NEW RESOURCES

Fox59: IPS digital collection will launch this week with access to photos and files dating back to 1800s. ” Thousands of files and pictures depicting the history of Indianapolis Public Schools will be soon be available online. As part of The Indianapolis Public Library’s Digital Indy collection; researches, educators and alumni will be able to access archived items stretching back to the 1800’s. Downloadable items represent the 120 elementary and high schools that have comprised IPS and show the role they’ve played in shaping the city of Indianapolis.”

Newswise: Berkeley Lab-Developed Digital Library is a Game Changer for Environmental Research. “… storing, accessing and incorporating environmental data into models is challenging due to the diversity of the datasets, which include measurement of properties associated with bedrock, groundwater, soils, vegetation and atmospheric compartments of environmental systems. Now accessing archival data generated by environmental field, experimental and modeling activities has gotten much easier with the April 1 launch of ESS-DIVE (Environmental System Science – Data Infrastructure for a Virtual Ecosystem)—a digital archive that serves as a repository for hundreds of U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)-funded research projects under the agency’s Environmental System Science umbrella, which includes the Subsurface Biogeochemical Research and Terrestrial Ecosystem Sciences programs. The digital library also serves datasets that were previously stored in DOE’s Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center archive.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNBC: Pinterest nears $1 billion in ad sales and valuation rises as it looks to go public in mid-2019. “Pinterest has taken a long time to justify its monstrous private market valuation. However the social media company is finally approaching $1 billion in ad revenue as it pushes toward an IPO in mid-2019, according to people familiar with the matter.”

BetaNews: Twitter removes 143,000 apps, now requires developers to request API access. “As part of its continuing efforts to clean up the platform, Twitter has removed 143,000 apps in the last three months for policy violations. To help reduce the need for such measures in the future, the company has also introduced a new registration system that means developers must now request access to Twitter’s APIs.”

UK National Archives: Prime Minister’s papers from 1993 released. “Today we have released files from the Prime Minister’s Office and Cabinet Office predominantly covering the year of 1993. The newly released Cabinet Office files (CAB and PREM) shed light on a range of subjects both at home and abroad under John Major’s leadership.” A selection of the files are available online.

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The Guardian: Barefaced cheek: Rubens nudes fall foul of Facebook censors. “Rubens nudes have entranced those visiting the world’s great art galleries for some 400 years. Contemporaries on whom the Flemish master is said to have had a profound impact include Van Dyck and Rembrandt … but none of this has passed muster with Facebook’s censors.”

New York Times: Tech Companies Like Facebook and Twitter Are Drawing Lines. It’ll Be Messy.. “From its earliest days, Silicon Valley has been animated by near-absolutist understanding of free speech. Other than exceptions for fraud, pornography or specific threats, the prevailing view among many tech platforms has been to allow pretty much anyone to post pretty much anything. These sensibilities are even enshrined in American law, which gives companies broad immunity from prosecution for what their users post. But now, for good reason, the absolutist ethos is over.”

Citizen Times: Grant backs project to digitally preserve slave deeds across North Carolina. “Just shy of $300,000 was awarded by the National Historic Publications and Records Commission to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro to fund the expansion of a project to digitize nearly 10,000 slave deeds and bills of sale from 26 counties across the state. Once digitized, the records will go into a searchable database accessible to the public.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Los Angeles Times: Facebook agrees to prevent discriminatory advertising. “Facebook Inc. can no longer block minorities or other groups from seeing advertisements, according to an agreement with Washington state. Facebook signed a binding agreement to modify its advertising platform so third parties can’t discriminate based on ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation, according to Washington state Atty. Gen. Bob Ferguson. Facebook must make the changes nationwide within 90 days, according to Ferguson’s office.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

EurekAlert: Thinking about quitting Facebook? There’s a demographic analysis for that . “People are either Facebook users or they are not. Facebook user data can be used to draw conclusions about general social phenomena. According to Eric P.S. Baumer, who studies human-computer interaction, the simple statements above are, in fact, not so simple–nor are they true.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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