Berkman Buzz: March 30, 2012

Here is my written testimony filed in association with my appearance yesterday at the hearing on “Federally Funded Research: Examining Public Access and Scholarly Publication Interests” before the Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. My thanks to Chairman Broun, ranking member Tonko, and the committee for allowing me the opportunity to speak with them today.

I don’t think Daisey is being disingenuous or evasive in declaring “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs” to be some his best work. I’m going to argue that we need to consider that idea carefully, that Daisey’s story is both a success and a failure. His story is one of a handful of recent stories that have drawn attention to the tensions between journalism, storytelling and advocacy, and posed an intriguing set of questions for people interested in the future of news. What Mike Daisey’s story brings into focus is the tension between journalism as “a discipline of verification” and the power of – and need for – compelling narratives.

.@rmack: broad based cultural change is much harder than bringing down a dictator #globalcensorshipyale
—Ryan Budish (@budish)

We at the DPLA have spent the past few weeks searching for materials that may help us develop a joint digital collection and virtual exhibition that we’re building with Europeana on the migration of Europeans to the United States and vice-versa (read the official press release). The pilot project will tell the human story of European immigration and emigration by way of freely available digital material: genealogical records, diaries, correspondence, oral histories, photographs, ship manifests, naturalization paperwork, and more. While we’ve just begun the exploration process, we aim to launch an initial version of the project by the end of 2012, with potential additions or new versions in the future as we continue our ongoing partnership with Europeana. Included below are just a few of the collections that we’ve been exploring in recent weeks.

Media Cloud is excited to be participating in Google Summer of Code this year through the Berkman Center for Internet & Society. Google Summer of Code (GSoC) is a global program in which Google offers students stipends to work on Open Source projects. Media Cloud received valuable contributions from our students when we participated in 2009 and 2010 and we’re looking forward to this year’s program.

For students who are interested in working on Media Cloud through Google Summer of Code, we have put together a list of possible Media Cloud projects here. There is also a Berkman Wiki listing Berkman specific GSoC requirements as well a number of other interesting Berkman projects also participating in GSoC. Finally, the GSoC homepage contains detailed information about GSoC policies and eligibility requirements.

In a paper Natasha Waterson and Mike Saunders describe how Kew Botanical Gardens in England are adopting mobile technology to help visitors become “delightfully lost.”

....as I read the actual paper, I was repeatedly struck by how often one could swap “in the Gardens” for “on the Web.” The motivations, the cognitive space, the tools and techniques often mirrored the Web’s. Indeed, one could argue that our experience of the Web is affecting how we view wayfinding in the real world, and not just because the Kew project integrates the offline and online worlds via mobiles, QRcodes, etc.

Welcoming @mauramarx in my @Harvard_Law seminar on Online Business, discussing Digital Public Library of America Initiative @berkmancenter
—Urs Gasser (@ugasser)

Rising Voices is pleased to announce the six newest members to join its global community of citizen media grantees. Each of the selected projects will receive microgrants to implement their proposed project to teach others how to use various citizen media tools. This latest competition round resulted in an impressive amount of interest from around the world. In all, Rising Voices received more than 1178 applications from more than 122 countries, and it was a difficult decision narrowing down the selection to just six grantee projects. There were many deserving projects with great ideas that addressed specific needs in local underrepresented communities that we were unfortunately unable to fund. The six projects selected are diverse in their approach, with each working in their unique context and we think will add much to our community.