Books in the Library

In the News: Demise of Newspapers?

Week of March 9, 2009

News Item: The Rocky Mountain News, a daily newspaper from Denver, Colorado, published its final edition on February 27, 2009. Many papers across the country could face similar problems if potential buyers are not found, while others such as the Chicago Tribune are seeking bankruptcy protection. Also, the Christian Science Monitor will soon become a weekly paper, cease its daily print editions, and rely mainly on the Web as a means of publishing its news. Is this the end of traditional newspapers as we know them? (Democracy Now! reported on this topic last week)

 

American Carnival: Journalism Under Siege in an Age of New Media
By Neil Henry. U of California Press, 2007
Call Number: PN4888 .E8 H46 2007

Breach of Faith: A Crisis of Coverage in the Age of Corporate Newspapering
By Gene Roberts. U of Arkansas Press, 2002
Call Number: PN4867 .B674 2002 (At Jupiter – May be borrowed through ILL services)

The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst
By David Nasaw. Houghton Mifflin, 2000
Call Number: Z473 .H4 N37 2000
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In the News: Coffee

Week of February 23, 2009

News Item: For many college students, coffee is the quintessential morning beverage of choice (or the mail afternoon and evening drink, if it’s finals week) . It’s easy to brew, easy to buy (thanks to the many java establishments on campus), and recent studies have shown that coffee may even help lower the risk of stroke. Just how popular is coffee in academic library holdings? See below….

 

Brewing Justice: Fair Trade Coffee, Sustainability, and Survival
By Daniel Jaffee. U of California Press, 2007
Call Number: HD9199. D442 J34 2007 or available online through NetLibrary

Buyer Be Fair: The Promise of Product Certification (DVD)
Directed by John De Graaf. Bullfrog Films, 2006
Call Number: HF1413 .B89 2006 (Media Center)

Changing Forests: Collective Action, Common Property, and Coffee in Honduras
By Catherine M. Tucker. Springer, 2008
Call Number: HD9199 .H6 T93 2008
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In the News: Food Safety 2009

Week of February 16, 2009

News Item:  One year ago, In the News highlighted titles on food safety after 143 million pounds of ground beef was recalled from a California meat company. Since then Melamine was found in Chinese infant formula in 2008, and a Georgia processing plant was recently blamed for an outbreak of Salmonella Typhimurium found in peanut butter and peanut paste products. How safe is our food, and what is the FDA and USDA doing to eliminate future foodborne illnesses?

 

The Chemical Feast: The Ralph Nader Study Group Report on Food Protection and the Food and Drug Administration
By James S. Turner. Grossman Publishers, 1970
Call Number: HD9000.9 .U5 T83

Ensuring Safe Food: From Production to Consumption
By the National Research Council (U.S.) Committee to Ensure Safe Food from Production to Consumption. National Academy Press, 1998
Call Number: TX531 .C587 1998

Fast Food Nation (DVD)
Directed by Richard Linklater. 20th Century Fox, 2006
Summary: “When a marketing executive for a huge burger chain finds a nasty secret ingredient in their burger recipe, he goes to the ranches and slaughterhouses of Colorado to investigate and finds that the truth is sometimes difficult to swallow.“
Call Number: PN1997.2 .F3768 2007 (Media Center)
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In the News: Equity in the Workplace

Week of February 9, 2009

News Item: President Barack Obama recently signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 which makes it easier for workers, regardless of race, age, and gender, to get the pay they deserve. Also, the New York Times reports that women are likely to take the majority in the labor force for the first time in U.S. history. However, this has more to do with the current recession rather than gender equity as men have been on the receiving end of at least 82 percent of recent job losses.

 

Age Discrimination in the American Workplace: Old At a Young Age
By Raymond F. Gregory. Rutgers UP, 2001
Call Number: KF3465 .G74 2001

The Career Mystique: Cracks in the American Dream
By Phyllis Moen and Patricia Roehling. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2005
Call Number: HD4904.25 .M638 2005

Cult of Power: Sex Discrimination in Corporate America and What Can Be Done About It
By Martha Burk. Scribner, 2005
Call Number: HA1426 .B845 2005
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In the News: Labor Unions

Week of February 2, 2009

News Item: On January 30th, President Barack Obama signed three executive orders that would “level the playing field for labor unions in their struggle with management,” and undo Bush administration policies that heavily favored employers over workers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently announced that in 2008 the number of U.S. wage and salary workers who were members of a union increased by 428,000 to 16.1 million, or 12.4 percent of the overall workforce.

Autobiography of Mother Jones
By Mother Jones. Arno, 1969
Call Number: HD8073 .J6 A3 1969

Drawing the Line: The Untold Story of the Animation Unions from Bosko to Bart Simpson
By Tom Sito. UP of Kentucky, 2006
Call Number: Available online through NetLibrary

Fighting Against the Odds: A History of Southern Labor Since World War II
By Timothy J. Minchin. UP of Florida, 2005
Call Number: HD8083 .S9 M56 2005

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In the News: Independent Cinema

Week of January 26, 2009

News Item: The movie awards season is well underway in Hollywood with the Oscars traditionally serving as the culminating event. One day before the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hands out its 81st Best Picture statue in February, the industry will celebrate the best in independent cinema at the 24th Annual Spirit Awards. (Traditionally, American independent – or “indie” – films were usually produced outside of the mammoth Hollywood studio system.) Listed here are books related to independent cinema.

Accidental Genius: How John Cassavetes Invented American Independent Film
By Marshall Fine. Miramax Books/Hyperion, 2005
Call Number: PN1998.3 .C384 F56 2005

Canyon Cinema: The Life and Times of an Independent Film Distributor
By Scott MacDonald. UC Press, 2008
Call Number: PN1999 .C335 M33 2008

Cinema and Culture: Independent Film in the United States, 1980-2001
By E. Deidre Pribram. Lang, 2002
Call Number: PN2993.5 .U6 P75 2002

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In the News: The White House

Week of January 20, 2009

News Item: Barack Obama will become the 44th President of the United States on January 20, at which time he and his family will take up residence in the White House. The titles listed here provide various insights into the building located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC. (As an aside: The Vice President and his family will move to Number One Observatory Circle at the U.S. Naval Observatory.)

America’s First Families: An Inside View of 200 Years of Private Life in the White House
By Carl Sferrazza Anthony. Touchstone, 2000
Call Number: E176.1 .A68 2000

The Architecture of the West Wing of the White House
Published by the Executive Office of the President, 1995
Call Number: PREX 1.2:AR 2 (Government Documents)

Behind the Scenes in the Lincoln White House: Memoirs of an African-American Seamstress
By Elizabeth Keckley. Dover Publications, 2006
Call Number: E457.15 .K26 2006
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In the News: 21st Century New Deal?

Week of January 12, 2009

News Item: President-elect Barack Obama has presented his American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan which, he has said, would resuscitate the economy. This stimulus package could cost around $775 billion and would be used, in part, for tax cuts and to create 3.5 million new jobs. Could this be the makings of a modern-day New Deal? Listed here are some titles that provide some background information on President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal program of the 1930s.

American Rhetoric in the New Deal Era, 1932-1945
Edited by Thomas W. Benson. Michigan State UP, 2006
Call Number: E806 .A638 2006

Backlash: The Killing of the New Deal
By Robert Shogan. Ivan R. Dee, 2006
Call Number: E806 .S54 2006

A Commonwealth of Hope: The New Deal Response to Crisis
By Alan Lawson. Johns Hopkins UP, 2006
Call Number: E806 .L365 2006
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The Wilbur H. Siebert Underground Railroad Collection

The FAU Libraries have received another generous gift from Mr. Hugh W. Ripley.

Finding that students in his American history classes “were inclined to be restless and inattentive, [Wilbur H. Siebert] decided to arouse their interest over a mysterious and romantic subject that was rich in adventure.”

The Wilbur H. Siebert Collection contains correspondence, notes, manuscripts, student papers, maps, and photographs related to the Underground Railroad. Research material includes the responses generated by his seven-question survey and copies and notes from a wide variety of sources: books; diaries; letters; photographs; newspaper articles; biographies and memoirs; state, county, and local histories; annual reports; trial records; U.S. and Canadian census reports; legislation; and Congressional speeches. Siebert also conducted interviews with Underground Railroad agents and former fugitive slaves. He organized his research by state and county, eventually binding his notes in volumes according to the location of the Underground Railroad station or activity. The collection contains bound and unbound volumes of Siebert’s research. Read More>>

Find the collection in the library: Boca Raton Microfilm (non-circulating) E450.S577. Browse pictures from the Wilbur H. Siebert Underground Railroad Collection at OhioPix.

Studs Terkel: 1912 to 2008

Studs (Louis) Terkel, broadcaster and oral historian, born May 16 1912; died October 31, 2008
See ChicagoTribune Obituary

Over 40 years ago Studs Terkel began a conversation with the American people, asking them to expose their everyday lives. He tenderly and truthfully told our story (the
American and the human) throughout his career as broadcaster and writer. His two well known books, Working (1974) and Race: How blacks and whites think and feel about the American obsession (1992), are good examples of his oral history style. Continue reading