Big Data, Environmental Data
The Journal Nature has a special issue about "Big Data" with articles by Clifford Lynch, Cory Doctorow, and others. The whole issue is worth reading and is freely available online for a short time.
Coping with floods of data is now one of science's biggest challenges. In this Nature Special, we assess the need to complement smart science with smart searching; look at what the next Google will be; talk to the pioneering biologists who are trying to use wiki-type web pages to manage and interpret data; and recall that the first mass data crunchers were not computers, but the remarkable women of Harvard's Observatory.In the area of government information, David Goldston, the former chief of staff of the House Committee on Science, writes about environmental data.
- Big data: Data wrangling by David Goldston, Nature 455, no. 7209 (September 3, 2008): 15.
Guide of the Week: Energy
Since energy policy has been in the news most of this year, it seems like a good time to highlight this guide from the ALA GODORT Handout Exchange: Energy (Ed Herman, University of Buffalo, 2007) Ed has produced an annotated listing of web resources to these aspects of energy:
- National Policy Issues
- US Statistics
- Technical Information
- Nuclear Energy
- New York State
- International Data
- Additional Information
- The Energy Source (U.S. Congress. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources) http://energy.senate.gov/ The hearings and news room sections are the most informative parts of this site. These abbreviated hearings reproduce testimonies of witnesses before the full committee and the subcommittees, but exclude dialogs among the witnesses and the Committee members. The Business and Government Documents Reference Center maintains the complete hearings in paper format. The news room includes two sets of press releases issued by the Committee Chair and the ranking minority member.
- States (U.S. Department of Energy. Energy Information Administration) http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/states/_seds.html Presents energy statistics pertaining to the 50 states.
- Building Energy Codes (U.S. Department of Energy. Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy) http://www.energycodes.gov/ Attempts to promote improved energy codes for buildings by working with government agencies, national code organizations, and industry. It also hopes to develop and distribute compliance tools; and provide financial and technical assistance to states.
- Nuclear Power Information Tracker (Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS)) http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/nuclear_safety/reactor-map/embedded-flash-map.html Select power plants from a map or a list to view a brief box that describes safety issues and a detailed statement that cites the reactor's owners, locations, populations within a 10-mile radius, and safety issues. Links lead to more detailed documentation.
- International Energy Annual (U.S. Department of Energy. Energy Information Administration) http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/iea/contents.html Provides information and trends on world energy production and consumption for petroleum; natural gas; coal; and electricity. Statistics measuring population and GDP put the data in context. View information in PDF format or download Excel files that offer longer time series.
Cloud of McCain’s acceptance speech
Last week I posted a tag cloud of Barack Obama's speech accepting the Presidential candidacy of the Democratic party. Today is John McCain's turn. I got the transcript at zimbio, the same site I used to get the Obama speech. Tag Crowd was again used to analyze the transcript. Enjoy!
The Words They Used
The Words They Used, by MATTHEW ERICSON, New York Times, September 4, 2008. "The words that speakers used at the two political conventions show the themes that the parties have highlighted." This is a bubble graph of number of times words were used per 25,000 words spoken and a list of which speakers used which words. Ericson has done a good job of looking at phrases as well as individual words, of combining similar words and phrases, and of noting phrases that have very little or no use by one or both parties. Another good example of how, when we have access to the "raw data" (as opposed to transaction-based, search-and-retrieve, one-page-at-a-time access), the data can be used, re-used, and analyzed. Continue reading
Getting Documents from NARA about NARA – UPDATE
[Cross posted on LegalResearchPlus] About one month ago, I posted an item about the difficulty of getting documents about NARA from NARA -- the entry was based on an article written by Anthony Clark (Why Is It So Hard to Get Documents from the National Archives About the National Archives?, History News Network, July 21, 2008). Here is an update to this very interesting story. On the Archivists' Forum, there is a recent entry from Anthony Clark detailing the latest ups and (mostly) downs of this saga. Clark writes:
"Some readers may know that I have had great difficulty accessing NARA's own records for my research into presidential libraries and NL, or NARA's Office of Presidential Libraries (see http://hnn.us/articles/52350.html) for more information). What you might not know is that in July NARA offered me a deal" - if I dropped all of my pending FOIA requests for NL's records, they would commit to systematically process all of NL's records - some 230 boxes - at a rate of nine boxes per month, until all boxes have been processed and made available. Just a few weeks later, not only did NARA "take back" part of that offer (while claiming it was never made), they have now reneged on it completely. I was so shocked by what NARA did today that I felt I had to make the list aware of what they had done. [Full details available on the Forum page.]"As I hear more about this NARA-tive, I'll be sure to pass it along. Continue reading