Book of the Day – Page 12 – JCCC Billington Library

When Financial News is Confusing, Our Library Responds

So, with all of the talk about Bernie Madoff, financial bailouts, and other scary things that got our economy into a nasty mess, a lot of people have been left saying “…wait, now what?” For example, you probably know that something that led us to this point was the use of hedge funds. Or the creation of hedge funds. You may not know what they did, but you know they exist.

Well, we’ve finally had a lot of books roll in recently to help straighten this business out. 150 Best Recession Proof Jobs helps examine options and careers worth pursuing during this time of layoffs, and books like Hedgefunds: an Analytic Perspective, Hedge Hunters, and Demon of our Own Design : Markets, Hedge Funds, and the Perils of Financial Innovation take a look at the ins and outs associated with this risky business and our failing market.

The For Dummies Series May Have An Issue…

There’ve been some funny “For Dummies” titles to have come out. Washington DC for Dummies. Dungeons & Dragons for Dummies (I love D&D, by the way…). The most cringe worthy book like this was actually a different series: The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Enhancing Self-Esteem. Ouch.

But we just got in Veterans Benefits for Dummies. I can hear people saying “OH NO THEY DIDN’T!” from here. Of course, it is just a matter of the series’s naming convention, and the series is pretty beneficial in general. Part of my job is programming and I’m proud to have PHP & MySQL for Dummies on my personal bookshelf. Handy stuff! And frankly, what could be more confusing than government paper work? If anything, I think having a guide like this is quite the beneficial resource for our veterans (students and staff) to make sure they’re getting every last benefit available to them for serving this country.

Book of the Day Gets.. Month-ish

So, starting in February, and into this last week, I’ve been traveling, presenting, and not necessarily hitting this up proper. So we’re going to hit up some highlights from today’s 250 item update to the New Item RSS feed. Yeah… that’s a lot.

So first, we’ve got this Artists of the 20th Century series of DVDs, which covers everything from Warhol to Dali to Francis Bacon. Yeah: Bacon. These DVDs take a look at one particular person, their life, their work, but also function as slideshows of their work. Even if they aren’t the best made series on the planet, it is a lot easier than fishing around the Internet or traveling to where they’re kept to see them in person.

Next is a book called Wikipedia Revolution, which examines how the most comprehensive encyclopedia in the world is maintained by common folk and self regulated. I’ll be the first to admit that I approach Wikipedia information with a skeptical eye, but I’ll also admit that I start a lot of research there to better form the searches I’m about to do in article databases, or to check referenced articles to see if they’re usable. It is really a revolutionary product of the Internet, truly unique in its vision and scope, and this book does a great job researching some of the impact it has had.

AHHH !! Dental implants! You know, I was perusing the list of items, and a lot of them seem to be focused on terrorism. This right here is real terror. In Asbjorn Jokstad’s Osseointegration and Dental Implants you can learn all about putting scary things in your mouth. As someone who had a dentist put in fillings, braces, permanent retainers, and then take out the fillings to replace them with prettier ones, I can attest to this: I live in fear of that chair. My sympathy to those enduring dental implants, and my salute to those of you brave enough to enter the dental profession. I do not hold against you what you must do to keep these teeth shining.

… but seriously… GAHH…

Books of Today: GAME Support (Unleashed!)

Today, we’ve started to process two series of books: Game Programming Gems and AI Game Programming Wisdom. Both series have come recommended by the folks in our GAME curriculum, so if you possess any interest or are taking the classes, you’ll have these handy reference materials available for your perusal. They’re full of tips, tricks, interviews, how-tos and information about the different specializations within the game development industry.

If you’re not familiar with our Library Reserves, they’re the books on the first floor that you probably think are all dictionaries and encyclopedias. FALSE! Well, not all of them, anyway. They are materials that can’t be taken out of the library (sadface) because they’re either too valuable or (like these) are books designed to be glanced at in short intervals and not always worth reading cover to cover for your need at that moment.

Books of Today… Freaking Me Out

I think that today’s RSS feed revealed some of the most disturbing titles we’ve seen this year. And the content reflects it, I’m sure. The first eye-catcher was First Kill Your Family: Child Soldiers of Uganda and the Lord’s Resistance Army. That’s pretty self explanatory, but kudos to whomever dreamt that title up. Nothing drives home the horror of war like those which recruit children, and the Lord’s Resistance Army is absolutely horrifying. The book is worth checking out if you’re concerned about world events, child exploitation, or military history.

The next jolt to the senses comes from the famed New Age philosopher (should that be in quotes?), Sylvia Brown, with Psychic Healing: Healing Using the Tools of a Medium to Cure Whatever Ails You. Now, far be it from me to take on proving or disproving psychic ability, but when you’re used to seeing scholarly material fly past your eyes every day, this isn’t exactly the first thing you expect to see. It’s an audio book, so who knows.

Some other exciting titles include Death of a Witch, Promises in Death, Terminal Freeze, and the innocent sounding The Accountant’s Story, until you see the subtitle: Inside the Violent World of the Medellin Cartel. Some winners today. Surely one of these peaks some morbid curiosity.

Time To Be Barefoot and Pregnant: It Is BotD!

I was once told that when a man and a woman love each other very much, the woman might quit her job to stay home and wait for the stork to stop by with a baby to keep her company while she stays at home. My father, he’s not a creative guy. But he’s also wrong.

Aside from being misogynistic, the above can be adult-ified as saying “women leave the workforce for family”. I’ve heard it called “the Mommy Track”, but another term is “opting out”. Our book for this Friday, Opting Out? Why Women Really Quit Careers and Head Home by Pamela Stone. Stone researched a group of women who were fortunate enough to be able to afford leaving their jobs after having children, and it turns out that it wasn’t to fill the gender role.

As it were, work sucked. The workplace had put undue stigma or pressure on them, and made work unfun. Others weren’t able to find the balance between being a successful employee at the top of or on an advancing track and being the parent they were expected to be. This look at gender in the workplace might reveal less about the mothers’ motives and more about workplace prejudices and ideals.

Book of the Day Aims to Teach

So this guy, Gardner, he comes up with this theory about their being 8 kinds of intelligences, and there’s a lot of research out there about it.

So our book for today, Teaching & Learning Through Multiple Intelligences by Linda and Bruce Campbell with Dee Dickinson, has a chapter for each kind of intelligence, and breaks down the multiple aspects of teaching, assessment, test-taking, and oodles of other considerations needed for educators to do their job to the best of their ability. With that model repeated in each chapter, it sets the tone for handling each student, and something future and current educators might want to consider, or at least explore if curious about Gardner’s proposed learning behaviors

Unfortunately, the author is not the same Bruce Campbell I wanted it to be.

Book of the Day Goes Back to the Middle East

One argument you here about certain Middle Eastern countries is that their citizens have no influence due to their authoritarian government. Political Participation in the Middle East hopes to change your perspective by showing how participating through trade organizations, through activism, or a number of other organized or informal ways has actually allowed members of these countries to play an active part in government, despite perceptions of their structure. It isn’t a pro- or anti- authoritarian argument, but rather a way to see things a bit closer than we may be used to viewing them.

Plug In Your Car for the Book of the Day

Long ago, I lived next to a high school shop teacher. The only cool thing about that was that he loved to tinker, and did so with electric vehicles. His first was an uncomfortable folding chair welded to a flat platform on 4 wheels. Under the chair sat a car battery, and buttons rested under the natural spot to rest your feet, one button on each side. When you pressed both buttons, you went straight. Just the right, you’d turn right, and left turned you left. It was a pretty neat toy for his son, and he didn’t have to buy a Power Wheels.

Build Your Own Electric Vehicle by Seth Leitman is a big more complicated than welding a chair down. This book goes through the steps of creating your own electric engine, converting a gas-powered vehicle to support an electric engine, and also weighs pros and cons (such as safety vs. vehicle weight and speed) in trying to get your vehicle greener. Of course, I don’t know if my shop-teacher neighbor was really concerned about going green (the guy had two trucks and an SUV), but were I into mechanics, it would probably be fun to convert a vehicle just to say I did.

Your Book of the Day is Down in the Water

So our system for adding new books to the catalog is back on track, and our catalogers (cataloggers? I think those are lumberjack librarians…) have added about seventy new books for me to peruse. So today’s book, we’ll go with something timely.

plane

Ah, yes. Flight and American Airports. Luckily, one of the many books that’s been waiting to reach you patrons is Terminal chaos : why US air travel is broken and how to fix it by George L. Donohue (and friends).

They’re seasoned veterans in the commercial flight industry, and take the time to break down the problems of increased flight demand, safety concerns, lost luggage, and airplane safety. Moreover, our complacency with the lack of safety. Yes, the plane landed in water last week. Yay. For real. Good. I’m happy, and you should be, too. However, no one seems to be letting go of the feel good side of the story and realize that you don’t have to take this. Lazy legislation and complacency from the public have left airlines a lot more dangerous than they should be, and this book shows how this can be addressed, and in a timely manner nonetheless. Hopefully, before March, as I’ve got a plane to catch.