New Bookmarks
Year 2004 Quarter 4:  October 1 - December 31 Additions to Bob Jensen's Bookmarks
Bob Jensen at Trinity University

For earlier editions of New Bookmarks, go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm 

Click here to search Bob Jensen's web site if you have key words to enter --- Search Site.
This search engine may get you some hits from other professors at Trinity University included with Bob Jensen's documents, but this may be to your benefit.

Once again Trinity University Receives a U.S. News Number 1 Ranking (for the 13th year in a row) http://www.trinity.edu/departments/public_relations/trinity_today/today.htm 

Of course the people don't want war. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.
Hermann Göring

Facts about the earth in real time --- http://www.worldometers.info/ 
Sure wish there'd be a little good news today.

Choose a Date Below for Additions to the Bookmarks File

December 15, 2004       December 1, 2004

November 15, 2004       November 1, 2004 

October 18, 2004           October 1, 2004 

December 15, 2004

Bob Jensen's New Bookmarks on December 15, 2004
Bob Jensen at Trinity University 

For earlier editions of New Bookmarks, go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm 

Click here to search Bob Jensen's web site if you have key words to enter --- Search Site.
This search engine may get you some hits from other professors at Trinity University included with Bob Jensen's documents, but this may be to your benefit.

Center for AIDS Prevention Studies --- http://www.caps.ucsf.edu/ 

Facts about the earth in real time --- http://www.worldometers.info/ 
Sure wish there'd be a little good news today.

Do you have history questions?
Facts about any given year.  For example, what took place in 1938? ---  http://encyclopedia.calendarhome.com/1938.htm 
The main page is at http://encyclopedia.calendarhome.com 
Bob Jensen's history bookmarks are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm#History 

Calendars for the years 1930-2005 (change the year) --- http://www.flicklives.com/Timeline/1939_cal.html 

Real time meter of the U.S. cost of the war in Iraq --- http://www.costofwar.com/ 

Quotes of the Week

From Around the World

English - merry Christmas and a happy New Year
Albanian - gëzuar Krishtlindjet e Vitin e Ri
Aragones - goyoso Nadal e prospera añata nuaba
Asturian - bon Nadal y feliz añu nuevu
Basque - Zorionak eta urte berri on
Bolognese - bån Nadèl e un ân nôv pén ed felizitè
Brazilian Portuguese - feliz Natal e próspero ano novo
Bresciano - bon Nedal e bu an nof
Breton - Nedeleg laouen ha bloavezh mat
Calabrese - buonu Natali e filici annu nuovu
Catalan - bon Nadal i feliç any nou
Croatian - sretan Božic i uspješna Nova godina
Danish - glædelig jul og godt nytår
Dutch - prettige Kerstdagen en een gelukkig nieuw jaar
Esperanto - bonan Kristnaskon kaj felican novan jaron
Estonian - häid Jõule ja õnnelikku uut aastat
Ferrarese - auguri'd bon Nadal e bon an nòv
Finnish - hyvää joulua ja onnellista uutta vuotta
Flemish - zalig kerstfeest en gelukkig Nieuwjaar
French - joyeux Noël et bonne année
Furlan - bon Nadâl e bon an gnûf
Galician - bo Nadal e próspero aninovo
German - frohe Weihnachten und ein schönes neues Jahr
Griko Salentino - Kalò Kristù ce na chrono nèo comào 'zze charà
Hungarian - békés karácsonyt és boldog új évet
Italian - buon Natale e felice anno nuovo
Judeo Spanish - Noel alegre i felis anyo muevo
Latin - Natale hilare et annum faustum
Leonese - Bon Nadal y Prestosu Añu Nuevu
Limburgian - ne zaolige Kiësmes, e gelèkkig Nauwjoër, ên al wo wènselek ès!
Lombardo - bon Natal e bon ann noeuv
Mapunzugun - ayüwün-ngechi lleqün antü ka küpalechi we tripantu
Mudnés - bòun Nadèl e bòun àn
Neapolitan - nu bbuono natale e felice anno nuovo
Norwegian - god Jul og godt nyttår
Occitan - polit Nadal e bona annada
Papiamentu - bon Pasku i felis aña nobo
Parmigiano - bon Nadèl e dla felicitè par al an nòv
Piemontese - Bon Natal e Bon Ann neuv
Polish - Wesolych Swiat i szczesliwego Nowego Roku
Portuguese - feliz Natal e próspero ano novo
Reggiano - boun Nadèl e boun an nòv
Romagnolo - bon Nadél e feliz 'an nov
Roman - bon Natale e bon anno
Sicilian - bon Natali e filici annu novu
Spanish - feliz Navidad y próspero año nuevo
Swedish - god jul och gott nytt år
Venetian - bon Nadal e bon ano novo
Zeneize - bon Denà e feliçe anno neuvo

For Shame:  Tiny Tim should never have mentioned the word " God" one time.
A Kirkland, Washington high school principal has cancelled a performance of 'A Christmas Carol' for transparently shabby reasons, including a concern that it might unduly promote the cause of religion. His arguments don’t even impress non-believers.
World Daily Net, December 19, 2004 --- http://worldnetdaily.com/news/printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=41826 

Last month the National Marine Fisheries Service and ocean conservation group Oceana listed species that have declined as much as 90 percent from their estimated original populations. And earlier in the fall, the US Commission on Ocean Policy, a blue-ribbon panel appointed by President Bush, released a study warning that too many marine species are being extracted from the oceans faster than they can reproduce.
Jennifer C. Berkshire, "I won't take the cod, thank you," The Christian Science Monitor, December 8, 2004 --- http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1208/p15s01-lifo.html 

Someday everybody will want tattoos.
In 2020, whipping out your mobile phone to make a call will be quaintly passé. By then phones will be printed directly on to wrists, or other parts of the body, says Ian Pearson, BT's resident futurologist.
Joe Twist, "When technology gets personal," BBC News, December 6, 2004 --- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4059011.stm 

Like countless other college students, Susannah Lloyd-Jones struggled with her choice of major. Finally, in her junior year at Loyola University in Chicago, she picked sociology, a decision that "opened my mind and introduced me to other cultures, " she said. More than two years after graduation, though, Ms. Lloyd-Jones, now a 24-year-old paralegal from Maplewood, N.J., occasionally wonders if she made the right decision. "It might have been easier if I had been a business major," she said, "because that's where the money is."
David Koppel (See below)

A survey by High Fliers Research of more than 7,000 graduating university students has ranked audit, tax and advisory firm KPMG as the top graduate employer out of 500 organisations.  
Double Entries, December 2, 2004 ---  http://accountingeducation.com/news/news5680.html  
Bob Jensen's threads on the two faces of KPMG are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud001.htm#KPMG 

To access an article that appeared in the Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry, for example, users will still need to visit a research library that subscribed to the publication. Those who live near Harvard University, though, would be out of luck: the school cancelled its subscription in January as a cost-cutting measure. So did Cornell University, citing the $2,178-a-year subscription cost.
"The Search for Science," Technology Review From MIT,  December 2, 2004 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/04/12/wo_asbrand120204.asp?trk=nl 
Bob Jensen's threads on monopoly publisher rip offs of scholarly journals are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraudreporting.htm#ScholarlyJournals 

That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.
Henri David Thoreau

Become Your Own News Reporter (Note that Wiki software allows input straight from you Web browser)
The folks behind the open-source reference site that's challenging the encyclopedia industry decide to give journalism a go. Through the experimental Wikinews site, anyone can take a stab at being a reporter.
Joanne Glassner, Wired News, November 29, 2004 --- http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,65819,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1 
You can also write your own Encyclopedia modules or revise and existing module by typing only from your browser --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page 

One Nation's Solution to a World Health Epidemic
North Korea claims zero cases of HIV infection.
Designers.com, December 2, 2004 --- http://health.news.designerz.com/north-korea-claims-zero-cases-of-hiv-infection.html 

People are divided into two groups - the righteous and the unrighteous - and the righteous do the dividing
Oscar Wilde  

The great events of the world take place in the brain.
Oscar Wilde 

Colleges Can Ban the Army (pending appeal)
"The United States continues to believe that the Solomon Amendment is constitutional," Mr. Corallo said. "We believe that Congress may deny federal funds to universities which discriminate and may act to protect the men and women of our armed forces in their ability to recruit Americans who wish to join them in protecting their country." . . . The appeals court said the law violated First Amendment rights of the schools in two ways.  First, Judge Thomas L. Ambro wrote, the schools are entitled not to associate with groups whose policies they oppose.
Adam Limtak, "Colleges Can Bar Army Recruiters," The New York Times, November 30, 2004 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/30/national/30recruit.html?hp&ex=1101877200&en=0069679a22f3e227&ei=5094&partner=homepage Jensen Note:  I think this fight is mainly one of principle rather than practice.  Colleges that put up a ban on Army recruiters in this case run the risk of backlash among private donors.  Even the most anti-Army college CEO would think twice about this.

Ducks lay their eggs in silence while hens cackle like madwomen. The result? Everybody eats hens' eggs.
Henry Ford
A report on advertising spending showed strong growth across most media in the first nine months of the year, with Internet advertising increasing the most.
The New York Times, November 30, 2004 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/30/business/media/30adde.html 

On Nov. 29, 2004, the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) experienced its best ever volume in a single day, surpassing 5.7 million contracts traded for the first time in its history, making November the highest volume month ever in exchange history. Additionally, the exchange’s premier electronic trading platform, as well as the CBOT U.S. Treasury complex, shattered previous volume records.  Total exchange trading volume climbed to 5,718,527 contracts on Monday, November 29, 2004, far surpassing the prior record of 4,403,218 contracts set on May 7, 2004. The CBOT’s electronic trading platform continued its record-setting trend, with 3,542,925 contracts changing hands electronically at the CBOT, compared with the prior record of 2,909,227 contracts set on November 5.
CBOT Newsletter on November 30, 2004

In Japan, where public confrontation is considered extremely distasteful, lawsuits have traditionally been something to avoid. So much for tradition. Threatened by the rapid advance of low-cost manufacturers in South Korea and Taiwan, Japanese companies are dropping their aversion to litigation and heading to court to protect their patents.
Todd Zaun, "Japanese Discover the Art of the Lawsuit," The New York Times, December 3, 2004 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/03/business/worldbusiness/03suits.html 

We think it was Justice Brandeis who said the states should be laboratories for reform. Regarding health care, Tennessee tried a decade ago and the price is now coming due. Hillary Rodham Clinton should call her pollster if she plans on carrying the state in 2008.  In 1994, Tennessee passed what was then a very hot New Democrat idea -- call it government managed care -- a version of the reform the former first lady was also pitching nationwide. TennCare promised the impossible dream of politicians everywhere: Lower health-care costs while covering more of the "uninsured." They got the impossible, all right. After 10 years of mismanagement and lawsuits, TennCare now eats up one-third of the state's entire budget and is growing fast. Governor Phil Bredesen, a Democrat, is preparing to pull the plug and return the state to the less lunatic subsidies of Medicaid.
"HillaryCare in Tennessee," The Wall Street Journal, December 6, 2004; Page A14

Toyota will start installing XM's satellite radios at the factory level in 2006, making Toyota the last big auto maker to commit to installing the devices early in the production process.
Sarah McBride, "XM Satellite Strikes Toyota Deal For Factory-Level Installation," The Wall Street Journal, December 8, 2004, Page D4 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110245320985993572,00.html?mod=gadgets%5Fprimary%5Fhs%5Flt 

Spine-damaged canines made to heal.
New Scientist, December 4, 2004 --- http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996755 

This is what happens when Republicans win elections (and I'm a Republican)
The SEC is facing resistance from two Republican commissioners over the stiff fines it has been imposing on companies.
Deborah Solomon, "As Corporate Fines Grow, SEC Debates How Much Good They Do," The Wall Street Journal, November 12, 2004 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110021198122471832,00.html?mod=home_whats_news_us 
Bob Jensen's threads on why white collar crime pays (even when you get caught) are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#CrimePays 

This is also what happens when Republican's win elections:  Academic Bias at Berkeley
Statisticians release an analysis debunking a previous Berkeley study that said President Bush received more votes than he should have in Florida counties that used touch-screen voting machines.
Kim Zetter. "Florida E-Vote Study Debunked," Wired News, December 7, 2004 --- http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,65896,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2

By now, you're probably inundated with holiday gift suggestions. The problem is, most of those are so popular, you'll have trouble actually finding them. Nintendo's awesome DS, for example, has sold out, and it's difficult finding the RoboSapien, too. If you haven't shopped yet, you'll end up with the dregs. Even so, some products are worse than the others. I've put together my own personal list of the worst products of 2004 -- culled from the more than 1,500 products we reviewed this year at PCMag.com. Looking for what to avoid? Just want to gawk at a train wreck?
"Ten to Avoid—The Worst Products of the Year," by Jim Louderback, PC Magazine, December 3, 2004 --- http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1735287,00.asp 

French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin announced a major relaxation of the controversial 35-hour working week, the key socialist reform that has come under attack for helping create the country's stubbornly high unemployment. At a televised news conference in Paris, Raffarin unveiled a government action plan dubbed "Contract France 2005", whose main provision is to make it easier for staff and companies to get round the last left-wing administration's compulsory cut in working hours.
Designerz.com, December 10, 2004 --- http://news.designerz.com/education 

Don't Swallow That Martini Until It's Straight Up
New York's Algonquin Hotel, once the haunt of 1920s literarti like Dorothy Parker, is making a fresh bid for notoriety by offering a 10,000-dollar martini cocktail.  The vodka, vermouth and olives are much the same as in any martini, but the twist lies in the "ice" -- in this case a diamond from the hotel's in-house jeweler, the Daily News reported Wednesday.
Designerz.com, December 11, 2004 --- http://weird-news.news.designerz.com/new-york-hotel-offers-10000-dollar-martini.html 

Online Dating Bubble Bursts
Feeling weary and, she said, "jerked around," Ms. Gold let her paid subscription to Match.com expire, and she has turned to real-life singles mixers for professionals. "I think I just burned out," she said. "It's kind of like communism. On paper, it's a perfect system."  Apparently, many others have also found that the god of online dating has failed.
Alex Williams, "E-Dating Bubble Springs a Leak," The New York Times, December 12, 2004 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/12/fashion/12DATE.html?oref=login 

WonderBras:  The Bubble Bursts
The creator of cleavage-making Wonderbra said it was recalling the latest invention after women complained their bras were snapping from the strain.
"Wonderbra recalls bra after cleavage plunger pops," WierdNews.com, December 13, 2004 --- http://weird-news.news.designerz.com/wonderbra-recalls-bra-after-cleavage-plunger-pops.html 

The End of TV as We Know It
Sit back on the sofa and get ready for packetized, on-demand, digital broadcasts.
Frank Rose, Wired Magazine, December 2004 --- http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.12/start.html?pg=7?tw=wn_tophead_5 

Now, there is nothing a weak man likes so much as to be as considered strong, nothing a henpecked man likes so much as to  regarded a tyrant. If you ever hear a man boast at his determination to rule his own house, you may feel sure that he is subdued. And a henpecked husband makes a great show of opposing everything that looks toward the enlargement of the work or privileges of women. Such a man insists on the shadow of authority because he cannot have the substance.
Edward Eggleston, In Love With a Dutchman,1872 Page 23

Fannie's Unethical Tone at the Top:  There's More Wrong Than Just Accounting Fraud
Fannie Mae, eager to unload a batch of fraudulent loans it purchased from a North Carolina lender, knowingly allowed the lender to resell the loans to a government mortgage agency, according to federal law-enforcement officials. A federal judge in Charlotte, N.C., has ordered Fannie Mae to forfeit $6.5 million for not informing the agency about the fraud.
Dawn Kopecki, "Fannie Is Ordered to Forfeit $6.5 Million," The Wall Street Journal, November 30, 2004 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110178387928686489,00.html?mod=home%5Fwhats%5Fnews%5Fus 

Consumers will be entitled, beginning as soon as Wednesday, to a free credit report every year, but the industry is not necessarily going to make it easy.  "Free" may just be another word for something else to buy, at least when it comes to credit reports.  Under a federal law passed a year ago, consumers will be entitled, beginning as soon as tomorrow, to a free credit report every year from each of three big credit reporting bureaus that maintain them.  But the industry is not necessarily going to make it easy, given that selling the reports, as well as ancillary services, has become a lucrative business. Indeed, in the process of getting a free report, many consumers will be bombarded with pitches to buy related products, including some that carry pricey monthly fees.
Jennifer Kingson, "Free Credit Reports Coming, With Pitches," The New York Times, November 30, 2004 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/30/business/30credit.ready.html?oref=login 

A warning from Herb XXXXX about variable annuity pushes from mutual funds and banks!  I recommended that he look at 

From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Weekly Review on October 8, 2004

TITLE: How Not to Outlive Your Savings
REPORTER: David Wessel
DATE: Sep 30, 2004
PAGE: D1
LINK: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB109650287519832031,00.html
TOPICS: Accounting, Financial Literacy

SUMMARY: David Wessel discusses the benefits of insurance annuity contracts. Questions focus general definitions of annuities for use in teaching time value of money topics.

December 13, 2004 message from Herb XXXXX

The common practice of providing mutual funds inside variable group annuity "wrappers" where the 401 (k) pays the mutual fund and the insurance fees -- on top of 401 (k) administration) is a costly way to go, without tax justification for the cost, and probably shifts costs to unsuspecting employees.

I will read the article. I will also let you know if I learn anything specific.

Again, Thank you.

Herb

Bob Jensen's threads on mutual fund and insurance frauds are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraudRotten.htm#MutualFunds 

Bob Jensen's Updates on Frauds and the Accounting Scandals --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm 

Bob Jensen's American History of Fraud ---  http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/415wp/AmericanHistoryOfFraud.htm

What a Great Idea in the War on Spam:  Unfortunately, Make Love, not Spam only covers Italy, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the UK to Date
Internet users fed up with spam can go on the offensive by downloading a screensaver aimed at hitting junkmailers in the pocket.  The screensaver, called Make Love Not Spam and launched by search engine Lycos, requests data from websites that are mentioned in bulk mailings.  Lycos Europe spokesman Frank Legerland says if thousands of users sign up, the websites' servers will run at nearly full tilt.  The demand will slow the websites' response and hike their bandwidth bills, yet derive no income for the accesses.  He says those costs may discourage the sites from hiring email spammers to advertise their wares.
ABC News, November 30, 2004 --- http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200411/s1254988.htm 
You can read reviews at http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/16592 
Also see http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1733446,00.asp 

Unprotected PCs can be hijacked in minutes," by Byron Acohido and Jon Swartz, USA TODAY, November 29, 2004

From Sept. 10 to Sept. 25, online intruders made 305,922 attempts to break into six computers connected to the Internet via broadband DSL.

Attackers successfully compromised the Dell Windows XP computer using Service Pack 1 nine times, and the Dell Windows 2003 Small Business server once. No other machines were breached.

Spam Bouncer 1.9 http://www.spambouncer.org/ 

Always Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth

You've probably received hundreds over the years -- free CDs that come bagged up in magazines, in the mail from AOL or snatched from the counter at your favorite computer store. You probably never thought twice about whether they were safe, but think again. We've got a chilling story about viruses and bugs lurking inside those freebees that could kill your PC, Xbox or PS2. They may be free, but that doesn't mean they're safe. Our chilling tale may make you think twice before loading up another one.
"The Hidden Risks of Demo Discs,"  by Libe Goad, eWeek,  December 3, 2004 --- http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1735609,00.asp?rsDis=The_Hidden_Risks_of_Demo_Discs-Page001-140370 

"Security Issues Plague Windows-Based PCs, Impairing Ease of Use," by Walter Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal,  December 9, 2004; Page B1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,personal_technology,00.html 

Thirteen years ago, this column was launched with the opening sentence: "Personal computers are just too hard to use, and it's not your fault." Since then, I have periodically stepped back to look at the progress of the technology industry in making computers easier to use.  

Obviously, we've come a long way since 1991. Personal computers, software and peripherals are much more stable and far simpler to operate. New products, like digital cameras, PDAs and music players, have come along as welcome additions, often integrating with computers.

But for the vast part of the public whose computers aren't bought and deployed by corporate computer departments, things have gotten much worse lately. For these consumers and small businesses, the burden of using personal computers has grown dramatically heavier in the past couple of years because of the plague of viruses, spyware and other security problems that now afflict the dominant Windows platform.

To cope with this assault from an international criminal class of virus and spyware writers, hackers and sleazy businesses, average users have had to buy and monitor an arsenal of add-on programs. They have been forced to learn far too much about the workings of their PCs. And too many users have had to take drastic steps, like wiping out their hard disks and starting all over.

So instead of being able to view their computers as tools for productivity, research, communication and entertainment, consumers have been forced to devote rising amounts of time and money just to keeping the machines safe. The PC has, in many cases, gone from being a solution to being, at least in part, a problem.

Continued in the article

Bob Jensen's updates on computer and network security are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce/000start.htm#SpecialSection 

The University of Phoenix, a network of colleges run by the Apollo Group, is drawing attention from regulators as well as Wall Street investors. 

"Can For-Profit Schools Pass an Ethics Test?" by Eryn Brown, The New York Times, December 12, 2004 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/12/business/yourmoney/12school.html?oref=login 

Over the last few years, the Apollo Group has watched its profile rise - mostly for the right reasons. It has expanded its University of Phoenix to 158 campuses, providing professional and technical degrees to working adults from Salem, Ore., to Guaynabo, P.R. Enrollment has doubled, to 255,600 students, in just the last four years. The market capitalization of the company, which earns a profit, has surged 374 percent over the same period.

But these days, the Apollo Group, based in Phoenix, may be gaining notice of a less desirable kind. In September, it agreed to pay the federal Department of Education $9.8 million to settle charges that its recruiting practices violated Title IV of the Higher Education Act, which regulates how almost $70 billion of federal grants, loans and work-study programs are distributed to students at colleges and universities each year.

A Department of Education report asserted that the school based its recruiters' pay on the numbers of students they brought in, and punished underperforming recruiters by isolating them in glass-walled rooms and threatening to fire them if they failed to meet management goals. Enrollment-based incentives and punishments are sometimes illegal under federal law.

Terri Bishop, a spokeswoman for Apollo, denied any wrongdoing by the company. "We were not required to change our compensation practices, because we were not found guilty of the allegations," she said.

Recently, a number of for-profit colleges have faced inquiries, lawsuits and other actions calling into question the way they pursue federal funds.

In the last year, the Career Education Corporation of Hoffman Estates, Ill., has faced lawsuits, from shareholders and students, contending that, among other things, its colleges have inflated enrollment numbers. The company, which said it considered the suits groundless, acknowledged that it was under investigation by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission. It declined to say what the federal officials were investigating. The Justice Department and S.E.C. declined to discuss this or any other active investigation.

In February, F.B.I. agents raided 10 campuses run by ITT Educational Services of Carmel, Ind., looking for similar problems; the company has not been charged with any wrongdoing.

A routine government audit in December 2003 of student aid programs at Bryman College in San Jose, Calif., part of Corinthian Colleges, found that it was too slow to return federal aid to the government after students withdrew from school, and it incorrectly calculated how much it owed the government and did not keep proper records, said a department spokeswoman, Jane Glickman.

After that, the Department of Education required Corinthian, which is based in Santa Ana, Calif., to give its own money to students and then seek reimbursement from the government. The requirement was lifted on Sept. 22, but the Corinthian Web site says the S.E.C. opened an investigation on Sept. 16 into its "projections, financial performance and communications with securities analysts and investors during the fiscal year ended June 30, 2004."

Such scrutiny may portend tough times for what has been a high-flying, profitable industry. According to Department of Education statistics, for-profit post-secondary schools, including those that grant degrees and those that do not, enrolled 765,701 students in the fall of 2001, the most recent year for which complete statistics are available. That is almost 30 percent more than the 589,600 they enrolled in 1996.

The schools say they offer practical career training in a time when job stability has vanished for many people. The Career College Association, an industry trade group in Washington, reports that 70 percent of the students at for-profit colleges are the first in their families to go to college. David Longanecker, a Department of Education official in the Clinton administration who is now the executive director of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, a research group in Boulder, Colo., said for-profit colleges like the University of Phoenix "are emerging as an important part of the educational system."

For-profit education companies also had the best run of any group on Wall Street from 2000 to 2003, said Howard Block, an analyst at Banc of America Securities in San Francisco, which does not have a financial interest in Apollo, Career Education, Corinthian Colleges, or ITT Educational Services, though the bank has advised some of those companies. Over all, he noted, publicly traded postsecondary-education stocks rose 460 percent over that period, compared with a 24 percent loss for the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index.

Bob Jensen's threads on the dark side are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm 

December 13, 2004 reply from 

Dear Bob,

I greatly respect you and many others on this site. As an educator at a very small, privately owned, For Profit School, The PJA School, that has been reaccredited without stipulation for the last three times in a row thus being recognized as a "School of Distinction", I would ask that our industry not be painted with a broad brush. We are an Associate Degree granting institution that works co-operatively with both non-profit and for profit schools to encourage our students to continue on and receive their Bachelor's.

I would also suggest that if DE were to look in the not for profit sector basket, they could find some bad apples as well. Let us also remember that in America, one is innocent until proven guilty. Don't get me wrong, if there is impropriety, I want it fixed before we get a black eye too. Please keep in mind, it is time for renewal of HEA, that always seems to cause a bashing of our industry which truly serves an important purpose. Our population does tend to have a higher percentage of first geners, minorities, at-risks, and the poor.

John Hayden, CPA 
The PJA School 
Upper Darby, PA

 

Quality and Extent of Online Education in the United States

"Entering the Mainstream: The Quality and Extent of Online Education in the United States, 2003 and 2004," The Sloan Consortium --- http://www.sloan-c.org/resources/survey.asp 

Entering the Mainstream: The Quality and Extent of Online Education in the United States, 2003 and 2004 represents the second annual study of the state of online education in U.S. Higher Education. This year’s study, like last year’s, is aimed at answering some of the fundamental questions about the nature and extent of online education. Supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and based on responses from over 1,100 colleges and universities, this year’s study addresses the following key questions:

-- Will online enrollments continue their rapid growth?

Background: 
Last year’s study, Sizing the Opportunity: The Quality and Extent of Online Education in the United States, 2002 and 2003 found that over 1.6 million students were studying online in the fall of 2002, and that schools expected that number to grow substantially by the fall of 2003. The nearly 20% growth rate expected in online enrollments far exceeds the overall rate of growth for the entire higher education student population. Would this very optimistic projection be realized, or would schools begin to see a plateau in their online enrollments?

The evidence: 
The online enrollment projections have been realized, and there is no evidence that enrollments have reached a plateau. Online enrollments continue to grow at rates faster than for the overall student body, and schools expect the rate of growth to further increase:

Over 1.9 million students were studying online in the fall of 2003. Schools expect the number of online students to grow to over 2.6 million by the fall of 2004. Schools expect online enrollment growth to accelerate — the expected average growth rate for online students for 2004 is 24.8%, up from 19.8% in 2003. Overall, schools were pretty accurate in predicting enrollment growth — last year’s predicted online enrollment for 2003 was 1,920,734; this year’s number from the survey is 1,971,397.

-- Are students as satisfied with online courses as they are with face-to-face instruction?

Background: 
Schools face the “if you build it will they come?” question: If they offer online courses and students are not satisfied with them, they will not enroll. Do academic leaders, those responsible for the institutions meeting their enrollment goals, believe that students are as satisfied with their online offerings as with their face-to-face instruction?

The evidence: 
Schools that offer online courses believe that their online students are at least as satisfied as those taking their face-to-face offerings:

40.7% of schools offering online courses agree that “students are at least as satisfied” with their online courses, 56.2% are neutral and only 3.1% disagree. Medium and large schools strongly agree (with less than 3% disagreeing). The smallest schools (under 1,500 enrollments) are the least positive, but even they have only 5.4% disagreeing compared to 32.9% agreeing. Doctoral/Research, Masters, and Associates schools are very positive, Specialized and Baccalaureate schools only slightly less so.

-- What role do schools see online learning playing in their long-term strategy?

Background: 
In order for online learning to enter the mainstream of American higher education, schools must believe in its importance and be willing to embrace it as part of their long-term institutional strategies. Will online learning be seen as a niche among higher education, or will schools see it as an important component of their future evolution?

The evidence: 
Schools believe that online learning is critical to their long term strategy. We asked if “Online education is critical to the long-term strategy” of the school. Every group with the exception of Baccalaureate schools agrees with this statement. Public and large schools were extremely strong in their opinions (only 3% disagreeing):

The majority of all schools (53.6%) agree that online education is critical to their long-term strategy. Among public and private for-profit institutions almost two-thirds (over 65% in both cases) agree. The larger the institution, the more likely it believes that online education is critical. Doctoral/Research, Masters, and Associates schools are very positive, Specialized schools slightly less positive, and Baccalaureate schools slightly negative.

-- What about the quality of online offerings: do schools continue to believe that it measures up?

Background: 
One of the earliest perceptions about online learning was that it was of lower quality than face-to-face instruction. The evidence from last year’s study showed academic leaders did not agree with this assessment. When asked to compare learning outcomes in online courses with those for face-to-face instruction, academic leaders put the two on very close terms, and expected the online offerings to continue to get better relative to the face-to-face option. Given the continued growth in the number of students online and the pressure that this growth brings in maintaining quality, do academic leaders still believe in the quality of online offerings?

The evidence: 
Schools continue to believe that online learning is just as good as being there:

A majority of academic leaders believe that online learning quality is already equal to or superior to face-to-face instruction. Three quarters of academic leaders at public colleges and universities believe that online learning quality is equal to or superior to face-to-face instruction. The larger the school, the more positive the view of the relative quality of online learning compared to face-to-face instruction. Three quarters of all academic leaders believe that online learning quality will be equal to or superior to face-to-face instruction in three years.

Distance Education Websites --- http://ejw.i8.com/distweb.htm 

Bob Jensen's threads on the shocking future of distance education are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm 

Bob Jensen's threads on alternatives for distance education and training are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm 

Bob Jensen's threads on technology in education are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm 

December 12, 2004 message from Jagdish Gangolly [JGangolly@UAMAIL.ALBANY.EDU] 

I was speaking with a colleague (and former student of Jay Forrester of Systems Dynamics and "magnetic core" fame at MIT). He showed me a fascinating game that is being used in hundreds of business schools (including the Sloan School at MIT) all over the world.

It is affectionately called the "Beer Game". In the OR/MS Today magazine in 1992 there was even an article on the game.

Those interested might like to visit www.systemdynamics.org 

I was wondering if any one is using the game (specially in managerial accounting), and if an accounting adaptation of the game has been worked out by any one.

Jagdish

December 12, 2004 message from Fisher, Paul [PFisher@ROGUECC.EDU] 

If it is an in-class course, I have the students form groups and construct a roller coaster out of paper, glue, etc. I use different colored and weighted paper on which I have copied the squares of graph paper. The students are responsible to track "R & D" time, construction labor time, and both direct and indirect material costs. The roller coaster must work work by sliding a coin down the track. The student is responsible for developing the sales price based on a predetermined mark-up rate.

Later in the course I use the same activity to have the students develop how many riders and at what entrance price to make the project viable.

It is about a six hour activity, but the students seem to like it and have a very good time doing it. If it would be useful I will send my directions sheet.

Paul Fisher 
Rogue Community College

December 12, 2004 message from JOHN STANCIL [mailto:jstancil@VERIZON.NET]

I use the "Management Accounting Simulation" ( http://www.microbuspub.com ). I have used it for several years. The students take over management of a troubled company that manufactures a single product and must make financial, production, and marketing decisions.

John Stancil 
Florida Southern College

December 12, 2004 message from neal hannon [nhannon@COX.NET] 

This semester, I started my managerial accounting students with a round of monopoly to provide a set of financial statements. Then we used Legos to illustrate the various concepts of basic cost accounting. With each of 4 build periods, various elements were introduced such as preparing a budget, CVP, operating variances, capital expenditures, performance bonus calculations and others. The students were asked to collect the information into a group project and summarize their entire experience in a paper, as well as summarize their performance into financial statements. I will receive the first set of papers tomorrow.

The hands-on experience was valuable, for most students had never been in a situation where they had to build anything beyond a fast food order. Next semester, I will have two classes of managerial accounting and I plan to use the Legos concept again.

Let me know if this is what you had in mind and I'll share more information with you.

Neal

Neal J. Hannon, CMA 
University of Hartford; 
Barney School of Business 
XBRL Editor, Strategic Finance Magazine 
U Hartford

December 13, 2004 message from Bob Jensen

Bob Jensen's threads on teaching tools --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm

The above site included Edutainment and Games.

Examples under Edutainment and Games are shown below:

Drama Simulations --- http://www.cob.tamucc.edu/ATABestPrac2K/drama-simulations.htm

Sherry Mills and Cathleen Burns won the American Accounting Associations Innovation in Accounting Education Award by using a Lego project to teach cost accounting --- http://aaahq.org/awards/awrd6win.htm

Also see http://cbae.nmsu.edu/~smills/Update_11_04/Westhafer03.htm

 

For video games, see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#Future 

Teaching Tools Websites --- http://ejw.i8.com/teachweb.htm 

Bob Jensen's threads on resources are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/newfaculty.htm 

Roles of Mentors in Electronic Learning Environments,

"The Roles of Mentors in Electronic Learning Environments," AACE Journal, Vol. 13, 2004 --- http://www.aace.org/pubs/AACEJ/dispart.cfm?paperID=27 

This article describes the roles of mentors to meet the need for mentors in electronic learning (eLearning) environments. The existing literature has documented factors impeding effective eLearning and the multiplicity of the faculty’s roles that demands too much time on the faculty within eLearning environments. This article argues for the need for mentors to assist instruction and facilitate learning within eLearning environments. The roles of mentors built around the multiple roles of the faculty are then identifi ed as teaching assistants, social connectedness initiators, and technical supporters. A guideline for mentors outlining mentors’ roles, responsibilities, and contributions was proposed. This guideline may be adopted by mentors as a fundamental job-aid in practicing mentoring. An example of implementation of mentors in an eLearning environment, which resulted in higher learning achievement, was also presented. In conclusion, it is suggested that mentors should be employed within eLearning environments for assisting students overcoming eLearning barriers and achieving effective learning within eLearning environments.

Bob Jensen's threads on technology in education are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm 

Journey of Mankind:  The Peopling of the World --- http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/journey/ 

The Bradshaw Foundation in association with Stephen Oppenheimer, presents a virtual journey of modern man over the last 160,000 years.  The map will show the first time interaction of migration and climate over this period.

"Surveying the Digital Landscape: Evolving Technologies 2004," Educause Review, vol. 39, no. 6 (November/December 2004): 78–92. --- http://www.educause.edu/apps/er/erm04/erm0464.asp 

Each year, the members of the EDUCAUSE Evolving Technologies Committee identify and research the evolving technologies that are having the most direct impact on higher education institutions. The committee members choose the relevant topics, write white papers, and present their findings at the EDUCAUSE annual conference.

December 9, 2004 reply from Ed Scribner [escribne@nmsu.edu] 

Bob,

Thanks for that EDUCASE link. Who among us old-timers from the mainframe BITNET days would have predicted that “spam management” would top the list of influential campus technologies in 2004?

While following the link you sent, I noticed that Wesleyan has a nicely crafted set of assessment links that you probably already have, but it didn’t turn up in my search of trinity.edu:

Information Technology Services Assessment --- http://www.wesleyan.edu/its/acs/assessment.htt 

Ed Scribner 
New Mexico State

Bob Jensen's threads on assessment are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm 

Bob Jensen discusses the long term future of education technologies at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#Future 

December 10, 2004 message from Carolyn Kotlas [kotlas@email.unc.edu] 

E-LEARNING ONLINE PRESENTATIONS

The University of Calgary Continuing Education sponsors Best Practices in E-Learning, a website that provides a forum for anyone working in the field to share their best practices. This month's presentations include:

-- "To Share or Not To Share: There is No Question" by Rosina Smith Details a new model for permitting "the reuse, multipurposing, and repurposing of existing content"

-- "Effective Management of Distributed Online Educational Content" by Gary Woodill "[R]eviews the history of online educational content, and argues that the future is in distributed content learning management systems that can handle a wide diversity of content types . . . identifies 40 different genres of online educational content (with links to examples)"

Presentations are in various formats, including Flash, PDF, HTML, and PowerPoint slides. Registered users can interact with the presenters and post to various discussion forums on the website. There is no charge to register and view presentations. You can also subscribe to their newsletter which announces new presentations each month. (Note: No archive of past months' presentations appears to be on the website.)

For more information, contact: Rod Corbett, University of Calgary Continuing Education; tel:403-220-6199 or 866-220-4992 (toll-free); email: rod.corbett@ucalgary.ca ; Web: http://elearn.ucalgary.ca/showcase/. 

---

NEW APPROACHES TO EVALUATING ONLINE LEARNING

"The clear implication is that online learning is not good enough and needs to prove its worth before gaining full acceptance in the pantheon of educational practices. This comparative frame of reference is specious and irrelevant on several counts . . ." In "Escaping the Comparison Trap: Evaluating Online Learning on Its Own Terms (INNOVATE, vol. 1, issue 2, December 2004/January 2005), John Sener writes that, rather than being inferior to classroom instruction, "[m]any online learning practices have demonstrated superior results or provided access to learning experiences not previously possible." He describes new evaluation models that are being used to judge online learning on its own merits. The paper is available online at http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=11&action=article.

You will need to register on the Innovate website to access the paper; there is no charge for registration and access.

Innovate [ISSN 1552-3233] is a bimonthly, peer-reviewed online periodical published by the Fischler School of Education and Human Services at Nova Southeastern University. The journal focuses on the creative use of information technology (IT) to enhance educational processes in academic, commercial, and government settings. Readers can comment on articles, share material with colleagues and friends, and participate in open forums. For more information, contact James L. Morrison, Editor-in-Chief, Innovate; email: innovate@nova.edu ; Web: http://www.innovateonline.info/.

Bob Jensen's threads on assessment are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm 

Physicists Just Don't Know How to Sell Books 
The secret of success that defies physics is to serialize your book into newer topics with the same writing and sales formula.  Physics can't explain Chicken Soup that never spoils.  Sornette should've serialized his works with titles Physics Stew for the ____________.

"Physics Model Predicts Book Sales," Technology Review from MIT, December 10, 2004 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/04/12/rnb_121004.asp 

When UCLA physics professor Didier Sornette looked at the way his 2003 book on stock market crashes sold, he saw something that needed further investigation.

A few days after Sornette gave an interview in mid-January 2003 to a high-diffusion Internet news network his book reached number five on Amazon, then quickly moved down the rankings, disappearing from the top 50 within a week.

Using the same statistical physics methods they used to study complex systems like earthquakes and financial markets, Sornette and his colleagues set out to explain the book-ranking behavior. They used the Epidemics-Type Aftershock Sequence model, which draws on statistical techniques for studying how diseases spread through populations in order to model earthquake aftershocks.

Information about a book travels through the network of potential buyers in two possible fashions: exogenous and endogenous.

Exogenous shocks come from sources outside the system they affect, like billboards or newspaper articles; endogenous shocks are made up of very small exogenous shocks that happen in a coordinated fashion, like word-of-mouth recommendations.

The model predicts how sales will decline after they peak according to how the peak occurred. The decline after an exogenous shock is fairly steep, while the decay after an endogenous shock is more gradual. The model was 84 percent correct in the researchers tests.

Book publishing houses and marketing firms could use the method to quantify how books will sell post-peak, and to time the market, according to the researchers.

Using the method to study complex non-physical systems like markets could, in turn, help scientists understand complicated life processes whose divisions between exogenous and endogenous shocks are difficult to distinguish, according to the researchers.

The method could be used in practical applications within six months to a year, said Gilbert.

The work appeared in the November 26, 2004 issue of Physical Review Letters.

Jensen Comment:  Physicists Just Don't Know How to Sell Books 
Chicken Soup book sales are over $110 million per year and soaring.
Physics can't explain Chicken Soup that never spoils from the endless stream of best selling books from Chicken Soup for the Soul Enterprises, Inc.    The endless stream of Chicken Soup for the _______ books takes up more shelf space in book stores (including Wal-Mart) than any other book sets.  The secret of success that defies physics is to serialize your book into newer topics with the same writing and sales formulas.

"Modern Media and Chicken Soup for the Soul Enterprises Announce Launch of New Magazine: Chicken Soup for the American Soul," Freelance Writing, September 8, 2004 --- http://www.freelancewriting.com/news-080904-01.html 

Today, their book series includes more than 100 titles in 39 languages that have touched the hearts and minds of more than 90 million readers worldwide. In 1996, the newly-formed Chicken Soup Enterprises, Inc., leveraging the success of book sales, branched into licensed products, and to date the company is responsible for more than 600 million dollars of retail revenue.

Independent Book Publishers Hall of Fame --- http://www.bookmarket.com/fame.html 

John Kremer, author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books and editor of the Book Marketing Update newsletter maintains this list of the top independent book publishers who do $50,000,000 in sales per year but less than $200,000,000. Also eligible to be featured in this Independent Book Publishers Hall of Fame are any publishers who reached this level of sales before being acquired by another company and losing their independence. Finally, I have also included several distributors who have reached this level of success.

Publishers of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, this publisher also publishes magazines. Specialties: psychology, self-help, inspiration, recovery. On May 14, 1998, they had their first USA Today #1 bestseller, Chicken Soup for the Mother's Soul, as well as ten other books in slots 6, 7, 14, 22, 26, 53, 77, 105, 111, and 135. In 1998, their sales topped $95 million.

Scientific American's Listing of Readers' Favorites --- http://www.sciam.com/page.cfm?section=readersfavorites&chanID=sa009&lsource=topnav 

Scientific American's Listing of its Best Selling Books --- http://www.sciam.com/books/index.cfm?location=bestseller&lsource=topnav 

"The 10 Best Books of 2004," The New York Times, December 12, 2004 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/12/books/review/12TENBEST.html?oref=login 

But those are not necessarily the "best selling" books.  Even when called "best sellers," you cannot trust The New York Times or other ranking agencies.

A Stanford University Research Study
Misleading Bias in Book Best Seller Lists, including those of The New York Times

From the Stanford University Alumni Newsletter, October 2004 
What's With All the "National Best Sellers"? 
A recent study of best sellers by Alan Sorensen, an assistant professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, found 109 hardcover fiction books that did not make the The New York Times list in 2001 and 2002 but sold better than some that did. MSN.com, October 15, 2004

"What's With All the "National Best Sellers"? How so many books get to the top of the charts," by Sean Rocha, MSN.com, October 15, 2004 ---  http://slate.msn.com/id/2108296#ContinueArticle 

Note: Slate initially posted a version of this column before it was finished being edited. A correction at the end of the article details errors that appeared in the original.

Walk into a bookstore, and it can seem as though every book is billed as a "national best seller." It's not hard to explain why: There are numerous best-seller lists on which to base the claim, and the lists don't always anoint the same books. On Thursday, for example, six of the most prominent top-10 fiction lists included 22 different titles. How do these best-seller lists work? And why don't they all list the same books?

There hasn't always been such an abundance of lists. According to Michael Korda's Making the List, the first best-seller list in America began in 1895 as a monthly column in a now defunct literary magazine called The Bookman. The oldest continuously published list was introduced in 1912 by Publishers Weekly, and the New York Times Book Review began publishing its list as a regular weekly feature in 1942. Now there are more than 40 best-seller lists that report how well books are doing either nationally or in various segments of the market—in particular regions, at certain chain stores, at independent bookstores nationwide. However, no list-maker tracks every book sold in the country; even the national lists draw on a sample of actual sales data from booksellers and use it to extrapolate total national sales.

The industry bellwether is the New York Times list, due to the prominence of the newspaper and the scope of its sales survey. Each week, the Times receives sales reports from almost 4,000 bookstores, along with reports from wholesalers that sell to 50,000 other retailers, including gift shops, department stores, newsstands, and supermarkets. John Wright, the assistant to the best-sellers editor at the Times, said the paper does not reveal the precise methodology by which its list is compiled. But we do know that the rankings are based on unit, not dollar, figures and account for sales during a Sunday to Saturday week.

To report sales to the Times, booksellers use a form provided by Times editors. The form lists titles the editors think are likely to sell well. Although there is space below for writing in additional titles, this practice has been controversial. Some critics (particularly independent-bookstore owners and small publishers) believe the Times form makes it more difficult for quiet, word-of-mouth hits to make the Times list. Whatever the cause, the Times list certainly makes "mistakes": A recent study of best sellers by Alan Sorensen, an assistant professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, found 109 hardcover fiction books that did not make the Times list in 2001 and 2002 but sold better than some that did.

Other best-seller lists draw on smaller survey samples. The San Francisco Chronicle and Los Angeles Times (among other newspapers) publish lists that rank sales in their regions. Barnes & Noble and Amazon calculate best-seller lists based exclusively on their own sales—the Barnes & Noble list includes transactions both on the company's Web site and at its more than 870 stores. The American Booksellers Association's "Book Sense" list surveys only independent bookstores, compiling data from about 460 of the estimated 2,000 independent bookstores in the United States. (And Library Journal, a trade magazine, even launched a list recently that is not based on sales at all; instead, it ranks the books "most borrowed" from libraries.) Best-seller lists generally separate hardcover and paperback books and also parse by category: fiction, nonfiction, advice, children's, etc. There are exceptions: Barnes & Noble, for example, lumps together hardcover and paperback sales while retaining the distinction between fiction and nonfiction, and USA Today runs a single, unified list of the top 150.

Since the many lists represent different pieces of the total book-sales pie—and even those representing the same slice use different samples—there can be some startling divergences among the rankings. (Some lists are also faster than others to record sales, which can exaggerate these differences.) For example, on Wednesday, Skinny Dip by Carl Hiassen ranked No. 10 among the ABA's independents but only came in at No. 121 on USA Today's list. The No. 7 book on Amazon, War Trash by Ha Jin, was not in Barnes & Noble's top 25 while the No. 3 book on Barnes & Noble, Anita Shreve's Light on Snow, was only No. 22 on Amazon—and neither book had yet made it onto the Times or Publishers Weekly lists.

Best-seller lists indicate how a book is selling relative to other books in a given geographical area or niche of the market, but they don't reveal how many copies a book has sold or how much money consumers have spent on a given title. Movie buffs can log onto the Internet Movie Database and find out how much money a film took in at the box office the week before. But readers who love The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, which just had a long run at No. 1 on almost every fiction best-seller list, have no way to tell from the rankings whether it is selling 1,000 copies a week or 1 million, or how much money it has made.

In part, definitive figures on book sales don't appear in best-seller lists because timely, authoritative data can be hard to come by, even for publishers. The larger companies, such as Holtzbrinck (FSG, Holt, Picador, St. Martin's) or Bertelsmann (Random House, Knopf, Doubleday) have increasingly sophisticated in-house systems that update sales data for their own titles on a weekly or daily basis, based on figures that sales reps get from book retailers across the country. These systems have blind spots, however: Airports and supermarkets, for example, are slower to report point-of-sale data, so it can sometimes take two to three months for publishers to obtain sales numbers from these venues. And publishing house bean-counters must also contend with the book world's peculiar return policy, which allows retailers to send any books they cannot sell back to the publisher—for a full refund. Only when a book is bought and retained by the customer does it count as a sale for the publisher. As a result, for the publisher, sales figures are always provisional pending a costly adjustment for returns—and returns can be huge, sometimes amounting to between 40 percent and 50 percent of books shipped.

So how many books do you actually need to sell to make it onto, say, the Times list? There is no defined threshold, but according to the Stanford study, one book made the hardcover fiction list selling only 2,108 copies a week; more typically, the median weekly sales figure in the study was 18,717. And most books can't keep even these modest sale rates up for long: Sales generally peak during a book's second week on the list and then steadily decline. Over a period of six months, the median best seller in the Stanford study averaged weekly sales of just over 3,600 copies.

Incidentally, the Stanford study would not have been possible even five years ago—the professor who conducted it would have had trouble obtaining accurate data. But in 2001, a Dutch company called VNU introduced Nielsen BookScan, which reports industry-wide sales figures and is available only by subscription. Like the national best-seller lists, BookScan relies on sampling—in their case, about 4,500 retailers—but BookScan reveals hard data on unit sales for books. The Washington Post bases its rankings on BookScan data, but Nielsen requires that the Post keep unit sales figures out of the paper. 

Continued in the article

Google Crawling in the Stacks
Google plans to begin converting the holdings of leading research libraries into digital files that would be searchable online
John Markoff and Edward Wyatt, "Google Is Adding Major Libraries to Its Database," The New York Times, December 14, 2004 --- http://snipurl.com/GoogleLibrary  

Note that Huckleberry Finn is both the most banned and among the most widely held.  

TOP 1000 MOST WIDELY-HELD LIBRARY BOOKS (forwarded by Carolyn Kotlas)

OCLC Research, a division within the OCLC Online Computer Library Center, has compiled a list of the top 1000 titles owned by its 50,000+ member libraries. The top ten titles, in descending order, are the 2000 U.S. Census, the Bible, Mother Goose, Divine Comedy, Homer's Odyssey and Iliad, Huckleberry Finn, Hamlet, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and Lord of the Rings. Many classics and canonical works of Western civilization and culture are represented, along with currently-popular works. You can view the list all 1000 titles at http://www.oclc.org/research/top1000/ 

Fun Factoids --- http://www.oclc.org/research/top1000/factoids.htm 

Fun facts about the OCLC Top 1000

How many works by Shakespeare made the list?
Forty.

How many works by Stephen King made the Top 1000 list?
Zero, to our surprise. Pet Sematary ranked 1165, though.

Which author has the most works on the OCLC Top 1000 list?
William Shakespeare (with 40 works). He is followed by Charles Dickens (16 works) and John Grisham (13 works).

How many different authors are on the OCLC Top 1000 list?
576 authors made the list, not counting the anonymous ones.

How many of the OCLC Top 1000 works are anonymous?
63 works are anonymous or do not have a single author. (In library parlance, there are 63 "title main entry" works.)

What work on the Top 1000 list has the richest publication history, i.e., the most manifestations, as represented by OCLC libraries' holdings?
The Bible, followed by the Haggadah. Divine Comedy was 3rd and the Koran 4th.

If all the Harry Potter books were bundled together, how would they have stacked up?
We didn't bundle them together, but if we had, these books would have ranked 8th on the Top 1000 list (and 2nd on the Top Fiction list, 3rd on the Top Children's list). Considered together, 39,010 Harry Potter items are held by libraries and they are represented by 407 different bibliographic records.

Who is the author most held by OCLC libraries?
William Shakespeare, followed by the United States government, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, and Giuseppi Verdi.

How far down the OCLC Top 1000 list do you have to go to get to a live author?
Jim Davis' Garfield is number 18 on the list. (Four of the 5 top works by living authors are cartoons!)

And in case you're wondering, Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird is the highest-ranking work by a living female author. It ranked 149.

What were the top works purchased (cataloged) in 2003 by libraries?

1. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, by J. K. Rowling
   Purchased by 2,406 libraries in 2003
2. Living History, by Hillary Rodham Clinton
   Purchased by 2,101 libraries in 2003
3. My Friend Rabbit, by Eric Rohmann
   Purchased by 1,847 libraries in 2003
4. The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown
   Purchased by 1,843 libraries in 2003
5. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, by Joseph Gibaldi
   Purchased by 1,807 libraries in 2003

For comparison, here are Publishers Weekly's bestsellers for the same year (Source: Bowker Annual, 2004, p. 575, from Publishers Weekly, March 22, 2004):

1. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, by J.K. Rowling
   12.2 million units sold in 2003
2. The Purpose-Driven Life, by Rick Warren
   11.3 million units sold in 2003
3. The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown
   5.7 million units sold in 2003
4. The South Beach Diet, by Arthur Agatston, M.D.
   4.4 million units sold in 2003
5. The Five People You Meet in Heaven, by Mitch Albom
   2.9 million units sold in 2003

What is the highest-ranking work written by a woman?
Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë ranks 29 on the list. Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë, is next on the list. Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice ranks 33.

Who is the most written-about person in WorldCat?
Jesus Christ.

What's the top mystery novel held by libraries?
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. It ranks 199.

You've acknowledged that the Top 1000 list has a United States slant. How many U.S. presidents authored works on the list?
John F. Kennedy (for Profiles in Courage), George Washington (for his Farewell Address), and Ulysses S. Grant (Personal Memoirs).

James Madison, who along with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay co-authored The Federalist Papers under the pen name Publius, also made the list, though anonymously. (Madison and Hamilton also drafted Washington's Farewell Address.)

Abraham Lincoln is not on the list.

How does the U.S. constitution rank?
257.

Kissin' don't last, cookin' do...
The Joy of Cooking ranked 260 on the OCLC Top 1000 list. Joy of Sex did not make the Top 1000 list, or come anywhere close.

Fighting like cats and dogs...
Garfield is number 18 on the list. Snoopy is 70.

How about animals generally?
Garfield is the top-ranking animal overall. Moby Dick, at 35, was the second-highest ranking animal. Neither Lassie (ranking 1126) nor Bambi (1118) made the OCLC Top 1000 list. (The Yearling, though, ranked 281.)

What is the top-ranking bird?
Does Mother Goose count? She was third on our list.

What about plants?
Leaves of Grass ranked 45.

What's the top fruit? The top vegetable? The top mineral?
It's your turn to look.

Who is the top monster?
Dr. Frankenstein's monster. Ranking 44, he beat both Count Dracula (78) and Edward Hyde (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde ranked 137). The vampire Lestat didn't make the OCLC Top 1000 list, and neither did Shrek.

It was a dark and stormy night...
The work Paul Clifford by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton did not make the OCLC Top 1000 list.

What cartoons made it to OCLC's Top 1000 list?

• Garfield, by Jim Davis (ranked 18)
• Peanuts, by Charles Schulz (ranked 70)
• Doonesbury, by Garry Trudeau (ranked 80)
• Far Side, by Gary Larson (ranked 118)
• Calvin and Hobbes, by Bill Watterson (ranked 148)
• Dilbert, by Scott Adams (ranked 448)
• Fox Trot, by Bill Amend (ranked 908)

What was the 1001st item?
Great Gilly Hopkins, by Katherine Paterson.

 

Glossary of Book Collecting Terms --- http://hardyboys.bobfinnan.com/bookterms.htm 

Free Electronic Books --- http://www.awriteshop.com/e_reading.html 
Many of the books are scanned photographs of actual book pages.
For more see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm#ElectronicBooks  

"100 Notable Books of the Year," The New York Times, December 5, 2004 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/05/books/review/1205books-notable.html?oref=login 

A great index of electronic journals (although admittedly not comprehensive)--- http://ejw.i8.com/ 

Eyewitness to History --- http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/ 
Bob Jensen's threads on history are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm#History 

There’s a possible win-win situation for colleges who are willing to change with the times.  Professional programs could help by designing more innovative minors customized to integrate with humanities and science.  Humanities and science programs could help by allowing majors to take professional minors.

Like countless other college students, Susannah Lloyd-Jones struggled with her choice of major. Finally, in her junior year at Loyola University in Chicago, she picked sociology, a decision that "opened my mind and introduced me to other cultures, " she said. More than two years after graduation, though, Ms. Lloyd-Jones, now a 24-year-old paralegal from Maplewood, N.J., occasionally wonders if she made the right decision. "It might have been easier if I had been a business major," she said, "because that's where the money is."

. Lloyd-Jones says if she had it to do over, she would probably still study sociology but take more business classes and work some internships. She said students feel tremendous pressure over the choice of a major, which could be an important career decision, when many are just beginning to understand themselves.

Many students and career counselors say the pressure to choose the "right" major is more intense than ever because of factors like rising tuition costs and the uncertain economy. Parents and students today often consider college more an investment than a time of academic and personal exploration. Some students say they are education consumers seeking the best return on that investment, which is often financed with a student loan.

The annual cost of a four-year public college averages $11,354, a 7.8 increase from 2003-4, according to the College Board; a four-year private college averages $27,516, a 5.6 percent