Tuesday, June 21, 2011

New Digital Partners: Google and the British Library

Per the agreement, 250 000 out-of-copyright titles representing 40 million pages from 1700-1870, from the French Revolution to the end of slavery will be digitized.
Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, The Natural History of the Hippopotamusor River horse. 1775 (2), British Library Board
Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, The Natural History of the Hippopotamusor River horse. 1775 (2), British Library Board
"Once digitised, these unique items will be available for full text search, download and reading through Google Books, as well as being searchable through the Library’s website and stored in perpetuity within the Library’s digital archive."[Click for full press release]

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Big data: The next frontier for innovation, competition, and productivity

A 2011 McKinsey report shows that:
Analyzing large data sets—so called big data—will become a key basis of competition, underpinning new waves of productivity growth, innovation, and consumer surplus as long as the right policies and enablers are in place.
Google's chief economist Hal Varian has been reported as saying that "the sexy job of the next ten years will be statisticians" [p.103]

Top-Ten IT Issues in Higher Education: 2011Survey

Top-Ten IT Issues, 2011 - Educause survey

Top-Ten IT Issues, 2011

1.   Funding IT
2.   Administrative/ERP/Information Systems
3.   Teaching and Learning with Technology
4.   Security
5.   Mobile Technologies
6.   Agility/Adaptability/Responsiveness
7.   Governance, Portfolio/Project Management
8.   Infrastructure/Cyberinfrastructure
9.   Disaster Recovery / Business Continuity
10.  Strategic Planning
Full text of the survey in HTML or PDF