Comments for Spurious Tuples

Comment on Wikipedia, and the librarians who hate and fear it by Catherine

Catherine — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 12:48:48 +0000

Just popping in here to mention that I’m not going to delete the previous comment, #10 by “Colleen,” who linked to a petition to ban Wiki[p]edia.

It’s not spam; the link is to a legitimate petition that, as of this writing, has 30 signatories, though it should be noted that a large percentage of those who signed it seemed to have done so in jest.

I should also point out that as evidence of Wikipedia’s “sinister agenda,” the unnamed author[s] of the petition note that the content of the site is “almost 100% entirely inaccurate” and that this content is generated by “at best mischievous, and at worst despotic individuals or groups who seek to create chaos and spread lies throughout the world.” That’s about all the evidence s/he/they can muster.

I invite you all to address the petition with your very best information literacy skills.

Comment on Wikipedia, and the librarians who hate and fear it by Colleen

Colleen — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 16:12:26 +0000

Help Ban Wikiedia

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/ban-wikipedia/

Comment on Wikipedia, and the librarians who hate and fear it by Public Knowledge Journal » Blog Archive » The Great Wikipedia Debate

Public Knowledge Journal » Blog Archive » The Great Wikipedia Debate — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 18:29:08 +0000

[...] Wikipedia, and the Librarians Who Hate and Fear It – Catherine, Spurious Tuples [...]

Comment on SafeAssign vs. Google for plagiarism detection by SafeAssign pentru lucrările de disertație și licență « Valy Greavu's Live Blog

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 20:45:33 +0000

[...] Un articol critic la adresa Safe Assign: http://www.spurioustuples.net/?p=384 [...]

Comment on Real life information literacy by RachelW

RachelW — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 15:05:46 +0000

Oh, I agree. I think there are certain problems – like antibiotics overuse and resistance, or why doing something a certain way is important – that can require teaching some of that basic content knowledge to have a chance for anybody to understand or care about them.

Comment on Real life information literacy by Catherine

Catherine — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 13:22:27 +0000

Thanks for that link, Rachel – that really helps clarify what kinds of information the standard is talking about, and I’ve updated the post above to reflect that.

I do still think that there’s another element of health literacy that’s essential, but not stated in the definition, which is a basic conceptual understanding of the biological and chemical processes that underlie how the human body works. So, for example, if you’ve never encountered the concept of “germs,” you’ll have a hard time understanding how antibiotics work, etc.

Comment on Real life information literacy by RachelW

RachelW — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 20:20:24 +0000

And how, exactly, is this different from information literacy, except as it relates to that subset of “information” that is “health information”? – I think the two are obviously linked, but health literacy has some additional or special components; the focus is not on all information, but particular types and forms of information encountered by patients. Here’s a decent starting point/overview: http://nnlm.gov/outreach/consumer/hlthlit.html

Comment on Uphill, both ways, in the snow by laura

laura — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 18:51:33 +0000

Yes, yes, yes. I see the same problem even in databases that are supposedly aimed at kids and even high school students, which often have articles that are completely out of the range of the kinds of things that will be useful (or comprehensible!) to them in their research — and it often makes me kind of long for the good old Readers Guide (which I also used in print), because it didn’t (at least in my memory) index a lot of dubious and/or overly academic periodicals. It was Just Right for the kinds of research my students do, and none of the scads of databases that we have available to them really replace it. It’s no wonder they skip right to the open web.

Comment on The “undergrad” checkbox by Uphill, both ways, in the snow – Spurious Tuples

Uphill, both ways, in the snow – Spurious Tuples — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 16:20:20 +0000

[...] I’m not sure that such a thing isn’t such a bad idea after all. Maybe instead of an “undergrad” checkbox, we need a whole separate “undergrad” [...]

Comment on Changing my game plan, slightly by NouveauLibrarian

NouveauLibrarian — Thu, 20 May 2010 17:48:11 +0000

One thing I really like about this approach is that it gives students a chance to figure out what works for them. In my LIBR1101 class, I usually have one session where I have students look at different search features in EBSCO or ProQuest and then report back to the class what their favorite one is. It’s interesting to see what students consider helpful.