When I started this blog, I had to be coy about my day job because I worked in a military lab, and the security officers really, really did not want their scientists to be out in public. It's not that I was doing anything to be ashamed of. In fact, I really enjoyed the work I did there. It's just not in the culture there to bring attention to oneself.
Since 2014, I've been providing data support for climate and weather research. We are an open access data provider, funded by the National Science Foundation. Both the data and the data tools are provided free thanks to governments around the world. If you pay taxes (and I hope you do), then you help pay for this data infrastructure.
All this is an excuse to provide a list of data links.
- 'Weapons Of Math Destruction' Outlines Dangers Of Relying On Data Analytics
- Digital Forensics Rescues Retro Video Games And Software
It takes a particular personality to spend one’s life feeding the NSRL* . You would need the passion of a collector, the sensibility of a curator, the technical skill of a computer scientist, and the ability to find satisfaction in a job that you know will never be done.
- Meet Carla Hayden, the First Woman Sworn In As Librarian Of Congress (LOC)
- She spent much of her career here: Baltimore’s Enoch Pratt Free Library Provides Haven in Troubled Times
- Type "Carla Hayden Patriot Act" into a search engine to learn why I am so excited about her appointment.
- She's not only the first woman and the first African American, but she's also the first leader of the LOC appointed in the internet era and who also understands data. She's also way more qualified than the white guy who was appointed in 1987 by Ronald Reagan and who totally botched the transition to the digital era.
- Her PhD dissertation: "A Frontier Of Librarianship: Services For Children In Museums." University of Chicago, 1987 combines two of my favorite institutions, museums and libraries!
- Today, LOC hosted Collections as Data: Stewardship and Use Models to Enhance Access. Click the link to view on YouTube.
- Some of the techniques to crowdsource reading digitized US civil war records are similar to ones used by the International Environmental Data Rescue Organization to digitize and read old climate logbooks from around the world.
*National Software Reference Library, a division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). I received my PhD at JILA, another part of NIST.
So glad to know that others are as excited about Carla Hayden's appointment as we are here in Baltimore.
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