Library of Congress to Archive, Analyze All Tweets

The Library of Congress, in a deal made with Twitter, will archive every public tweet ever sent. Why? "To find and analyse interesting trends" through the public's use of this social medium, according to the Daily Mail article below.

Tweets will be put under a magnifying glass.

image source: http://www.123rf.com

"There have been studies involved with what are the moods of the public at various times of day in reaction to certain kinds of news events," said Bill Lefurgy, of the Library of Congress. "There's all these interesting kinds of mixing and matching that can be done using tweets as a big set of data."

If everyone knew that their tweets would ultimately be housed underneath the same roof as the Declaration of Independence, perhaps a few would have communicated something more erudite than, "I spent the last hour molding a little man out of Starbursts and now I have to explain to him about death."*

* An actual tweet, from http://funtweets.com

Daily Mail (UK) * December 8, 2011

Library of Congress to Archive Every Tweet Ever Made

By Daily Mail Reporter

If you were thinking that tweet you just sent would soon disappear into the ether, you couldn't be more wrong.

It will soon be stored alongside Thomas Jefferson's draft of the American Declaration of Independence and a Gutenberg Bible.

That's because every public tweet sent since Twitter was launched five-and-a-half years ago is to be archived by America's national library.

Billions of tweets will be archived,

including the very first - sent by

Twitter co-founder, Jack Dorsey.

The Library of Congress announced the deal with Twitter last year, but yesterday its digital initiatives manager shone more light on the project.

'We have an agreement with Twitter where they have a bunch of servers with their historic archive of tweets, everything that was sent out and declared to be public,' said Bill Lefurgy when he appeared on Federal News Radio's Federal Drive show yesterday.

The archive will be available to Mr. Lefurgy's team of researchers, to find and analyse interesting trends.

'There have been studies involved with what are the moods of the public at various times of the day in reaction to certain kinds of news events.

'There’s all these interesting kinds of mixing and matching that can be done using the tweets as a big set of data.'

And with more than 140 million tweets processed by Twitter every single day, the social networking site has its work cut out with the Library project.

'They've had to do some pretty nifty experimentation and invention to develop the tools and a process to be able to move all of that data over to us,' Mr. Lefurgy said.

Innovative: The first-ever tweet was sent on March 21, 2006.

The archives won't contain tweets that users have protected, but every other message will be stored there - including the very first, sent by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey.

His tweet, sent on March 21, 2006, simply said: 'Just setting up my twttr.'

The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world, with millions of books, recordings, photographs, maps and manuscripts in its collections.

It was built in 1800 and is housed in three buildings in the capital, Washington, D.C.

As well as a rough draft of the American Declaration of Independence and a Gutenberg Bible, the Library holds Thomas Jefferson's entire personal book collection.

Biblion App Allows Access to NYPL's Collections

On its Facebook page, the New York Public Library posted a video about Biblion: The Boundless Library. Biblion is a free iPad app that serves as a "visual pathway" into the library's vast collections.

image source: padgadget.com

"Like a magazine, Biblion will come out as separate issues, with each issue or app covering parts of a different library collection, exhibition, program, or initiative," states the NYPL on its website (http://www.nypl.org). The current version of the app focuses on the 1939-40 World's Fair.

image source: pcmag.com

As evidenced by the video, which I've posted below, the app looks pretty amazing. It's definitely an easy way to explore in-depth the NYPL's incredible collections. It almost makes me want to buy an iPad!

Facebook.com/newyorkpubliclibrary * November 16, 2011

Video of the week: Biblion: The Boundless Library

Time to Build a Digital People's Library!

Just a week before today's NYPD raid of Zuccotti Park, the Occupy Wall Street Library urged those beyond the park to start People's Libraries of their own.

The People's Library at Zuccotti Park, NYC.

photo source: http://peopleslibrary.wordpress.com

Jason Boog, of GalleyCat.com, took this proposition one step further by encouraging the creation of People's Libraries in digital form. "What free Ebooks do you want to share with your neighbors?" he asked.

By being online, a People's Library is safe from any physical destruction wrought by the police at Zuccotti Park or at other increasingly endangered OWS encampments across the country.

GalleyCat.com * November 10, 2011

Build a Digital People's Library

By Jason Boog

The Occupy Wall Street People’s Library blog is urging other readers to create People’s Libraries in their neighborhoods.

Check it out: “if you’d like to open a branch of the People’s Library in your New York neighborhood, find a [Privately Owned Public Spaces], bring down some books and meet your neighbors. It all starts with a few books in a box.”

We realize that many GalleyCat readers don’t live in New York City and that winter is coming. But we’d love to see more People’s Libraries around the country–so let’s open a few Digital People’s Libraries. What free eBooks do you want to share with your neighbors?

Explore free eBook collections at eBookNewser, Project Gutenberg or the Internet Archive for ideas.

Post your list on your blog, Facebook page, LibraryThing page, Twitter account, Goodreads page or Tumblr blog. Share the link and your location in the comments section and we’ll build a directory of Digital People’s Libraries around the country.

This GalleyCat editor posted a Digital People’s Library to get you started. (Photo via nic221 on Flickr)

A Look at Library of Congress' Digitizing Process

While searching for videos for a class assignment, I came across this one about the Library of Congress' digital collection. It offers a behind-the-curtain look at the painstaking effort to digitally preserve and make available all manner of print materials. I'm sure that since this video was made two years ago, the Library of Congress has adopted even more advanced technology to aid in the digitizing process. But that doesn't make this video any less fascinating!

"What Is FAQ?": The Lowdown on Downloading at the New York Public Library

Toni Morrison. Mary-Louise Parker. Ryan Adams. These are the names that have drawn me to the Humanities and Social Sciences branch of the New York Public Library in recent years. However, when I returned to the library this time, it was not to hear a Tony Award–winning actress recite lines of her favorite poetry. This time, for the first time, I went there to take a free class: “Downloading with Confidence.”

NYPL's Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, aka "the one with the lions."

photo source: http://digitalgallery.nypl.org

On a bright afternoon, I climbed the steps of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on Forty-Second Street and Fifth Avenue. I entered the cool marble quiet of the library. Within minutes, I was standing before the large, illuminated glass cube that encased the South Court Classrooms. Eying the cube, I was reminded of the nearby Apple Store, the exterior of which has a similar design. I wondered if this similarity in design was intentional.

At 3:02, thirteen minutes before the session was scheduled to start, a young woman arrived with the keys to the classroom. Looking at me and the three other, much older adults who were standing in front of the cube, she smiled brightly and said, “You can come on in!”

Inside the well-lit classroom were four long rows of smooth, honey-colored wooden tables. On each table were four computers that looked somewhat new. I sat in the first row. As I took out my pen and notebook, more attendees silently entered the room and stationed themselves at computers. By the time class started at 3:15, there were thirteen students: eight women and five men. Ten students appeared to be older than fifty. I sensed that most were retirees, eager not to be left behind in the Digital Revolution.

The young woman who had unlocked the door to the classroom said “Hello” in a loud, clear voice. “My name is Brooke.” Brooke is a reference librarian in the general reference division of the New York Public Library. She was a slender woman who appeared to be in her early thirties, had straight blond hair that brushed the top of her shoulders, and was dressed casually yet professionally in a conservative grey sweater and olive-drab slacks. She adjusted her glasses and announced, “Welcome to ‘Downloading with Confidence.’”

For the next hour and fifteen minutes, Brooke gave a PowerPoint presentation on downloading digital content—e-books and audiobooks in particular. The seniors in the class were not timid about asking questions. Typical questions were “What is FAQ?” and “What’s a screen grab?” One of the better questions was “What is the difference between downloading and burning?” Brooke answered each patiently and knowledgeably. At the close of the presentation, she led a hands-on demo of the concepts she had just explained. A few students needed assistance in navigating websites, such as ones for Project Gutenberg, Adobe Digital Editions, and Google Books. However, most were quite comfortable at the computer and were fairly quick studies.

I consider myself to be comparatively tech-savvy. But sitting in the library’s classroom that afternoon, I realized there was a lot that I didn’t know about downloading. Being quite loyal to the “traditional” book, I had never even read an e-book, let alone downloaded one. So it was fascinating to learn about the various file types for e-books; for instance, I didn’t know beforehand that Amazon.com has its own, exclusive file type for its e-books (ending in “.amz”), while for most of the other electronic titles out there, there is one general file type (ending in “.epub”). It was also educational being told the pros and cons of downloading e-books to certain devices.

Naturally, Brooke showed us how to download e-books from the New York Public Library. The process seemed to be pretty straightforward; all that’s required is a library card number and a PIN, the latter of which can be obtained by contacting the library. In addition to e-books, audiobooks, music, and videos can also be downloaded from the New York Public Library’s website, Brooke excitedly pointed out. To demonstrate, she effortlessly accessed a 1930s’ Al Jolson movie, the sight of which inspired one of the elderly women in the class to start singing, “Mammy!” I chuckled.

The old and the new truly converged in the New York Public Library's classroom that afternoon: traditional ways of enjoying reading with the exploration of e-books; senior citizens becoming attuned to digital technology. Being part of this coming together helped make the “Downloading with Confidence” class a genuinely pleasant and enriching experience.