Plagiarism Goes to Court

When I teach my library session on citation and plagiarism, I always like to throw in the story of Adam Wheeler, the former Harvard student who was criminally prosecuted, in part because he was awarded scholarship money for works of literature that he plagiarized.

Now, I have another story I can add to my repertoire: Apparently reporter Susan Bradford has sued the Huffington Post and the New York Times alleging that they stole her stories about notorius financier Jack Abramoff.

So students, let this be a warning to you: If you steal someone else's work and claim it as your own, you may not only fail out of Towson but you may end up in court.

Baltimore Sun is Going Pay Wall!

If you blinked, you may have missed it. The Baltimore Sun will be putting up a pay wall on October 10th. What this means is that through the Sun's website, you get 15 free story views per month and you will need to pay a subscription fee after that . They estimate the fee will come to about 35 cents per day and even if you subscribe to paper copy, you still need to purchase a digital subscription for to get past the pay wall. For all the nitty gritty, see their relatively well-hidden FAQ. I think it is relatively interesting that the paper has somewhat kept quiet that this is coming and I also wonder how effective it will be. After all, look how quickly advice on how to break the New York Times' pay wall appeared when it was launched...

Of course, I'd be remiss as a librarian if I didn't remind all you Towson folks that you can access the Sun all the way back to 1837 through our databases and this won't cost you a dime :-)

Mediamark Missing the Mark

A new semester is underway and with a new semester invariably comes the semi-annual updating of my library instruction handouts. One of the updates that I usually make in late August is to my MRI+ Quick Guide and Powerpoint because Mediamark adds last year's data to MRI+ around that time. (For those of you who don't know, MRI+ is a consumer data set that advertising students can use to learn how to best target their campaigns).

This year was different. The new data was just added yesterday and as of my writing this, it appears to be less robust in some areas than last year's data. For example, it is missing the data for women throughout.

Also, we are still trying to get clarification on what some of the categories mean. An example of this is the listing of dollar amounts in the Contributions to Public TV/Radio report. This report also seems to list contributions to other types of charities such as religious organizations so this raises the question of whether the dollar amounts refer to just public media contributions or to charitable giving in general. A colleague of mine began investigating the meaning of this report last school year and still hasn't gotten an answer.

I think that Mediamark's MRI+ can be a great teaching tool for communication students, but I wish they would do a better job of communicating with their customers about product changes and what their data means.

Fix the Broken APA Please!

Just last week I was looking at an article in the Communication & Mass Media Complete database and when I clicked on the cite link, a new screen popped up. Instead of the usual pop-up box containing a tiny disclaimer and the incorrect APA citation for the article, I now see a larger disclaimer and still the incorrect APA citation in the middle of the page. This is not what I meant EBSCO when I asked you to fix your broken APA this summer at the American Library Association conference!

While the new disclaimer is a step up from the old one (which was minuscule), it doesn't really make anything better. I highly doubt that students will give it a second or even a first glance. They want to be able to get their citations and get on with their research. Even if they do look at it and click on the EBSCO support site, they still have to go through pages of text to find examples and some of those even aren't correct.

As a librarian, the new disclaimer doesn't help my credibility. I need students to be able to trust the library and the information we provide--that is the only way for us libraries to survive--but how can I do that when one of the primary resources I am telling students to use is riddled with errors? I've had students lose points on assignments over incorrect EBSCO citations and it breaks my heart. They trusted us and I now have to tell them that sometimes they are better off doubting us.

Basically the only one the bigger disclaimer helps is EBSCO. It allows them to feel like they have addressed a complaint. But it doesn't really accomplish anything. Please EBSCO, I am begging you, fix the APA citations in your databases--for the good of everyone.

NBC Learn Higher Ed

As many of you know, streaming news video can be tough to locate. That's why I was more than happy to take a look at NBC Learn Higher Ed at a recent library conference. This product makes thousands of NBC news videos, as well as content from their partners such as the Washington Post, available to universities. Also interestingly enough, they have collections of educational videos in chemistry and environmental science too.

I have registered for a free 30-day trial of this resource and you can too at http://highered.nbclearn.com/portal/site/HigherEd/freetrial. I think it is at least worth a look because streaming news content is so hard to get.

The CSI Effect

Yesterday twelve men and women managed to do what presidents and politicians have been unable to do in quite some time--emotionally unite a large section of the United States populous.

When the Casey Anthony verdict came down yesterday, and she was acquitted of murdering her daughter Caylee, it seemed that a cry of outrage echoed across the country. Legal commentators like Nancy Grace said "the devil is dancing tonight" and celebrities from Kim Kardashian to Jason Biggs tweeted their shock and dismay.

So how did this jury come to reach a different conclusion than so many other people across the country? One theory I have is the CSI effect. Basically I wonder if TV shows like CSI have gotten juries to expect to see physical evidence in murder cases and when it isn't there, they won't convict. Some anecdotal evidence and research back up this theory. For example, a 2004 USA Today article outlines a number of cases across the country of how crime dramas have had an impact on the courtroom. Also a 2006 study by Judge Donald E. Shelton, and criminologists Young S. Kim and Gregg Barak found that those jurors who watched crime dramas like CSI were slightly more likely to expect scientific evidence of some kind in murder cases than those who did not. If the Casey Anthony trial was held 20 years ago, pre-CSI, I wonder if the verdict would have been different.

To learn more about the CSI effect and its impact, check out this ebook.

Roper and the $1000 Sundae

Earlier this week, I went to one day of nearby library conference and I attended a session about public opinion resources. One of the presenters at this session was from Roper Center at the University of Connecticut which produces iPOLL, a database of the polls from every major survey organization going back to the 1930s. For me, watching the presenter demo iPOLL was like watching a chef make the $1000 sundae at Serendipity restaurant in New York City -- You salivate over the end product, but you know there is no way you can afford it.

Luckily for those of us who crave public opinion data but can't part with a silver spoon to pay for it, Roper has put some free resources on their website. One is their Topics at a Glance section which contains preselected iPOLL data on a variety of what they call "hot topics". So for example, you can get some recent numbers related to the public's confidence in the economy or education or Congress. Also you can find poll results on social issues like drugs or lifestyle information like following sports. It's not as robust as I might like, but you can't beat the price. In addition, Roper provides historic data on presidential approval for free. So if you want to know how Obama's high and low numbers compare to other presidents back to FDR, you can find out.

While I may never get to devour the $1000 sundae of public opinion, I think I can make do with the occasional free scoop that comes my way. After all, finding something wonderful for free, even if it is only a little bit of it, makes this librarian smile :-)