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via @dchud (dan chudnov) at code4lib, a very neat widget dashboard for a circulating library at Brown Univ. - http://library.brown.edu/dashboard/info/ "First, it aims to provide, at a glance, useful information about the flow of library data. The analogy to a car dashboard is apt. Just as a glance at the instruments on a car dashboard provides useful information about the car's speed, engine-temperature, and headlight-settings -- a glance at the 'widgets' that make up the Library dashboard provides useful information about the 'operation' of Josiah, easyBorrow, Illiad, etc. "Second, the implementation of the Library dashboard is intended to make it very easy for data-creators and managers to build widgets that they themselves and others can use. An administrative form will allow any library staff-member to create a widget by filling out basic information, pasting in data-values in a specified format. From this information, all of the data shown below is created automatically. "Of course, manually updating widgets is not ideal; the goal is to automate the population of widget data. However, there are many data-producers in the Library that currently create data manually. The dashboard offers the possibility to expose this data immediately and easily. ITS staff can then work on automating data updates."