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A new video from Tom Scott takes viewers inside Deepstore, an archive located about 150 meters underground and a kilometer into a working salt mine near Winsford, England. The mine retains large salt pillars to maintain a stable roof and create rooms. The salt keeps the atmosphere naturally dry, and racks prevent any direct contact between salt and the stored artifacts. While most of the contents of the mine are private, Deepstore is known to hold files from the British National Archives and core samples from soil tests for the Crossrail railway construction in London.
Tom Scott, Mar. 28
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Anjanette Delgado writes: “When I was editing the anthology Home in Florida: Latinx Writers and the Literature of Uprootedness, I read and reread the stories of immigrant and bicultural displacement of great writers. You don’t have to be an immigrant to know the fear and loneliness of uprootedness. Sometimes life, your own, kicks you out of it, and tired of choking in your sleep, you do it: uproot yourself, pack up, and go where you don’t (yet) belong. But nobody stays a stranger to their surroundings forever. Here are 7 books about uprootedness.”
Electric Literature, Mar. 29
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Shan Abdul writes: “Zoom users have often reported having trouble using the app or attending meetings via its web client, even with a fast internet connection. Typical issues include video quality deteriorating in the middle of video conferences, video playback lagging out of the ordinary, and sharing screen becoming unresponsive for no reason. Usually, this happens when your system isn’t powerful enough to handle high real-time processing. Some users have even reported errors related to high CPU usage messing up their meeting quality. These fixes can help you overcome it on Windows.”
MakeUseOf, Mar. 29
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The number of reported book challenges topped 700 in 2021—the most since 2000, according to the American Library Association’s State of America’s Libraries 2022 report. The report was released April 4 to coincide with National Library Week (April 3–9). It summarizes trends and issues affecting libraries during the previous calendar year and includes the Office for Intellectual Freedom’s Top 10 Most Challenged Books list.
AL: The Scoop, Apr. 4; ALA, Apr. 4
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Randy Seaver writes: “After the U.S. National Archives provided access to the 1950 United States Census images on their website on the morning of 1 April 2022, including a rudimentary index, it took less than two days for Ancestry.com, MyHeritage.com and FamilySearch to download, install and link up all of the 1950 United States Census images for their customers to browse for free. There is no index yet on the websites of the three companies, but they are all working on providing an index in the coming weeks and months.”
Genea-Musings, Apr. 3
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Ashlie Swicker writes: “When people think about elementary school libraries, play is not necessarily something that jumps to the front of the mind. However, play in the elementary school library is crucial for socialization, community building, and creating a positive association with the library. Far from the stereotypes of shushing women with tight buns and dusty encyclopedias, modern libraries are constructed to invite curiosity and answer questions. School libraries, in particular, can offer a very specific kind of joy and relief by offering a chance to play.”
Book Riot, Mar. 28
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Tashreef Shareef writes: “Modern web browsers offer exceptional performance, are more reliable, and offer tons of customization options. However, all this comes at the cost of system performance. While not an issue with modern systems, modern browsers like Firefox, Chrome and Edge may not support or work smoothly on legacy hardware. If you can live without all the bells and whistles of new-age browsers, there are many great bare-bones web browsers to consider. Here we show you the best lightweight web browsers to help you browse the web smoothly on your older hardware.”
MakeUseOf, Mar. 30
