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Daily Archives: September 1, 2016

Explore historical collections from libraries, museums, and archives across Massachusetts

“Digital Commonwealth is a non-profit collaborative organization that provides resources and services to support the creation, management, and dissemination of cultural heritage materials held by Massachusetts libraries, museums, historical societies, and archives. Digital Commonwealth currently has over 130 member institutions from across the state. This site provides access to thousands of images, documents, and sound recordings that have been digitized by member institutions so that they may be available to researchers, students, and the general public. Digital Commonwealth members may apply for free digitization services from the Boston Public Library as part of a grant awarded by the MBLC (Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners) and funded by the LSTA (Library Services and Technology Act)…”

Bureau of Transportation Statistics released National Transit Map data

“The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) today released National Transit Map data, a geospatial database containing the information from 270 transit agencies that provides open, machine-readable data about their stops, routes, and schedules. The national, openly available map of fixed-guideway and fixed-route transit service in America will allow the U.S. Department… Continue Reading

Study – Systems Biology Research Study Reveals Benefits of Vacation and Meditation

Mount Sinai Hospital – “Scientists from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, the University of California, San Francisco, and Harvard Medical School used a rigorous study design to assess the biological impact of meditation compared to vacation. They examined the effect of meditation on gene expression patterns in both novice and regular meditators.… Continue Reading

Open Source Guide to Drone Journalism

Via Poynter: “…a pair of….early adopters have teamed up to create a user-friendly (and open-source) guide to the burgeoning field of drone journalism. With funding from The Knight Foundation, Matt Waite, a professor at the University of Nebraska, and Ben Kreimer, a beta fellow with BuzzFeed’s Open Lab for Journalism, Technology and the Arts, have… Continue Reading

EFF – What Facebook and WhatsApp’s Data Sharing Plans Really Mean for User Privacy

EFF – “WhatsApp is establishing data-sharing practices that signal a significant shift in its attitude toward privacy—though you wouldn’t know it from the privacy policy update that popped up on users’ screens last week. The new policy lays the groundwork for alarming data sharing between WhatsApp and its parent company Facebook. The update screen that… Continue Reading

GAO – OPM Needs to Improve Management and Oversight of Hiring Authorities

Federal Hiring: OPM Needs to Improve Management and Oversight of Hiring Authorities, GAO-16-521: Published: Aug 2, 2016. Publicly Released: Sep 1, 2016. “A hiring authority is the law, executive order, or regulation that allows an agency to hire a person into the federal civil service. Of the 105 hiring authorities used in fiscal year 2014,… Continue Reading

ACRL – Keeping Up With Cybersecurity, Usability, and Privacy

Snipped – via Bohyun Kim. Associate Director, Library Applications and Knowledge Systems, at the University of Maryland-Baltimore, Health Sciences and Human Services Library – Keeping Up With Cybersecurity, Usability, and Privacy What is Cybersecurity? Cybersecurity is a broad term. It refers to the activities, practices, and technology that keep computers, networks, programs, and data secure… Continue Reading

CA Digital Library – New Platform for Declassified Documents Reference System

California Digital Library: “The U.S. Declassified Documents can now be cross-searched with the other archive resources on the Artemis platform.  You can filter search results by document type, classification level, publication year and by other categories.  Results can be analysed using the built-in Term Frequency and Term Clusters tools. U.S. Declassified Documents Online provides access… Continue Reading