Google Wave

Facebook changes in privacy

Okay, I don't feel like tinisizing that URL, but you can follow it on a blog, right? ;-)

Interesting article about the upcoming changes in facebook privacy. I'm not surprised facebook is moving towards public feeds, because as the article puts it:

Facebook holds a giant reservoir of demographic and sentiment data. It is the mother lode - and it's been inaccessible so far because everything has been private so far.
http://www.nytimes.com/external/readwriteweb/2009/06/24/24readwriteweb-the-day-facebook-changed-messages-to-become-18772.html

For public entities and organizations such as libraries, a public feed might make facebook more useful for outreach and education. However, for the general user or private organizations, I can see where the changes will be huge, especially, if facebook doesn't clearly explain how to opt out or restrict the public feed.

Question of the Day: what will not migrate in Google Pages?

So, google pages (the online editor/hosted website creator available for free to google/gmail customers) is going away. It will be replaced by google sites. I, as well as a ton of other google users, received the following message (prompting a question from friend, about whether her site would migrate properly):

However, we've identified you as using Google Page Creator to host files that Sites doesn't support. We are writing to inform you that, as part of this migration, if you take no action to address this, your hosted files will likely break. If they are important then we suggest you move them to a different hosting service.

The problem is NOT the files that she uploaded. Nope -- nothing nonstandard about those, very run of the mill. The problem is going to be her embedded widget for flickr, which although from flickr is CSS + Javascript.

My answer:
...but I think the problem is your flickr script (from Googles blog):
"Google Sites does not support custom JavaScript or CSS at this time for security reasons. Many embeddings are available on Google Sites through Google Gadgets (insert -> More Gadgets...), but arbitrary JavaScript and CSS will not work once the content is migrated to Google Sites.

---------------
So, they are moving away from allowing you to add Javascript and/or custom CSS, even embedded widgets UNLESS it is an approved Google Gadgets. Sooo, if you've done a custom designed Google page, sorry, my friend. Your CSS and/or Javascript is just not going to work. If you have used a common widget (such as flickr) there will hopefully be a widget available via Google Gadgets. Sucks, doesn't? Even blogger gives you more control over your site than that.

Well, you could complain make suggestions here but the voting has been closed.
Oh, and the templates are way ugly -- just sayin' -- Google you should know better than to add to the fugly on the 'net.

Kindle releases source code

Oooh, ooh, I can see all sorts of things that could be done with this!

Read about it here
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/06/17/amazon-releases-some.html

Get it here
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?ie=UTF8&nodeId=200203720

Sneak Peek at RDA

some screen shots of the RDA online product, links to documents giving background information, an RDA FAQ, a link to the Web site for the Joint Steering Committee for the Development of RDA (JSC) and to the AACR2 Web site.

Ooh, ooh -- a core record example using Oxygen XML editor!

http://www.rdaonline.org/rda_samples/rda_samples.html

useful websites -- zap line breaks & more

I love this little website with lots of text tools (I do know there are other websites and scripts/software/text editors, which will cleanup text, even stripping out formatting from Word) ... however, this is one that I keep handy. ;-)

http://www.textfixer.com/

So, what other online webtools do you find useful? I use a lot of validators and I have a lot of fun with the color scheme generators http://www.colorblender.com/ http://colorschemedesigner.com/

..and for colortrends, http://www.colourlovers.com/

Call for articles -- Cataloging & Metadata dept management

Call for papers: Administration, management and strategic planning of cataloging and metadata departments
Please excuse duplication. Please forward to interested colleagues and other listservs.

Cataloging & Classification Quarterly_ will be publishing a special issue on 21st-century challenges for library administrators in the management and strategic planning of operations and personnel in cataloging and metadata
departments. The guest editor is looking for articles that articulate new directions and opinions, as well as case studies, related to re-visioning, repurposing, establishing efficiencies, and/or redirecting both workflows and personnel within cataloging and metadata departments. Articles that examine how to justify and/or defend what are commonly known as
“behind-the-scenes” or “back-end” library operations and personnel in the current budget crisis are especially timely. The guest editor is looking for a wide range of international participation, so proposals from authors outside of the United States are encouraged. Articles can be of any length, and figures and screen shots are encouraged.

If you are interested in contributing, please send the guest editor your name, a short proposal of the topic, and a tentative title for the article. Deadline for proposals is September 1, 2009. Articles would be due to the guest editor by January 1, 2010. Any questions can be directed to the guest editor. Thank you.

Dr. Brad Eden
Guest editor, Cataloging & Classification Quarterly_
Associate University Librarian for Technical Services and Scholarly Communication
University of California, Santa Barbara
eden@library.ucsb.edu

ALA Committee on Accreditation seeks comment

From a list:
The ALA Committee on Accreditation (COA) invites comment via blog http://www.oa.ala.org/accreditation/ from you and your members and constituents on the Standards for Accreditation of Master's Programs in Library and Information Studies (2008) and in particular on the recommendations of the Library Education Task Force in their final report issued January 13, 2009 to the ALA Executive Board for referral to COA.



COA works in deliberate systematic five-year cycles, collecting and analyzing comment and issuing draft revisions as part of its charge "to develop and formulate standards of education for library and information studies for the approval of Council" (ALA Handbook of Organization). The Committee chose a moderated blog for comment collection in order to provide an open and ongoing forum for all stakeholders in the accreditation process.

10 browser testing tools

http://bryanconnor.com/2009/06/10-browser-testing-tools/