As Libraries think about data curation, why don’t we start with our own data?  This Code4Lib article from NCSU talks about how to plan and execute a data analysis project for helping to make decisions and share with stakeholders for various programs.

Some examples include:
Reference Transactions
QuickSearch (NCSU’s homegrown federated search)
Library Course Tools
Special collections usage

“Although there is undeniably a time-commitment involved in initiating this kind of effort, especially in cases where data-analysis and interdepartmental outreach are not part of one’s usual responsibilities, we think the short term and long term benefits are significant. At NCSU Libraries, a grassroots approach to data analysis with cooperation between technically-oriented librarians and departmental stakeholders has yielded positive short term results, helping a variety of departments to answer questions about how patrons use specific library applications and services. Developing strong collaborative partnerships between departments is both a challenge and a positive outcome of this approach. Longer term, we hope these efforts can increase awareness of good data collection practices and of the opportunities that exist to leverage data to answer questions that can help libraries improve applications and services, as well as foster a spirit of collaboration between library departments.”

http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/4258

This data visualization diagram posted at Form & Function, via ReadWriteWeb.

Here’s a great tip from Ian about setting strong passwords for your (many!) logins.

Passwords are still where the rubber meets the road for the foreseeable future, but as computing power increases every year, they are more easily broken, so you are faced with increasingly complex password requirements.  I thought this strategy from DUCOM’s IRT department in their weekly monitor was a good example of how to start with something normal that you can remember, and increase its strength as a password:

1) Start with something easy to remember. Then stretch it, if need be, to more than six characters: Passwords gain considerable strength if they are more than six characters long.

2) Add some “flair”: Throw in a couple of characters to further strengthen your password. You don’t have to use obscure characters; instead, trying putting parentheses around part of your password. Take it a step further with capitalization. Upper-casing letters is another way to add strength.

Here is an example of the evolution of a strong password:

OK password: jackbauerforcongress

Better password: JBFC2010

Excellent password: JBfc(2010)

And here’s another useful tip from Chris.

Come up with ONE good, complex and not especially long password, like “fR0%$” and then just substitute that password for, say, the second character in a common word which you change whenever you want to change your password. I’ve seen this suggested with shared passwords, like admin passwords. In this case, you could post whatever new password is needed on the wall of the systems dept and it would still be secure, as each staff member would know to replace the second letter with the real password.

So “Yellow” would be “YfR0%$llow”, “Blue” would be “BfR0%$ue”, etc.

Last week’s issue of The Economist discussed the challenges of data, data management and the importance of relevancy and good metadata.  There are several interesting articles, including one mentioning librarians as information managers.