Just a quick plug for some folks that I don’t know.  On October 4th at 6:30-8:30pm  David Nathan will speak at the Graduate Center.  Check their website for room details. Eventually, in the course of my Urban Affairs program I will have to do an internship.  In my fantasy, (one of them) my internship is with […]

I’m weeding and sorting through gift books, which is exhausting but not actually interesting to post about.  And so, I bring you pictures of two common varieties of vetch.  Vetch is non-edible legume that is used for “green manure.”  It fixes nitrogen which becomes available for other plants to use when it’s turned back under. It’s […]

It’s so inspiring, the California University system is trying to boycott Nature Publishing Group, by not purchasing their journals and asking faculty to stop contributing articles.  According to the Chronicle , UC faculty have contributed 5,300 articles in the past six years!  And, ‘The system subscribes to almost 8,000 journals online, at an average cost of between […]

And comment on it.  It’s just a little whiff of the e-book talk from BEA .   Of course, I wasn’t there and I still haven’t figured out my own e-book position. I can’t resist linking to this video .  But only because it’s not real violence.  Unless you are an android.  And in that case, I’m sorry.  Look at this  […]

I recently read Julie Hayden’s Lists of the past , which is not readily available and well worth the effort to find.  The first half is short stories of urban dwellers much like ourselves (except nobody stores liquor under the kitchen sink anymore, right?  That’s some strange habit from another era – bourbon, Windex, vodka, Ajax…).  The […]

While we are wrapping our semesters, hoping NYS will be able to pay us, scheming up new research projects and generally thinking of endings, Mother Nature reminds us that spring is the time of beginnings.  Specifically, the Mallard ducks in  Robert Wagner park have bred successfully – 10 little critters to liven up our lunch […]

I had this impression that it might be a scathing indictment of the present state of scholarly communication.  And wouldn’t that be delightfully amusing?  The thing that really struck me about the report is the way libraries are valued by classroom faculty and by struck, I mean it made me sad. Apparently, classroom faculty primarily […]