Dear Colleagues,
I have a number of books to hand which might be of interest to would-be
reviewers. I would welcome expressions of interest from members of this
list. The summary below gives the bare details. A longer description of
each book appears below my signature.
If you are interested in reviewing one of these items for Ariadne,
< http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/ > , would you kindly contact me on
[log in to unmask]
giving your name and contact (inc. postal) details, your
area of work/interest and organisation/ position where relevant.
The anticipated submission date for these reviews will be
24 July 2009.
Please contact me if you have any queries.
Summary of titles:
1]
MY WORD!
Plagiarism and College Culture
Susan D. Blum
US$24.95t cloth
2009, 240 pages, 6 x 9, 1 table
Cornell University Press
ISBN: 978-0-8014-4763-1
[Publishers' information below my signature]
2]
Information Tomorrow: Reflections on Technology and the Future of Public
and Academic Libraries
edited by Rachel Singer Gordon
Publisher: Information Today, October 2007
ISBN 978-1-57387-303-1
[Publishers' information below my signature]
3]
GLUT
Mastering Information through the Ages
Alex Wright
US$18.95
2008, 304 pages, 6 5/8 x 9 3/8, 8 line drawings, 15 halftones
Cornell University Press
ISBN: 978-0-8014-7509-2
[Publishers' information below my signature]
4]
97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know
Collective Wisdom from the Experts
Edited by Richard Monson-Haefel
O'Reilly
February 2009
Pages: 220
ISBN 10: 0-596-52269-X | ISBN 13: 9780596522698
US$34.99
[Publishers' information below my signature]
5]
Leading and Managing Archives and Records Programs: strategies for success
Bruce W Dearstyne, editor
Facet Publishing
June 2008; 368pp; paperback; 978-1-85604-654-1; £44.95
[Publishers' information below my signature]
6]
Standards and Their Stories:
How Quantifying, Classifying, and Formalizing Practices Shape Everyday Life
Martha Lampland (Editor); Susan Leigh Star (Editor)
Cornell University Press ; $65.00x cloth
2008, 264 pages, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4, 4 tables, 3 charts/graphs
Cornell University Press
ISBN: 978-0-8014-4717-4
[Publishers' information below my signature]
7]
The Public Library
David McMenemy
Facet Publishing
December 2008; 240pp; hardback; 978-1-85604-616-9; £39.95
[Publishers' information below my signature]
8]
Planning and Implementing Electronic Records Management
A practical guide
Kelvin Smith
Facet Publishing 2007
Price: £44.95
Price (to CILIP members): £35.96
ISBN: 978-1-85604-615-2
October 2007; 232pp; hardback; 978-1-85604-615-2; £44.95
[Publishers' information below my signature]
9]
Libraries Designed for Kids
Nolan Lushington
Facet Publishing; October 2008; 184pp; paperback; 978-1-85604-657-2; £44.95
[Publishers' information below my signature]
--
Richard Waller
Editor Ariadne
UKOLN
The Library
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Bath BA2 7AY
UK
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web http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/
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1]
MY WORD!
Plagiarism and College Culture
Susan D. Blum
US$24.95t cloth
2009, 240 pages, 6 x 9, 1 table
ISBN: 978-0-8014-4763-1
“Classroom Cheats Turn to Computers.” “Student Essays on Internet Offer
Challenge to Teachers.” “Faking the Grade.” Headlines such as these have
been blaring the alarming news of an epidemic of plagiarism and cheating
in American colleges: more than 75 percent of students admit to having
cheated; 68 percent admit to cutting and pasting material from the
Internet without citation.
Professors are reminded almost daily that many of today's college
students operate under an entirely new set of assumptions about
originality and ethics. Practices that even a decade ago would have been
regarded almost universally as academically dishonest are now
commonplace. Is this development an indication of dramatic shifts in
education and the larger culture? In a book that dismisses hand-wringing
in favor of a rich account of how students actually think and act, Susan
D. Blum discovers two cultures that exist, often uneasily, side by side
in the classroom.
Relying extensively on interviews conducted by students with students,
My Word! presents the voices of today's young adults as they muse about
their daily activities, their challenges, and the meanings of their
college lives. Outcomes-based secondary education, the steeply rising
cost of college tuition, and an economic climate in which higher
education is valued for its effect on future earnings above all else:
These factors each have a role to play in explaining why students might
pursue good grades by any means necessary. These incentives have arisen
in the same era as easily accessible ways to cheat electronically and
with almost intolerable pressures that result in many students being
diagnosed as clinically depressed during their transition from childhood
to adulthood.
However, Blum suggests, the real problem of academic dishonesty arises
primarily from a lack of communication between two distinct cultures
within the university setting. On one hand, professors and
administrators regard plagiarism as a serious academic crime, an ethical
transgression, even a sin against an ethos of individualism and
originality. Students, on the other hand, revel in sharing, in
multiplicity, in accomplishment at any cost. Although this book is
unlikely to reassure readers who hope that increasing rates of
plagiarism can be reversed with strongly worded warnings on the first
day of class, My Word! opens a dialogue between professors and their
students that may lead to true mutual comprehension and serve as the
basis for an alignment between student practices and their professors'
expectations.
About the Author
Susan D. Blum is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Notre
Dame. She is the author, most recently, of Lies That Bind: Chinese
Truth, Other Truths and editor of Making Sense of Language: Readings in
Culture and Communication.
2]
Information Tomorrow
edited by Rachel Singer Gordon
Publisher: Information Today, October 2007
ISBN 978-1-57387-303-1
Any discussion of the future of libraries must consider the impact of
the technological advances and innovations that are inextricably wound
up with library operations and user expectations. According to Rachel
Singer Gordon, librarians remain relevant and useful by confronting
technological challenges head-on and finding ways to integrate the best
and most appropriate innovations into library services and operations.
In Information Tomorrow, Gordon brings together 20 of today’s leading
thinkers on the intersections between libraries and technology. They
address various ways in which new technologies influence librarians’
actions and goals and offer ideas for using technology to meet patrons
where they are. The result is an engaging, wide-ranging, and sometimes
provocative discussion for systems librarians, library IT workers,
library managers and administrators, and anyone working with or
interested in technology in libraries.
In addition to a preface by Gordon, the book’s foreword and 16 chapters
feature insights and opinions from these library leaders, bloggers, and
futurists:
* Stephen Abram
* Lori Bell
* Steven J. Bell
* John Blyberg
* Robert Bocher
* Daniel Chudnov
* Jill Emery
* Meredith G. Farkas
* Megan K. Fox
* Beth Gallaway
* Joseph Janes
* David Lee King
* Jenny Levine
* Tom Peters
* Dorothea Salo
* John D. Shank
* Michael Stephens
* Rhonda B. Trueman
* Jessamyn West
* Alane Wilson
3]
GLUT
Mastering Information through the Ages
Alex Wright
$18.95
2008, 304 pages, 6 5/8 x 9 3/8, 8 line drawings, 15 halftones
ISBN: 978-0-8014-7509-2
“Alex Wright delivers a fascinating tour of the many ways that humans
have collected, organized, and shared information to show how the
information age started long before microchips or movable
type.”—Publishers Weekly
“This stimulating book offers much opportunity to reflect on the nature
and long history of information management as a damper to the panic or
the elation we may variously feel as we face ever greater scales of
information overload.”—Nature
“Glut is a penetrating and highly entertaining meditation on our
information age and its historical roots. Alex Wright argues that now is
the time to take a hard look at how we have communicated with one
another since coming down from the trees, because the way we organize
knowledge determines much about how we live.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review
“Glut is a readable romp through the history of information processing.
Wright argues that advances in information technology have always
sparked conflict between written and oral traditions.”—New Scientist
“Glut defies classification. From Incan woven threads to Wikipedia, Alex
Wright shows us that humans have been attempting to fix categories upon
the world throughout history, and that organizing information is a
fundamental part of what makes us human. Many books tell you how to
organizing things-this one tells you why we do it.”—Paul Ford, Associate
Editor, Harper's Magazine
“Information technology is part of what makes us human, and its story is
our own. In this masterfully written book, Alex Wright traces the roots
of the IT Revolution deep into human prehistory, showing how our lives
are intimately bound up with the 'escalating fugue' of information
technology.”—Louis Rosenfeld, coauthor of Information Architecture for
the World Wide Web
“We have no idea how to handle the upcoming explosion of information. I
found Alex Wright's quick, clear history of past methods for managing
oceans of information to be a handy clue to where we are going. He
introduces you to an ecosystem of information organizations far more
complex and interesting than the mere 'search' tool.”—Kevin Kelly,
author of Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems,
and the Economic World
“This is a must-read for anybody who wants to understand where we've
been and where we're going. A lucid, exciting book full of flashes of
surprise about how we've done it all before: prehistoric beads as
networking aids, third-century random access systems, seventh-century
Irish monastic bloggers, eleventh-century multimedia, sixteenth-century
hypertext. I wish I'd written it!”-James Burke, author of American
Connections: The Founding Fathers Networked
The “information explosion” may seem like an acutely modern phenomenon,
but we are not the first generation-or even the first species-to wrestle
with the problem of information overload. Long before the advent of
computers, human beings were collecting, storing, and organizing
information: from Ice Age taxonomies to Sumerian archives, Greek
libraries to Dark Age monasteries. Spanning disciplines from
evolutionary theory and cultural anthropology to the history of books,
libraries, and computer science, Alex Wright weaves an intriguing
narrative that connects such seemingly far-flung topics as insect
colonies, Stone Age jewelry, medieval monasteries, Renaissance
encyclopedias, early computer networks, and the Internet. Finally, he
pulls these threads together to reach a surprising conclusion,
suggesting that the future of the information age may lie deep in our past.
About the Author
Alex Wright is a writer and information architect whose articles have
appeared in publications including Salon, The Believer, The Christian
Science Monitor, and Harvard Magazine. He has led information
architecture projects for the New York Times, Harvard University, and
the Long Now Foundation, among others. His Web site may be found at
www.alexwright.org.
4]
97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know
Collective Wisdom from the Experts
Edited by Richard Monson-Haefel
February 2009
Pages: 220
ISBN 10: 0-596-52269-X | ISBN 13: 9780596522698
US$34.99
In this truly unique technical book, today's leading software architects
present valuable principles on key development issues that go way beyond
technology. More than four dozen architects -- including Neal Ford,
Michael Nygard, and Bill de hOra -- offer advice for communicating with
stakeholders, eliminating complexity, empowering developers, and many
more practical lessons they've learned from years of experience. Among
the 97 principles in this book, you'll find useful advice such as:
* Don't Put Your Resume Ahead of the Requirements (Nitin Borwankar)
* Chances Are, Your Biggest Problem Isn't Technical (Mark Ramm)
* Communication Is King; Clarity and Leadership, Its Humble
Servants (Mark Richards)
* Simplicity Before Generality, Use Before Reuse (Kevlin Henney)
* For the End User, the Interface Is the System (Vinayak Hegde)
* It's Never Too Early to Think About Performance (Rebecca Parsons)
To be successful as a software architect, you need to master both
business and technology. This book tells you what top software
architects think is important and how they approach a project. If you
want to enhance your career, 97 Things Every Software Architect Should
Know is essential reading.
5]
Leading and Managing Archives and Records Programs: strategies for success
Bruce W Dearstyne, editor
June 2008; 368pp; paperback; 978-1-85604-654-1; £44.95
One of the profession’s most influential thinkers has gathered thirteen
prominent leaders from the USA and UK with proven track records in
archives and records management to contribute to this important book.
Each of them reveals the secrets of their success and outlines what it
takes to build and manage a dynamic, high-achieving archives and records
program.
Representing government, commercial, and non-profit organizations, they
include the former Archivist of the Smithsonian Institution, the
Archivist of the Coca-Cola Company, and the Head of the Cataloguing and
Accessioning Unit of The National Archives, UK. In candid, fascinating
accounts of their leadership style and its impact in shaping and
directing a program, they cover the following key areas:
* challenges and opportunities in leading archives and records
management
* records management standards: what they are and why they’re important
* leading a successful records management program
* competing for relevance: archives in a multi-program organization
* the archivist and the corporation
* managing change: a continuing issue
* preserving born-digital records from central government departments
* building a university archive
* the state archives: education and politics in New York.
Read this book to see expert management strategies at work and to
understand the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of excellent programs. You will come away
with better solutions for management, including: devising effective
mission policies and statements; gauging and responding to the market
for services; dealing with institutional change; overcoming budgeting
and human resources challenges, and much more.
Giving the lie to the adage that ‘leaders are born, not made’, this
collection offers practical wisdom and useful advice that will help you
take your leadership skills to the next level.
6]
Standards and Their Stories:
How Quantifying, Classifying, and Formalizing Practices Shape Everyday Life
Martha Lampland (Editor); Susan Leigh Star (Editor)
Cornell University Press ; $65.00x cloth
2008, 264 pages, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4, 4 tables, 3 charts/graphs
ISBN: 978-0-8014-4717-4
Standardization is one of the defining aspects of modern life, its
presence so pervasive that it is usually taken for granted. However
cumbersome, onerous, or simply puzzling certain standards may be, their
fundamental purpose in streamlining procedures, regulating behaviors,
and predicting results is rarely questioned. Indeed, the invisibility of
infrastructure and the imperative of standardizing processes signify
their absolute necessity. Increasingly, however, social scientists are
beginning to examine the origins and effects of the standards that
underpin the technology and practices of everyday life.
Standards and Their Stories explores how we interact with the network of
standards that shape our lives in ways both obvious and invisible. The
main chapters analyze standardization in biomedical research, government
bureaucracies, the insurance industry, labor markets, and computer
technology, providing detailed accounts of the invention of “standard
humans” for medical testing and life insurance actuarial tables, the
imposition of chronological age as a biographical determinant, the
accepted means of determining labor productivity, the creation of
international standards for the preservation and access of metadata, and
the global consequences of “ASCII imperialism” and the use of English as
the lingua franca of the Internet.
Accompanying these in-depth critiques are a series of examples that
depict an almost infinite variety of standards, from the controversies
surrounding the European Union's supposed regulation of banana curvature
to the minimum health requirements for immigrants at Ellis Island,
conflicting (and ever-increasing) food portion sizes, and the impact of
standardized punishment metrics like “Three Strikes” laws. The volume
begins with a pioneering essay from Susan Leigh Star and Martha Lampland
on the nature of standards in everyday life that brings together strands
from the several fields represented in the book. In an appendix, the
editors provide a guide for teaching courses in this emerging
interdisciplinary field, which they term “infrastructure studies,”
making Standards and Their Stories ideal for scholars, students, and
those curious about why coffins are becoming wider, for instance, or why
the Financial Accounting Standards Board refused to classify September
11 as an “extraordinary” event.
Contributors
Geoffrey Bowker, Santa Clara University
Elizabeth Cullen Dunn, University of Colorado at Boulder
Steven Epstein, University of California, San Diego
Martha Lampland, University of California, San Diego.
Martin Lengwiler, University of Zurich
Florence Millerand, University of Quebec at Montreal
Jacob Palme, Stockholm University
Daniel Pargman, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden
Susan Leigh Star, Santa Clara University
Judith Treas, University of California, Irvine
7]
The Public Library
David McMenemy
Facet Publishing
December 2008; 240pp; hardback; 978-1-85604-616-9; £39.95
Public libraries have changed beyond anyone’s predictions in the past
ten years and are at a vital stage in their historical development. This
timely book is the first standalone text to examine the role and
services of the UK public library in the 21st century context.
The book discusses the nature and functions of the modern public library
service, from its beginnings as the street-corner university, through
its delivery of state-of-the-art services and beyond. At the heart of
the book is a passionate argument for the professional and public
significance of the public library service.
8]
Planning and Implementing Electronic Records Management
A practical guide
Kelvin Smith
Price: £44.95
Price (to CILIP members): £35.96
ISBN: 978-1-85604-615-2
October 2007; 232pp; hardback; 978-1-85604-615-2; £44.95
'For any organization intending to carry out an electronic records
management implementation, or even simply just thinking about it, this
book is invaluable…Highly recommended - Read this book and you may be
able to save yourself a consultant's fee!'
HEA-ICS
Many organizations are moving away from managing records and information
in paper form to setting up electronic records management (ERM) systems.
There is a range of reasons for this: economic considerations may be the
driver for change, or government policy initiatives may be coming into play.
Whatever the situation in your organization, this book provides
straightforward, practical guidance on how to prepare for and enable
ERM. It sets out and explains the issues organizations need to consider
in selecting a system, and the procedures required for effective
implementation.
Help is also given with the complexities of managing hybrid records
during an interim period between paper and electronic record management.
The book is divided into three main parts covering the preparation for
ERM, and its design and implementation. The key areas covered are:
* the underlying principles
* the context
* making a business case for ERM
* the main issues for design
* the information survey
* the file plan
* appraisal methodology
* preservation
* access
* the main issues for implementation
* project management
* procurement
* change management
* training
* the future of information management.
This essential guide should be on the desk of any library and
information professional, records manager, archivist or knowledge
manager involved in planning and introducing an ERM system, whether in a
public or private sector organization.
9]
Libraries Designed for Kids
Nolan Lushington
Facet Publishing; October 2008; 184pp; paperback; 978-1-85604-657-2; £44.95
How do you set about planning and designing a library for children or
teenagers? How should it be different from a library intended for
adults, and how can you get the right kind of help from designers and
architects?
Get the ‘inside story’ from an experienced library design consultant on
creating those special spaces in your library that promote and encourage
children’s and young adults’ curiosity, learning, and reading – and
support their lifelong love of books and information.
Nolan Lushington covers the complete planning process from concept to
‘grand opening’, guiding you through the technical aspects of design and
construction and the finer points of lighting, acoustics, furnishings,
equipment, multimedia areas, youth areas, and much more. Key topics include:
* improving service by design
* innovative children’s library models
* planning a new children’s library
* assessing physical needs
* design considerations
* organizing the children’s area
* entrances, displays, graphics and lighting
* age-related design
* designing programme, activity and staff areas
* furnishings and equipment
* quick fixes and common mistakes.
Whether you’re a children’s or youth librarian, library director, school
facilities planner or architect, you’ll discover valuable, practical
tips and insights to help you create that inviting environment called
the library.
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