The Andersen Library Blog

Water Ethics:
Foundational Readings for Students & Professionals
edited by Peter Brown and Jeremy Schmidt
TD345 .B815 2010
New Book Island, 2nd floor

When the weather outside feels like you’re roasting in an oven, there’s not much else you can think about but one thing. Think about it: you think about the humidity that you could cut with the knife, the sweat dripping off your face, the five showers that you need to take in order to feel clean, the need to stay hydrated in order to survive the heat – it all revolves around water. In honor of that, this week’s featured title focuses on our little miracle liquid from a different angle.

Brown and Schmidt, Canadian scholars in the area of natural resources, have assembled a collection of seminal writings on the ethics behind water and its usage. As the vital resource becomes depleted by a variety of forces, the need to educate ourselves and review policies to ensure its safety grows rapidly. The editors have organized the works into six groups of perspectives, from the utilitarian to the view of water as a community resource, which provide different approaches to the ethical dilemma that the world’s citizens face. This book serves as an excellent reference for those interested in natural resource conservation and examining societal challenges.

Virtually You:
The Dangerous Powers of the E-Personality
by Elias Aboujaoude
RC569.5 .I54 A26 2011
New Book Island, 2nd floor

My apologies – I know that you’ve all been clamoring for a New Stuff Tuesday post for quite some time. You’re lucky that I remembered that today was even Tuesday and not Monday, let alone that it’s New Stuff Tuesday!

The Internet is a magic place. You can be whoever you want to be, and no one can really verify that you’re telling the truth or if you’re lying. However, does the change in behavior online affect our interactions in real life?

Aboujaoude, psychiatrist at the Stanford University School of Medicine, investigates what compels people act in ways that would not be socially acceptable, such as the comment rage that overcomes many people, and how that in turn affect everyday interactions with individuals in-person. He utilizes recent cases like the mass viewing of the man completing suicide or the mother that posed as a teenager to bully her daughter’s classmate, ultimately with the same ending. The author also examines less severe changes in social graces, our impatience with timing when everything online is instant [sounds like students with doing research with books, eh?]. I’d take a look at this book if you’re curious about the darker side of the Internet and its effect on offline habits.