I remember a conversation I had once many years ago, when I was a young journalism student, with a friend of mine who worked part-time for a local ISP. I was telling him about all the amazing things I was learning in one of my information-gathering courses, a lot of which focused on how to make profitable use of library resources. He remarked casually that libraries would one day cease to exist, because any and all valuable information would eventually find its way onto the Internet. Although I didn’t doubt even then that such a thing might happen one day, I was taken aback by the confident assertion that followed: “Heck, almost everything worthwhile already is.”

I was reminded of that conversation when I came across this article at CNN:

Use with caution: The perils of Wikipedia

In particular, this part caught my attention:

[Former American Library Association president Michael Gorman] added that Google and Wikipedia were creating a generation of “intellectual sluggards incapable of moving beyond the Internet,” with no interest in exploring non-digital resources.

I know this is true simply by the attitudes of many of the people I know and work with. If they can’t find something with a few Google searches or a quick swing by Wikipedia, it might as well not exist. It’s a shame, really, because even as remarkable as Google and Wikipedia are, they both barely amount to a drop in the bucket of human knowledge. To consider either of them anything more than the starting point for any significant information need would be foolish.

But what can be done about it? If everyone assumes that all the world’s knowledge is available in one place, how will they ever find out otherwise?

Showa Kinen Park is a really nice place to go with kids. If I had a bit more time, I would go into more detail, but for now I’ll have to make do with a picture from the sunflower patch.

I normally don’t pay much attention to the pseudo-English expressions used in Japanese advertising, but sometimes the Japanese borrow a word from English, shorten its pronounciation to make it easier to write in katakana, and then use the shortened version in what it presumably intended to be English advertising copy—sometimes with less than appealing results. This sandwich wrapper from KFC is one recent example.

We took our daughter to Sankeien yesterday. It’s a nice place for hanami (cherry blossom viewing), although it’s very crowded this time of year.

More pictures here for registered friends and family.

It never fails. For as long as anyone can remember, whenever anyone mentions the top schools in the United States, my alma mater is always associated with one word: Party.

Poll: Northern U.S. colleges party best

New York, NY, Aug. 17 (UPI)—Five colleges in the northern United States are best for partying, the Princeton Review’s poll of 110,000 college students has determined in its 2005 guide.

The annual review of 357 of the country’s colleges found the State University of New York at Albany the number one party place, followed by Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va.; University of Wisconsin at Madison; West Virginia University in Morgantown, W.Va.; and Ohio University in Athens.

We talked about this a lot when I was a journalism student there. It’s actually a pretty significant public image problem for OU, because although it actually has a number of excellent academic programs (including the journalism school, which is also typically ranked in the top five nationwide year after year—which is why I was there, honest!), it can never shed its reputation as a “party school.” Pity.

All this writing is making me thirsty. Anybody want a beer or somethin’?