ResearchBuzz

Google recently announced a new version of its Google Maps API, called the Static Maps API. Its Web site is at http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/staticmaps/index.html . Unlike the regular Google Maps API, the Static Maps API doesn’t require JavaScript, and its parameters are passed through a URL. You WILL need an API key for it to work.

There are several parameters you specify with the URL, including basic stuff like the size of the map, where it should be centered (longitude and latitude), and how close it should be zoomed. You can also add little markers to it. I’m including a sample map below of the New Bedford Whaling Museum.

The URL looks like this:

http://maps.google.com/staticmap?center=41.637497,-70.923529&zoom=12&size=512×256
&maptype=roadmap&markers=41.637497,-70.923529,bluem&key={my key goes here)

From left to right, the parameters are where the maps centers, how close it’s zoomed, the size, what kind of map it is, where the one marker is placed, along with what color and what letter, and the API key.

Then all you have to do is take that URL and put it into an img src:

This API makes it really, really, really simple to create maps for your Web site for just off the cuff. Of course, it doesn’t have the flexibility or the functionality of a map created by the JavaScript API, but it’s very quick. I am morosely remembering little projects I did that took ages with the regular API that I would have knocked off very quickly with this one….

Wikileaks gets shut down. Um. Sort of.

Miami-Dade flood maps now online.

Genealogy site FindMyPast.com adds over a million records.

Wow. This is a library blog dedicated to the task of processing a particular photographic collection. Amazing… http://www.lib.unc.edu/blogs/morton/ .

Apple Shuffle gettin’ cheap.

lots of new legal databases.

NBC to start streaming old TV shows online. Free and ad-supported.

Vermont.gov now offers online ordering of vital records.

The Freakonomics blog has a post about free books available online. The recent free release of a Suze Orman book was an example along with a few other ones.

The blog post in itself is interesting but the other resources pointed to in the comments make it even better — several other free book opportunities are noted including links to other lists.

If you’d like to explore how the world of the university press world is gettin’ free, try this search on Google or Yahoo along with your favorite keywords: “university press” free download site:edu . (I found doing a more general search like free book downloads or free ebooks brought a lot of junk.) You’ll get some irrelevant stuff, but you’ll also get pointers to small university presses which are making their books available online for free.

To get other general overviews of what’s available, try site:edu free book downloads “university press” oxford yale harvard. Though that search will give you a lot of table-of-contents downloads and portions of books. And too keep up with new options, try free books download “university press” inurl:2008 (The inurl: portion is because many blogs archive by date, and inurl:2008 is an easy way to find recent entries.)