billso.com

Courtesy of the Chronicle of Higher Education, I found links to two articles in the Times of London. In the first article, Professor Tara Brarbazon describes the research policy for her first-year students: no Googling or Wikipedia. Students should consider the authority of the source material, instead of PageRank or convenience. In a response, Times columnist Magnus Linklater portrays Brabazon’s ban as a short-sighted elitist, while praising Wikipedia for its low error rate. Wikipedia has announced that it will conduct a survey of its users and editors, with the assistance of the United Nations University and Maastricht University.

Of course, balance is important, as I mentioned in my 15 January 2008 article about Wikipedia’s seventh anniversary. Wikipedia and Google are convenient starting points for research, but students need to develop their own search skills.

More library databases are available in surprising ways. This Chronicle article from 7 January 2008 discusses how university libraries are posting their own Facebook applications, to provide their students with easier access to reference materials.

The Honolulu Advertiser reports that University of Hawaii librarians and staff are pulling documents and books out of Hamilton Library. Heavy rains over the last few days have caused leaks in the building’s roof.

The library’s basement flooded in October 2004, causing extensive damage to computer systems, documents, and faculty offices.

Tech: The American Library Association is distributing its own copyright materials to students, emphasizing policies like fair use that the MPAA, RIAA and BSA are omitting from their corporate-driven, big publisher propaganda. All of these groups are targeting 10 year old kids, who they belive are easy to influence. The EFF is also developing its own materials, thank goodness.

Photos: The photo of John Kerry crawling through the space shuttle Discovery doesn’t look as goofy as the cringeworthy 1988 Dukakis tank photo. That was a low point for Mike in the 1988 campaign.

If Mike had won in 1988, W might be commissioner of baseball today. Think of it. We might never have seen the scorching global trauma of the last few years. Harry Turtledove, are you reading this? I think I have a short story to write.

At least Michael Dukakis and John Kerry did actually serve in the US active military, unlike AWOL 43. And Dukakis had the sense to ride around with a machine gun. What’s W gonna do, stick a thumb up my nose? Nice hat, guv!

The GOP has little room to play with Kerry’s space shuttle picture, but the weasels are gonna try hard today. Yes, John Kerry was also Dukakis’ lieutenant governor for a term, in 1982 to 1984. Former fatty and reformed drug-fiend Rush Limbaugh wants to make something of that connection. Michael Moore and others have already documented some of Bush’s interesting connections. The photo of Kerry and the USS Wisconsin in Norfolk is a nice contrast to the Bush photos.

USA: CNN.com - Clarke: Iraq war an ‘enormous mistake’ - Jun 26, 2004: “The invasion of Iraq was an ‘enormous mistake’ that is costing untold lives, strengthening al Qaeda and breeding a new generation of terrorists, former White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke said Saturday. ‘We did exactly what al Qaeda said we would do — invade and occupy an oil-rich Arab country that wasn’t threatening us in any way,’ Clarke said before giving the keynote address at the American Library Association’s annual convention in Orlando. “The hatred that has been engendered by this invasion will last for generations.”“