Tips and Tricks

With a sea of information coming at us from all directions, how do we sift out the misinformation and bogus claims and get to the truth? Michael Shermer of Skeptic Magazine lays out a “Baloney Detection Kit,” with 10 questions we should ask when encountering a claim.

Sean Captain of Switched writes: “Facebook’s various bugs, glitches, and buried features are intimidating and off-putting to newbies and continuing irritants even to obsessive fans. We polled both types and trolled the Web for top complaints. Then we sat down with Facebook to see if they had a fix—or at least an explanation—for each gripe. Read on for our list of common Facebook pains and the best pain relievers.”

This video (2:33) shows why people still need librarians, whether they know it or not. Scott from Google asked more than 50 passersby, all different ages and backgrounds, the question “What is a browser?” in Times Square in New York. Part of the reason was to identify market penetration of the Google browser Chrome. Here are the results.

Mike Wesely shows you how to add pix to your tweets using TwitPic in this YouTube twit-torial (4:11). You can post pictures to Twitter from your phone, the TwitPic API, or through the site itself. If you have a Twitter account then you already have a TwitPic account.

What is a wiki? How does information get into Wikipedia in the first place? Who creates it? This short animation (6:41) created by the North Carolina State University Libraries introduces students to what goes on behind the scenes so they can make the best use of the surface content.

Bill Ferris of Instructify writes: “Back in my day we had to figure out arcane citation formats by poring through dusty old style manuals. This was during that awkward window after people started putting good information on the Internet, but before the style manuals told you how to cite Web documents. Here is a list of the five best bibliography and citation applications out there. Pass these on to your students and spare them the agony of building bibliographies the hard way.”

This 10th annual roundup of noteworthy genealogy Web sites honors 10 categories of 10 noteworthy sites each (plus one to make 101). The Family Tree Magazine editors have tried to encompass more Web 2.0 sites that are paving the way for changes in online genealogy over the next 10 years. The sites are mostly free but where you might still wind up pulling out your credit card for some purchase or other are marked with a $.

Eric Johnson of Mental Floss writes: “It’s Monday. You’ve had a nice, long, idle weekend, and—what’s this? Someone who says they’re your boss wants you to do work?! Well, we’ll have none of that, will we? Of course not—this is the Internet. Here are 10 easy ways to put off whatever you’re supposed to be doing while also getting your knowledge fix.”

No one needs another best-of list telling you how great The Great Gatsby is. What we do need, in a world with precious little time to read (and think), is to know which books—new or old, fiction or nonfiction—open a window on the times we live in, whether they deal directly with the issues of today or simply help us see ourselves in new and surprising ways. Which is why Newsweek would like you to sit down with Anthony Trollope and these 49 other remarkably trenchant voices.

The library has played a key role in the dissemination of information and knowledge throughout history. Long before the days of Google Book Search and the Amazon Kindle was the library, a place of learning and advancement. Here are seven of the most impressive libraries in history, places of intrigue and inspiration.

Libraries are wonderful places for people who love books, and wonderful places for cats to meet book lovers. According to Gary Roma’s Library Cats Map, there are an estimated 808 documented library cats, including 301 cats who currently reside in libraries around the world. Here are profiles of seven, in addition to the world-renowned Dewey Readmore Books.

Brian Herzog of the Swiss Army Librarian blog writes: “Usually I’m a pretty happy-go-lucky guy, and I really do enjoy my job. But I thought I’d share a list of the top 10 things that patrons do that can really irk me. Not that I expect every patron interaction to be perfect and wonderful, of course; these are a just few things that make bad days worse. I tried to limit this list to things unique to library patrons, and this list (which ended up being longer than I expected) is in no particular order.”

The Louvre has launched an English version of its online collections database, Atlas. This interactive research tool allows visitors to access information on 22,000 works of art, view high-resolution images of masterpieces, and locate exhibited works and galleries throughout the museum. The launch of the English version was initiated by and funded with a €300,000 ($380,000 U.S.) grant in 2004 from American Friends of the Louvre.