If you use Wikipedia, please be aware that there are risks to using it as a source (not even counting the risk of upsetting your teacher, who requested that you use it sparingly, if you use it at all).
If you’re curious about the historical context for the TV series The Pillars of the Earth, Wikipedia is an outstanding resource. On the other hand, if you’re writing a news story about outbreaks of infections caused by drug-resistant bacteria in hospitals, you shouldn’t rely on what you read in Wikipedia. Science journalist Steve Silberman writes about how spurious information sourced from Wikipedia is pervasive in stories about acinetobacter, and why that bad information could cost people their lives.
James Bridle, of booktwo.org, writes about how one entry in Wikipedia – The Iraq War – turned into a multi-volume set, 12 books in all. Basically, Mr Bridle, took all the edits to that one entry, made between Dec. 2004 and Nov 2009 and turned them into a 12-volume look into ‘flow of history,’ Wikipedia-style
This particular book—or rather, set of books—is every edit made to a single Wikipedia article, during the five years between the article’s inception in December 2004 and November 2009, a total of 12,000 changes and almost 7,000 pages.
It amounts to twelve volumes: the size of a single old-style encyclopaedia. It contains arguments over numbers, differences of opinion on relevance and political standpoints, and frequent moments when someone erases the whole thing and just writes “Saddam Hussein was a dickheadâ€.
It is a rather fascinating concept and posting. Read it at booktwo.org. See his presentation on Slideshare. Or listen to his presentation at Huffduffer [he presented at dContruct 2010].
Fur.ly, like bit.ly and tinyurl.com before it, is a URL shortener. But it also has a special feature: it will shorten multiple URLs into one URL. So if you want to share a gaggle or collection of links with a group of people, use fur.ly and share the fur.ly-generated link. It is that easy.
Here is an example: this fur.ly link [http://fur.ly/1rkj] will take you to my favorite reference sites on the web (answers.com, Internet Public Library, refdesk.com and Bartleby.com) in one fell swoop.
Just remember, Fur.ly is a good way to gather/aggregate info and make it easy to deliver.
This year, our country celebrates the 223rd anniversary of the signing of our government’s Constitution into law. At the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, PA, delegates from 12 states voted unanimously to approve the proposed document. Come visit the Todd Library and check out some of our collection on the history and amendments of this great document.
If not, read more about it, courtesy of Matt McGee of Search Engine Land (a great site on all things search-related). See if you agree that Google Instant will change your life
What is Google Instant?
Google Instant is a feature that predicts what you’re searching for and shows results as you type. It uses Google’s autocomplete technology to show predicted search terms in a drop-down box, and begins to display search results below the drop-down.
As you continue to type, both the predicted queries and the search results change.
Google says there are three benefits to using Instant: faster searches (it saves 2-5 seconds per search according to Google research), smarter predictions that help guide user searches, and instant results that let the searcher see results without clicking a search button or pressing enter.
A look at the news and events happening in the Libraries at Waubonsee Community College
