Washington State has a statewide virtual reference project that has an online core competencies training curriculum for virtual reference. Lots of good linked reading and exercises.
Author: jessamyn
why the USA PATRIOT Act isn’t the solution
How does academic freedom roll into this whole USA PATRIOT Act thing? An interesting opinion piece from the Salt Lake Tribune.
Free societies win because freedom and justice are stronger than their opposites. Even if we eliminate our own freedoms at home and fight brutally abroad, we will still be only a third-rate oppressor. We can never out-torture or out-spy or out-suppress al-Qaida or the dictatorships of the world.
the sun never sets on the USAPA
Along the lines of what Dan was saying yesterday, lets keep our eyes open about PATRIOT II in that “won’t be fooled again” way, okay?
books and war
FDR reminds us that Books are Weapons in the War of Ideas [larger image]. Here’s another Books Are Weapons poster.
banned books, or just unbuyable books?
Is it like banning a book if Wal-Mart decides to stop selling it? Interesting story about Wal-Mart deciding to stop selling “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion,” a famous racist tract which has long been known to be fake. Some discussion of this over at Reason.com and Metafilter.com. It’s interesting to watch how the other online retailers that still stock the book have been editing their web copy, post-hubbub. Of particular note, Amazon’s page [current page, Google cache] used to contain this phrase from the book description [provided by the publisher] “If, however. The Protocols are genuine (which can never be proven conclusively), it might cause some of us to keep a wary eye on world affairs.” Reading all the customer reviews is a bone-chilling exercise.