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Age: 32. Location: Manhattanville. Occupation: Journalism Librarian, Columbia.

Deborah Wassertzug just greeted her 7th class of Columbia's incoming journalism nitwits, err, students, and she's still standing. Deborah dishes on her students, on her alleged history with alleged famous plagiarist Jayson "Alleged" Blair, and what's wrong with those damn bloggers today. Deborah gives fantastic interview — we salute our librarian sisters and brothers, for they are the front line of civil liberties and intellectual freedom. Librarians rock!

1. As the journalism librarian at Columbia, can you share some of the hot topics students and academics are researching this year?

[Disclaimer: The school year just began on August 9.] So far this year, I have been asked: "What's with all the women in the Class of 1932?" Also, "Can you help me with this assignment for "AM New York," for which I am being paid $100?" And finally, "Is the Business School deli open now?" It's hard-hitting stuff, and I aim to please.

2. You completed your undergrad and grad school work at the University of Maryland, which besides winning the NCAA basketball championship a couple years ago was also home to infamous ex-NYT reporter, Jayson Blair. Ever cross his path or help him with "research guidance"?

Wow - I had no idea Maryland even had a basketball team!

I will neither confirm nor deny that unknown person or persons came to the McKeldin Library Information Desk once, asking about a "missing" section of the MLA Manual of Style, pertaining to proper citation format for fabricated sources of information.

However, I can affirm that Mr. Blair bears a very passing resemblance to an individual we knew only as "Stapler Man," who would routinely borrow our heavy duty stapler, take it off into the stacks for several hours, then return it.

3. I don't know about liberal or conservative biases in the media, but it seems to me there's just a rampant case of laziness (and stupidity) in the profession. Why do you think people continue to plagiarize when their colleagues keep getting caught?

A reference question I've received with alarming frequency the past couple of years is "How can I get the number of undocumented immigrants in New York City?" These people were not laughing when they asked me this. Or they were, but it was over email, so I did not hear them.

As far as plagiarism goes, I offer my own words for consideration: A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself, dude.

4. Media coverage will obviously be pretty intense for the RNC in NYC. Do you think there's a problem with giving bloggers, so-called "amateur journalists," access to the events?

There is a huge problem, IF they're writing about anything other than bloggers and their blogs. When I open up a nice blog to accompany my morning coffee, I don't want a blogger's take on current events, for crying out loud! I want photos — photos of them with other bloggers, photos of them wearing blog-related t-shirts and hats, drinks in their hands.

And I want links leading to links that take you to still more links — like when you take a photo of someone taking a photo of someone taking a photo of someone who's snapping a picture of someone pretending to "hold up" the Leaning Tower of Pisa (get far back enough, you'll wind up with a satellite photo of Italy).

I want big media to tell me what to think; I want bloggers to create a labyrinth requiring hours to unravel and yielding an untidy ball of mixed metaphor. Is that so wrong?

5. I admit I'm lost when it comes to poetry but something intrigues me with your Insomnia of the Fact Checker. I always thought fact-checkers were loaded to the gills on stuff like Adderall. Is that what's going on here?

I've spoken to fact checkers from the "New Yorker" on the phone at work. Thank you for demystifying why they are so . . . very.

A good poet never reveals her sleight-of-hand. Having pretensions of being a mediocre poet, I will say that that poem arose (if memory serves) out of an incident in which I tried to make rosemary ice cream, which seemed like a good idea at the time, and failed miserably. And who misses a chance to dis herbs, or to work in stanzas that alternate in length from 3 lines to 5 lines, corresponding to no poetic form I am aware of?


Deborah Wassertzug's Top 5: Poems I prescribe if you're lost when it comes to poetry. (Rx: take in no particular order, with food)

1. Cornelius Eady, "Victims of the Latest Dance Craze"

2. Anne Sexton, "Letter Written on a Ferry While Crossing Long Island Sound"

3. Hal Sirowitz, any selection from the book, "Mother Said"

4. Yehuda Amichai, "God Has Pity on Kindergarten Children"

5. Elizabeth Bishop, "Arrival at Santos"

— Andrew Krucoff conducts a daily interview for Gawker. Thanks to Chris Gage for his assistance today.