NEW RESOURCES

A new Web site helps North Carolina parents find schools in their area (PRESS RELEASE). “The app was developed to provide North Carolina families with a central database to search the schools in their area including traditional public schools, public charter schools, and private schools enrolled in the state’s Opportunity Scholarship Program. … The app allows parents to input their address and a map updates in real-time with their local options. For traditional public and public charter schools, NC Schools Around Me includes the latest report card grades released by the Department of Public Instruction.” Warning: these folks want a LOT of personal information to use their Web app.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Livingstone Online has released a new set of digital images. “To celebrate the longest day of the year in the southern hemisphere, the Livingstone Online team is delighted to release today digital images of 66 manuscript items drawn from six repositories across South Africa. The release marks the end of the first phase of a project that we plan to complete in 2017.” (Livingstone Online, of course, is devoted to the work of explorer David Livingstone.)

Looks like Facebook is building a tool to flag and fight pirated content. “Major online platforms take copyright infringement very seriously. Upload a video on YouTube that features content like footage or music that you don’t own and it’s very likely going to be taken down swiftly. YouTube actually has an automated system for this that it calls Content ID. According to a new report, Facebook is building a similar system that’s going to take down any user-submitted videos that contain copyrighted content.” Good, I hate to see YouTube channels like Primitive Technology getting ripped off on Facebook.

USEFUL STUFF

Content from Social Media Examiner so good I’ll suffer through two of those popup/interstitial things: How to Create a Pinterest Showcase for Your Business . “Looking for a new way to show off your best pins? Want to try Pinterest Showcase? Pinterest showcases allow businesses to rotate select pins at the top of their profiles.”

Search Engine Journal: How to Get Into Video in 2017. “Video marketing isn’t a new phenomenon, but the way it’s being used is. Now, with new tools available to marketers, anyone can put together an enticing video to attract an audience. What is evolving is the way this is done and the way video is used to spread the word about a business.” Includes tool recommendations. Nicely done.

Clark Howard: How to secure and wipe your devices clean before you get rid of them. “Think about all the ways you use your smartphone or other devices on a daily basis — from phone calls, texts and emails, to banking, shopping, budgeting, social media and more. And with all of our gadgets going online, your personal information is accumulating and being stored in a lot more places than you likely even realize…. So when it comes time for an upgrade, whether it’s a smartphone, tablet, laptop or other device, it’s crucial that you remove all of your personal information before you sell or recycle it. If you don’t, your sensitive info can very easily fall into the wrong hands.” DO NOT trust the reseller/recycler to do it for you.

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Mashable: Facebook Live wants users at any cost—even porn, piracy, and polling. “For a snapshot of what’s on Facebook Live, check out a map of public live videos, available on the desktop version of Facebook. Click on the glowing blue dots, and you can seemingly teleport yourself across the world. But instead of historic sights or live events, you’re more likely to come across flashes of boobs and butts, replete with an audience suggesting what to reveal next, and maybe a pirated TV show or soccer game, too.” You know how a lot of Mashable stories are short retreads? Not this one.

Business Insider: Online communities don’t have to be hate-filled cesspools — and this guy proved it. “Joel Spolsky was blogging before it was called ‘blogging.’ Back in 2000, Spolsky was the founding CEO of Fog Creek Software, a startup that got its beginning building tools for software developers. He began writing his thoughts about running a company, working for and competing against Microsoft (he was on the Excel team back in the 1990s), and other topics of interest to the programming community, in a space called ‘Joel on Software.'” Terrific blog, and a highlight of my RSS feed list when it was a lot skinnier than it is now.

RESEARCH AND OPINION

Many thanks to Marsha B., who’s the only reason I pay attention to my Google+ notices, for this article pointer. From Aaron Tay: Library Discovery and the Open Access challenge – Take 2. “At the limit when nearly everything is freely available it is possible to consider whether library will have a place in the discovery business. After all, if all researchers have access to the same bulk of journal articles, does it really make sense for each institutional library to provide a separate discovery solution? Even today, many researchers prefer using Google Scholar and other non-institutional discovery solutions that operate at web scale and some (mostly students) grudgingly use our discovery systems to restrict discovery to things they have immediate access to…. But the day when open access is dominant is still not here. We live in the world where there is a mix of toll based access and rising but uneven free access, Scihub notwithstanding….
So how does you ensure the library discovery system includes as much discovery of free open access articles as possible?”

Rose Water Magazine: Now is Time to Follow Scientists and Science Journalists on Twitter. “As in the past, but perhaps now more than ever, it is up to scientists and science journalists to combat the barrage of scientific misinformation—and up to us to stay woke. So, if you haven’t already, now is the time to follow these people* on Twitter.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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