digitalarchive
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Of course the UK's depressing tower blocks are getting a digital archive
Where would we be without digital archives? Not playing old MS-DOS games and browsing defunct GeoCities Labyrinth fan sites while we should be working, that's where. And while some institutions are busying themselves preserving such things as classic literature, one is embarking on a far more important task: building a fully searchable image archive of all the UK's miserable concrete housing blocks. The "Tower Blocks - Our Blocks!" project is the brainchild of social and architectural historians at the Edinburgh College of Art, because how else would you manage to snag over £50,000 in Heritage Lottery funding to scan pics of ugly buildings if it didn't have something to do with art? That money will be put towards digitizing 3,500 old photos of high-rises, some of which have long been demolished, and "support local outreach initiatives" to get residents to tell of their experiences within these concrete melting pots.
British Library to archive every UK digital publication from tomorrow
If you were ever paranoid that your employer was reading your social media missives, imagine being the subject of some future student's grad school thesis. From tomorrow, Britain's six biggest libraries will be entitled to crawl and archive the web in an attempt to create the UK's official digital repository -- in the same way the sextet must receive a copy of every book, newspaper and magazine published in the motherland. The first crawls will begin in the next few weeks, and your drunken holiday photos could be accessible from terminals in the British Library, national libraries of Wales and Scotland as well as the Bodleian, Cambridge University and Trinity College libraries from as early as the end of this year. As far as we're concerned, we're hoping those long forgotten Livejournal entries will be packed off to Leeds, where the British Library's unloved texts go to sit on a shelf die.
Google's new Street View feature provides eerie glimpse of post-tsunami Japan
Google has put the devastation of March's Japanese tsunami in hauntingly stark relief, with the release of a new Street View feature that covers the country's most ravaged regions. It's all part of an initiative to "digitally archive" the aftermath of this year's earthquake and tsunami, with Street View images captured across some 44,000 kilometers of Northeastern Japan. The panoramic, 360-degree photos cover both inland and coastal regions, allowing users to retroactively trace the path of destruction across Fukushima and other areas, while placing them at ground level amidst a graveyard of battered homes and abandoned buildings. Google hopes this archive will help scientists to gain a better understanding of the damage wreaked by natural disasters, while preserving the memory of those who suffered most. It's viscerally eerie, powerful and, above all, tragic. Be sure to check it out at the source link below.
