http://www.cbc.ca/arts/books/story/2010/02/28/descartes-letter-discovery.html

A letter by Descartes, long thought to be lost, turned up in archival papers in the Haverford College Library. A Dutch researcher found it by using Google - the finding aid had been digitized, so even though nobody in Haverford remembered it being there, it was "found" again when the Dutch researcher pointed out its existence to library staff. It has been authenticated as a genuine Descartes letter.

See also
http://www.phil.uu.nl/~bos/unknown_letter.shtml
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/feb/26/rene-descartes-stolen-letter

http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15557477

The state has long been the biggest generator, collector and user of data. It keeps records on every birth, marriage and death, compiles figures on all aspects of the economy and keeps statistics on licences, laws and the weather. Yet until recently all these data have been locked tight. Even when publicly accessible they were hard to find, and aggregating lots of printed information is notoriously difficult.

But now citizens and non-governmental organisations the world over are pressing to get access to public data at the national, state and municipal level—and sometimes government officials enthusiastically support them. “Government information is a form of infrastructure, no less important to our modern life than our roads, electrical grid or water systems,” says Carl Malamud, the boss of a group called Public.Resource.Org that puts government data online.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/uw_digital_images/

http://www.metaarchive.org/sites/default/files/GDDP_Educopia.pdf

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The Society of California Archivists, the Society of Rocky Mountain Archivists, the Conference of Inter-Mountain Archivists, and the Northwest Archivists, Inc. are pleased to announce the establishment of a new peer reviewed open access, online journal—the Journal of Western Archives. The journal will explore important Western regional issues in archives, the development of the archival profession in the western United States, collaborative efforts and projects amongst cultural institutions, and other topics important to archivists working in the western United States. A first call for papers will be distributed early next week and will contain the new journal’s Web address. Contact Gordon Daines at gordon_daines@byu.edu with any questions.