The Distant Librarian

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 though 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.

Open Government Tour 2014 - Calgary Stop

Yesterday evening instead of attending the prologue of the 2014 Tour of Alberta as I had planned, I found myself at the Calgary stop of Richard Pietro's Open Government Tour. I totally made the right choice!

Over the past year I've found myself increasingly interested in both linked data and civic affairs, and this 3-hour event brought them together in a wonderful way, though it was much more about open data than linked data. I'm not going to attempt to recreate the discussion here, but as much for myself as for anyone else who's interested, I'm going to list the participants along with some of the sites and tools that were discussed.

Richard Pietro – Co-founder, CitizenBridge, Toronto 
Geoff Zakaib – Organizer, Data for Good, Calgary

Sameer Vasta – Data Catalyst, MaRS Discovery District, Toronto (via Skype)
DJ Kelly – Strategy Lead, Cultural Transformation, The City of Calgary
Bill Ptacek - CEO of Calgary Public Library
Grant Neufeld – Calgary Democracy, member Calgary eGovernment Strategy Advisory Comm.

Lori Stewart – Co-founder Hopper Dev, member Calgary eGovernment Strategy Advisory Comm.
Walter Simbirski – Open Data Strategist, The City of Calgary
Mark Gayler – Technology Strategist, Microsoft Canada
Paul Fairie – Political Science, University of Calgary

Sites of interest:

• GreenButton
• SeeClickFix
• Dave Meslin - The Antidote to Apathy (TEDx talk)
• Import.io
• CityBlocs
• Power BI
• Web Experience Toolkit
• Open Data by Socrata

 

Related articles

Soon, you'll be able to get a Calgary Public Library card for free

Holland cycling star Dumoulin dominates Tour of Alberta prologue

Open Government Tour 2014 #OGT14 Hits Victoria BC to Stimulate OpenData Dialog #opengov

Westmount Charter School Calendar 2014/2015

Inspired by Peter in PEI, I went ahead and transcribed the PDF of the official Westmount Charter School (in Calgary) 2014/15 Calendar into Google Calendar and iCal formats so you can actually import them into the calendar of your choice, rather than have to read a PDF.

• Google Calendar
• iCal format

Update - August 18, 2014: Just got an email from Westmount indicating they're launching their own official version on Google Calendar, so I've taken mine down to avoid confusion and will link to the official one when it's posted.  Yay!

What the Heck is Happening up North?

Amanda Wakaruk, Government Information Librarian at the University of Alberta, has written a comprehensive article outlining the BS (my words, not hers), libraries in Canada have been dealing with over the past several years when it comes to accessing Federal information. Her entire paper is available on the UofA Institutional Repository: What the Heck is Happening up North? Canadian Federal Government Information, Circa 2014.

Here's a paragraph to whet your appetite:

Parks Canada removed hundreds of lesson plans from its website, the Aboriginal Portal of Canada was closed with two weeks’ notice, access to tables of 1665-1871 Census statistics disappeared with the decommissioning of E-Stat, and we started to notice serious lapses in content on once trusted websites (e.g., ministerial speeches were no longer being added to departmental websites). To make matters worse, we were learning about restricted access to publications which used to be freely available online. For example, in order to access dozens of reports on the Health Canada website you now have to fill in and submit a form before the pdf document will be sent via email. Because this requires the use of an identifying email address, some suggested that it was in violation of Section 4 of the Privacy Act[24]. Furthermore, when a library staff member attempted to order multiple titles using these forms, she was informed that they would not be provided until she explained how she intended to use them.

Maybe BS isn't strong enough?

Here's a jab from Rick Mercer on the subject:

Hat tip to Dani for the info about this paper!