LinkedIn security breach (June 7, 2012), change your password

In case  you have not heard or been informed, as I was not, LinkedIn.com has had a security breach and 6.4 million member passwords were stolen. The theft was publicized on Thursday, June 7, 2012. As of June 10, 2012, all LinkedIn has done is to post a notice on its site that you should reset your password. In my case, the site remembered I was logged in from a previous visit and did not automatically log me out. I'm not sure whether that's a plus or a minus.

International Archives Day - June 9, 2012

June 9 has been designated as International Archives Day by the International Council on Archives. Given the current (ongoing since May 2012) turmoil in Canada around the elimination of the National Archival Development Program (NADP), a funding source for archives and archival organizations, by the Library and Archives Canada (LAC), as well as the severe cuts at LAC by its current head, Dr. Daniel J. Caron, is it any wonder that no one appears to be celebrating this event in Canada? Most publicly funded archives are also closed on Saturdays and Sundays, which might also explain the lack of hoopla.

OpenMetadata.org opens

OpenMetadata.org has launched. It's a catchy but very misleading name since it deals only with statistical and scientific metadata. The site is the property of "a small group of private companies working with research data and statistics, dedicated to providing services around metadata standards such as SDMX and DDI. Our goal is to provide better visibility and use of existing data resources, whether these are publically available or require permission to access." (About Us).

One of the databases you can consult that makes use of these standards is the Open Survey Catalog, compiled in collaboration with the International Household Survey Network (established 2004). As the name implies these are essentially questionnaires on a wide variety of topics. You may or may not, however, be able to access the actual data because the word catalog means this is a database describing these surveys.