AKA Review-01.30.2026

From The Chronicle of Higher Educati0n

By Lee Bollinger

Former Columbia University President and constitutional scholar Lee Bollinger argues that the use of authoritarian tactics against the university that we are witnessing must be countered with a new conception of its role in a free society. The university must be seen as a pillar of our constitutional system—an unofficial fifth branch, much as the press is a fourth. “We must never be shy about characterizing the university as one of the key means of realizing the human need to know, to understand, and to search for truth.” Read this article

From Experimental History

Text is King

By Adam Mastroianni

The author uses the actual data on reading to quickly dispense with predictions of its death and with it “our capacities for complex and rational thought.” He goes on to examine the history and behavior of text, written and read, arguing, “there’s no replacement for text and there never will be.” Written thoughts are “truer than thoughts that never leave the mind. You know how you can find a leak in a tire by squirting dish soap on it and looking for where the bubbles form? Writing is like squirting dish soap on an idea: it makes the holes obvious.” Read this article

From The New Yorker

Is the Dictionary Done For?

By Louis Menand

A new book describes the decline of dictionaries in a world where “it’s become too easy to get definitions for free” online. Looking up a word now opens a fire hose of controversy and misinformation. This review focuses first on the book’s fascinating history of the lexicon but quickly reflects its author’s conclusion that, while “the dictionary projects permanence…language is Jell-O, slippery, mutable and forever collapsing on itself.” The result is a witty reflection on the arbitrariness of language—"the most fascinating thing humans have invented.” Read this article

From Card Catalog

The Right Tool for the Right Question: A Reference Librarian’s Guide to AI Platforms

By Hana Lee Goldin

A useful explanation of the differences among AI platforms and the best use for each. The author distinguishes the most-used AI tools by their capabilities for sustained reasoning, research, versatility, and integration with other tools. More thought provoking are the four diagnostic questions she provides to help choose a platform. These highlight the importance of being able to discern what kind of thinking is required for different questions and tasks—a form of information literacy that is fundamental to critical thinking and predates AI by centuries. Read this article

From The New York Times

What Happened When My Yale Students Gave Up Their Phones for Four Weeks

By Colleen Kinder

The author reflects on the sense of relief and intellectual, physical, and social benefits her students found giving up their phones during a study-abroad program. Collective buy-in was essential to disconnecting and in turn created the structure and community that sustainined it. Based on this, she envisions learning programs built around offline spaces where students read and discuss print books, write essays, and take exams on paper—giving them the chance to be with their own thoughts and feel the rush of assembling meaning from them. Read this article