Tag Archive for 'books'

New Stuff Tuesday - August 26

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kyle
on August 26, 2008
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The Entrepreneur's Guide to Writing Business Plans and Proposals

The Chancellor’s State of the University Address this morning made several mentions of entrepreneurship and the University’s involvement in regional affairs. We’ve taken notice of the increased focus on local economic development and you’ll find quite a few books dealing with small business and innovation when browsing the New Book Island. Here’s a few:

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Writing Business Plans and Proposals (pictured)
HD62.5 .C423 2008
Part of the Entrepreneur’s Guide series from Praeger, focuses on constructing one of the most crucial elements of a successful business venture. The business plan can make or break a proposal, and this book outlines the process for you.

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Managing Information Technology
HD30.2 .R525 2008
Also part of the Praeger series, the author takes on IT for new businesses - what you need to know about IT and the difficulties in dealing with technology and network infrastructure.

The Entrepreneur in Youth: An Untapped Resource for Economic Growth, Social Entrepreneurship and Education
HD60.5.U5 K68 2007
No, this book doesn’t talk about the kids on the street with the lemonade stand. It reports the results of a study of high school students, finding that they have a high entrepreneurial interest but don’t know what to do about it.

New Stuff Tuesday - August 19

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kyle
on August 19, 2008
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Fat Rights

Fat Rights:
Dilemmas of Difference and Personhood
by Anna Kirkland
KF4757.5 .O94 K57 2008
New Book Island, 2nd floor

Civil rights and the struggle for equality have come a long way over the last century. This week’s NST book features one group commonly left out of the discussion for equal rights, but that might be changing.

Kirkland, assistant professor at the University of Michigan, tackles the topic in a bold way, starting with the title (in the preface, she addresses her use of the term ‘fat’ as opposed to ‘overweight’ or ‘obese’ because of their medical and pejorative nature). The book examines whether or not - to use the author’s words - fatness should be added to the list of protected classes like race and gender. Because of this, the book not only looks at the current issue, but also the general case of antidiscrimination laws and movements over the years. The author explores how our society and legal system decide what differences constitute added protection under the law. It’s an eye-opening study which incorporates real-life examples accompanying the text.

New Stuff Tuesday - August 12

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kyle
on August 12, 2008
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Whatever Happened to Thrift?

Whatever Happened to Thrift?:
Why Americans Don’t Save and What to Do About It
HC110 .S3 W54 2008
New Book Island, 2nd floor

You hear about it all the time - make sure you’re saving money, make sure you put enough money away for retirement. It turns out that we as a country aren’t doing a very good job about it.

Wilcox, professor at the University of Virginia, actually thinks that we’re downright awful at it. Dr. Wilcox contends that although personal savings may only seem to affect you as an individual, it also has effects on society and the economy. The author takes a hard look at saving habits (of lack thereof) of Americans and their financial literacy, painting a grim picture of the future. Of course, he doesn’t just tell us we have a problem and end it there. Wilcox offers solutions from the top down, starting with government policies and coming down to personal practices. Overall, the book provides real, hard-hitting insight to a real issue.

Roswell revisited

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Barbara
on August 7, 2008
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Recently one of my iGoogle science gadgets alerted me to an interview with Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell in which he says he believes there really was an alien spacecraft that crashed at Roswell, NM, in July 1947. Now, I hadn’t thought about that for a long time, probably not since the last time I saw X-Files on TV. I suppose this is timely, since the X-Files movie was recently released.

NYT article on Roswell July 9, 1947The Roswell incident has been debated for years: Was it just a weather balloon as was initially reported? Was it a top secret research device? Or was a UFO crash covered up by our government, and kept so secret that nobody knows the truth anymore, not even our President? Were previous Presidents unable to get to the bottom of it? (oooh, cue spooky music here)

Roswell final report coverAs late as the 1990’s the government launched an investigation, and issued a report based on exhaustive Air Force research, The Roswell report: case closed (2nd-floor U.S. Federal Documents Collection, D 301.2:R 73).

A search of the Library Catalog would find a few more materials on this fascinating incident in our history, such as UFO crash at Roswell: the genesis of a modern myth (3rd-floor Main Collection, TL789.5.N6 S25 1997), and on UFOs in general, UFO photosuch as Hidden truth, forbidden knowledge: it is time for you to know (3rd-floor Main Collection, BF2050 .G74 2006).

You can search for New York Times articles from the time of the Roswell incident, or from the time that the incident was being investigated, using the Proquest Historical Newspapers database.

martian clip artThe National Archives has had so many requests for materials related to Roswell and UFOs that it actually has a web page explaining what records and documents exist, and what does not, e.g., “Periodically, it is erroneously stated that the remains of extraterrestrial visitors are or have been stored at Wright-Patterson AFB. There are not now nor ever have been, any extraterrestrial visitors or equipment on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.” Well, there you have it. If you decide to research this topic, don’t go looking for the aliens’ remains.

Government Printing Office logo

The University Library is a federal depository with many federal, state, local, and international documents on a variety of current and relevant issues available to you in print, microfiche, CD-ROM, and electronically. Come check out your government at the University Library!

New Stuff Tuesday - July 29

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kyle
on July 29, 2008
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Thanking the Monkey

Thanking the Monkey:
Rethinking the Way We Treat Animals
HV4708 .D39 2008
New Book Island, 2nd floor

The title of this week’s featured stuff sort of jumped out at me while I was browsing the shelves to find the topic for NST. It’s not everyday that you think about thanking the monkey.

But that’s just what animal rights activist Dawn thinks we should do. Jam-packed with information about every aspect of the animal’s impact on society, the book exposes the reader to all forms of animal cruelty without the sermon-like tone. In addition its light-hearted delivery of serious matters, comics from Bizarro and others make you laugh and think at the same time. As if the information weren’t enough, it also features well-known individuals showing their support for animal rights. In the end, the author allows you to draw your own conclusions, although she does make a pretty convincing case for the vegans and the vegetarians.

And for the Wisconsinites, she does tackle the everyone’s favorite topic - California and their ‘happy cows.’ That’s right - she says they’re not happy.

International Year of the Potato

Published
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Barbara
on July 11, 2008
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potatoesDid you know that 2008 is the International Year of the Potato? Yup, thank the United Nations and eat a spud today.

Why?!

The International Year of the Potato (IYP) “will raise awareness of the importance of the potato - and of agriculture in general - in addressing issues of global concern, including hunger, poverty and threats to the environment. ”

This seems to be asking a lot of the humble potato, but promoting its production and consumption is a step toward fulfilling the UN’s Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 1 (Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger), while ensuring environmental stability (MDG7). For an explanation of the potato’s importance to these goals (nutritional benefits & sustainability as a crop), statistics, etc., see Buried treasure (UN Food and Agriculture Organization) and the IYP official web site:

“The potato is already an integral part of the global food system. It is the world’s number one non-grain food commodity, with production reaching a record 320 million tonnes in 2007. Potato consumption is expanding strongly in developing countries, which now account for more than half of the global harvest and where the potato’s ease of cultivation and high energy content have made it a valuable cash crop for millions of farmers.

At the same time, the potato – unlike major cereals – is not a globally traded commodity. Only a fraction of total production enters foreign trade, and potato prices are determined usually by local production costs, not the vagaries of international markets. It is, therefore, a highly recommended food security crop that can help low-income farmers and vulnerable consumers ride out current turmoil in world food supply and demand.“

The University Library has resources for more info, maybe for a research paper.

  • Search the Library Catalog for potato? and find titles such as Seeds for the future: the impact of genetically modified crops on the environment (3rd-floor Main Collection, SB123.57 .T494 2007) that discusses genetic engineering to improve the virus resistance of potatoes. Search for “food supply” to get books and government documents such as World hunger (Main Collection HC79.F3 W65 2007)
  • Search Library databases such as Academic Search Premier to find articles such as “Spud we like” in The Economist (March 1st, 2008 issue), which reports on the economic importance of the potato as a food crop (providing more calories, more quickly, while using less land and in a wider range of climates than any other plant), and “Global food security under climate change” (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 12/11/2007, v.104 ,no.50).
  • You can also look for more on the Millennium Development Goals, finding such sources as the December 2007 issue of UN Chronicle (also available in the Library’s 1st-floor current periodicals collection) “The MDGs: Are we on track?”
  • Websites may be helpful also, such as UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s World Food Summit, 1996, which called for cutting the number of the world’s undernourished people in half by 2015. FAO also has web pages monitoring progress toward this hunger reduction goal as well as the MDGs, and a 2006 report, The state of food insecurity in the world.

potatoes

New Stuff Tuesday - July 8

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kyle
on July 8, 2008
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Healthcare Tsunami

Healthcare Tsunami:
The Wave of Consumerism That Will Change US Business
by Dean Halverson & Wayne Glowac
RA410.53 .H35 2008
New Book Island, 2nd floor

The skyrocketing cost of oil isn’t the only concern of the minds of many Americans. Access to adequate and affordable health care for families and individuals is also a hot topic these days and the theme of this week’s featured book.

The healthcare industry is a complex animal, with the many hands in the pot. You’ve got the providers, insurance companies, government regulators, legislators and of course, the consumers. Halverson and Glowac, experts in the areas of market research and residents of Wisconsin, argue that the industry in for a wave of change - and not just any wave, a tsunami. As they explain in the introduction, the term tsunami generally pertains to an ocean wave caused by underwater earthquake or volcano. After seeing the aftereffects of the tsunamis in Asia, apply it to the context of business and it gets messy. They detail the past and present of healthcare and what the future holds. The question is, “Who will survive the tsunami?” (no pun intended) Check out the authors’ website for the book for more information.

New Stuff Tuesday - July 1

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kyle
on July 1, 2008
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Gusher of Lies

Gusher of Lies:
The Dangerous Delusions of “Energy Independence”
by Robert Bryce
TJ163.25 .U6 B79 2008
New Book Island, 2nd floor

With oil prices nearing $143 a barrel, one has to wonder about this energy independence that has been buzzing around Washington and the rest of the world. This week’s new book has some beef with this notion of a self-sustaining United States.

“All of them are full of methane,” states the book description, in reference to Bush, Obama, Greenpeace and everyone that supports weaning the country off of foreign oil. Bryce, fellow at the Institute for Energy Research and managing editor of the Energy Tribune, takes issue with the idea of energy independence, saying that it’s neither possible nor advantageous. Furthermore, he holds nothing back against its proponents, which are not limited to just the crazy liberals or the staunch conservatives. He examines both the past, current and future alternative energy sources and their viability (or lack thereof). The book includes references and a bibliography for further reading.

The Library also has another book by Bryce, Pipe Dreams: Greed, Ego, and the Death of Enron, available in the Main Collection (HD9502.U54 E573 2002).

New Stuff Tuesday - June 24

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kyle
on June 24, 2008
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The Book of Salsa

The Book of Salsa:
A Chronicle of Urban Music from the
Caribbean to New York City
by César Miguel Rondón
translated by Frances Aparicio with Jackie White
ML3475 .R6613 2008
New Book Island, 2nd floor

We’re going to spice things up a little here on New Stuff Tuesday with a little salsa - and I’m not referring to the kind that you eat (although that sounds tasty right now… is it snack time yet?).

One of the more popular paper topics for students is music, as it generally has a major impact on their lives and can provide enough inspiration to write ten pages. We just received an excellent book for those students. César Miguel Rondón, a Venezuelan journalist and media personality, has provided the world with a comprehensive history of salsa music, a prominent aspect of Latin American culture. Thanks to translator Frances Aparicio, professor of Latino Studies at the University of Illinois-Chicago, this definitive compilation is finally available in English and at your University Library.

Has your brain been Googled?

Published
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Barbara
on June 19, 2008
in around the world
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Is Internet use affecting our brains, and should that should worry us? Read Nicholas Carr’s provocative article “Is Google making us stupid?” in the July/August Atlantic Monthly (also available via the Academic Search Premier database).

Carr suggests that our use of the Internet is affecting the way our brains work. Whereas he used to read entire books, now that he spends time surfing the Internet he finds that his attention wanders after reading only a couple of pages. Carr cites Maryanne Wolf, a developmental psychologist at Tufts University, who suggests that the reading style promoted by the Internet stresses efficiency and immediacy at the expense of our capacity for deep reading, making readers “mere decoders of information.”

“Our ability to interpret text, to make the rich mental connections that form when we read deeply and without distraction, remains largely disengaged.“

And Carr adds,

“As the media theorist Marshall McLuhan pointed out in the 1960s, media are not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought.“

Does the use of the Internet affect our ability to absorb and retain information? After all, why remember anything when you can just look up information again if needed? And is that a concern?

Does Internet use affect the depth of research we do? Do we become accustomed to skimming headings and and scanning short text passages? Is that sufficient to acquire a real understanding of a research topic?

What about the way we think? If we don’t absorb and retain a lot of information in the first place, how do we connect new information with other information and build on it?

In The Open Road, Matt Asay blogged about Carr’s article also. He quotes Carr,

“As we use what the sociologist Daniel Bell has called our “intellectual technologies”–the tools that extend our mental rather than our physical capacities–we inevitably begin to take on the qualities of those technologies.“

Asay then writes,

“ “Excellent!” you say, “Now I’ll be able to retrieve an infinite amount of information, like Google.” Maybe. Or maybe our ability to retain and process information will continue to dwindle. Remember books? Those were the things we read before e-mail, Web browsing, and Twitter came on the scene.

Speaking of Twitter, am I the only one who views it as further evidence of a soundbite culture that struggles even to think beyond 140-character blips?

We really don’t want to think like Google. We don’t want to speak like Twitter. We don’t want to converse like e-mail. And yet we increasingly do, as the Internet reshapes the world in its image.“

It’s something to think about…if we still can, that is.

Read (or skim) more reactions to Carr’s article in his own blog, Rough Type.

You may also be interested in Carr’s 2008 book, The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, From Edison to Google. You can read a blog review of it on The Open Road. It’s on order for UWW’s Library, and also available from other UW libraries. UWW students and staff can request it through the free Universal Borrowing service.