Mapping the American Community Survey
A person named John Boyle has taken a cool online tool, geocommons.com, and the American Community Survey data and created a map of Bike Commuters By County. (Note that the biking numbers do not include people who bike to bus, train and trolley stops or who bike to work fewer than three days a week.) The map has little popups tables that display use of public transit, numbers who walk to work, total commuters, and numbers of those who drive to work alone. Continue reading
GPO’s Metalib federated search engine
Sometimes there's too much happening and things get missed. That's what happened this time as I totally missed the *October 2010* press release from the GPO about their new federated search engine called Metalib AND the Oct 29 post from the Pratt Library Students, our guest bloggers -- though I shouldn't feel so bad; only 45 libraries have cataloged it according to WorldCat. Metalib federates the search of 53 seed resources and counting including such databases as the Catalog of Govt Publications, Agricola articles, EPA publications and newsletters, GAO reports, National Technical Information Service (NTIS), USGS library catalog and much much more. I haven't had a chance to put Metalib through its paces, but if any of our gentle readers have used it, please leave a comment and let us know what you think.
GPO’s MetaLib Released Thursday, 14 October 2010 The U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) has released MetaLib, a federated search tool that is a service of the Catalog of U.S. Government Publications. Use MetaLib's federated searching to retrieve reports, articles, and citations by simultaneously searching across multiple databases. The initial release of MetaLib contains fifty-three Federal Government databases. Over time, the collection will grow based on recommendations from the GPO MetaLib team as well as public suggestions. Learn more about MetaLib and how it can be used in Federal depository libraries in Accessing Federal Information Using MetaLib's Federated Search.Continue reading
Invisible terrain of wifi networks
apropos of nothing, but check out this project which explores the invisible terrain of WiFi networks in urban spaces by light painting signal strength in long-exposure photographs. There's more on this project here and here and check out the flickr photos. Enjoy!
Immaterials: Light painting WiFi from Timo on Vimeo.
Congressional Redistricting: Mapping, Documenting, Planning
It's time for redistricting and the Columbia Law School has new tool that will help.
- DrawCongress.org DrawCongress.org represents the first attempt to create an internet depository for nonpartisan congressional maps for the entire country. DrawCongress.org is an outgrowth of the "Redistricting and Gerrymandering" course at Columbia Law School. At this website you will find a series of student-drawn nonpartisan redistricting plans, which will culminate in a complete map of all 435 congressional districts.... This website and associated project have three goals. First, the project seeks to educate both the students involved and the general public about the redistricting process. We hope that the maps and redistricting plans contained here depict what is possible in the current round of redistricting and what nonpartisan plans might look like. Second, we hope that these plans serve as a benchmark against which incumbent-drawn plans can be assessed. While not passing judgment on the plans states adopt this redistricting cycle, we hope that the plans contained here illustrate alternative paths not taken and therefore, both the promise and potential pitfalls of nonpartisan redistricting. Finally, for those states that fail to craft redistricting plans, this website provides ready-made legally defensible congressional plans. We also encourage others to submit plans to be posted to this website. Students in similar classes at other universities will be posting plans here later in the redistricting cycle.
2011 Report on Link Rot
How reliable are those URLs in your OPAC? The Chesapeake Project Legal Information Archive which harvests and preserves relevant digital information from the web, has been producing reports on "link rot" for several years. They define link rot as "a URL that no longer provides direct access to files matching the content originally harvested from the URL and currently preserved in the Chesapeake Project's digital archive." Their new report is now available:
- Breaking Down Link Rot: The Chesapeake Project Legal Information Archive's Examination of URL Stability, By Sarah Rhodes, LLRX (March 1, 2011).