NEW RESOURCES

New-to-me and apparently fairly recent: an online archive of labor contracts. “You might not expect that a project digitizing 100 years of labor-management agreements would shed light on societal trends, increase scholarship or encourage institutions to pursue similar projects. But the recently completed ‘Cornerstones in American Middle Class: Historical Collective Bargaining Agreements Project’ at Cornell University Library’s Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives did just that.”

Los Angeles Times: Shakespeare died 401 years ago, but original scripts from his era live on in a new digital archive. “Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Middleton and Thomas Nashe — despite the best efforts of high school and college English teachers — remain also-rans compared with William Shakespeare, whose fame keeps growing…. On Sunday, the Folger Shakespeare Library — the august institution based in Washington, D.C., that includes a research institute as well as a celebrated theater — will try again to change this. Last year, on the widely celebrated 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, the library offered a digital archive of the playwright’s work. This year, on the 401st, the Folger will open a Digital Anthology of Early English Drama, which makes original scripts and visual images from 40 plays available to anyone with Internet access.” The site is live now.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Google Blog: By Washington’s teeth! U.S. presidential history, now on Google Arts & Culture. “Today, as a follow-up to our American Democracy collection, Google Arts & Culture is partnering with more than 30 cultural institutions to bring you history from the United States presidency… With over 2,000 new artifacts, photos, pictures and more, and 63 new exhibits (for 158 exhibits, total) this collection invites you to remember and celebrate the history, lives and legacies of the 44 U.S. presidents.”

Twitch will be airing the original Cosmos series this week. Twice. (The link is a BusinessWire press release.) “Every episode of Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, dating from the show’s 1980 premiere to the season finale, will air twice on Twitch, first on April 24-25 starting at 12:00 PDT, and again on April 27-28, beginning at 2:00pm PDT. … Following the marathon on April 28 at 2:00 PDT on twitch.tv/Twitch will be a live Q&A with Ann Druyan, who co-created Cosmos: A Personal Voyage together with her late husband, the astronomer, Carl Sagan.”

USEFUL STUFF

How-To Geek: How to Customize Google Calendar’s Notifications on the Web. “Google Calendar is undoubtedly a powerful tool for managing everything from appointments to schedules to reminders (and everything in between). As good as it is by default, there are things you can do to make its notification system even better.” This is quite good!

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Want to help someone build a digital archive of fishing stories? Here ya go. “South Dakota resident Buddy Seiner wants to hear your fishing stories. More accurately, he wants to record them for generations to come. Seiner is working on the first online archive for audio fishing stories. The project, called Fish Stories, will help anglers share their fishing tales, reports, favorite moments and memories, all while preserving their fishing legacies for future generations.”

National Post: Computers don’t even understand it: Icelandic people worrying their language is facing extinction. “Icelandic ranks among the weakest and least-supported language in terms of digital technology — along with Irish Gaelic, Latvian, Maltese and Lithuanian — according to a report by the Multilingual Europe Technology Alliance assessing 30 European languages. Iceland’s Ministry of Education estimates about 1 billion Icelandic krona, or $8.8 million, is needed for seed funding for an open-access database to help tech developers adapt Icelandic as a language option.”

SECURITY/LEGAL ISSUES

Krebs on Security: How Cybercrooks Put the Beatdown on My Beats. “Last month Yours Truly got snookered by a too-good-to-be-true online scam in which some dirtball hijacked an Amazon merchant’s account and used it to pimp steeply discounted electronics that he never intended to sell. Amazon refunded my money, and the legitimate seller never did figure out how his account was hacked. But such attacks are becoming more prevalent of late as crooks increasingly turn to online crimeware services that make it a cakewalk to cash out stolen passwords.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Newswise: Facebook plays vital role in reducing government corruption, researchers find. “In new research recently published in the journal Information Economics and Policy, Sudipta Sarangi of the Virginia Tech Department of Economics said his cross-country analysis using data from more than 150 countries shows the more Facebook penetrates public usage, the higher the likelihood of government corruption meeting protest. In short, Sarangi said social media serves as peer of the press.”

TechCrunch: How to make Twitter profitable. “In 2009, after writing a book arguing that extreme and growing economic inequality would lead to societal dangers, for our politics and the health of our economy, I became an active Twitter user. Over the years, my activity has waxed and waned, but Twitter remains the central mechanism I use to share my ideas. At the same time, as an internet marketer, I have developed Twitter campaigns for myself and commercial clients. The net result is that I have a strong understanding of how Twitter can build awareness and influence in the political, nonprofit and commercial realm. Most important, my belief in the fundamental value of the service, and the benefits it brings the world, is very high.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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