iBlog

Congratulations to IASSIST members Kevin Schürer and Matthew Woollard!

Professor Schürer has announced he'll be leaving the directorship of the UK Data Archive in order to take up a new post at the University of Leicester as Pro-Vice Chancellor of Research later this year.

Dr. Woollard, currently Associate Director and Head of Digital Preservation and Systems, will become Director-Designate from the beginning of March 2010. more...

The IASSIST Quarterly (IQ) volume 32 2008 contains a collection of the 1, 2, 3, and 4 issues into a single issue for 2008. more...

The US Open Government Directive, released on December 8, 2009, instructs all federal agencies to provide high-value information to the public online in open, accessible, machine-readable formats. more...

From the DDI Directions Newsletter: more...

The 2009 William H. Flanigan Award for Distinguished Service as an ICPSR Official Representative was presented to Diane Geraci, Associate Director for Information Resources at Massachusetts Institute of Technology Libraries. Diane is a long time IASSIST supporter and former Admin Committee member.

Congratulations, Diane!

At the same ceremony, friends of IASSIST Merrill Shanks and Steven Ruggles were each presented the 2009 Warren E. Miller Award for Meritorious Service to the Social Sciences.

IASSIST member Nancy McGovern was recently inducted as a Fellow by the Society of American Archivists at its August meeting in Austin, Texas.  SAA Fellow is an honor that recognizes outstanding contributions to the archival profession. more...

Students with research interests in scientific data management, sharing and reuse have a unique opportunity to participate in the Open Data fellowship program. Open Data is an Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) sponsored by NSF. Open Data fellows engage in a vibrant set of research activities at the University of Michigan in the conduct of responsible data-intensive science and engineering involving faculty and doctoral students from SI, Computer Science and Engineering, Bioinformatics, Materials Science, and Chemical Engineering. more...

Vintage Infographics From the 1930s, Flowing Data (Sept. 11, 2009). Some examples from Willard Cope Brinton's 1939 book Graphic Presentation.

- jim

U-M's Gutmann to head NSF Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Directorate, University of Michigan News Service, July 27, 2009.

Gutmann, who specializes in historical demography and population-environment relationships, currently directs the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research at the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR). He begins his NSF position Nov. 2.

- Jim Jacobs

There was a lot of hype when the new search engine WolframAlpha was launched earlier this year.  An article in the current issue of Technology Review does a better job of explaining how it works and how it fits in with other search engines. more...