NEW RESOURCES

BT: Every ancient hill fort in UK and Ireland mapped in online database. “Locations and details of all the thousands of ancient hill forts found across the landscapes of the UK and Ireland have been mapped in an online database for the first time. A team of researchers, with the help of citizen scientists, has spent five years sifting and recording information on all the hill forts across England, Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland, the Republic of Ireland and the Isle of Man.”

AZGS Document Repository: Building a Statewide Inventory of Landslides in Arizona. “Landslides in Arizona are an under-appreciated geologic hazard. Prior to this project, the nature and extent of landslides was limited to an incomplete array of geologic maps and reports. To address this knowledge and data gap, the Arizona Geological Survey (AZGS) initiated a Landslides Hazards Program. Working with our partner agency, the Arizona Division of Emergency and Military Affairs (DEMA), we compiled the first comprehensive landslide inventory for the State of Arizona.” The freely-available document attached to this page is a PDF, but includes links to the online database.

New-to-me: a database of notable and historic bridges in the United States. (I learned about this site from a marvelous article about a bridge-photographing gentleman named Calvin Sneed. At least I think it’s this site – the URL in the article was wrong so I went looking and found this one.) From the site’s About page: “Railroads have disappeared. Whole towns have vanished or relocated. Buildings have come and gone, or been remodeled beyond recognition. But bridges have remained intact, a silent reminder of our ancestor’s way of life, and a tribute to skillful engineers who had no comprehension of modern school buses or SUVs — and yet were able to build structure capable of standing the test of time.”

The Whole Megillah: Holocaustkidlit.com Goes Live | Online Searchable Database of Children’s Holocaust Literature. “Yesterday at Hebrew Union College in New York City at the annual conference of the Association of Jewish Libraries, I announced and demonstrated the debut of Holocaustkidlit.com, a new website featuring an online searchable database of children’s Holocaust literature published in the United States and Canada from 2002 forward (excluding self-published and educational titles).” It looks like access is free.

BBC: The battle to save Mumbai’s art deco buildings. “Atul Kumar pointed to the pictures on the screen in front of him…. Swiping one image after the next on his ipad, Kumar rummaged through a series of shots of art deco buildings in the western city of Mumbai; buildings he has known and loved for years. Now he is trying to bring them to the wider attention of the public, and put the city’s art deco heritage in a definitive way on the global map.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: IFTTT’s powerful new initiative connects up with government data streams. “Today, all around cool internet thing IFTTT is hooking all kinds of useful public data into its powerful platform. With the launch of its new Data Access Project, IFTTT will add support for a broad selection of government agencies, organizations and research and cultural groups. That includes public data from federal and state government feeds on down to municipal transit information.” Can’t wait to dive into this. Article later.

International Business Times: Facebook Is Testing New Tool To Protect Users’ Profile Pictures. “Facebook has announced that it is currently testing a new tool that will protect users’ profile pictures. Called Profile Picture Guard, it prevents others from copying or saving a user’s profile picture.”

USEFUL STUFF

Digital Trends: Can’t View August’s Total Solar Eclipse? NASA Has You Covered. “In a special online show to be streamed live called Eclipse Across America: Through the Eyes of NASA, the space agency plans to show real-time imagery captured by 11 spacecraft, 3 aircraft, and 50 high-altitude balloons. Even the folks aboard the International Space Station are joining in the fun, live-streaming the celestial even from their orbiting satellite some 250 miles above Earth.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Reuters: Facebook to keep wraps on political ads data despite researchers’ demands. “Facebook (FB.O) said it would not disclose information about political campaign advertising or related data such as how many users click on ads and if advertising messages are consistent across demographics, despite arguments from political scientists who want the data for research.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Stuff NZ: Fairfax NZ photo library set to return home after US wrangle. “Fairfax NZ’s photo collection looks set to return to New Zealand from the United States, ending a long-running legal saga. Fairfax, the publisher of Stuff and newspapers including The Sunday Star-Times, The Dominion Post and The Press, agreed in 2013 to transfer several million photographs that had been taken in Australia and New Zealand over more than 100 years to Rogers Photo Archive (RPA). The company was to digitise and archive them all for free in return for some sales rights. ” Good afternoon, Internet…

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