March 2023 at Hackforge

March 2, 2023

Border City Data: Data Mining Essex County’s Rich Newspaper History

Monday, March 6th @ 6pm | 5950 Malden Road (Lasalle Branch of the Essex County Library)
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Text collections and textual analysis offer a unique and largely untapped combination for applying data mining techniques and computational analysis to generate new insights into the past. This is particularly true for newspaper collections.

Newspaper pages typically have eight times the amount of text that appears on a book page, and a modest weekly newspaper can represent many thousands of pages of local content for even the smallest of communities.The Leddy Library at the University of Windsor has been digitizing local newspapers with partners for over a decade, including the Amherstburg Echo, the Essex Free Press, and the Border Cities Star. With the help of the Essex County Library System, this session kicks off a month-long event to encourage the use of digitized newspapers for data mining and text analysis. Participants in the entire program are eligible for one of ten $50 Amazon gift cards and a guide to the newspapers that have recorded the history of our region.

This free, in-person event will provide background on the digitization process and the plan for the month ahead. Hope to see you there!

Location: Program Room of the LaSalle Branch of the Essex County Library (inside the LaSalle Civic Centre at 5950 Malden Road)

OSM Windosr-Essex Explores MapRoulette

Thursday, March 16th @ 6pm
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This month we’ve pulled MapRoulette as our highlight from the never-ending list of OpenStreetMap tools. In this 60(ish) minute session, we’ll take an overview of how MapRoulette works, followed by a discussion on how we can use it to improve OSM data in Windsor-Essex. Come with ideas for local data points that can use some updating!

This event is free and everyone is welcome. While an OSM account and some experience with the platform is recommended, neither is required. Register via Zoom and we’ll see you on Thursday, March 16th at 6pm.