Computational Knowledge Engine - Stephen Wolfram

This is amazing. Check out a "sneak preview" of Stephen Wolfram's Computational Knowledge Engine. Watch the video, then start experimenting with your own searches. This is only the beginning, an "alpha" version. It is about to "go live".

It is designed to "compute answers to your specific questions." See also a much longer talk by Stephen Wolfram at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. The last question (1:40 minutes) asks how libraries will use or not use Wolfram/alpha.

The Rosetta Project

We've all heard of the Rosetta Stone, the famous Egyptian stone that had the same information in several hieroglyphic languages, making it possible for archaeologists to translate ancient languages. Now, there is the Rosetta Project, which has parallel text for 1,000 languages. The mission of the Rosetta Project is to build an archive of ALL documented languages. The project is a collaboration of language specialists and native speakers that seek to create a publicly accessible digital library of human languages. Here is a microetched nickel Rosetta Disk, meant to withstand extreme conditions. Many of the world's languages keep disappearing, so the language archives will help to preserve lost languages. For more information, contact the Long Now Foundation.

Internet Archives - an Update by Brewster Kahle

Incoming BayNet Libraries President Andrea Mitchel invited Brewster Kahle, director and co-founder of the Internet Archive, to speak to area librarians about the Internet Archives and issues related to open content. BayNet is a multi-type library organization that promotes communication, professional development, cooperation, and innovative resource sharing among all types of San Francisco Bay Area Libraries and Information Centers.

Brewster spoke on "Universal Access to Knowledge" at the May 13th BayNet Libraries meeting in San Francisco. His presentation was an updated version of his earlier TED.com presentation (available on video) ending with an argument on the importance of open content and a call to action.

"Now is a good time to be a librarian" says Brewster. A lot is happening. There are struggles over who will own what (content). This is also a time to determine how to spend money better for libraries.

The Internet Archives is a non-profit organization that was created in San Francisco in 1996. It has grown in several ways. It now has 18 book scanning centers on several continents, including a center in San Francisco. The Internet Archives captures and stores:

• BOOKS (1,000 books/day at 10 cents/page);
  
• AUDIO (3,600 bands and concert recordings including rock n' roll);
  
• MOVING IMAGES (about 1,000 early movies and 1950-type public service, PR, lectures);
  
• MAPS;
  
• TELEVISION ARCHIVES;
  
• SOFTWARE (new!).
  
• New collections are regularly added.

Worried that these archives are vulnerable? It was comforting to learn that there are now a few "swap" backups, although Brewster would sleep better if there were 4-5 server locations that keep and maintain complete copies.

Open Content is any kind of creative work published that explicitly allows copying and modifying of its information by anyone -- such as the content on Wikipedia. According to Brewster, Google is the biggest competitor to the Internet Archives, but Google has a commercial business model rather than a non-profit, open content approach. Brewster urged librarians to petition Congress to "Let the Orphans free". Orphan works are items whose copyrights are unclaimed. Pending legislation is controversial because it favors Google. Internet Archives has recently hired Peter Brantly to get activists on board with the Open Content issue. Learn more about digitization, the Google Book Search Settlement, and the future of books and libraries!

You could easily spend hours on the Internet Archives site. Start with the "Wayback Machine" to see what your website looked like 10-15 years ago. Enjoy!

Word Clouds

Wordle is a fun and powerful image-making tool for making word clouds. Create images with groups of words that appear in your text. Select fonts, colors to enhance your word image. Words that appear more frequently in your text appear larger or figure more prominently in your word cloud. Go ahead and play!

Hit the "create" menu and either enter text or a URL. I experimented with several professional development and two retail-oriented urls:
Discovering Assistive Technology, School Library Learning 2.0, Classroom Learning 2.0 and Nonbook Gifts for Book Lovers.

You can add your image to the gallery, print the image, or get the html code for it. Below are Wordle images created for the Discovering Assistive Technology tutorial and the Gift Guide.

Wordle was created by Jonathan Feinberg, who describes
himself as a Senior Software Engineer at IBM Research.

Digital Ethnography - by Dr. Michael Wesch

A Web 2.0 group on LinkedIn posted a recommendation to watch a YouTube video presentation on Digital Ethnography entitled "An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube"by Dr. Michael Wesch of Kansas State University. Wesch is known for his YouTube video on "The Machine is Us/Using Us". Well-worth the hour-long presentation. This was a the Library of Congress presentation in June 2008.