NEW RESOURCES

The Mayor EU: Denmark makes sure people of all ages and abilities can access nature. “According to a press release by the Ministry, the Danish Nature Agency has collaborated with the Association of Young People with Disabilities to launch a new website which lists 63 experiences that have been made open and accessible to people of all abilities. The website provides users with a map of 63 locations from all over the country. One must simply click on the location that interests them to see what experiences are offered in the area. The activities and sites which are listed on the website include hiking trails, viewpoints, and campsites, among others.”

ORT: New ORT Archive Offers Access to Trove of Historical Documents and Images. “The new World ORT Archive site provides users with access to thousands of images, documents and other artefacts, giving an insight into ORT’s rich past worldwide. There are also dozens of highlights from the organization’s film collection, and the opportunity to search the archive for the most relevant information about a place or time in our network’s 141-year history.” I had never heard of ORT, but you can read about it here. From that page: “Our ORT network now reaches more than 200,000 people a year, in more than 30 countries, and is one of the largest educational charities in the world. We provide a combination of high-level science and technology education with strengthened Jewish identity to bridge the gap between ability and opportunity – and to ensure the continuity of Jewish life worldwide.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Brisbane Times: National Archives gets $67.7m injection to save decaying documents. “Almost 300,000 pieces of Australian history including radio recordings of former prime minister John Curtin and a petition to King George V for Indigenous representation in Federal Parliament will be saved after a $67.7 million funding injection into the National Archives. But the government is facing calls for extra money to protect even more documents, recordings and images as part of an overhaul of an archival system pushed to the brink of collapse by years of funding shortfalls.”

Axios: Facebook launches independent publishing platform “Bulletin”. “It’s the latest feature Facebook has built to go after independent creators. It could also help Facebook’s user base stay better connected to its platform. Details: Bulletin is a standalone feature that includes tools for journalists to write and send newsletters they can share across the web and on Facebook. It also allows journalists to build websites.”

USEFUL STUFF

Lifehacker: How to Read E-Books for Free Without Pirating Them. “Getting your hands on a good book to read is as easy as clicking ‘borrow’ on your tablet. If you’re a slow adopter to the world of e-books, you should know that you can download thousands of e-books and their audio counterparts from your phone, computer, or tablet—for free. Here’s how to quickly and easily borrow an e-book from your local public library.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Education Technology: Are academic libraries being stamped out?. “When asked whether it’s time to shelve big old campus academic libraries for their online equivalents, digital library pioneer Gary Marchionini files a categorical ‘nope’. By their nature, libraries are repositories of the past, but, says Marchionini, that doesn’t preclude them from moving with the times.”

University of Kentucky: Sounding Spirit Team, Including UK Libraries and Niles Center, Awarded NEH Grant for American Music Digital Library. “The Sounding Spirit Digital Library team, which includes the University of Kentucky Libraries and the John Jacob Niles Center for American Music, as well as archival partners from five other institutions across the United States, has been awarded a third grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to further preserve and enhance engagement with historic Southern sacred songbooks.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

ZDNet: Google releases new open-source security software program: Scorecards. “According to the Synopsys Cybersecurity Research Center (CyRC) 2021 ‘Open Source Security and Risk Analysis’ (OSSRA) report, 95% of all commercial programs contain open-source software. By CyRC’s count, the vast majority of that code contains outdated or insecure code. But how can you tell which libraries and other components are safe without doing a deep code dive? Google and the Open Source Security Foundation (OSSF) have a quick and easy answer: The OpenSSF Security Scorecards.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Silicon Republic: GitHub’s new AI tool is like predictive text for programmers. “The company, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2018, collaborated with OpenAI to develop GitHub Copilot. This will act as an AI programming assistant in GitHub’s visual studio code editor. The new tool will give suggestions for lines of code or entire functions inside the editor, acting like predictive text for coders.”

Natural History Museum (UK): Critical data from millions of insect specimens to be unlocked through cutting-edge 3D imaging technology. “Over 1.6 million of the Museum’s 35 million insects have already been digitised using 2D photography. These specimens have had their images and collections data (information about where in time and space they were collected and what species they are) made available to the public via the Museum’s Data Portal. However, this landmark project is expected to provide valuable new insights and information by providing the beginnings of a high-resolution 3D dataset for all living and fossil insects and their close relatives.” Good evening, Internet…

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