The Distant Librarian

An introduction to cancer (excluding Quebec)

I subscribe to The Daily, from Statistics Canada, and was intrigued earlier this week when they announced that Canadian Cancer Statistics 2018 would be released the following day. This was the first time I remembered seeing StatsCan announce that something would be released, rather than that something had been released. Also, I couldn't recall a time when had they pointed to another organization, and not to their own content.

I expected to find a simple spreadsheet or two containing numbers around cancer, so was confused to see that it seemed to be much more of a complete information package, including a Media Release page. So I checked it out, and I must say I was thoroughly impressed! This is a very well-written report, easily understood by laypeople, yet meaty enough to be of interest to physicians and others who have been paying a lot more attention to cancer than I have. Early on in the report they do an excellent job explaining how the stages of cancer (the main focus of this special report) are classified, and I now feel I have a much better understanding of this system. It's not hard; I just never paid attention.

The report itself is only about 25 pages (PDF), though is double that including appendices, references and such. Each section of the report does an excellent job of describing what's being presented, why, and how to interpret the results. I was pleased to see lots of information, again well-presented, at the end of the report on where to go for those statistics I had initially sought. They include a shorter version of this PPT presentation that describes how to use CANSIM, StatsCanada's socio-economic database, which I'll probably borrow for other presentations I do.

So why am I bothering to come out of hibernation to write a blog post on cancer? Not for me, but for you. Well, all of us. I hadn't realized until reading this report that nearly 50% of Canadians (and possibly Americans / humans?) will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime (holy crap!), and that cancer is the leading cause of death in this country. But I also learned that regardless of the type of cancer, our chances of living are far greater if the cancer is diagnosed early, in stage I or II. Nobody likes tests, but hey, if you're approaching or are over the age of 50, do yourself and your loved ones a favour by asking your doctor what screening tests can be done. Here's some background on screening for Canadians and Americans.

Good luck!

Installing Extensions in Open Refine - note to self: RTFM

One of my all-time favourite open source tools is Open Refine, which "is a powerful tool for working with messy data: cleaning it; transforming it from one format into another; and extending it with web services and external data." Today I'm talking about that extending bit. One of the nice features of Open Refine is that it can run on Linux, Windows, or MacOS. I only have experience with the latter two, but am pretty sure what follows applies to Linux as well.

So here it is in a nutshell. When you install an extension in Open Refine, sometimes there will be an indication in the upper right of your Open Refine page that the extension is installed, but just as often there is no indication other than a new choice within a drop-down, or a new function that's now available in GREL. I think maybe the first few extensions I ever installed resulted in a drop-down choice in the upper right, so I made the assumption that's how all extensions behaved. I'm embarrassed to tell you how much time I have wasted installing, uninstalling, then trying a different location all in vain as I restarted Refine only to not see the expected shiny new extension greeting me in the upper right corner.

How many extensions do I have correctly installed here? (The pull-down only relates to the named extension you see)

Wrong - I have four installed! Until earlier today I too would've sworn it was only one, but these other three operate elsewhere within the program, either through a drop-down, or as part of GREL:

And how did I finally figure this out? I finally read the frickin' readme file within one of those extension folders and it explained all. Hope this helps someone else out there. I've gone ahead and clarified the instructions on how to install extensions as well.

As an aside, if you haven't looked at it lately, Open Refine seems to have a new lease on life, with a couple of recent point releases and a new push on looking for new contributors (even non-coders).

Sorry, the new Wayback Machine extension for Chrome needs some work!

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Feb 2, 2017 update: improvements have been made!

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The other day I saw a headline about a new extension for the Chrome browser from the Internet Archive, Wayback Machine. I had initially ignored this, assuming it was the same thing as Wayback Chrome, but upon further inspection, the latter, which has been around for quite some time, is from a third-party, not the IA itself. That said, I'm keeping them both installed, and here's why.

Wayback Chrome, the earlier extension, has always worked upon a mouse click. You land on a page, see that it doesn't resolve, and then click the Wayback button, which takes you directly to the archived version at the Internet Archive. I just tried it for http://change.gov which initially lands me at:

I then hit the wayback button in my toolbar and am taken to the archived website.

This newer extension tries to be more helpful in the following way (emphases mine):

By using the “Wayback Machine” extension for Chrome, users are automatically offered the opportunity to view archived pages whenever any one of several error conditions, including code 404, or “page not found,” are encountered.  If those codes are detected, the Wayback Machine extension silently queries the Wayback Machine, in real-time, to see if an archived version is available.  If one is available, a notice is displayed via Chrome, offering the user the option to see the archived page.

That means it doesn't work at all for my previous example, because http://change.gov doesn't return a 404 error code, it returns a, um, I can't figure out what code it's returning :-( 

I also can't find a single page where it DOES work, because I can't think of how to find a disappeared page and I've already spent 20 minutes trying to find an example. Hey Archive.org, can you put an example on your blog post please? OK, I kept looking and finally found an example for you: http://www.supremecourt.ohio.gov/publications/annrep/IOCS/2011OCS.pdf Hit that with the new extension installed and you'll be offered a visit to the archived version. Which OMG doesn't work!!!!!! 

FFS. I guess I'll keep it installed for those times it might pop up and actually prove handy, but I'm going to continue to rely upon the original Wayback Chrome extension I've been using.

YMMV.

Oh, I looked again at my post title. Maybe it doesn't suck, but it's sure not as useful as it might be! Much too restrictive in the error codes it acts upon IMHO.

Update on Jan 17, 2017: I've been emailing back and forth with the Director of the Wayback Machine and have agreed that the word "sucks" is too strong, so have changed that out from the title of the blog post :-) He gave me a URL to test with, http://www.pfaw.org/attacks.htm and mentioned that URL does appear on the Chrome web store, and it has also been added to the original blog post announcing the tool. Finally, he clarified that "http://change.gov results in a DNS error. The "Wayback Machine" extension does not detect DNS errors at this time. We are looking into adding that feature. Note that we ARE detecting error conditions: 404, 408, 410, 451, 500, 502, 503, 504, 509, 520, 521, 523, 524, 525, and 526 We are also looking to add a persistent UI to save and lookup URLs on demand."

National Research Council peer reviewed publications - a data mining or data viz opportunity?

Surely someone smarter than me can think of something interesting to do with the following?

• National Research Council peer reviewed publications, 2015
• National Research Council peer reviewed publications, 2014
• National Research Council peer reviewed publications, 2013
• National Research Council peer reviewed publications, 2012

Each of these contains citation information for peer reviewed scientific and technical articles published and authored or co-authored by National Research Council scientists and researchers. Includes .csv, .xlsx, .xml, and .ris files.

Is there any significance to the fact that the numbers have fallen each year from 2012-1015?

Update: It's an hour or so later and I thought I'd take a stab at a citation network using VOSviewer, which is pretty cool, but as soon as I saw how dirty the NRC bibliographic data was I gave up. Good luck if you're going at it! :-(

 

Mapping Western Economic Diversification Grants

A few weeks ago two new data sets appeared on the Open Data Canada website, WD - Grants and Contributions over $25,000 and Project Geo-Information, which "provides geographical information on projects issued by or on behalf of Western Economic Diversification Canada." Not particularly well-named data sets, but that's another issue. I thought it would be a fun exercise to combine the two, since the geo information is kinda worthless without the actual project data to go with it. 

First I imported both files into Google Sheets to see if I could merge the data sets there. I found an add-in called Merge Sheets that should've done it, but perhaps the files were too large, so no dice. Knock yourself out if you want to try (note the two sheet tabs at the bottom).

So I ended up using VLOOKUP in Excel to combine the two files. I always have a hard time wrapping my head around VLOOKUP, but I got it done. Had to save the result as a .csv in order to import to other tools; if saved as .xlsx there are errors as the formula continues to reference a separate sheet. Maybe if I'd worked with them together rather than as separate files. Anyhoo, the .csv worked when I then brought that new file into Google Fusion Tables for mapping fun.

And the end result is:

Seeing it on a map immediately makes me wonder why some big money is being spent in Ontario. I could also immediately saw one record had an incorrect lat/lon assigned to it, putting a BC project in ON, but I fixed that, so it doesn't appear on the above map.

Next up, if I make the time, is to assign a different icon to different types of projects, or perhaps different sizes / colours for different grant amounts. And explore what other online mapping tools might make this easy to work with now that the full data set exists.

Watching "Fort McMurray" grow

A new data set was recently released by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Land Use for 2010. As I was poking at it I saw that this data set in turn leads to an interactive map in which one can explore not only the 2010 data set, but also 2000 and 1990. As I was poking at that, I saw that one of the land-use classifications was for "settled areas", and I thought it would be interesting to see how certain spots have changed over the past 20 years covered in the data set. Knowing that Fort McMurray has grown a bit lately I zoomed in there and captured the following changes, which I found flabbergasting! I'm not familiar with that part of the Province, but have always heard "Fort McMurray" and "the tar sands" together, so hadn't realized the tar sands are actually a fair bit north of Ft. McMurray. So that's what you're seeing here, the growth of the Alberta Tar Sands over the past 20 years. Wow.

Some map-making exploration with Geosheets

GISLounge has a great post called How To Make a Map From Open Data Using a Spreadsheet, which is actually using Google Sheets specifically. Earlier today, I also tripped across a post highlighting an excellent visualization of how to choose beer based on ABV and IBU values. That post lead me to the original data set, which included the cities in which each of those beers are brewed, so for fun I thought I'd marry the two posts and play around with mapping that data set.

The glue is an add-on for Google Sheets called Geosheets, and it's really pretty slick. Follow the first post from GISLounge if you want to make your own, but here's my end result:

From that page you should be able to get to my Google Sheet to see how it all gets put together.

But what I really wanted to do is note a couple of quirks with Geosheets.

1. Somewhere along the line as I was putting this together, I ended up with a second map, thus using 2 of my free 5 maps, but I can't find that 2nd map anywhere on the Geosheets site or in Google Sheets in order to delete it!
2. Not as big a concern, but there's also nowhere I can find that describes what makes up a "daily request".
3. I really liked the ability to have Geosheets auto-assign colours based on the values in a given column, but I didn't see any way to tweak that feature. For instance, I thought the yellow was a bit too light, but it seems to be a take-it or leave-it proposition. 
4. The biggest issue is that I don't think it mapped all the locations! For instance, I know there are three breweries in Anchorage, AK in my spreadsheet, but only one appears to have made it on to the map. So now I suspect others are missing, but who knows? In the sidebar within Google Sheets there is a warning that suggests maybe some locations couldn't be found, but a) nothing's actually shown with that warning - so either something's missing from the display, or why bother showing the warning, and b) if some of my Anchorage data IS missing, why? The contents of the cells are the same... Looking at the map again, there are supposed to be 512 different beers shown, and my eye says they're not all there. I don't see anything on the Geosheets site that suggests there's a limit to the number of points that can be mapped :-/
   
   
   

So, a pretty darn neat tool that's maybe not quite ready for prime-time, but definitely worth tucking away for when you want to whip out a quick map based on the data you have in a spreadsheet.

Thoughts on Canada's Draft New Plan on Open Government

Last week the Government of Canada released the latest draft of the new plan on Open Government, and I thought it was pretty good reading! Here are some of the things I learned, or highlighted as particularly interesting:

• Canada was recently ranked 4th out of 92 countries by the World Wide Web Foundation’s Open Data Barometer which measures countries’ readiness to implement open data initiatives, their progress in implementing open data, and the results they are achieving using open data. (I had not been aware of the Open Data Barometer).
• Canada championed the development of a new International Open Data Charter in collaboration with governments and civil society organizations around the world.
• In February 2016, the OGP’s Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) published its report on Canada’s progress (PDF, 1.34 MB) in implementing its second Action Plan.
• In support of its commitment to Enhance Access to Information, the Government of Canada has issued an Interim Directive on the Administration of the Access to Information Act which directs federal officials to:
  • waive all Access to Information fees apart from the $5 filing fee; and
  • release information in user-friendly formats (e.g. spreadsheets), whenever feasible. (I think these are both fantastic!)
• Statistics Canada will increase access to high-quality statistical information in open formats, including releasing all 2016 Census data a full 10 months sooner than the 2011 Census. Steps will also be taken to ensure the data are well understood by Canadians.
• Adopt the International Open Data Charter and initiate implementation of the Charter requirements:
  • Encourage civil society and private sector organizations to open up their own data where this would be of public benefit; (YES!)
• Update Library and Archives Canada’s online archive of the Government of Canada’s web presence to ensure Canadians’ long-term access to federal web content.
• Commitment 8: Enhance Access to Culture & Heritage Collections (all of this section!)
• Starting with Budget 2017, make all data from Budget charts and tables available in near real time to facilitate analysis by citizens and Parliamentarians.
• Ensure historical data previously disclosed by federal departments on grants and contributions funding is searchable via the central portal.
• The Government of Canada will provide searchable information on Canadian businesses that is held in business registries at the federal, provincial, and territorial level. (So this one sucks for me, because they're launching a pilot project with Quebec, Ontario, Nova Scotia, Manitoba and BC, but for some reason Alberta isn't part of it. We'll have to wait :-( )
• Commitment 13: Increase the Availability and Usability of Geospatial Data

Whew, that's a lotta stuff to like! You are encouraged to comment on this page or email [email protected] with feedback and suggestions from June 16 to June 30.

Update (6/21/16): Please also look at David Eaves' thoughts on this draft - he has a lot more background on the process and is able to be more thoughtful and critical than I was.

Please support ResearchBuzz on Patreon!

Received this email earlier today, and would like you to read it as well. If you're an information professional of any stripe and somehow not aware of Tara's work with ResearchBuzz, now's a perfect time. I currently subscribe to well over 200 RSS feeds(!) and multiple email lists, and if I had to choose just one to continue following ResearchBuzz would be it. 

Published by permission:

Please Support ResearchBuzz on Patreon by ResearchBuzz

I love doing ResearchBuzz. I want more time to write more in-depth articles, more time to build tools, and more help you do your job, whether you’re a teacher, librarian, journalist, or just interested in the nooks and crannies of the Internet.

I have been looking into ways to “monetize” ResearchBuzz. (I hate that word.) I have had people offer to advertise on the site. With ad blocking and the rise of malvertising I’m not comfortable with that. I’ve had people offer to do “sponsored articles” on the site. I’m definitely not going to do that.

I want ResearchBuzz to be what it's always been - a place where you come to find out about the latest news around search engines, online information collections, databases, and whatever else catches your eye. No "sponsored articles," no "pay for play," no things that you can do or get rid of with just one weird old trick. Just like it's been since 1998.

I realize that in 2016 this attitude is positively Triassic. I'm probably supposed to be making this request via Facebook Live and posting a video later and marking it with Snapchat filters or something. But that's not me, and it's not ResearchBuzz.

So I'm here to ask today: if you find it useful, can you support me on Patreon?

My Patreon page is https://www.patreon.com/ResearchBuzz . I'm asking for monthly support. Even a buck a month would help a lot.

According to WordPress, 8,465 people follow ResearchBuzz (and I don't think that counts people who read via RSS.) If everybody who followed supported with a buck a month - well, first I think I'd fall on the floor. Your support would let me do more:

-- I could afford better tools for the news and Web monitoring I do to bring you ResearchBuzz.

-- I would have more time to build resources like This Google Custom Search engine for searching state/city/county Web sites. I would also be able to afford some programming help for building more complicated, Web-based apps.

-- I would have time for more article writing like what I did in November with the articlesStrategies for Low-Stress Web Monitoring and Focusing Your Searches With Specialized Vocabulary.

And remember, content I publish on ResearchBuzz is CC BY-NC-SA. That means that if I write something and you want to share it with your genealogy group, or use it as a classroom handout, you can! But you can't republish it on a commercial Web site.

I have levels for $1 a month, $3 a month (gives you access to external articles I write), $5 a month (external articles and gives you access to article rough drafts so you can point and laugh at my grammar), and $11 a month (all of the above and gives you a place on a ResearchBuzz "thank you" page.)

If I get to $400 a month support, I'll do an article a week (again, BY-NC-SA!) $600 a month? TWO articles a week! (More than that? Who knows, maybe I'll get a unicorn head mask from Archie McPhee and start doing weekly Google Hangouts as a buzzicorn.)

If you don't want to do Patreon, please consider using my affiliate link the next time you buy something at Amazon.

For the last 20 years I've been trying to create valuable resources about the Internet, searching, and useful information collections. I hope it's been valuable enough that you'll consider sponsoring me on Patreon. Thanks, and as always, I love you.

 

Calgary Public Library IdeaLab on Kickstarter

I picked up a bookmark at my local branch the other day, and just now followed the URL to a new Kickstarter project by the Calgary Public Library Foundation for IdeaLab. They're looking for $100,000 to help fund a makerspace-type area in the new Central Library currently being built.

Kicktraq thinks they're only going to make about half their money, but maybe $1 from a whole bunch of library-loving people will make all the difference? :-) Why not consider chipping in a buck - you'll get your name on a donor wall!

Due-date scarves and ties

BoingBoing posts about a textile artist who makes scarves and ties that look like the good old due-date slip. S/he offers other designs as well, but why would you bother with those?

What is a (public) library?

We have lots of conversations in my extended family about the role of the public library these days, and I happened across an interesting post from an unlikely source - the Kickstarter blog. In a post titled, Libraries are Everywhere, the author asks the following questions of four founders or employees of very non-traditional, yet public, libraries:

1. What is a library? How would you define it?
2. What's so important about libraries?
3. What do all good libraries have in common?
4. The year is 2050. What are libraries like in the future?
5. What advice do you have for people that want to create a library of their own?

Nice to hear from folks outside the traditional fold.

Mellen's lawsuit against Dale Askey has been dropped!

As reported by Dale on Twitter, and fleshed out a bit by The Chronicle of Higher Education, the SLAPP lawsuit by Edwin Mellen Press against Dale Askey has been dropped! Awesome news! 

number of lawsuits in my life: 0. yes, friends, it's over. details to follow, someday, but for now, just a big thanks to all who helped.

— Dale Askey (@daskey) February 4, 2015

2014 (and 2013) - My year in reading

Way back in 2011 I thought it'd be fun to note the books I had read the previous year. I kept the info in a text file and created a couple of infographics to go along with the post. I did the same in 2012, but never got around to 2013. I have been logging all my reads in Goodreads though, so it's time for a quick update. I wish they provided some graphics to go along with, but c'est la vie.

Books read in 2014 (37)
Books read in 2013 (21)

I do almost all of my reading on my Kindle Paperwhite now, with most books coming from Overdrive at Calgary Public Library, loaded through Calibre. Any remainders would be in paper. It'd still be interesting (to me) to do the breakdown by month and genre, as I had done originally, so maybe I'll update this post over the holidays.

ERIC Webinar: Restoring Access to ERIC's PDFs

In August 2012, ERIC temporarily disabled access to its collection of full text documents due to personally identifiable information found in some of its older documents. Over the past two years, the ERIC team has worked to clear and re-release many of the documents.

 

ERIC will be hosting a webinar on September 16, 2014 from 1:00–2:30 p.m. EDT to answer many of the questions that have been asked about this process, such as: 

• Why did ERIC remove access to full text documents?
• What process did the ERIC team use to restore the PDFs?
• Why did it take almost two years for ERIC to restore the documents?
• What are the next steps?

Please email [email protected] to register. Additionally, if you have specific questions, please email them in advance to ensure that it will be answered in the webinar.