The Check is in the Mail...

Since the government is sending you a fat check and wants you to go out and fatten up the economy, it seemed like an appropriate time to talk about being an informed consumer and promoting a tried and true publication, Consumer Reports.... easily found in our library, of course. It's on the web, but the good stuff isn't free.

Consumer Reports, if you are unfamiliar, tests products rigorously and objectively, accepts no advertising, and is full of good info and rankings on everything from the best cars (April 2008) to the best laptops (November 2007) to the best sunscreens (May 2008) to the best cell phone plans (January 2008) to the best cereals (September 2006).

These are the people who jump on beds 350 times to see if they hold up. We still get the magazine in paper and you can read it online in the Academic OneFile, Academic Search Complete, Business Source Premier, and Academic Universe databases (see Databases A-Z). The Annual Buying Guide is also awesome. They have been doing this since the 1930's.

This has nothing to do with the wonderfully weird photos just released from their testing archive honest, but enjoy... (from Gawker)















From the early days: a hair dryer test from the 1960's, a toy dog test (do you really need a lab coat for that?) a record player for your car, and a sunglasses test gone terribly, terribly wrong.