Sharing scarce books

As some of you are now discovering, a few of the sources for the suggested paper topics have become scarce. Two things you could do. The first, which I would try to do today, is to request one from interlibrary loan. These can be fast, you should have time before the paper is due. The second and more preferable option is to offer to copy the book if whoever has it is willing to lend it to you for 24 hours. You could use my mailbox for the handoff and rely on me for the enforcement of contracts. The library and other photocopying machines on campus permit you to make electronic copies for free, paper ones will cost you. The best way to handle it is to make files of no more than thirty pages and send them to me. I'll combine them, clean them up, apply character recognition software, and post them on learn@uw.

Some people will understandably be reluctant to part with a book they had the foresight to check out on the basis of a vague promise that it will be returned promptly. Hence the need for enforceable contracts: if you lend a book to someone and it is not back in my mailbox at the proper time let me know and appropriate sanctions will be applied, increasing in severity as the time increases.

Collaboration

As I mentioned in seminar, it might be useful to you to have a space where you can discover who is working on similar topics, go on from there to sharing articles and references to reading one another's drafts. One change from what I initially suggested, I won't divide this up by topic. Some of you who are working on problems by yourselves would be excluded, so please just list your name, your topic, and email so you can find others with whom you can collaborate.

Office hours next week

Please check your email for expanded office hours next week. Pay particular attention to the word "appointment". One of the advantages of using email is to prevent you from having to wait in line and to give me the chance to prepare for our conversation.

Papers and posting

As we approach paper-writing time I hope to use this blog as a clearinghouse for information, further readings, links to learn@uw. I've been gathering articles on the subjects people seem possibly interested in, but over the next few days I'd like to get a general sense of what you intend to write about. These will inevitably cluster around a few issues and a few major writers (though to be sure anything you are interested in writing in is possible) so using a blog for collaboration could be very helpful. I'd like to target specific posts to the issues people are interested in so please let me know as soon as you've decided on a topic. We can then get a discussion thread going.

Settings, privacy

I've set this and my other blogs to be as stealthy as possible. Search engines will look in vain, blogrolls will see us as a blankness. So even though there can be no expectation of privacy in a public blog, we are as invisible as it is possible to be. My large lecture course blog has been up and running for a few weeks now and has been free of snoops and intruders. And I can't imagine caring if anyone does come across this, hope you feel the same. It's not as though I'm hoping this will turn into a dear diary space for the expression of our innermost thoughts. So please feel free to post uninhibitedly, if we do this right it might turn out to be a worthwhile workspace.

To begin

This is the third of the course blogs I've set up this term, all of them experimental. You can check our my longer running one at history439blog.blogspot.com, aimed at my large lecture course. This one will be smaller and is intended to provide you with a space in which you can ask questions, post interesting materials or ideas, or see if anyone is working on similar problems. If you want suggestions for further reading, or to alert others to something you've come up with, this is the place to do it. Email will remain the best place for housekeeping chores or something you'd like to keep between you and me, but feel free to use this space for sudden ideas, random inspirations, or surprising discoveries.