Activity
The International Biographical Centre creates "awards" and offers them widely. In the mid-2000s, awards cost the recipient between US$375 and $495 each, but as of 2010 the cost can be as high as $395 for a Commemorative Medal or US$440 for a laminated certificate.It is not part of Cambridge University at all.
Like the American Biographical Institute, the IBC states that "entry into our books is based on merit alone and we never charge for inclusion." Individuals who pay for inclusion receive a larger entry and are offered specially crafted awards. Further, merit selection is less rigorous with the IBC sending "invitations" to selected sources who nominate others or are nominated by a third party. It is also possible to nominate a person, an organization, or oneself on their website for later inclusion.
American Biographical Institution (Inc.) gives awards like Man of The Year, Scientific Award of the Excellence to many people in a year and the person may be same at a time. Every award can be purchased from them.
In 2007, referring to the International Biographical Centre, the American Bibliographical Institute and Marquis Who's Who, Jan Margosian, consumer information coordinator for the Oregon Department of Justice, warned consumers to be wary and called the companies "pretty tacky", adding "I don't know why they would put you in there if they weren't hoping to get you to buy the book.. "You truly have to look at how they are marketing and what the spin is. It's something you might want to watch out for."
The Department of Commerce of the Government of Western Australia classified the Centre's offers as a scam and said:
- The material promoting the International Biographical Centre creates a false impression about the credentials of the organisation. It also wrongly implies that the receiver of the letter has been picked through a special research process considering their work and qualifications.
It quoted blog users who describe the publications as a "Who’s Who of gullible people".
Read more about this topic: International Biographical Centre
Famous quotes containing the word activity:
“I see advertisements for active young men, as if activity were the whole of a young man’s capital. Yet I have been surprised when one has with confidence proposed to me, a grown man, to embark in some enterprise of his, as if I had absolutely nothing to do, my life having been a complete failure hitherto. What a doubtful compliment this to pay me!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Criticism is infested with the cant of materialism, which assumes that manual skill and activity is the first merit of all men, and disparages such as say and do not, overlooking the fact, that some men, namely, poets, are natural sayers, sent into the world to the end of expression, and confounds them with those whose province is action, but who quit to imitate the sayers.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The Good of man is the active exercise of his soul’s faculties in conformity with excellence or virtue.... Moreover this activity must occupy a complete lifetime; for one swallow does not make spring, nor does one fine day; and similarly one day or a brief period of happiness does not make a man supremely blessed and happy.”
—Aristotle (384–322 B.C.)