NEW RESOURCES

Irish Times: Discover the Dean: TCD celebrates Jonathan Swift. “To reimagine Swift’s Dublin, the Library of Trinity College Dublin has curated a collaborative online exhibition which draws on artifacts relevant to Swift from Trinity and other Dublin institutions: St Patrick’s Cathedral, where Swift was Dean; Marsh’s Library, the oldest public library in Ireland, and much frequented by Swift at the time; and St Patrick’s Hospital, which was built thanks to a bequest left by Swift. The Royal Irish Academy and the National Library have also collaborated.”

Huffington Post: This Vlogger Created A Database With South African Gifs And It’s Made Him Our Latest National Treasure (well, it’s a GIPHY page, but still.) “South Africans love gifs. One thing that has always been missing from our lives, though, is a place to get strictly South African gifs – unless of course you were making them yourself. Lelo Macheke, who is also known by the internet name Suburban Zulu, realised this and decided to create a database of gifs from local content.” Just FYI: there is some bad language in the collection.

Deutsche Welle: Database highlights German doctors’ relations with pharma industry. “A new database allows German doctors to declare that they don’t receive money from pharmaceutical companies. Some 71,000 German doctors take money to test drugs – and are not obliged to disclose it.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

SEO Roundtable: Google: Hyphens In Search Queries Can Change Results. “If someone searches for a word or term with or without a hyphen, Google can show different search results based on the query having a hyphen in it or not. So for example, [popup-style] vs [popup style] or [s-eo] vs [seo]. The question originally came up in a Moz Community thread, which no one had a solid answer for so John Mueller from Google was asked about it on Twitter.”

Ars Technica: USPTO director Michelle Lee has resigned without warning. “Director of the US Patent and Trademark Office Michelle Lee resigned today, without explanation. Lee, who has been director of the office since 2014, was a favored candidate by the tech sector, who thought she brought a balanced approach to patents. She is a former Google lawyer and was one of the first corporate lawyers to speak out about the problem of so-called ‘patent trolls.’ ”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

International Council on Archives: International Archives Day: Friday 9 June 2017. “On Friday 9 June 2017, celebrate the International Archives Day in your institution, your company or your department. Use this global event for archivists and records managers in order to make known the role of archives and share your experience and the importance of your work. Show that the archives profession is fun, inclusive, varied and that your expertise is helpful to everyone.”

New York Times: How Bots Are Inflating Instagram Egos. “Many people with public accounts on Instagram may not realize that when random users follow them or like or comment on their posts, it is often the work of a cottage industry of websites that, for as little as $10 a month, send their clients’ accounts on automated liking, following and commenting sprees. It’s a rogue marketing tactic meant to catch the attention of other Instagram users in hopes that they will follow or like the automated accounts in return.”

SECURITY/LEGAL ISSUES

Al Arabiya: UAE: Showing sympathy for Qatar on social media is a cybercrime. “UAE General Prosecutor Hamad Saif Al-Shamsi warned early Wednesday that showing any sympathy for Qatar on social media is a cybercrime, punishable by the law, Al Arabiya News Channel reported. Shamsi warned social media users that any pro-Qatar participation online could land them from three up to 15 years in prison or at least 500,000 dirhams ($136,000) in fines.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Consumerist: Tweeting Before The Big Game Is Not Going To Help You Win. “Staying up late and failing to get enough sleep can impair your performance the following day. This includes NBA players who stay up Tweeting, a new report finds. A study from Stony Brook University found that NBA players had worse personal statistics in games that followed a late night of Tweeting.”

South China Morning Post: Is social media bad for you? Yes, but we still love it, say Chinese. “They could just be signs of ‘social media syndrome’ – a tendency to live your life through your online interactions – according to new research which found a growing number of China’s 700 million plus internet users recognise the potential impact on their health of extensive use of platforms such as WeChat and Weibo. But, the study shows, the mainland’s swelling army of social media addicts have no intention of quitting just yet.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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