NEW RESOURCES

North Carolina State University has created a digital archive for The Nubian Message. “The NCSU Libraries has released a fully searchable digital archive of the Nubian Message, NC State’s voice of the black student experience. Through a partnership with NC State Student Media, back issues from the newspaper’s initial issue in 1992 through 2005 are online through the Libraries’ Rare and Unique Digital Collections.”

ProPublica has launched a new election data firehose. “Today ProPublica is launching a new tool, created in partnership with the Google News Lab, that makes it easier for journalists, researchers and citizens to quickly find newsworthy information about the presidential race and congressional campaigns in their states. We’re calling it the Election DataBot because it collects huge amounts of data and reports the most interesting details, in real time — details about campaign finance filings, congressional votes, polls and Google Trends data, among other things.”

Virginia Commonwealth University has digitized a collection of wildflower photos from the 1960s and early 1970s. “From 1968 to 1971, noted environmentalist Newton Ancarrow documented and photographed more than 400 species of wildflowers along the banks of the James River in Richmond. VCU Libraries, in conjunction with the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden and the VCU Rice Rivers Center, has posted Ancarrow’s wildflower photography online.”

The Federal Archives of Germany is developing a portal for information about Germany’s Weimar Republic period. (This is a period that spanned 1919-1933 in German history.) The blog post is in German; from Google Translate: “Over a period of four years, a total of about 4 million digital copies and thus more than 7000 files are made available to users online from 2017th.” I tried to find a press release or something from Das Bundesarchiv, but no good. The English-language PR page was 404, and Google Translate wasn’t particularly helpful.

I love reading about all these new local music archives. There’s one in development for Nebraska. “Humanities Nebraska has awarded a $1,905 grant to help fund the Nebraska Vinyl Archive. Housed and developed online, the archive will provide a searchable online database of all the sleeves, labels, artwork, liner notes and other visual materials from vinyl albums and 7″/45 rpm singles released by Nebraska-based artists.”

Now available: a database of information on video products (PRESS RELEASE). “Vdeo-iQ, an expansion of the comprehensive AV-iQ pro-AV resource that is designed for the video, broadcast, and entertainment industries, is now open for business at Vdeo-iQ.com. At launch, Vdeo-iQ boasts a database of nearly 100,000 products from more than 300 manufacturers — and these numbers continue to grow. Launch sponsors include Sony, Snell Advanced Media, AJA Video Systems, Exterity, Grass Valley, and Zylight.” Stuff like lights, audio, cameras, etc.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Google Hangouts extension is getting some tweaks. “The upgrade brings a fresh, new interface to the plugin that has been specifically designed to mimic the look of the Hangouts application for Android and iOS.”

Twitter has added more features to direct messages. “Mainly, Direct Messages can now show read receipts on your messages. While I’m a fan of read receipts – it’s 2016, after all – some users would rather not be accountable for having read a message and not yet responded.”

USEFUL STUFF

When it comes to high-quality, free-to-use photographs, my go-to site is Pixabay. Love love love. I’ve only ever used it on desktop but the site’s creators want to build a mobile app and are trying to Kickstart the funds. I think it’s a great idea but 47 large?

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

And in our latest episode of “Facebook’s completely arbitrary and random policy enforcement A GO GO,” we have Facebook censoring a Pulitzer Prize-winning image from the Vietnam War. “Tom Egeland, the Norwegian author, recently tried to post historic images from war on Facebook. On Wednesday, Facebook deleted one of those images—the one at the top of this story. When Egeland reacted to the deletion, that post was deleted, too, and his account suspended, according to Aftenposten, a Norwegian newspaper.”

Very interesting: using social media to crowdsource material for a Beatles documentary. “The Beatles: Eight Days A Week — The Touring Years, directed by Ron Howard, will chronicle the last five years of The Beatles touring career, from the group’s first performance at Liverpool’s Cavern Club in 1961 to the last performance at Candlestick Park stadium in San Francisco in 1966. According to a Fast Company profile of the documentary, the filmmakers sent out a call for footage to the more than 40 million Beatles fans who liked The Beatles official Facebook page. The filmmakers and researchers also used specific software to monitor social media platforms such as Twitter to find fans who may have stories or footage surrounding The Beatles’ performances during that five-year span.”

RESEARCH AND OPINION

Research: Rumor patterns on social media during emergencies. “A researcher at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) has developed a new methodology to track and manage rumors during emergencies, and proposes guidelines for first responders and agencies on how to handle the rumor dissemination loop.” Good morning, Internet…

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