The new books about blogging.
02.06.13
Good Deed of the Day: Help Geo-Reference the British Library’s Map Collection
The British Library needs your help.
It is in the process of turning its gargantuan collection of maps into a digital resource tied to Google Earth. This allows people to see ancient and modern maps at the same time, with a slider to fade between the centuries. It’s easy to compare a city to its younger self, or observe the geographic impact of dams, bulkheads, and embankments. You can spot the mistakes — or marvel at the accuracy — of mapmakers working in the pre-electric age.
But for this to happen, the Library needs people to set up control points linking old maps to satellite data. It’s simple: you find recognizable locations and join them. Then, the software uses your input to mesh the two maps. (You can learn about georeferencing and be assigned a random map here.)
Read more. [Images: The British Library]
Libraries + Geodata + Crowdsourcing + Maps = A nerd’s dream come true.
NPR’s Arab Spring storyteller Andy Carvin talks about how he collects, shares and verifies information on Twitter in real time, the differences between Egypt and Libya and why it’s fair to criticize his work.
When he would tell his story, “It made people walk away wanting to be better people, to care more, to remember not only the Holocaust but to remember that we can never be indifferent,” a friend remembers.
01.16.13— AHMAD, activist in Syria
More quotes of the year at TIME Magazine.
