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Staff Picks and Suggestions

Facebook

The Library has a facebook group: I Love NU Libraries!  Joining is a great way to stay up to date on Library events, as well as show your support for the Library.  Join and invite student and faculty friends to do the same.  You can also see promotional videos, along with photos and recordings of past events.  For the fall semester, were going to be looking to increase discussion about our program authors and their books, through the facebook group.  Stay tuned!

Britannica to launch collaborative site

Britannica logo Britannica has just announced that it’s developing what seems to be a parallel site in which end-users can contribute content to the Encyclopedia as they do in Wikipedia. It looks like the user-contributed content will appear side by side with their original content (which will be marked “Britannica checked” to distinguish it from the flotsam and jetsam of the hoi polloi). A beta version of the new Britannical Online is available. It’s not clear to me exactly how the user-contributed content is going to be associated with the regular academic Encyclopedia Britannica, which NU has already by subscription. When I go to the new site it thinks I’m logged in, and recognizes me as “Northeastern University,” although I don’t seem to be able to actually contribute anything (not that I’m sure what I could/would contribute). I have some quarrels with the new site, notably the insufferable amount of advertising especially for a subscription service. Some small things, like a “return to home page” button have probably just been overlooked since this is still beta. I like the article layout better than the traditional encyclopedia site. Another good thing and a plus over Wikipedia is that all the content will be signed and contributors (yes, that means you!) will submit a profile, no anonymous posting allowed.

Egyptian Education

I just read an interesting (and alarming) article in The Chronicle of Higher Education about education in Egypt. I know some people who have studied and taught there-some liked it, and some hated it-but all were pretty vague and general in describing their experiences. Andrew Mills’s article certainly paints a bleak picture. I’d like to visit Egypt and read quite a bit about it when I was younger, but I haven’t been yet. Has anyone visited or studied there? What were your experiences like?

Nicholas Daniloff in the news

Book Cover: Of Spies and SpokesmenNU’s own Nicholas Daniloff, an NU professor of journalism and former library Meet the Author panelist (with Khassan Baiev in ’04) is featured in an article in this week’s U.S. News and World Report. The article is about his new book Of Spies and Spokesmen; and his brief arrest in the Soviet Union, which Gorbachev has since admitted was in retaliation for the U.S. arrest of a Soviet spy. (Interestingly, the article fails to mention that, as usual, the Reagan administration bargained with the Soviets for Daniloff’s release, releasing the Soviet spy in exchange.) Ah, the Cold War. Seems like a playground kickball game compared to the foreign policy problems we have now! Daniloff’s new book is available at Snell Library and excerpts are in the U.Missouri Press Media Kit.