july08ff.indd


G a r y  P a t t i l l o  

Gary Pattillo is reference librarian at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, e-mail: pattillo@email. 
unc.edu 

Summer reading programs 
The following are the 2008 summer reading choices for selected college programs: 
The University of North Carolina­Chapel Hill: Covering: The Hidden Assault on 
Our Civil Rights, by Kenji Yoshino; Texas Tech: The Devil’s Highway: A True 
Story, by Luis Alberto Urrea; University of Alabama­Birmingham: Field Notes from 
a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change, by Elizabeth Kolbert; Niagara 
University: The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien; Louisiana State University: 
The Complete Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi; Clemson University: One Foot in Eden, 
by Ron Rash; Meredith College: An Inconvenient Truth, by Al Gore; University 
of Texas­San Antonio: A Hope in the Unseen, by Ron Suskind; Carleton College: 
Travels of a T-Shirt in a Global Economy, by Pietra Rivoli; Utah State University: 
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, by Ismael Beah; Saint Louis Univer­
sity: Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin; University of 
Vermont: The Age of Missing Information, by Bill McKibben. 
Source: Individual institution’s Web sites. 

Teens, tech, and writing 
About two­thirds of teens report that they incorporate informal styles from their 
text­based Internet communications into their writing at school. Fifty percent of 
teens say they sometimes use informal writing styles instead of proper capitaliza­
tion and punctuation in their school assignments. Thirty­eight percent say they 
have used text shortcuts in school work, such as “OMG” and “LOL.” 
Amanda Lenhart, Sousan Arafeh, Aaron Smith, Alexandra Rankin Macgill, Writing, Technology and Teens, Pew Internet & 
American Life Project, April 24, 2008. www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Writing_Report_FINAL3.pdf. 

Wiki-Britannica 
Encyclopaedia Britannica is adopting a modified Wikipedia model, allowing any­
one to submit contributions. To distinguish the effort from Wikipedia, Britannica 
will continue to incorporate the active involvement of the expert contributors 
with whom they already have relationships. All contributions to Encyclopaedia 
Britannica’s core content will continue to be checked and vetted by expert edi­
torial staff before they’re published. “In this way we aim to leverage the power 
of the Internet to integrate the work of many people in a common project and 
on a large scale, but without relinquishing the editorial oversight that makes 
Britannica’s content trustworthy.” 
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., (2008), Britannica’s New Site. Retrieved June 9, 2008, from Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 
Chicago, IL. britannicanet.com/?p=86. 

E-mail and Internet privacy 
Forty­one percent of large U.S. corporations (those with 20,000 or more employees) 
reported that they employ staff to read or otherwise analyze the contents of out­
bound e­mail. Eleven percent of U.S. companies surveyed disciplined employees 
for improper use of blogs or message boards in the past 12 months. 
Proofpoint, Inc., Outbound Email and Data Loss Prevention in Today’s Enterprise, 2008, May 20, 2008. www.proofpoint.com 
/downloads/Proofpoint-Outbound-Email-and-Data-Loss-Prevention-in-Today’s-Enterprise-2008.pdf. Accessed June 6, 
2008. 

C&RL News July/August 2008  432