Experimenting with visuals

Photo Mapo

The Photo Mapo app available for iPad and iPhone adds maps as a background for your photos. A description of 180 characters can be added to give context to the event or photo. This is a great tool to use for your holiday snaps.

The map location is found by the app if location services were turned on when the photo was taken. If not, one can simply search for the location and the data is added. In the app settings one can choose how much detail, metadata, is added to the map.

Using the app for family history

Recently I've been experimenting with some historical images. Here are three of the many layout variations available within the app using the 1907 wedding photo of my grandparents.
I searched for the exact location of the church in which they were married then added the description for the photo. In this case there is no time detail added to the map.

The location of the church was pinpointed exactly even though the surrounding town has now changed so much in the ensuing 107 years. In this final example I saved the image from Photo Mapo then opened it in Pixlr Express - available as mobile app or on web - to add the vintage effect as a more suitable match for the photo. 

If you do not have access to a map of a particular area in the era you need, this is one way to give your family pictures geographical context for your family history blog or book.

This post first appeared on http://librarycurrants.blogspot.com/2014/10/experimenting-with-visuals.html

Space hoggers

What's using your space?

I've just watched this interesting short video from Rolfe Kolbe providing advice on managing space on mobile devices. My ipad was close to full and while I deleted quite a few unused or rarely used apps in the lead up to installing iOS8, I had always wondered but not actively sought information about the 'other' space hoggers on my ipad.



Aha! Cached data. Who knew so many apps actively cached data effectively using up valuable space? Obvious once one stops to think about it - nevertheless by deleting and then reinstalling these apps, Twitterrific, Google+, Feedly, Evernote and The Australian I now have an extra 3GB of free space. I needed to sign in again to each app and all my settings and data were restored.

Feedly at 15.22 using 261 MB

Feedly after deletion and reinstall at 15.29 now only using 1.3 MB

Thanks Rolfe.
Hey app developers, how about a Clear Cache button in your apps?


This post first appeared on http://librarycurrants.blogspot.com/2014/09/space-hoggers.html

Leveraging libraries

Help from 66,000+

One effective way to use the expertise of librarians worldwide is to search through the LibGuides Community site.

This site enables search across the libraries which use the LibGuides platform to publish their online guides. Libraries across many countries have wonderful online resources not always obvious to those outside their region of influence.

A search for genealogy, heritage, family history and genealogy or any other term of interest will reveal a wealth of resources collated by librarians. A family history search reveals some of my favourite resources from the State Library of South Australia along with guides from dozens of other libraries.
Results display:

• a brief summary of the content of the guide 
• tags used
• the latest edited date 

Individual guides usually contain details of the library's online, print and database collections along with any other materials they house. There are often tutorials specific to individual sites or databases. Whilst a library login may be necessary to access some materials, one often sees references to little known resources, access to which may then be sought through a local, state or national library.

Tags are local to individual libraries so they often lead to other resources on that library's website. While there is no advanced search function there is enough variation in results provided by combining and altering the order of search terms.

The profile of individual librarians and their expertise is often displayed on individual guides sometimes with contact details.

Search by locality

To see which libraries in your area publish these online guides use Browse Institutions and use the drop down menu to select your region, state or country.

Happy searching!

This post first appeared on http://librarycurrants.blogspot.com/2014/09/leveraging-libraries.html