The New Yorker observes with characteristic wry bemusement the anonymous message boards for students that have spung up at the libraries of ivy and ivy-like institutions. They’re called boredat…name of library, and were developed by a student seeking to relieve boredom one night at Columbia. You can observe the posts; sex and alcohol seem to be the big topics, although every now and then a witticism slips through. Darn, I thought they’d all be asking and answering their own reference questions, or having deep discussions about what they were reading and studying. Someone did state they thought that the stacks at Stanford are scary and smelly. This reminded me of a piece in the Chronicle in which the author observed that almost no one in academic library is reading something they really want to be reading. At least maybe this will keep the bathroom walls cleaner.
Also in the New Yorker, see the Editor’s note on the latest reason why Wikipedia is vile.