big fan of Adobe’s PDF reader, so I use another one called Foxit. Foxit now has a new version with some nice extra features. “Foxit Software has unveiled Foxit Reader 7.3, its free PDF reader and creation tool for Windows PCs. The new release debuts a number of significant features, including Google Drive and OneDrive integration, plus a new word count tool and official support for Office 2016.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Museums and Heritage Advisor has a roundup on Museum Selfie Day. “And 24 hours later, as the working day was coming to a close in the Americas, a total of 29,491 tweets had been sent using #museumselfie. These included many humorous tweets such as Art Gallery Ontario’s, which was accompanied by a selfie of a Rembrandt painting, and opens the gallery below.”

Mashable takes a look at Google’s Trekker program. “Smaller regions such as Bucks County, Pennsylvania and parts of Michigan are among the latest to join the ranks of the Eiffel Tower, Mt. Fuji and the Galápagos Islands in Google’s off-road Street View collection. Other places which recently received the Trekker treatment include Florida’s beaches, the Hudson River and over two dozen Australian national parks.”

Wow! Google paid Apple a billion smackers to keep its search bar on the iPhone? “Apple received $1 billion from its rival in 2014, according to a transcript of court proceedings from Oracle Corp.’s copyright lawsuit against Google. The search engine giant has an agreement with Apple that gives the iPhone maker a percentage of the revenue Google generates through the Apple device, an attorney for Oracle said at a Jan. 14 hearing in federal court.” I’m in the wrong business

SECURITY/LEGAL ISSUES

Wired has a short roundup of good password managers.

RESEARCH AND OPINION

Researchers: the more selfies you post on Instagram, the more likely you are to have romantic relationship conflict. “With an online survey of 420 Instagram users between the ages of 18 to 62, the researchers found that Instagram selfie posting is associated with and predicted by an individual’s overall body image satisfaction. … However, Instagram selfie posting behaviors were found to be associated with increased Instagram-related relationship conflict. The researchers defined Instagram-related conflict as jealousy and arguments occurring due to either or both partners’ Instagram selfie posting behaviors.” Good morning, Internet…

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