Berkeley puts all courses onto Google Video

The Berkeley campus is what a campus should be. It mixes the ramshackleness of student life at the Southern end, with some wonderful places for quiet reflection to the North, with a creative middle ground where the two meet. When I was living in the Bay Area, I arranged to meet with Hal Varian, then dean of the School of Business. Hal had written one of my favourite economics books and it was rumoured he was doing exciting auction-related things with Google. I walked to his office past the well-commemorated spots of 1960s Cal protest with the banal thought of what a good institution the University is, the ease of the banality encouraged by the relentless well-being the Northern Californian climate and standard of living combine to procure. Cal’s announcement today that it was putting all its lectures on Google video, free to view, is the right extension of the spirit of the university: open access, as few barriers to learning as it can manage. As an example of long-tail entertainment, it is also wonderful: the lecture on Web advertising by Hal Varian had me glued to my laptop as no amount of party conference would. He was doing exciting things with Google, it turns out.