Wikipedia hoax

Here's a new story about a hoax on Wikipedia:
Irish student hoaxes world's media with fake quote

A student posted a fake quote on Wikipedia about a musician who had just died. Several new sources picked it up and quoted it, before the student announced he had made up the quote. As the article notes, what is scary is that once these more "reliable" sources published it, it gave the quote added credibility. Someone maliciously making something up could then cite those as an authoritative source.

Slowing our patrons down

I thought this was an interesting paragraph from a recent ACRLog post:

For Abrams, it is all about the mystery. He says it “demands that you stop and consider - or at the very least, slow down and discover”. Isn’t that what library research is supposed to be about? You begin with a question to which the answer is unknown or uncertain. You don’t know how it’s going to end. Then you go through a process to collect the information needed to answer the question and resolve the mystery. Just like a good puzzle, in research you need to assemble the pieces correctly to discover the big picture. How do you communicate the natural enjoyment and challenge of the research process to a generation raised on the pursuit of spoilers and cheats? Taking the time to learn to research and then go through the discovery process, they must conclude, is for fools and suckers only.

This goes right along with some conversations we've been having in the library. I look forward to trying to think about practical steps we can take to make our library a place where the enjoyment, challenge, and pace of good research are all celebrated.

See also this ACRLog post on the new Kindle as a threat to libraries and possibly to the understanding of research espoused above. The "faster and easier" promise of technology involves trade offs that I think are rarely considered.

Now Twittering

Failing to post as regularly here as I would like, I've begun using Twitter. I (Matt) try to post the single most interesting thing I read in library blogs there each day. Feel free to check it out.

http://twitter.com/mosterca

Google Books

A student just asked me if we would be subscribing to Google Books, so I was investigating to see if there have been more developments regarding this.

I came across an article where librarians are expressing concern about the possibilities, fearing that costs could be very high, and also issues with privacy:
Libraries skeptical of Google books settlement

Another article said that librarians are asking for a judge to monitor the settlement so costs don't become too high:
Libraries Ask Judge to Monitor Google Books Settlement

I didn't find anything that sounded like prices or details had been set yet. Has anyone else heard anything more?