On July 7th, we launched the first of several compilations containing direct links to searchable databases from some of the major art museums around the world. Collection #1 includes MOMA in NYC, The Art Institute of Chicago, and the Louvre Museum in Paris. Today, we will add a few more databases to the collection.

Our first collection of databases is linked here.

+ Guggenheim Museum of Art
Selections from the collection. Browse by artist, movement, title, medium, date, concept, museum (including Guggenheim Bilbao and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection).

+ The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia
This is the “digital collection.” Note that you can query the database by using IBM’s Query By Image Content (QBIC) technology including by color and layout. More about QBIC here.

+ Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Over 67,000 items accessible online (about 1/2 of the collection)

+ Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France

+ National Portrait Gallery (U.K.), London, U.K.
Search by artist, sitter, portrait.

+ National Portrait Gallery (U.S.), Washington D.C.
Links to several databases including “Portrait Search,” “Biographical Search,” and “Browse.”

See Also: Our first collection of databases is linked here.

Reuters reports that AOL plans to expand their video service in a test beginning today.

Before, looking at what AOL is announcing today, let’s review the past few years of AOL Video Search.

+ AOL currently offers an impressive video search service from across the web. It launched in beta last June. AOL also acquired both SingingFish (2003) and Truveo (2005) search and crawling technology.

+ AOL Offers In2Tv that allows users to view online complete “classic” 70’s and 80’s television shows like Dynasty and Welcome Back Kotter. This service launched in winter 2006.

+ In 2005 AOL began a trial called AOL Hi-Q Video allowing users to download high quality (”DVD like”) content and then view offline. In2TV now offers some Hi-Q downloads. Direct to AOL Hi-Q.

In the past two weeks, AOL announced even more closed captioning for more of its video content including CNN material.

Worth noting that with the AOL/Google deal announced last December, Google and AOL would:

[Collaborate] in video search and showcasing AOL’s premium video service within Google Video.

In May, we posted about a link to AOL Video on the Google Video home page. However, when we checked today, it was not visible for us.

OK, that’s the past year. With that background, let’s review what today’s announcement is all about:

+ New Video Portal Beta Coming Later This Week. Look for the beta site here.
Content will be organized into 45 “channels.”

+ Users will be able to stream content, download material, and have the “ability to purchase and download full-length content that can be viewed on multiple devices and PCs, online or offline; and access to millions of music videos, news clips, movie trailers, full length TV shows, and more.”
In other words, AOL is going to play with Google, CinemaNow, MovieLink, Guba.com, and others for viewing new content online and off. The fact that content (we need to learn precisely what content) will be viewable offline and with many devices. The news release does not specifically mention iPods.

+ AOL is getting into the user-created video-hosting space joining YouTube, Google, Guba, and MANY others. The service will be called UnCut. How many more services will we see? How many more do we need? What’s interesting is that AOL is launching their own service versus piggybacking off of their deal with Google. Btw, the UnCut service is currently listed on the AOL Beta page but it’s only available at the present time for AOL subscribers. Btw, the announcement offers no info about how AOL plans to “police” UnCut for copyright issues, adult material, etc.

+ An Interactive Programming Guide (featuring paid and ad-supported content) across the web for video content. The guide will feature clips from about a dozen services (including A&E, Nick at Nite, Spike TV, TV Land, and VH1).

+ Open API coming this fall.

As broadband continues to become mainstream (see these new stats for the U.S.) both interactive and IPTV (television delivered via the Internet) are two areas growing very rapidly and we believe it’s techology that all info pros should be aware of and understand.

+ To get an idea of what this is all about, an extensive glossary of terms from Tracy Swedlow’s “must have” free weekly newsletter: InteractiveTV Today and a blog.

+ Players: The Interactive TV Emmy Awards were just announced. Full List Winners and Nominees (via itvt).

The winner of the Award for Outstanding Achievement for Enhanced or Interactive Programming: Television is the TiVo Service (TiVo) The other finalists in this category were: AOL Music on Demand (AOL/Time Warner Cable/Zetools); CNN Enhanced (CNN); and DirecTV Interactive Sports (DirecTV).The winner of the Award for Outstanding Achievement for Enhanced or Interactive Programming: New Delivery Platforms is the ABC.com Full Episode Streaming Player (ABC). The other finalists in this category were Danny Bowles and the Jade Treasure, Stranger Adventures (Riddle Productions in association with Red Car); MLB.TV Mosaic (Major League Baseball/Ensequence); and Vongo Video Download Service* (Starz Entertainment Group).

The finalists were selected by the membership of the Television Academy’s Interactive Media Peer Group, who made their selections through an online voting system. The winners were then chosen by a “Blue Ribbon” panel that met July 10th at the Academy. The Blue Ribbon panel was composed of:

Btw, an extra special kudos to Vongo. We’re big fans and users of this service around ResourceShelf.

+ In terms of IPTV, Accenture and The Economist Intelligence Unit recently published a newsletter on the topic based on survey results. IPTV Monitor, Vol. 1 No. 1 is available (PDF) here. It’s full of stats, graphs, and charts.

Again, all of this technology (and more) will become commonplace in the not too distant future and it’s important for info pros to be up to speed.

Lawmakers largely ignore Web at FOIA hearing

Lawmakers who held an oversight hearing to assess the recent presidential executive order aimed at improving disclosure of government information did not emphasize the role that information technology should play in meeting requirements…Only the final panel, comprised of open-government advocates, discussed the importance of IT in public access to government information.

Source: FCW

Once again, an attempt to create the paperless office.

From the article:

The Northern Ireland Civil Service is dumping its filing cabinets and going paperless/

The Electronic Document and Records Management System (EDRM) will standardise systems across the service’s 11 departments, including health and social services, education and employment, and learning.

NI Civil Service finance minister David Hanson said: “In common with many organisations in the public and private sectors, our record keeping and communication is a combination of electronic and paper records and messages.

“EDRM will be used by more than 16,500 staff and will provide them with up-to-date information at the press of a button. The removal of duplication will ensure that the amount of information held will be kept to manageable limits.”

Source: Kable’s Government Computing

The British Library is running a pilot podcast service, making recordings of selected events available as downloadable files.

What’s available so far:

+ The Plimsoll Sensation (MP3, 28 minutes, 11MB): The Great Campaign to Save Lives at Sea. Nicolette Jones talks to Web Editor Colin Wight about her new book.

+ Prurience or privilege: are politicians entitled to a private life? (MP3, 59 minutes, 23MB): A discussion in the British Library Conference Centre with Mark Oaten, MP for Winchester; Professor Eric Barendt, Goodman Professor of Media Law at UCL; Michael White, Assistant Editor of the Guardian; and Alastair Brett, Legal Manager of Times Newspapers. Chaired by David Sherborne, media barrister.

An RSS feed is also available.

Source: British Library

“Complicated Bearers of Cultural Difference”: Canadian Magazines and Trade Policy

Describes the history of Canadian policy on magazines, policy designed primarily to protect Canadian culture in a market heavily dominated by U.S. magazines. Canada’s traditional strategy has been to consider magazines as a “cultural exception” to trade regulations. In 2005, Canada was the country first to ratify the UNESCO Convention supporting the protection of cultural diversity as a ’sovereign responsibility.’

PowerPoint

Source: Proceedings Canadian Library Association Conference 2006 (via E-LIS)

The Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress has placed online the following historical documents:

+ Investigation of the My Lai Incident
HEARINGS of the Armed Services Investigating Subcommittee of the Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives, Ninety-First Congress, 2nd Session, under Authority of H. Res. 105

REPORT (July 15, 1970)

From the site:

The My Lai Incident Subcommittee, chaired by Rep. F. Edward Hébert, conducted hearings from April 15 to June 22, 1970, to investigate the events of March 16, 1968, in the hamlet My Lai 4, commonly known as My Lai, in Son My Village, Quang Ngai Province, Republic of Vietnam. The hearings include a letter of release, the full testimony of 64 individuals, and an alphabetical name index. Based on the investigation and testimony given at these hearings, the subcommittee released a report of its findings on July 15, 1970. The report includes not only the findings, conclusions, and recommendations of the subcommittee, but also provides a background of the military operation, an overview of the allegation and the Army’s investigation, and summary observations. A map of Quang Ngai Province appears as an appendix in both documents.

Direct to Hearings (PDF) ||| Direct to Report (PDF)

See Also: Testimony (Books 2, 3, 4)

See Also: Background (PDF; 1 page)

Source: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress

Economic Survey of Australia 2006 (Policy Brief)
12 pages; PDF
Also available is this exec summary and info about accessing the full text document

TRAC’s Immigration Judges Report

TRAC’s Immigration Judges report, released July 31, 2006, shows vast differences in the rate at which the nation’s 200-plus immigration judges decline hundreds of thousands of applications for asylum in the United States. In one recent period, for example, while ten percent of the judges denied asylum in 86% or more of their decisions, another ten percent denied asylum in only 34% of theirs. The Immigration Court, a branch of the Justice Department, asserts in a mission statement that it is committed to the “uniform application of the immigration law in all cases.” Yet at one end of the scale was a Miami judge who turned down 96.7% of the asylum requests. At the other end was a New York judge who rejected only 9.8%.

Source: TRAC (Transactional Records Clearinghouse, Syracuse University)

NOTE: To review many other databases in this collection, check this link.

All of the major tv news networks in the U.S. offer “internal” alerting services to let both networked owned and operated stations as well as affilates to what’s coming up in terms of breaking news on the network and what stories they’ll be “feeding” stations in hourly roundups.

As far as we know, in all but one case, access to this information is only available to the stations themselves. However, CBS News offers access to its CBS Newspath (its service for affiliates) on the open web.

In most cases, you’ll see what stations are being fed, often with the text of the script. In real-time, breaking news situations, you can often see stories develop from a “behind the scenes” viewpoint. Interesting and maybe even an educational tool for journalism students. To access: go to http://www.newspath.cbs.com/ and look for the “Newspath Wires” links. Pay special attention (perfect for an alerting tool like Website-Watcher) to the Advisories (for example, what’s the rundown for CBS Evening News) and Urgent links. Past entries can be searched.

NOTE: To review many other databases in this collection, check this link.

Newsweek’s: “Digital Photo Finish” looks at a number of services that will print your digital photos and then mail them to your friends, family, customers, etc. One service NOT mentioned in this article (we wonder why) is Yahoo Photos (free). It provides unlimited storage, access and viewing via mobile devices (including uploading cameraphone images), sharing via IM and the option to have photos printed (in often less than one hour) at Target. Remember, Yahoo Photos and Flickr are two different services.
UPDATE: Ask.com’s MyStuff allows you to upload, share and tag digital imagery (and lots of other digital content) and also upload and share cameraphone photos emailed from the field. Then share via email or create your own web page. Not as robust as others but very easy to use.

Photo Editing Tool: Tourist Remover
Source: futureLAB (snapmania)

Remove moving objects such as tourists or passing cars from your photos. Take multiple photos from the same scene and the «Tourist Remover» blends them into a composite photo without any interfering elements. Free online tool; registration required. Cool.

Google has registered a number of new domains in the past week. We’ve listed them here and here on ResourceShelf. Well, here are two more. On Thursday July 27th, Google Inc. registered two more domains. What they might mean or might signal (if anything) is to be determined.

The two most recent domain registrations are:
+ perusahaan-anda.com
Note: It appears that Perusahaan-Anda.com is/was? a web hosting provider in Indonesia. Could this be a Google acquisition?
+ sucelje-vase-tvrtke.com

Conference Materials: Word of mouth marketing @ your library
Source: American Library Association Public Information Office
“‘Word-of-mouth marketing @ your library®’ from the experts — what it is, why it works and how it can be used to engage every staff member, trustee, Friend, faculty member and student in spreading the library message.” Handouts, presentations, etc., from the PR Forum at the ALA Annual Conference, New Orleans.

Calling Melvil Dewey

“Efforts to simplify catalog systems at the Library of Congress may soon make scholarly research a lot more complicated. Many librarians argue that moves by the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution could hinder the ability of professors and students nationwide to gather information.”

NOTE: Minor point but the headline is a bit “off” and shows (no surprise) that the editors appear to have no idea that there is a difference between Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) and Library of Congress Classification and Library of Congress Subject Headings. Not a major thing but when you’re writing for an academic audience it would be good to spend a sentence or two explaining the differences between both the various systems. Heck, most of the additional background could have come from links to appropriate sites.

Source: InsideHigherEd.com

UPDATE: An open reply to “What is going on at the Library of Congress?” by Thomas Mann

“This is an open response to a report by Thomas Mann (PDF; 102 KB) at the Library of Congress concerning changes in cataloging. The author contends that, although the current changes at the Library of Congress are suspect, changes are imminent and experienced catalogers must offer positive suggestions for change, otherwise they will be ignored by management.”

Source: E-LIS