Publisher's Notebook

The College of Knowledge down in Williamsburg has many traditions — the Yule Log ceremony at Christmas and Charter Day in February, among others.

But for sheer joy, you can’t match the day that William & Mary seniors get to ring the Wren Bell.

Here’s how it works: After completing the very last class on the last day of classes, seniors make their way to the Wren Building, the original, iconic building at the front of campus.

There is a little door in the wall on the second floor that looks like it serves a dumbwaiter. But no, it is historic (like most things at W&M) — it was used in days past by the little guy who rang the bell at the top of Wren. Each senior gets to give the rope a good yank and that joyful clanging up high is his or her statement that school’s out, forever. (Apologies to Alice Cooper).

Today is the day. It’s the last day of classes for the Class of 2012, so if you’re down in the ‘Burg, you’ll know why there are bells in the air.

Check out the YouTube video supplied by the school and you’ll get the idea.

Twitter allows you to share your life, 140 characters at a time. If you haven’t joined the social media service yet, take heart that there are tweeters on there who are waay behind you.

BuzzFeed, which calls itself the purveyor of “the hottest, most social content on the web,” has compiled a wickedly funny list of “The Top 10 Most Unforgivable Twitter Spelling Mistakes.”

Needless to say, some tweeters need to fight their auto-correct function or at least to proofread before posting. Or if this is how they really spell, maybe you’re not missing much by avoiding Twitter.

There are folks who call on angles for divine help and those who rail against the bad manors of others or against hippocrates (posers, not the Greek guy). Some high school tweeters can’t wait to go to collage. There is at least one entry I won’t repeat in a family blog.

And items #2 and #1 are guaranteed to give you a laugh you’ll want to share with others all day long. This stuff just writes itself.

A tri-corner hat tip to Thomas Jefferson on his birthday today, April 13.

In honor of TJ’s 269th, here is an item about a project at his favorite school, the University of Virginia.

(Note: That would NOT be the College of William & Mary, of which he was an alumnus. He referred to Williamsburg as “Devilsburg.” Ask any undergraduate around exam time and you’ll get a nod of agreement.)

Law school librarians at UVa have been working for 40 years on a project to reconstruct a collection of law books selected by Jefferson himself, according to the Associated Press.

In 1828, a librarian at the school had the foresight to compile the titles of 375 law books, relying on a manuscript prepared by Jefferson. Unfortunately, due to a fire at UVa in 1895, many of Jefferson’s books were destroyed.

The librarian’s list survived, and it is kept in the law library’s rare book room.

Book by book, UVa library officials have been obtaining the books, and 317 are on grounds at the law school. They are searching for the other 58, some of which date back to the 1500s.

The most recent acquisition was made last October, when a San Francisco-based dealer located a title worth $750.

[Note: Image borrowed from UVa -- the school's alumni association is serving free birthday cake on the lawn at UVa today from 11:30 to 1:00 to honor TJ.]

News item: Someone stole copies of the student newspaper at Christopher Newport University.

Naw, that’s old news. Happened last September.

Wait a minute. You mean it happened again?

Last fall, a student allegedly trashed 700 copies of the paper, The Captain’s Log, because she was angry about a story that the paper published.

The school administration’s response: They squelched their student journalists’ right to complain then buried the incident in a murky, secret, faculty-run discipline system (See editorial, “A Teaching Moment at CNU,” Oct. 24, 2011).

Now the staff at The Captain’s Log has endured another paper-snatching episode, although this time the culprit was an employee of the administration. Really.

Here’s what went down on April 4 at the Newport News school, according to Emily Cole, the editor-in-chief of The Captain’s Log:

On Wednesdays, CNU gives tours to prospective students. Every college in America provides this service – it allows the prospect to get a sense of the place and the school gets to strut its stuff.

The Captain’s Log is published on Wednesday mornings and distributed free in racks throughout campus. The April 4 issue featured a page-one story about a suspected meth lab that had been discovered in a dorm on campus; two students were banned from school.

Drugs and crime on campus – not the kind of student life the administration might want to show high-school kids and their parents. So someone wanted to hide the story. Literally.

Emily Cole, the paper’s editor-in-chief, confronted a “University Fellow” who was seen carting off copies of the paper. “Fellows” are recent alums who work for the school. He said that he was “told by the administration” to remove the papers. That way, the embarrassing story wouldn’t be available to the would-be students.

“They told us to put them back after the tours,” he added.

Cole went to complain to the dean of admissions, who said he didn’t know anything about it. He said he’d make some calls. Papers miraculously reappeared in a rack. Back at the school welcome center, Cole discovered an admissions coordinator and another Fellow, each with 200 copies of the paper.

“I caught them black-handed, with ink on their hands,” Cole said. They offered to return the copies to the racks, but Cole did it herself.

The paper-snatching plan was “calculated and methodical,” Cole said. Papers were taken only from racks that were along the campus tour route.

Cole contacted the Student Press Resource Center in Arlington, which helped her draft a protest letter to CNU President Paul Trible. She called the Daily Press, where she interned last summer. The controversy wouldn’t go away. On April 10, Trible sent an email to all students in which he “expressly condemned” the taking of the papers.

“This action was taken by young employees who love CNU and were concerned that a newspaper article would create a bad impression for visiting prospective students,” Trible said.

He said there would be discipline but he said nothing more, since it was a personnel issue.

Trible added the statement the student journalists have been waiting to hear ever since the paper-trashing incident last fall: “The Captain’s Log is free to write anything it pleases and CNU fully respects the freedom of the press.”

Memo to the staff of The Captain’s Log: Hold Trible to that last statement. Etch it in stone somewhere. Remind him he said that when the next episode occurs.

But scapegoating nameless junior staffers or overzealous “young employees” for this incident? Sorry, President Trible, that rings hollow. You must not realize how bad this looks for your university.

It’s going to get worse, because this story, as they say in the news business, has legs. The day I talked to Cole, she already had been interviewed by the Daily Press, the Richmond Times-Dispatch and local TV stations. Right after our talk, she had an appointment with a Washington Post reporter.

Give Cole the last word: By trying to hide the papers, “they’ve done more damage [to CNU] than the meth lab story ever did.”

That headline may not be the catchiest of state nicknames, but it’s accurate.

The Maryland legislature has passed a bill that makes the Free State the first jurisdiction to prohibit employers from asking for the social media user names and passwords of prospective and current employees.

The Baltimore Sun reports that the bill protects Facebook and Twitter info, among others. The measure passed the Senate unanimously and by a wide margin in the House. It now goes to Gov. Marvin O’Malley.

Similar bills are pending in Illinois and California, the Sun reports.

Closer to home, the Virginia State Police made waves last month when it came to light it required trooper applicants to provide their social media user names and passwords as part of the application process. Officials called their practice a “virtual character check.”

The Virginia ACLU protested; for what it’s worth, the Maryland chapter of the ACLU was instrumental in pushing the just-passed measure in Maryland.