#iad14

Today is International Archives Day! Across the globe, our colleagues are working to preserve your history.

Here are two of our favorite images that show the importance of archives for everyday citizens.

Veterans

The 12th Armored Association met at the National Archives at St. Louis  for their 67th annual reunion in 2013. Veterans of this famed World War II division came to the National Personnel Records Center for a tour of the facilities. Preservation staff met with the vets and their families to explain the work being done to treat records damaged in the 1973 fire. Preservation staff also explained how they treat records salvaged from the USS Arizona. Mike Pierce, in the white coat, explained the unique damage that occurred to the personnel records on board the Arizona as a result of the attack. Image and text via the preservearchives.tumblr.com/ To order a military record, go to: http://go.usa.gov/jdBJ

Civil Rights

For many years, Edith Lee-Payne had no idea that her photograph was in the National Archives--or that she was one of the most iconic faces of the March on Washington.

How many people are sitting on the toilet during a specific moment everyday? How many people passing the traffic lights? How many people eat steak on monday? I didn’t realize that there is so much data represented everywhere! But what is open data?

Open data is data that can be freely used, reused and redistributed by anyone - subject only, at most, to the requirement to attribute and sharealike.  (source: Open data handbook)

Daniel beauchamp is specialist in data visualisation in open data. He works as a software developer at Shopify (ecommerce solutions) but also teached to hyper students to think about open data. During his lecture he spoke about how do companies make use of open data. They publish their data to push open innovation and to increase creativity. For instance, Goldcorp Inc. a gold producer headquarted in Vancouver, Canada worried about underperforming mine in Ontario. The company was producing relatively low amount and the main deposits were deeper underground. As a result of this problem he put all the geological data into a file and shared it with the world. In return he offered $575,000 in prizes to the participants with the best methods. However, it was a risky venture. The word spread very fast and after launching the challenge more than 1000 virtual prospectors bent over the data. Mostly individuals in unrelated sectors such as; military, officers, students and consultants.

During my stay at Hyper Island i’ll blog about this amazing journey, because it’s one big adventure. If you are not familiar with this school check their website.

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