The Ten Thousand Year Blog

The Art of the American Snapshot, 1888-1978 was an exhibit at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., USA, that ran between October 7 and December 31, 02007.

Tags: History Findings, Museums and Art Galleries, Visualization Systems by David
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Leheigh University (Bethlehem, PA, USA) recently launched a historical GIS project called Beyond Steel. Here’s the description from the front page: The Geographic Information Systems (GIS) project is comprised of the early twentieth-century Sanborn fire insurance maps, Sholes’ Directory of the Bethlehems, 1900-1901, 1900-1902 Bethlehem Steel employee lists, a contemporary database of streets, and selected [...]

Tags: Archives and Libraries, Digital Humanities, History Findings, Visualization Systems by David
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According to the Project Introduction for the North Carolina Geospatial Data Archiving Project, The joint project of the North Carolina State University Libraries and the North Carolina Center for Geographic Information and Analysis will focus on collection and preservation of digital geospatial data resources from state and local government agencies in North Carolina. The objectives [...]

Tags: Archives and Libraries, Digital Preservation, Electronic Records, Visualization Systems by David
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The BC 150 Secretariat and the BC Geocaching Association have collaborated with BC Parks in a unique celebration of British Columbia’s 150th anniversary called GeoRush 2008. Those commemorative tokens look really cool! Here’s the BCGA’s page on GeoRush 2008 that describes the locations of the caches with those tokens. Happy hunting everyone.

Tags: History Findings, Search and Retrieval Technology, Visualization Systems by David
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A while back I was answering some questions for Nelle Oosterom of The Beaver magazine about the famous “Last Spike” photograph taken on November 7, 01885 to mark the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway. The August-September 02008 issue contains her writeup about the photograph, with some quotes by and references to yours truly, including [...]

Tags: History Findings, Virtual Exhibits, Visualization Systems by David
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I received an invitation, thanks to Gael Newton, Senior Curator, Photography, National Gallery of Australia, to the opening on July 10, 02008 of Picture Paradise: Asia-Pacific Photography, 1840s-1940s, which runs until November 9, 02008. The exhibit is also part of Vivid, Australia’s National Photography Festival. Unless some kind soul sends me an all-expenses paid trip [...]

Tags: History Findings, Museums and Art Galleries, Visualization Systems by David
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This looks like a fascinating conference; mapping mythical and imaginary places is a subject that’s always appealed to me: Maps, Myths and Narratives: Cartography of the Far North 23rd International Conference on the History of Cartography, July 12-17, 2009. Location: The Black Diamond, Royal Library, Copenhagen, Denmark Call for Papers Date: 2009-07-12 Date Submitted: 2008-07-09 [...]

Tags: Archives and Libraries, Digital Humanities, Visualization Systems by David
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UMapper calls itself “the first universal web-based map-layering engine” and it’s free for now. Here’s a feature set from its start page: • Create interactive flash maps • Display maps on your website or social network • Export data to Flash ActionScript 3.0 or KML • Explore and interact with our map community • Fulfill [...]

Tags: Blogging Experience, Collaborative Web, Cool Tools, Search and Retrieval Technology, Visualization Systems by David
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Google Labs have launched a beta version of Lively, an application for building 3D chat rooms. One of the features is the ability to “stream personal photos and video.” I wonder how many people will get caught by Google’s terms of service that prohibit the usual terrible things that go on in many chat rooms [...]

Tags: Collaborative Web, Information Knowledgists, Visualization Systems by David
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While visiting the City of Vancouver Archives Web site on June 16, 02008, I couldn’t help but notice an ad for the Bullen Photo Co. at 518 West Hastings St. in Vancouver. What caught my eye was the clearly demonic or devilish figure beneath the camera’s focusing cloth. Harry Elder Bullen (1880-1963), otherwise known as [...]

Tags: Archives and Libraries, History Findings, Visualization Systems by David
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I’m thinking of getting me a Gravatar (Globally Recognized Avatar) at Gravatar.com. Now, who should I be? Dougall Campbell of Geek Ramblings created a great and easy WordPress plugin called Easy Gravatars that will “display gravatars for the people who comment on your posts. You do not need to modify any of your template files — [...]

Tags: Blogging Experience, Collaborative Web, Cool Tools, Visualization Systems by David
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Heritage Burnaby, an initiative of City of Burnaby, BC, partners engaged in the preservation and interpretation of Burnaby’s past as documented through its recorded history and built heritage, was launched in celebration of Heritage Week 02008. It’s a wonderful new tool for learning more about one of Vancouver City’s next door municipal neighbours.

Tags: Archives and Libraries, History Findings, Museums and Art Galleries, Search and Retrieval Technology, Visualization Systems by David
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The Digital Preservation Coalition has released a report that cautiously extols the virtues of JPEG2000 for archival purposes. The report, JPEG 2000 – a Practical Digital Preservation Standard?, part of its Technology Watch series, was prepared by Dr. Robert Buckley, a Research Fellow with Xerox.

Tags: Archives and Libraries, Digital Preservation, Visualization Systems by David
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While visiting Kate Theimer’s ArchivesNext blog, I also noticed her post Documents gone wild! about “web sites that feature innovative uses of documents in non-archival settings.” Adding to her list of The Smoking Gun, PostSecret, Found Magazine and Strange Maps, I’d have to include Paleo-Future, which I came across as a link on Strange Maps. [...]

Tags: Digital Dark Age Funnies, History Findings, Virtual Exhibits, Visualization Systems by David
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The Archives of Ontario is likely the first provincial archives in Canada, let alone first Canadian government archives, to join the YouTube social video networking and Web 2.0 revolution. Congratulations to the staff, including visionary managers, who took a chance and decided to give this experiment a chance. If you’re dying to know how to [...]

Tags: Archives and Libraries, Collaborative Web, Visualization Systems by David
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The Library of Congress has set up its own collection of photos on Flickr and is encouraging the public to tag the collections of photos it’s posted there. The two collections so far are 1930s-40s in color (1,615 photos) and News in the 1910s (1,500 photos). The latter consists of photographs taken by the Bain [...]

Tags: Archives and Libraries, Collaborative Web, Digital Libraries and Collections, History Findings, Searcher Magazine Threads, Visualization Systems by David
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The British Columbia Breeding Bird Atlas should excite a lot of birders who are looking for a way to share what they observe and know about the indigenous and migratory population of bird species throughout the province. This is great project. Some of the site functionality, however, hasn’t taken flight as of 02008 01 17.

Tags: Collaborative Web, Distance Education and E-Learning, Science, Searcher Magazine Threads, Visualization Systems by David
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From the Online Exhibition page of Exploring the Early Americas virtual exhibit at the Library of Congress, which “features selections from the more than 3,000 rare maps, documents, paintings, prints, and artifacts that make up the Jay I. Kislak Collection. This ongoing exhibition has three major themes: Pre-Contact America; Explorations and Encounters; and Aftermath of [...]

Tags: Archives and Libraries, History Findings, Searcher Magazine Threads, Virtual Exhibits, Visualization Systems by David
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SlideShare is a Flickr- and YouTube like service for sharing your most excellent and dull presentations. The service is free and private sharing, also free, was introduced in November 02007.

Tags: Collaborative Web, Cool Tools, Searcher Magazine Threads, Visualization Systems by David
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Part of Chicago’s Festival of Maps, Maps: Finding Our Place in the World is an exhibition at the Field Museum of Natural History created with the help of the Newberry Library. You can view and interact with parts of the exhibit through the Web site. The exhibition of more than 100 maps runs from November [...]

Tags: History Findings, Museums and Art Galleries, Virtual Exhibits, Visualization Systems by David
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The Bibliotheque et Archives nationales du Quebec launched a new digital collection of maps called America, 1500-1800 in support of its book La mesure d’un continent: atlas historique de l’Amerique du Nord, 1492-1814 (Mapping a Continent: Historical Atlas of North America, 1492-1814, 02007) and the exhibition Ils ont cartographié l’Amérique. America, 1500-1800 is available only [...]

Tags: Archives and Libraries, Digital Libraries and Collections, History Findings, Search and Retrieval Technology, Searcher Magazine Threads, Visualization Systems by David
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Also from the Image Permanence Institute comes the amazing Digital Sample Book in which you can explore through extreme magnification examples of various kinds of printing technology used for images, including ones used before and after analog photography.

Tags: Cool Tools, Electronic Records, Visualization Systems by David
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As announced on HISTORY-DIGITISATION@JISCMAIL.AC.UK (2007 11 26): A new online database available from the Visual Arts Data Service (VADS) offers the chance to explore nearly 8,000 European oil paintings in Britain’s public art collections. NICE Paintings (The National Inventory of Continental European Paintings) was launched on 21 November 2007 and will be the first time [...]

Tags: History Findings, Museums and Art Galleries, Search and Retrieval Technology, Searcher Magazine Threads, Visualization Systems by David
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Visual Resources: An International Journal of Documentation has a new Web site that features cover thumbnails of each issue back to its first issue in Spring 1980, along with the table of contents of each number. Source: IMAGELIB mailing list, 02007 11 23

Tags: Information Knowledgists, Visualization Systems by David
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According to the announcement on DIGLIB (02007 11 23), the first DIGMAP Workshop is being held in Lisbon, Portugal, on December 7, 02007. The announcement states that DIGMAP is proposing to develop solutions for georeferenced digital libraries, especially focused on historical maps and in the promoting of our cultural scientific heritage. The final results of [...]

Tags: Announcements for Digital Culture Conferences, Seminars, Archives and Libraries, Digital Libraries and Collections, Digital Preservation, Search and Retrieval Technology, Searcher Magazine Threads, Visualization Systems by David
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The University of British Columbia Library has a new online service for viewing its digitized collections, chiefly pictorial in nature, called the UBC Library Vault. The works will also be available for purchase in various repurposed formats such as greeting cards and umbrella patterns. You can also send a virtual black and white postcard from [...]

Tags: Archives and Libraries, Digital Libraries and Collections, Visualization Systems by David
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Here’s a pretty nifty digitization project of four historic clothing collections called Digital Dress. It’s hosted by Wayne State University Libraries. The clothing and accessories range in time from at least the 18th century to the 1980s. Digital Dress was a two-year (2003-2005) collaboration between some museums and the Wayne State University Libraries. Although it’s [...]

Tags: Digital Humanities, History Findings, Museums and Art Galleries, Visualization Systems, Web Jots by David
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Update for October 27, 02007 : Here is the URL for UNESCO World Day for Audiovisual Heritage as presented by the Co-ordinating Council of Audiovisual Archives Associations. Original post, June 6, 02006: From the announcement on IFLA-L (02006 06 01) via the nestor mailing list (02006 06 06): “UNESCO has launched a public consultation on [...]

Tags: Announcements for Digital Culture Conferences, Seminars, Archives and Libraries, Digital Libraries and Collections, Digital Preservation, History Findings, Museums and Art Galleries, Visualization Systems by David
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I was delighted to have received my two-volume set of the Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography, edited by John Hannavy, and published by Routledge. At a stunning $440 US, this is not a tome I would have otherwise purchased for myself. While the book will undoubtedly be regarded as definitive, there are some curious omissions, due [...]

Tags: History Findings, Visualization Systems by David
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The University of British Columbia, my graduate school alma mater twice over, is working on a couple of 3D sites that could rival Second Life, especially if they’re commercialized: Arts Metaverse, which features some historical reconstructions and the UBC campus itself, and Ancient Spaces, “an ‘open-source’ project that aims to deliver immersive, three-dimensional historical environments [...]

Tags: Collaborative Web, Cool Tools, History Findings, Information Knowledgists, Searcher Magazine Threads, Visualization Systems by David
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