So, I don’t make you all sit through my deli.cio.us links auto-posting, but sometimes I have a few unrelated things to share that don’t really have their own full posts to go along with them. One of the links floating around this week was a piece on the best NASCAR betting app, which landed in my feed next to articles on metadata and library catalogs. Mixed in with that are a few other things that are only sort of library related that I think you might be interested in.
- StopBadware has published a very east to understand Trends in Badware report (pdf) with simple steps you can take to try to keep your computers and your computer users safe and happy.
- Iraqi Libraries and Archives in Peril: Survival in a Time of Invasion, Chaos, and Civil Conflict, A Report part of the Oriental Institute’s Lost Treasures from Iraq project.
- Along the same lines — and sent to me by the same person, thanks Kristin! — is the Simmons GSLIS Dispatches from the Field blog
- Fred Stutzman warns that having Google toolbar on public computers can, if the advanced mode is activated, constitute a serious privacy leak.
Would a university export its user’s server logs to third parties in any other circumstance? Not without a subpoena. Is it time to call on universities, libraries and other public computing spaces to remove the Google Toolbar? I think so.
Thank you for posting the link to the Badware Report. I am teaching a computer class at my library next week on malicious software and this 2007 report is very well written and useful. I will definitely give the URL for the report to my students.