NEW RESOURCES

Library of Congress: New Poetry Podcast Series Launches. “As April winds down, our celebration of National Poetry Month at the Library of Congress is still going strong: Today we launch ‘From the Catbird Seat,’ a new poetry podcast series from the Poetry and Literature Center. Each Thursday for the next eight weeks, we’ll explore poetry’s past, present and future.”

Los Angeles Times: Rediscovered memories on forgotten rolls of film: The Lost Rolls America project displays its trove. “Slightly faded and scratched, the image of a sailboat in Monterey Bay looks like countless vacation photos that might be boxed in the attic or sandwiched between pages of a scrapbook. The boat sits slightly off-center in the frame, its significance a mystery. The photographer might have explained it — but the film was misplaced at some point and Gabriel Berent had to wait almost 20 years to see that image and feel the flood of memories it evoked…Berent had heard about a project whose organizers were asking Americans to dig through their drawers and closets to find undeveloped rolls of film and send them in to be processed. Now his image is part of a national archive — christened Lost Rolls America — that includes hundreds rescued from obscurity.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

National Archives: New Group of JFK Assassination Documents Available to the Public. “In accordance with President Trump’s direction on October 26, 2017, the National Archives today posted 19,045 documents subject to the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 (JFK Act). Released documents are available for download. The versions released today were processed by agencies in accordance with the President’s direction that agency heads be extremely circumspect in recommending any further postponement.”

NeverEnding Search: SweetSearch: an update and three tools for your kids’ utility belts. “I’ve been a longtime fan of findingDulcinea, a carefully curated portal for educators that I reviewed years ago. SweetSearch, its searchier sister site, is an excellent example of the power of a Google custom search engine to create a noise-free, focused search for children. Launched in 2009, SweetSearch leverages a Google CSE to search the websites included in findingDulcinea’s pathfinders and articles, as well as additional materials vetted and regularly updated by the research team. I recently caught up with Mark Moran, founder of SweetSearch, at the Texas Library Association Conference, and he shared three exciting updates that you may want to include in your kiddos’ search utility belts.”

Engadget: Twitter’s timeline will highlight news links your friends tweet. “Twitter released quite a few news-related features over the past years in an effort to become your go-to source for the latest in current events. It introduced a dedicated News tab in 2015, for instance, though that one didn’t work out as planned. Last month, it also started testing an algorithm that puts trending tweets from news organizations at the top of your timeline when something big happens. Now, the platform has rolled out a feature that highlights news links tweeted by the people you Follow right in your Home timeline, according to BuzzFeed News.”

The Guardian: Snapchat hopes for second time lucky with new Spectacles launch. “Snap is doubling down on its hardware business, launching a new version of its Spectacles camera-glasses today with a better camera, the ability to take still images and water resistance. The new model comes as Snapchat attempts to recover from the disappointing long-term fate of the first generation, which gathered attention – and long queues – when they were launched in extremely limited quantities in November 2016, but failed to sell in large numbers when they were eventually released on general sale.”

USEFUL STUFF

Hongkiat: 30 Best Free Screen Capture Tools and Plugins. “There’s no denying the fact that screenshots are the best way to record your computer’s activity or create a guide either to keep for yourself or to share with others. However, what troubles most users is that which tool to use for taking quick and quality screenshots. Well, for all those who are on such a quest, here is a comprehensive collection of free tools and plugins to capture screenshots for both macOS and Windows. ”

Lifehacker: Use This Modified Google Search URL to Avoid Spoilers. “Really, for any piece of media you care about, Google’s autocomplete feature is a potential minefield of spoilers, even when you’re just looking for more information about your favorite show or game and doing your very best to stay spoiler-free. Let’s fix that.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

BuzzFeed: Silicon Valley Can’t Be Trusted With Our History. “It’s the paradox of the internet age: Smartphones and social media have created an archive of publicly available information unlike any in human history — an ocean of eyewitness testimony. But while we create almost everything on the internet, we control almost none of it. In the summer of 2017, observers of the Syrian civil war realized that YouTube was removing dozens of channels and tens of thousands of videos documenting the conflict. The deletions occurred after YouTube announced that it had deployed ‘cutting-edge machine learning technology … to identify and remove violent extremism and terrorism-related content.’ But the machines went too far.”

Pew (pew pew pew pew pew!): Our expanded focus on trust, facts and the state of democracy. “Today, we are issuing a comprehensive look at public attitudes on the state of American democracy. In the months ahead, we will examine how Americans balance the desire to address false news and First Amendment freedoms, explore how news consumers differentiate between fact and opinion in news content, and add to our existing research on how trust functions in democracies. We also plan to take a close look at public confidence in the electoral process. And in an upcoming 30-nation study, we will bring a global perspective to these issues.” Good evening, Internet…

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