Are you joining the teaching staff at UWW for spring semester? You may be wondering about Library services such as course reserves or library instruction sessions. There’s a web page for you at http://library.uww.edu/guides/faculty.html.
Feel free to contact us too! Each academic department has a librarian liaison. You can find yours at http://library.uww.edu/aboutus/staff.html#liaison, or just contact the Reference Desk at 262-472-1032 or email refdesk@uww.edu
Spend Shift:
How the Post-Crisis Values Revolution
Is Changing the Way We Buy, Sell & Live
by John Gerzema & Michael D’Antonio
HC110 .C6 G475 2011
New Book Island, 2nd floor
Continuing on the theme of new year’s resolutions [hopefully you’re still sticking to them!], money issues also top the list of changes for the coming months. The economic downturn has everyone’s purses and wallets a little tighter, and this week’s featured title explores the effects of a recession on consumer spending.
Gerzema, an expert on consumerism, and D’Antonio, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, team up to analyze just what an ailing economy does to the people living and working in those conditions. Visiting spots all over the United States, from Detroit to Dallas to San Francisco, the authors detail how spending habits have gone from mindless to mindful. These shifts not only affect an individual’s lifestyle, but also companies’ approaches to attracting and retaining their customer bases. They provide a mix of consumer and business insights to provide an intriguing look into how the Great Recession is changing how Americans spend their hard-earned dollars.
Universal Borrowing, the free service by which UWW students and staff may borrow books and DVDs from other UW libraries, is down because of a system upgrade. It’s expected to be operational again on Friday, January 14th.
In the meantime, you can see whether titles are held by other UW libraries by searching WorldCat. WorldCat actually lists libraries worldwide holding a title, but the libraries will be grouped by state so that you can scan Wisconsin.
For example, if you wanted to read The routes of man: How roads are changing the world and the way we live today, but Andersen Library’s copy was checked out, you could search WorldCat to find:
Click on “Libraries Worldwide” to see other libraries that have the title:
You can click on the link to a specific library to see if it is checked out.
Then you could use ILLiad interlibrary loan to request the title. (Use the “Return” button in the top right corner when displaying a specific library’s catalog record. That will return you to the WorldCat library holdings display.) Scroll to see the purple “Find It” button. On the menu that displays next, look for
“Can I get it from another library?
Request item via ILLiad ”
and click on the link to ILLiad. You’ll be prompted to login with your campus Net-ID (same as your campus email or D2L login). The ILLiad request form should b filled in, so scroll down to the “Submit” button.
Against Health:
How Health Became the New Morality
edited by Jonathan Metzl & Anna Kirkland
RA418 .A53 2010
New Book Island, 2nd floor
This is by far my favorite time of year. It’s the perfect opportunity to come up with all of the ways in which I am going to change my life for the better in the coming year [whether they are accomplished is a completely different story]. Like many of you, the resolutions that I think of revolve around the issue of health and personal wellness. And hey, what do you know? That’s what this week’s featured title is all about.
Metzel and Kirkland, professors at the University of Michigan, have assembled a compilation of essays delving into the topic of health. Rather than examining the trials and tribulations endured to live a ‘healthy’ life, the chapters focus on the sociological and economic factors that propel individuals to eat right, exercise and take their daily vitamins. Divided into sections, the contributors look the issue as a cultural phenomenon, viewing it through the lens of morality. This book certainly brings a different perspective to the debate surrounding the definition of health and what it means to you.
Jan. 2nd is the anniversary of Isaac Asimov’s birth in 1920. He’s one of my favorite authors of science fiction, but he wrote nonfiction books for adults and youth too before he passed away in 1992.
A search for asimov as an author in Andersen Library’s HALcat online catalog will get you a list of about 90 titles (he wrote hundreds of books), including The clock we live on, an explanation of the origin of calendars and how we measure time (3rd-floor Main Collection QB209 .A8 1965) and Beginnings: The story of origins–of mankind, life, the earth, the universe (3rd-floor Main Collection QH325 .A73 1987).
Oh, and the science fiction? My personal favorites have been the titles in the Foundation series. I always think of the original trilogy (Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation), but it expanded later to include even titles written by others, and the Foundation series absorbed Asimov’s empire and robot titles too, such as I, Robot, a collection of stories that was the basis (loosely) of the movie with the same title that starred Will Smith. Andersen Library doesn’t have that title, but UWW students and staff may request either the book or the movie from other UW libraries via the free Universal Borrowing service. There’s a BBC radio adaptation of the original Foundation trilogy you can listen to via the Internet Archive.
In honor of Isaac Asimov, enjoy!
Andersen Library Winterim hours (Dec. 29, 2010-Jan. 17, 2011):
Exceptions:
Fri. Dec. 31-Sun. Jan. 2: CLOSED
Remember that even when the physical Library is closed, you can:
The United Nations Development Programme is the UN’s “global development network, an organization advocating for change and connecting countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life” (from Guidelines for an Assessment of Development Results (ADR)).
The UNDP issues “Assessment of Development Results” reports for various countries each year. 2009 reports were issued for Afghanistan, Argentina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Barbados and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), Burkina Faso, Chile, Guatemala, Peru, Philippines, Seychelles, Tajikistan, Uganda, and Uzbekistan. Reports are available online.
Play:
How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the
Imagination and Invigorates the Soul
by Stuart Brown
BF717 .B76 2009
New Book Island, 2nd floor
OK, now that finals are (almost) finished, let’s talk about what you’re going to do with the next four weeks of your life. I have a feeling that there will be some sleep in there, some catching up with friends, some family time. I would also guess that there would be some playtime in there as well, and that would be the subject of this week’s featured title.
Brown, doctor and founder of the National Institute for Play (can I work there?), takes a serious approach with a not-so-serious topic: play. He contends that the ability to laugh, joke around, compete and have fun has a huge impact on our lives. The author brings in cutting-edge scientific research about the mind-altering effects of play to support the notion that the brain benefits from these types of interactions. He also shares his knowledge and expertise in the matter gained from six thousand interviews that he has conducted over the course of his career.
And with that, you’ve got the last New Stuff Tuesday of the year. I’ll be too busy playing until 4 January. =)
Congratulations to the football team for winning their third championship in four years against Mount Union yesterday! Maybe next year it’ll be Mount Union with the #2 seed for the playoffs, eh?
If you’d like to take a look back at the previous championships, we have the book compiled after their 2007 triumphant campaign, Warhawks 2007 National Championship Season. And of course, you can also head downstairs to the first floor in Special Collections to view the archive of the Royal Purple.
Sugar:
A Bittersweet History
by Elizabeth Abbott
TX560 .S9 A23 2009
New Book Island, 2nd floor
As everyone is gearing up for finals, we have our go-tos when it comes to getting the most out of our time and productivity. Regardless of the form, it’s probably pretty certain that there’s a little bit of sugar (or a lot of it) to help you along your way. This week’s featured title details how the addictive additive came to take over the world.
As the subtitle indicates, Abbott, formerly of the University of Toronto, doesn’t sugarcoat the history of sugar [sorry – couldn’t resist]. The author takes a look at the rise of the powerful sugarcane, from its origins in the East to its subsequent domination of Western civilization and its effects on economy, trade and environment. Furthermore, she details how the little granule’s infiltration at the World’s Fair contributed to the popularity and expansion of the fast food industry in its infancy stages. Sprinkled with photos and sources that document the impact of sugar all over the world, Abbott’s work demonstrates that the sweetness may come with a bitter aftertaste.
