Wikipedia

Top Ten Reasons Students Cannot Cite or Rely on Wikipedia
Ever have an instructor tell you that you can't use Wikipedia as a source for your paper?  Read this for reasons.

Browsing books for July-American Health

Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America by Robert Whitaker. Call Number: RC443.W437 2010.
Getting What We deserve: Health & Medical Care in America by Alfred Sommer, MD, MHS. Call Number: RA445.S66 2009.
Sacrifice Zones: The Front Lines of Toxic Chemical exposure in the United States by Steve Lerner. Call Number: RA1226.L47 2010.
The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains by Nicholas Carr. Call Number: QP360.C3667 2010.
          Four controversial books on health make the reading list for July. In Anatomy of an Epidemic, Whitaker looks at the studies which evaluate the long-term use of psychiatric drugs and finds the benefits of use often misstated and patients suffering, while innovative programs are being developed which may offer far more effective alternatives.
          In the slim Getting What We Deserve, Dr. Sommer, a former Dean at Johns Hopkins, uses charts, graphs and innumerable statistics to show what we already should know: we spend more on health care than any other developed country and still aren’t better off than most of them. With sometimes acid humor, Dr. Sommer shows why.
          Sacrifice Zones spotlights an all-too-often ignored outcome of poverty: lower income communities are much more likely to be in proximity to—even surrounded by—toxic zones of industrial pollution. As jobs become critical, towns will gamble their health and the future of their children, in order to earn a living. From Alaska to Florida, from dioxin to PCBs from an old military base, the poor are often living in deadly environments.
          In The Shallows, author Carr expands on a past Atlantic article: that the Internet is making it harder for humans to think deeply and concentrate fully. Blending recent neuroscience and cultural critiques, he makes a strong case for e-moderation.

Library Videos for July--the Western Evolution

Ride the High Country, starring Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea, with Mariette Hartley. Directed by Sam Peckinpah. 1962. Library Call Number: PN1995.9.W4R54 2006.
     Considered by some Peckinpah’s finest film, the story involves two aging lawmen sent into the mountains to escort gold from a mining site back to a banker in the town below. Their journey is complicated by love, sex, fistfights, a double-cross, and gunplay. Some of the themes of this movie were no doubt shockingly adult for 1962, while Western justice and honor are on full display and the usually iconic Scott and McCrea become real people.

The Cowboys, Starring John Wayne, Roscoe Lee Brown and Bruce Dern. Directed by Mark Rydell. 1972. Library Call Number: PN1995.9.W4C69 2007.

          After True Grit, Wayne departed several times from his more stereotypic roles. As aging rancher Wil Anderson, he finds his wranglers have gone to chase a gold strike, just when he needs them to drive his cattle to market. Faced with the loss of his ranch, he desperately hires 11 boys from the schoolhouse to make the drive, but they are tailed by rustlers who mean to steal the herd. This is a rare Wayne movie and the boys-to-men theme works to his advantage. Fine performances all around and tremendous Western scenery, make this an unheralded beauty.

Little Big Man, starring Dustin Hoffman, Faye Dunaway, Chief Dan George. Directed by Arthur Penn. Library Call Number: PN1995.9.W4L57 2003.
     In Dustin Hoffman’s early tour-de force, he stars as 121 year-old Jack Crabb. Interviewed by a reporter in his nursing home, Crabb tells a tale of living with both the Cheyenne and the white man, as the West becomes settled, culminating in becoming the lone white survivor of the Little Big Horn. With Chief Dan George in his first movie role, lending tremendous weight as Old Lodge Skins, the Cheyenne who adopts the boy Jack Crabb, Jeff Corey as Wild Bill Hickock, and Richard Mulligan as the vain and arrogant Custer. Funny and heart-breaking, Penn’s work forced a new view of the stereotypical Western Indian. 
 

The Outlaw Josey Wales, starring Clint Eastwood, Chief Dan George and Sandra Locke. Directed by Clint Eastwood.1976. Library Call Number: PN1995.9.W4O88 2001.
          The epic story of an unrepentant Rebel border raider on the run in the post-Civil war era, Josey Wales is hunted by the Union from Missouri to Texas, giving the viewer a sweeping look at the canvas of the American West. Carpetbaggers, messianic soldiers, fur-traders, hard-luck saloon inhabitants, and Comancheros inhabit a vast landscape.  The movie has two sides: attention to detail, quality camera and cast, and a realistic portrayal of the Western environment; and then a fugitive gunfighter who can’t miss and somehow amasses an unlikely set of tag-alongs. Still, it’s a one-of-a-kind movie, hard to forget.

Retired Archivist Discusses Advances During His Career

Kevin Thorie retired as Archivist at UW-Stout after 29 years of service.  He discusses the changes in retrieval of information over that time in this article.