Whole Earth Library at Thoreau Center for Sustainability - San Francisco

2012-01-06T14:57:00.000-08:00

New Books in the New Year

Thanks to the Northern California Directory of Independent Booksellers, the Whole Earth Library at Thoreau Center for Sustainability has received more than a score of books in the areas of Nonprofit Sector Resources, Social Issues, Policy Economics and Philosophy plus a few works of fiction. Here is a sampling of the new books now in the collection.

Kwame Anthony Appiah. The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen. (2010)

The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen is the latest book from the New York Times best-selling author and Princeton University Professor of Philosophy Kwame Anthony Appiah. The book examines how moral progress happens and how societies come to repudiate long-standing social practices that murderous and dehumanizing. Appiah, born in Ghana and educated in Britain, examines the sudden end of the centuries-old practice of dueling in Britain, the demise of foot binding in China and the struggle to ban the trans-Atlantic slave trade and he writes convincingly that in each case the evolving concept of honor played a critical role in terminating these practices. But this book is not just about past moral revolutions. Appiah also looks at how honor might led to demise of honor killings in Pakistan.

Pavithra Mehta & Suchitra Shenoy. Infinite Vision: How Aravind Became the World's Greatest Business Case for Compassion. (2011)

Infinite Vision is the story of Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy and the Aravind Eye Clinic. Founded in 1976 as a 11-bed facility in the old temple city of Madruai in Tamil Nadu, Aravind today boasts eight eye hospitals with over 4,000 beds treating over 1.7 million patients each year making it the largest and most productive eye care institution in the world. With a business model based on compassion, two-third of Aravind's patients receive free treatment and yet the eye clinics are self-sustaining teaching and research facilities. A core principle of the Aravind System is that the hospital must provide services to the rich and poor alike, while remaining financially self-supporting. This principle is achieved through high quality, large volume care and a well-organized system.This timely book is co-authored by Pavithra Metha, an award-winning Indian writer and filmmaker, and Suchitra Shenoy, a founding member of the Inclusive Markets team at The Monitor Group.

Linda Stout. Collective Visioning: How Groups Can Work Together for a Just and Sustainable Future. (2011)

Collective Visioning: How Groups Can Work Together for a Just and Sustainable Future is the latest work from the Massachusetts-based social activist and founder of Spirit in Action, a non-profit organization that catalyzes broad-based movement building to support deep and lasting social change. In this book aimed at the nonprofit community, Stout provides guidelines on how to bring diverse interests together to form a cohesive group built on trust that ensures that each and every voice is heard with a goal of creating a positive vision and developing an action plan that leverages each member's unique abilities to bring that vision to fruition. Stout focuses on the important need to get our own storytelling right. She writes that "our own stories ground us in the present while empowering us" and notes that "unless we connect with our stories and truly listen to those of others, we won't be able to vision collectively into the future."

Dianna Booher. Creating Personal Presence: Look, Talk, Think, and Act Like a Leader. (2011)

Dianna Booher is the founder of the Booher Consultants, a global communication training firm in Dallas, and the author of several books on communication and public speaking. In this book, Booher provides scores of practical tips on the physical qualities, communication techniques, thought processes, and attitudes that underlie powerful personal presence. Personal presence is one of those qualities that is difficult to define but easy to recognize.This comprehensive guide will enable readers to become compelling leaders with a commanding presence no matter what their current position.

Joan Steinau Lester. Black, White, Other: In Search of Nina Armstrong. (2011)

Joan Steinau Lester, Ed.D. is an award-winning commentator, columnist, and author of four critically praised books. Black, White, Other: In Search of Nina Armstrong is Lester's first novel and looks at the issues faced by a fast growing segment of the US populations, biracial kids, through the eyes of a 15 year old girl named Nina Armstrong as she faces the challenges of her parents' divorce. Nina lives with her mother Maggie, a leftie whose family roots are in union organizing; her little brother, Jimi, lives with their father Silas who is busy rediscovering his African-American roots, which include an enslaved great-grandmother Sarah, whose story Silas is writing. Nina is emotionally, socially, and historically conflicted: who is she, and whose is she? She’s got white friends and black friends who inhabit different peer worlds, and the family tension shapes everything.

2011-12-08T13:17:00.001-08:00

California Coastal Commission. California Coastal Access Guide. (2003)

The 1,100-mile California coast is an area of unsurpassed beauty and diversity. The first edition of the California Coastal Access Guide was published in 1981 with the dual purposes of identifying areas along the coast that are open to the public and explaining the public's rights and responsibilities regarding the use of the coastal resources. This guide tells you where to go on the coast, how to get there, and what facilities and type of environment you will find at each location. The Guide is a thorough and easy-to-use handbook that lists and describes all open public accessways, beaches, parks and recreational areas along the coast; it provides addresses, phone numbers type of environment for each site. It is divided into sections for each county and local area, with website and transit information and accompanying maps that clearly locate each accessway and major streets. Photos and illustrated feature articles on history, coastal resources and recreational activities are found throughout the book.

Kim Klein. Fundraising for Social Change, 5th edition. (2007)

From the publisher: Since it was first published in 1988, Fundraising for Social Change has become one of the most widely used books on fundraising in the United States. Fundraising practitioners and activists rely on it for hands-on, specific, and accessible fundraising techniques, and it has become a required text in dozens of college courses around the country. This fifth edition offers the information that has made the book a classic: proven know-how on asking for money, planning and conducting major gifts campaigns, using direct mail effectively, and much more. The book has been significantly changed to include new technology-e-mail, online giving, and blogs-and contains expanded chapters on capital and endowment campaigns, how to feel comfortable asking for money, how to recruit a team of people to help with fundraising, and how to build meaningful relationships with donors. In addition, this essential resource contains new information on such timely topics as ethics, working across cultural lines, and how to create opportunities for fundraising more systematically and strategically.

Mario Morino. Leap of Reason: managing to outcomes in an era of scarcity. (2011)
From the publisher: Leap of Reason, a collaboration between Venture Philanthropy Partners and its longtime strategic partner McKinsey & Company, presents a compelling case that we must rise to meet the difficult challenges of our times with management approaches that complement heart with head, passion with information.
The book is anchored by a monograph written by philanthropist Mario Morino, who argues that the nation’s growing fiscal crisis will force all of us in the social sector to be clearer about our aspirations, more intentional in defining our approaches, more rigorous in gauging our progress, more willing to admit mistakes, more capable of quickly adapting and improving—all with an unrelenting focus on and passion for improving lives.
Morino calls on funders to empower nonprofits to manage smarter through greater use of information on performance and impact—rather than forcing them to meet myriad evaluation and reporting requirements that do little to help the organization learn and improve. He calls on nonprofits and funders to work together to “manage to outcomes” and to do so with the singular goal of helping nonprofits deliver greater benefits to those they serve.
Morino’s monograph is augmented by essays written by VPP president and CEO Carol Thompson Cole, the leaders of McKinsey’s Social Sector Office, and other experts and practitioners with hands-on experience leading the transition to managing to outcomes: Tynesia Boyea Robinson, Patricia Brantley, Isaac Castillo, David E. K. Hunter, Kristin Anderson Moore, David Murphey, Ethan D. Schafer, and Karen Walker. The book also includes a framework with questions to help organizations begin “managing to outcomes” and a compendium of relevant readings.
The book’s authors and publisher have produced this book with the goal of seeking the broadest possible dissemination of these ideas among social-sector leaders and those who support them. All of the authors contributed their essays and insights without compensation. And the publisher’s copyright notice encourages and grants permission for the distribution and reproduction of copies of this work for non-commercial purposes.

G. Castro and I. Locker, with V. Russell, L. Cornwell and E. Fajer. Mapping Conservation Investments: an assessment of biodiversity funding in Latin America and the Caribbean. (2000)

Full Report (PDF, 79 pages, 850 Kb)

From the publisher: Biological diversity plays a critical role in maintaining the ecological processes upon which people, ecosystems and economies depend. The Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region is widely accepted as a repository of some of the world’s richest biodiversity, containing 40% of Earth’s plant and animal species and probably the highest floristic diversity in the world. Unfortunately, the region’s biodiversity continues to face significant and growing threats. The study, collaboration of the U.S. agency for International Development (USAID), the World Bank and the Biodiversity Support Program (BSP), was undertaken to determine the extent of biodiversity conservation funding in the region.
Esta es una publicacion bilingue que examina los patrones de financiamiento para la biodiversidad en la region de Latinoamerica y el Caribe (LAC) para discernir los vacios de financiamiento y animar una mayor comunicacion y conscientizacion de parte de los donantes. La evaluacion del financiamiento, resultado de un proyecto de tres anos de duracion implementado conjuntamente por el Banco Mundial y la USAID, se baso en los resultados recopilados con encuestas aplicadas a las principales organizaciones donantes: instituciones bilaterales y multilaterales, agencias gubernamentales, organizaciones no gubernamentales, fundaciones, principales instituciones de investigacion y fideicomisos para el medio ambiente. Se pretende que este analisis sea el primer paso hacia una mayor comunicacion entre los donantes y los implementadores con el fin de conducir a una inversion mas estrategica y mejor enfocada en la region de LAC.

Seven Billion

2011-11-15T11:31:00.001-08:00

Seven Billion

The surge in human population is one of the defining crucibles of our era. If in 1900 we numbered but 1.6 billion people on the planet, we would a hundred years later in the year 2000 surpass 6.1 billion, a nearly 300 percent increase. This past October 31st, United Nations demographers suggest that the world has likely passed another demographic milestone, the seven billion mark. In light of this, the Whole Earth Library at Thoreau Center for Sustainability would like to highlight some of the numerous titles on population issues that we have in the collection.

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Lester R. Brown, Gary Gardner, and Brian Halweil editors. Beyond Malthus: Nineteen Dimensions of the Population Challenge. (1999)

For those interested in an introductory overview of the challenges of population growth, this short, concise primer examines the impacts of population growth on 19 global resources and services, including food, fresh water, fisheries, jobs, education, income and health.With the planet in danger of outstripping its carrying capacity, Beyond Malthus examines methods such as the expansion of international family planning, investment in educating young people in the developing world and promotion of a shift towards smaller families which will represent the most humane response to the possible ravages of the population explosion.

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Bob van der Zwaan and Arthur Petersem, editors. Sharing the Planet: Population - Consumption - Species - Science and Ethics for a Sustainable and Equitable World. (2003)

This volume is the final report presented the World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg in 2002 by the Dutch Chapter of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs. The internationally renowned scholars contributing to this volume conclude that immense endeavors by the international community are required over the first few decades of the new millennium to effectively deal with the challenge ahead of establishing sustainable development. They also conclude that a renewed public awareness is needed of the inescapable limits of our planet's resources and focus on what scholars and activists can do to raise the necessary awareness.

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Wolfgang Lutz, Warren C. Sanderson and Sergei Scherbov editors. The End of World Population Growth in the 21st Century: New Challenges for Human Capital Formation and Sustainable Development. (2004)

This edition looks at the problem of demographic transitions. While most countries will continue to add population in the coming decades, a number of countries, primarily in Europe, are facing negative population growth which of course presents a different set of challenges. The volume addresses these challenges in a number of ways. It produces probabilistic population forecasts for the world and 13 major regions and introduces new ways of analyzing the uncertainty of these forecasts. It integrates human capital and sustainable development with population change and shows how combining the three provides a new way of unifying our understanding of demographic developments in the 21st century. The book contains chapters on probabilistic population forecasting; integrated forecasts of population and education changes in world regions; the use of literate life expectancy as an indicator of social development; the interactions between population, the environment, and agriculture in Ethiopia; the effects of education on trends in HIV prevalence in Botswana, a country that has had greater success in tackling AIDS than most; China’s future rural and urban population by education; population, greenhouse gases, and global climate change; and a new conceptual framework that combines considerations of population growth, age structure, human capital, and the environment and shows that the problems of rapid economic growth and rapid aging can be formulated and analyzed within a unified framework.

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Elizabeth Leahy with Robert Engelman, Carolyn Gibb Vogel, Sarah Haddock and Tod Preston. The Shape of Things to Come: Why Age Structure Matters to a Safer, More Equitable World. (2007)

Seven Billion
A wonky detailed analysis of the various projected demographic trends for various countries around the world. Based on more than two years of research and analysis, the authors conclude that population age structure can have a significant impact on countries' stability, governance, economic development and the well-being of its people. Most importantly, they find that age structures are dynamic and can be influenced—and shaped—through policies that affect the demographic forces (i.e. births, deaths and migration) that determine these age structures. The authors also find that in looking to the future and the shape of things to come, aid and assistance programs that promote the demographic transition—family planning, female education, maternal and child health, HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment--must be an integral part of development assistance.

World Blogging Action Day: Food, Sustainable Food

2011-10-16T10:39:00.000-07:00

Blog Action Day is an annual event held every October that unites bloggers world-wide in posting about the same issue on the same day to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion around an important issue that impacts us all. This year Blog Action Day is being held on October 16th to coincide with World Food Day which commemorates the founding of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in 1945 and aims to foster a debate and increase awareness about issues related to global agriculture and food practices.

Here at the Whole Earth Library at Thoreau Center, we are participating in this important event by highlighting a few of the many titles that the collection boasts on food-related issues and sustainable agriculture practices.
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Dr. Gary Paul Nabhan. Where Our Food Comes From: Retracing Nikolay Vavilov's Quest to End Famine. (2009)

Noted sustainable agriculture activist and ethno-botanist at the Southwest Center of the University of Arizona Gary Paul Nabhan is the author or editor of 24 books on agricultural practices, bio-diversity and food culture. Published in 2009, Where Our Food Comes From retraces the journeys of famed Soviet botanist Nikolay Vavilov who as the director of the All-Union Institute of Agricultural Sciences in Leningrad beginning in 1924 amassed the world's largest collection of plant seeds. In this book, Gary Paul Nabhan, a winner of the prestigious MacArthur "genius" Award, weaves together Vavilov’s extraordinary story with his own expeditions to the planet's richest agricultural seed depositories imparting critical insight into the cultures that preserve and maintain humanity's rich agricultural heritage and food stocks. Nabhan shows how global climate change, free trade policies, genetic engineering, and the loss of traditional knowledge are threatening the global food supply. Through discussions with local farmers across five continents, visits to local outdoor markets, and a comparison of his own observations in eleven countries to those recorded in Vavilov’s journals and photos, Nabhan reveals just how much diversity has already been lost while offering a vision on how to better protect our global seed stocks and food supply.

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Dr. Jane Goodall. Harvest for Hope: A Guide to Mindful Eating. (2005)

In Harvest for Hope, world-renown primatologist and conservationist Jane Goodall tackles the dietary habits of the world's most successful, if sometimes tragicomic, primate. Surveying human food production and consumption, Dr. Goodall traces the changes such as the development of large-scale food production that seeks to maximize profit for shareholders with scant regard for long-term human health and safety that have occurred in her lifetime. Grounded in the belief that every individual does make a difference, hers is a clarion call for action and individual responsibility to restore long-standing sustainability practices, now seemingly sacrificed at the altar of corporate profitability.

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Dean Cycon. Javatrekker: Dispatches From the World of Fair Trade Coffee. (2007)

Coffee entrepreneur and fair trade advocate Dean Cycon examines globalization, immigration, women's and indigenous rights, environmental degradation and trade issues all by looking at our humble cup of coffee. As much a travel book to exotic coffee lands as it is a primer on the issue of fair trade, Cycon offers a hands-on account at the implications in the global production and trade of a commodity such as coffee, the world's second largest trade in terms of value and one that dates back hundreds of years. Cycon argues that "our understanding of justice, in trade and society in general, cannot be confined to a formula." Instead, fair trade must be more accurately seen as a process that improves the lives of the hundreds of thousand of small farmers who have been systematically marginalized by the forces of globalization.

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Andrew Kimbrell. The Fatal Harvest Reader. (2002)

Written by world renowned scientists, activists and thinkers, The Fatal Harvest Reader is a collection of over 30 thought-provoking essays on the problems inherent in large-scale industrialized corporate agriculture. Edited by Andrew Kimbrell, one of the country's leading environmental attorneys and the author of several books on the environment and food issues, the essays cover a range of topics from the myths of industrial agriculture and the false promises of biotechnology to the hidden costs, including its deep ecological impact and adverse effects on human health as well as offering a vision for more sustainable agriculture practices in the 21st century. The volume includes an essay, Machine Logic: Industrializing Nature and Agriculture, by Jerry Mander of the International Forum on Globalization that urges agricultural practices that express "a reciprocal relationship with nature." In another essay, Helena Norberg-Hodge argues that localized food systems are a cultural imperative that offer an alternative to boom-bust globalization. Other contributors include Alice Waters, Gary Nabhan, Jim Hightower and David Ehrenfeld.

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Darrin Nordahl. Public Produce, The New Urban Agriculture. (2009)

Author and urban design guru, Darrin Nordahl is at the forefront of the new urban agriculture movement. In Public Produce, Nordahl makes the case for local government involvement in shaping food policy. In what he calls “municipal agriculture,” Nordahl notes how elected officials, municipal planners, local policymakers, and public space designers are turning to the abundance of land under public control such parks, plazas, parking lots as well as the grounds around government offices and public buildings to grow food. He argues that innovative urban food concepts can vitality to city spaces as well as improve our health and environment. This timely book highlights some of the many public initiatives around the country that are helping to reshape the urban landscape while improving the American palate.

Book Donations for Occupy San Francisco

2011-10-14T12:04:00.000-07:00

Since we always have some extra books for which we try to find a good home (usually Better World Books, go check them out) we have decided to go downtown and give some to the people at Occupy San Francisco. Hopefully, they will find them useful. There are certainly some excellent works on economics, globalization, sustainability, history, and we threw in some fiction too since the Occupy Wall Street library certainly has plenty of that. You can see some of them in the pictures below, and maybe we'll get up a more complete list later.

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Banned Books Week, Sept 24 to Oct 1

2011-09-27T12:06:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again...Banned Books Week! Held during the last week of September, this event celebrates one of the most basic human rights of any democratic society: the right of intellectual freedom. It alerts people to the efforts that continue to occur on a regular basis in the United States to limit or to discourage access to books and other materials in schools, libraries, and bookstores. Sponsored by the American Library Association, the American Booksellers Association, the National Coalition Against Censorship, and several other organizations, Banned Books Week is a reminder to people not to take for granted their freedoms to read, to speak, and to think. In 2010 alone, the Office of Intellectual Freedom of the American Library Association received reports of 348 challenges nationwide, and it anticipates that there are many more that go unreported. Such challenges are typically efforts to circumvent the normal institutional procedures for reviewing the suitability of materials in order to limit the access of students and others to ideas and viewpoints with which the challengers disagree. They are attempts to close off discussion and to prevent individuals from being able to judge ideas for themselves.

The Whole Earth Library will once again join libraries throughout the country in Banned Books Week which runs from September 24 until October 1. Look for the return of our interactive, appropriate technology Banned Books display on the outside of the library wall where you are encouraged to write quotes from your favorite banned and challenged books or to just share thoughts about intellectual freedom in other creative ways.In addition, we are once again sponsoring an essay contest for our neighbors at The Bay School of San Francisco, a private coeducational college preparatory high school just down the street from us in the Presidio. Students have been asked to write on the subject of intellectual freedom and sustainability.

If you would like to learn more and discover what books have been banned or challenged in the United States, visit the Banned Books Website and be sure to check out American Library Association's lists of Frequently Challenged Books. And Tango Makes Three, has returned to the top of the list for 2010, and you might be surprised by some of the books that are also on it. Regardless, there are lots of fun reading ideas.

Thank you,
John Bertland, Librarian

Thoreau Center Brown Bag: Promoting Biodiversity in the Presidio

2011-09-20T11:58:00.000-07:00

Promoting Biodiversity in the Presidio
Presenter: Terri Thomas, Golden Gate National Recreation Area
September 22, 12:30 to 1:30
Pacific Room at Tides, Thoreau Center for Sustainability

Why are the Presidio of San Francisco’s natural habitats, forests, and designed landscapes important to local, national, and international biodiversity? Terri Thomas will discuss the history, the current big picture, and the details of the Presidio's biodiversity.

Terri’s career has been in the land management of national parks, and she has worked at Yosemite, Crater Lake, Everglades, and the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. She is now the Director of Conservation, Stewardship, and Research at the Presidio Trust. She has a BS in Forestry from UCB and a MS in Ecology from University of Washington.

Brown Bag events are free informal mid-day learning sessions hosted atTides. Friends, neighbors and colleagues are welcome. Visitors, please sign inat the front desk.