Entries Tagged as 'English'
August 19th, 2008 · 22:50 Local Time ·
You will have to wait a few more week’s for his entry, but today is the 62nd birthday of our 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton!
Our 33rd President of the United States, Harry S. Truman came into office as the Second World War was coming to a close, just over three months after being inaugurated as Vice President. It is widely reported that after hearing of the death of FDR, Truman went to Eleanor Roosevelt and asked if there was anything he could do for her, to which she replied, “Is there anything we can do for you? For you are the one in trouble now.” True enough, for shortly after being sworn in as President, Truman was informed that the army was hard at work on a weapon that would bring the world into a completely new era - the atomic bomb. In likely the hardest decision ever made by a president, Truman ordered the dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan in August 1945, which led to the end of hostilities in World War II. in 1949, the Soviets detonated their first atomic bomb.
Truman also devoted himself to peace and was present at the signing of the United Nations Charter in San Francisco in June 1945. NATO was also established during Truman’s presidency. Truman also signed the National Security Act of 1947, which merged the Departments of War and Navy into a new Department of Defense. The act also created the Air Force, the CIA and the National Security Council
Truman started his presidency by continuing the policies of his predecessor. As he grew into the job, FDR’s New Deal became Truman’s Fair Deal. He continued to excel in foreign affairs, starting the program that became known as the Truman Doctrine, established primarily to protect Greece and Turkey from Russian forces. The Marshall Plan, named for Truman’s Secretary of State, George C. Marshall, helped to rebuild the countries of Europe after World War II. Truman again went up against the Russians, when they blockaded West Berlin. Truman responded with the Berlin Airlift. Truman also set a precedent when he made the decision to recognize the new state of Israel in 1948.
In 1948, Truman sought reelection. He was unpopular and his defeat was widely expected and reported. He had also signed an Executive Order to integrate the armed forces of the United States. The Republican candidate, Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York did not campaign as well as Truman’s Whistle Stop campaign and Truman was reelected albeit by a narrow margin. In fact, papers in Illinois were late to the results, sending a print run of papers that carried the banner headline, “Dewey Defeats Truman.”
As Truman’s tenure as President came to a close, he spent the remaining years overseeing the Korean Conflict, working hard to keep the fight localized so as to not provoke the Russians and the Chinese. His popularity suffered its greatest blow when he fired General Douglas MacArthur from his command in Korea. He retired from the presidency in 1953 and returned home to Missouri where he died on the day after Christmas in 1972, nearly twenty years after leaving the presidency.
The Facts
- born May 8, 1884 in Lamar, Missouri
- died December 26, 1972 in Independence, Missouri (age 88)
- married to Bess Truman
- Party: Democrat
The Election of 1948
Trivia
- Harry Truman’s middle name was S - although Truman himself used a period after the S, he also advocated for no period.
- Truman did not graduate from college, the only president after 1897 to serve without holding a college degree.
- The decision to put Truman on the ticket in 1944 was made after party bosses determined that Henry Wallace was too liberal, and their realization that whoever was the Vice President would soon be president. Truman was the fourth choice of FDR and initially said no.
- In 1950, Truman survived an assassination attempt, when Puerto Rican nationalists tried to shoot their way into Blair House.
- In 1996, to honor the only Missourian to become president, Northeast Missouri State University became Truman State University.
Links
Categories: English · Individuals
August 19th, 2008 · 22:50 Local Time · Order from Chaos
You will have to wait a few more week's for his entry, but today is the 62nd birthday of our 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton!
Our 33rd President of the United States,
Harry S. Truman came into office as the Second World War was coming to a close, just over three months after being inaugurated as Vice President. It is widely reported that after hearing of the death of FDR, Truman went to Eleanor Roosevelt and asked if there was anything he could do for her, to which she replied, "Is there anything
we can do for
you? For you are the one in trouble now." True enough, for shortly after being sworn in as President, Truman was informed that the army was hard at work on a weapon that would bring the world into a completely new era - the atomic bomb. In likely the hardest decision ever made by a president, Truman ordered the dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan in August 1945, which led to the end of hostilities in World War II. in 1949, the Soviets detonated their first atomic bomb.
Truman also devoted himself to peace and was present at the signing of the United Nations Charter in San Francisco in June 1945.
NATO was also established during Truman's presidency. Truman also signed the National Security Act of 1947, which merged the Departments of War and Navy into a new Department of Defense. The act also created the Air Force, the CIA and the National Security Council
Truman started his presidency by continuing the policies of his predecessor. As he grew into the job, FDR's New Deal became Truman's
Fair Deal. He continued to excel in foreign affairs, starting the program that became known as the
Truman Doctrine, established primarily to protect Greece and Turkey from Russian forces. The
Marshall Plan, named for Truman's Secretary of State, George C. Marshall, helped to rebuild the countries of Europe after World War II. Truman again went up against the Russians, when they blockaded West Berlin. Truman responded with the
Berlin Airlift. Truman also set a precedent when he made the decision to recognize the new state of Israel in 1948.
In 1948, Truman sought reelection. He was unpopular and his defeat was widely expected and reported. He had also signed an Executive Order to integrate the armed forces of the United States. The Republican candidate, Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York did not campaign as well as Truman's Whistle Stop campaign and Truman was reelected albeit by a narrow margin. In fact, papers in Illinois were late to the results, sending a print run of papers that carried the banner headline, "Dewey Defeats Truman."
As Truman's tenure as President came to a close, he spent the remaining years overseeing the Korean Conflict, working hard to keep the fight localized so as to not provoke the Russians and the Chinese. His popularity suffered its greatest blow when he fired General Douglas MacArthur from his command in Korea. He retired from the presidency in 1953 and returned home to Missouri where he died on the day after Christmas in 1972, nearly twenty years after leaving the presidency.
The Facts
- born May 8, 1884 in Lamar, Missouri
- died December 26, 1972 in Independence, Missouri (age 88)
- married to Bess Truman
- Party: Democrat
The Election of 1948Trivia- Harry Truman's middle name was S - although Truman himself used a period after the S, he also advocated for no period.
- Truman did not graduate from college, the only president after 1897 to serve without holding a college degree.
- The decision to put Truman on the ticket in 1944 was made after party bosses determined that Henry Wallace was too liberal, and their realization that whoever was the Vice President would soon be president. Truman was the fourth choice of FDR and initially said no.
- In 1950, Truman survived an assassination attempt, when Puerto Rican nationalists tried to shoot their way into Blair House.
- In 1996, to honor the only Missourian to become president, Northeast Missouri State University became Truman State University.
Links
Categories: English · Individuals
August 19th, 2008 · 21:42 Local Time ·
I’d like to humbly announce that I’ve written a pre-pre-alpha Python module for working with the WorldCat Search API and the xID APIs. The code needs a fair amount of work, namely unit tests and documentation. I’ve released the code under the GPL.
The module, called “worldcat”, is available from the Python Package Index. You can also checkout a copy of the code from my Subversion repository.
Categories: English · Individuals
August 19th, 2008 · 21:42 Local Time ·
I’d like to humbly announce that I’ve written a pre-pre-alpha Python module for working with the WorldCat Search API and the xID APIs. The code needs a fair amount of work, namely unit tests and documentation. I’ve released the code under the GPL.
The module, called “worldcat”, is available from the Python Package Index. You can also checkout a copy of the code from my Subversion repository.
Categories: English · Individuals
August 19th, 2008 · 20:13 Local Time · Reading Archives
Susan Scott Parrish, in her American Curiosity: Cultures of Natural History in the Colonial British Atlantic World (Chapel Hill: Published for the Omohundro Institute of Early American and Culture by University of North Carolina Press, 2006)”argues that, because America was a great material curiosity for the Old World and its immigrants to the New, America’s unique matrix of contested knowledge making – its polycentric curiosity – was crucially formative of modern European ways of knowing” (p. 7). Parrish depicts the gathering of natural history specimens and the exchange of information about natural history, primarily through the creation of an elaborate correspondence network (the reason why this book ought to be of interest to archivists; in addition to letters, travel narratives, publications, reports, and other documents are circulated in this network). “Colonial subjects in America were not mere collectors for the knowledge makers of the metropole. European correspondents depended upon locals for their kinds of expertise: identifying a novel specimen, understanding its properties or behavior, reporting on or depicting the specimen in its live and natural context, or seeing the interdependence of plants and animals” (p. 8). Parrish provides descriptions of the nature and content of letters: “These were likely to be one-to-three page hodgepodge descriptions of whatever the American correspondent had observed since his or her last letter. They often accompanied or gave notice of shipped specimens. The metropolitan correspondents wrote back with the latest scientific news, with effusive thanks for the specimen gift, with more requests, and often sent back English flora or exotic flora recently arrive in London” (p. 18), And so forth.
The use of correspondence as a main pillar of the natural history network is another reminder about how earlier information societies functioned long before the advent of the computer and what we now consider to be THE information society. While Parrish’s book is not just a study of the correspondence, read by archivists it can provide another means that they understand something more about why and how such correspondence was created and often maintained (and in some instances even published in scientific and other journals). It is a book similar to others by scholars such as David Cressy and Robert Darnton demonstrating how information and communication networks were created and sustained, leaving behind heaps of archival documentation. As time wore on, the use of correspondence became more sophisticated. As Parrish examines the development of transatlantic friendships, often between people who never met face-to-face, she observes, “Letters possessed not only evidentiary but also diagnostic force. They would not only reflect but reveal what otherwise remained hidden. Letters were to be the proper modern instrument for probing human nature” (p. 137).
Categories: English · Individuals
August 19th, 2008 · 14:59 Local Time · ArchivesNext
Flickr: There were some interesting comments on the “Why Post images on Flickr?” post, raising questions about whether our archival images actually fall within Flickr’s policy for acceptable content. Elizabeth wrote:
“Right up top in Flickr’s Community Guidelines, it says ‘Flickr accounts are intended for personal use, for our members to share photos and video that they themselves have created.’ Archival collections really don’t fit this definition, unless perhaps you consider digitizing an archival image or document ‘creating’ it, which seems like a stretch. . . .”
I think the intent of this is supposed to be to stop people from posting things that they don’t have the copyright to. Under the “What To Do” section they say:
Respect the copyright of others. This means don’t steal photos or videos that other people have shared and pass them off as your own. (That’s what favorites are for.)
And under “What Not To Do” they say:
Don’t upload anything that isn’t yours. This includes other people’s photos, video and/or stuff you’ve collected from around the Internet. Accounts that consist primarily of such collections may be terminated at any time.
I think based on these guidelines if you scan images that your archives owns and that you believe you have the copyright for (or that you believe is out of copyright), you should be fine. I hadn’t heard previously about any archives getting kicked off Flickr for posting images they didn’t create–does anyone have any more examples or insight on this?
Facebook: Well, thanks to your support the “Get Tom Hyry on Facebook!” group (on Facebook, of course) now has 74 members. It hasn’t grown quite as quickly as I hoped–I think all the regular archivist Facebook users have joined, but I also think some people need to come back from vacation and check their accounts. If you’ve got an account but haven’t checked in lately or you haven’t joined yet, now’s the time! You’d be amazed at what archival celebrities have rallied to the cause. Rumor has it Tom is buying drinks in San Francisco for all the members of the group (although I don’t think he’s heard that rumor yet . . .).
Bloggers: How about Saturday for the Blogger (and Friends of Bloggers) Happy Hour? There’s nothing going on after the closing plenary, and by that time maybe we can have scoped out a good location. An alternative would be to suggest that maybe people skip the Awards Ceremony or that maybe we just all try to meet up at one of the other two receptions. Any thoughts? Who wants to meet up?
And, keep checking back on the “Searching for 2.0-related sessions at the SAA Annual Meeting ” post–people are still contributing their thoughts on what sessions (and events) you might want to attend at the Annual Meeting.
Categories: English · Individuals
Pioneering female computer scientists to be topic of next RENCI Distinguished Lecture
This talk at Duke University on September 25 will be about the women ENIAC programmers, including Betty Holberton, whose papers we have here at CBI. I look forward to hearing about it - please leave a comment if you attend!
Categories: English · Organizations
Nou, het ging met veel trompetgeschal.. de lancering van
Google Knol. Maar inmiddels denk ik dat ik Knol maar even links ga laten liggen.
Dit zou dan de Google-tegenhanger van
Wikipedia moeten zijn, lijkt het, maar dan eentje waarin
autoriteit weer meespeelt. Da's op zich
geen verkeerde gedachte. Ware het niet dat hij in Knol niet werkt.. want letterlijk iedereen kan een autoriteit zijn! Tja..
Een eigen knol voor het BHICAl heel snel had ik voor het
BHIC een eigen
knol aangemaakt, die je
hier kunt vinden.
Maar ach, wat zeg ik nou toch voor domme dingen? Je vindt namelijk helemaal niets! Zelfs niet
als je specifiek zoekt met 'bhic', wat om iets over het BHIC te vinden toch een logische zoekterm is. Nee, je moet echt
speciaal aanklikken dat je nóg meer resultaten wilt zien, pas dan zie je onze knol.
Ik denk dat-ie te weinig tekst bevat, een te lage
rating heeft of zo. Ach ja..
Allerlei knollen voor NederlandAls encyclopedische tegenhanger van Wikipedia valt Knol door de mand. Eigenlijk staat Knol ook niet eens vol met lemma's, maar met artikelen, zoals deze over de
verspreiding van de Robiniagalmug in Nederland. Wel interessant - over een
niche gesproken - maar niet iets voor een encyclopedie..
En als je dan enkele lemma's bekijkt, zoals
hier en (!)
hier voor het lemma
Netherlands, dan merk je dat je net zo goed gelijk naar het
gelijknamige lemma in Wikipedia had kunnen gaan. Daar zijn de teksten namelijk vandaan geplukt. Sommige 'autoriteiten' heten zelfs
Wiki Pedia!
Is kennis dus al gejat en versnipperd, andere lemma's zijn dan weer gewoon leeg. Kwalitatief gezien staat het dus 1-0 voor de encyclopedie zónder autoriteit.. ;-)
Knollen voor archievenHmm.. Het
Archief Eemland heeft blijkbaar ook al
een eigen knol, zie ik nu.
Zelfs de naam 'knol' vind ik trouwens maar niks.. ;-)
Maar goed, ik ben zo flauw niet.. dus als ik dit weekend of zo ergens een gaatje vind, dan ga ik mijn knol eens naar het Engels vertalen en zal ik ook wel een berg
tags toevoegen. Die laatste zal ik bij gebrek aan een echte mogelijkheid daartoe maar gewoon ergens onderaan intypen.
Je moet toch wat met zo'n onwille knol!
Plaatje
Categories: English · Individuals · Nederlands
August 19th, 2008 · 12:15 Local Time · hangingtogether.org
One of my RLG colleagues today brought us a question from an institution that was considering their options for what to do with a large mass of digitized content they were planning to create. The question was basically this: would they be better off just making it accessible themselves and letting the search engines guide people there, or join up with a large aggregation such as the World Digital Library?
This is certainly a good question, and one worth considering carefully, since it is a foundational question that has numerous ramifications down the road. But all things being equal (and they aren’t necessarily so stay tuned for more on this), more access is better.
That is, I would neither put all of my eggs in a “local only” basket nor in a “one big aggregation” basket, but both if at all possible. That is, retain control over your own stuff, but also syndicate it out to other places such as the World Digital Library, if that floats your boat, and other places that make sense as well. The one sticking point here is that you will need to know what is required to play well with those other locations and factor that into your planning. So if I were them, I would find out what the World Digital Library would want from me, as I would with any other aggregator I wanted to play with. Then I would do something locally that allows me to easily spin out the various versions required. I think this model provides the most flexibility and sustainability going forward than relying on any single solution, no matter what it is. Plus I would get the added benefit of being in many places at once.
So as I alluded to above, all things are often not equal, and here are some of the differentiating factors. It will likely take additional effort to make your metadata and/or content comply with the needs of aggregators. Depending on your local situation, this could require a significant investment (although I would argue that if it does you were probably planning on doing something locally that is not as flexible as it should be). Another is that if the aggregator, such as the World Digital Library, wishes to host the content as well (and not just the metadata), then you will have split usage statistics. But before deciding you can’t handle being in more places at once I would urge careful consideration of the benefits and drawbacks. The easier it is for people to find your content the more it will be valued. People can’t appreciate stuff they can’t even find.
Categories: English · Organizations
Categories: English · Individuals
You will have to wait a few more week’s for his entry, but today is the 62nd birthday of our 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton!
