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IS ANYONE WATCHING: William Barnett, the Oswald Distinguished Professor of Macroeconomics, contributed an opinion piece for the New York Times on Oct. 21. The article, titled “Who’s Looking at the Fed’s Books?” addresses audits of the Federal Reserve’s lending practices. “After the financial turmoil of the last year, it should be clear that we depend on the Fed for high-quality financial data and that the Fed should be held to the highest standards of transparency,” Barnett wrote. “And yet we cannot be assured of either of these things unless the Fed is subjected to a thorough audit of its numbers. I worked on the staff of the Federal Reserve Board 30 years ago, and I know that without comprehensive audits to double-check Federal Reserve data, the risk exists of inadequate and sloppy accounting from the Fed.”

APOCALYPTIC BEDFELLOWS: John Hoopes, associate professor of global indigenous nations studies, was quoted in a recent Norfolk, Va. Pilot article about the idea of 2012 as the end of time. The ancient Mayan calendar points to that year as the end of days, and a recent cottage industry has sprung up around the idea, including movies, books and various religious groups jumping on the bandwagon. "It's made for some really strange bedfellows," Hoopes said, "groups that don't typically think on the same page."

SELLING OPEN ACCESS: Lorraine Haricombe, dean of libraries, was quoted in a recent Chronicle of Higher Education article about research librarians and their roles in selling scholars on the idea of open access. "But librarians still have their work cut out for them when it comes to convincing scholars that open access is in their best interests," the article states. "Lorraine J. Haricombe, dean of the University of Kansas Libraries, described the 'foot soldiering' and outreach her staff had to do before Kansas' faculty passed an open-access resolution this year. It required some 'very, very challenging conversations' with scholars worried about peer review and copyright issues, Ms. Haricombe said."