Category: Discovery
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How to Find the RSS Feed URL by Guessing
The Zapier newsletter I just got had a link to this article from last year: How to Find the RSS Feed URL for Almost Any Site. It's got some good tips for sussing out RSS feeds, but I have a couple more. I ran across two sites recently that should've had RSS feeds, but apparently…
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Archives in the news
I've recently become more involved in a project to digitize historical maps held at the U of Calgary, so this article really spoke to me (thanks @achurrell!) Yukon geologists raid the archives to aid ongoing search for gold. And because it seems so often news reports like this don't seem to include a link to…
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Available Reads is like Library Extension lite
I just added the Available Reads browser extension, and really like the feature to sort my Goodreads titles by availability on Overdrive. But for even more information on additional sites (like Amazon), Library Extension still takes the cake. Some screen shots featuring the two extensions: (click to embiggen for details)
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Quick and Dirty Data Viz of Canadian Federal Candidates
A couple of months ago I posted about using Flourish to build a bar chart race data visualization. Shortly after that Flourish had another blog post highlighting all the different ways their site could be used to visualize election data, and I've had it bookmarked waiting for another opportunity to experiment with the service. Earlier…
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Considering Apple News+? Don’t forget to check your local library first!
I guess I'll wait to see what TV+ brings later before declaring yesterday's Apple event a total yawner, but it did remind me to check out Flipster and Browzine again before spending any time and money on News+. What are Flipster and Browzine, you ask? They're digital magazine and journal platforms that you might want…
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Review: A funder-imposed data publication requirement seldom inspired data sharing
We've been doing a lot of talking about Data Management Plans at MPOW, and I recently came across the following article from PLOS One: A funder-imposed data publication requirement seldom inspired data sharing. In it, the authors take a look at 315 research projects that had been funded by the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee…
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Google enters the data discovery game
I first read about it on Reddit, followed shortly by the CANLIB-DATA Listserv, but as of today Google has a new search engine dedicated to research data sets, the cleverly-named Google Dataset Search. The good: Surfacing this stuff is great! Google is using schema.org to discover stuff, and has a pretty extensive page on how…
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Some thoughts on citations in the 21st Century
Colleagues at work pointed to this long read on Medium: Open Access Knowledge: Digital Style Guide. In it, Patrick Dunleavy makes the case that, whenever possible, academic citations should point to "free" online versions of resources rather than the archaic "dead tree" version seemingly favoured by traditional style guides. He also argues that in addition…