New Website, New Books

We have recently upgraded the software system that manages the library and revamped the library website to go along with it. The software is Koha, a free and open source package originally developed by Katipo Communications for the Horowhenua Library Trust in New Zealand. Development is now sponsored by an active community of libraries of all types and sizes, volunteers, and support companies from around the world. We hope it will enhance your library experience in a number of ways, including: Improved search functionality: New options for searching the library collection's catalog and new ways to refine your results should help you find items of interest. Additonally, you can subscribe to search results as RSS feeds, which will allow you to see when a new item is added to the catalog in your area of interest. The catalog also now supports use of Zotero, the open source reference management sofware produced by the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. If you aren't familiar with it, it is a very useful tool for managing your research materials and creating citations. Tagging: In the spirit of Web 2.0, members can now attach their own descriptive keywords to items which will become a public part of that item's record. Why would you want to do this? Try a hard as we might I and other catalogers cannot anticipate every way to describe an item. This is your opportunity to help others by filling in the gaps. Or you can just tag those books you want to read later. Tags are public, but anonymous, and you can visit and edit your tagging history. Online renewals: In addition to being able to put books on hold online, members can now renew books online rather than coming down to the library to do it. Now you don't have to worry about overdues. Simply log in to your account and take care of it there. Not a member? Simply fill out a membership form and bring it to the library. Forget your log in information? Just contact the library at libary@thoreau.org. Like everything on the web these days, it is in permanent beta and will be in flux, so if something doesn't work or if you have any suggestions or questions, please feel free to contact me in the library or at libary@thoreau.org. And now if all of that hasn't piqued your interest, here are some of the new books we have added to the collection in recent months... Michael K. Stone. (2009). Smart by nature: schooling for sustainability. Healdsburg, CA: Watershed Media. A guide to ecologically aware education for the twenty-first century from the Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley, a leader for nearly two decades in school reform for sustainable living. Documenting a growing movement of educators, parents, and students changing K-12 education throughout the United States, it presents firsthand accounts of success stories in rethinking school food, greening campuses, and embedding learning in community from a variety of public, private, rural, and urban schools. Beth Kanter and Allison H. Fine. (2010). The networked nonprofit: connecting with social media to drive change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Kanter and Fine detail tools and strategies to help nonprofits take advantage of the opportunities presented by new information and social media technologies. Filled with interviews and case studies from nonprofit managers who have found ways to use these tools effectively, it shows how to leverage the different kinds of connections enabled by these technologies to increase impact and how to navigate the transition from a top-down organizational structure to an open and networked approach that makes the most use of this new environment. David C. Korten. (2010). Agenda for a new economy: from phantom wealth to real wealth. Second edition, updated and expanded. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers. David Korten is president and founder of the People-Centered Development Forum, chair of the board of YES! magazine, founding board member of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, and through his work and writings has long been a leader in the resistance to corporate-led economic globalization. This edition updates his book originally written in response to the financial meltdown of 2008 to expand his agenda for an alternative to the values and institutions of the Wall Street economy at the heart of that crash: a New Economy based on ecological balance, equitable distribution of Earth’s resources, and democracy responsive to the needs and values of ordinary people. William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer. (2009). The boy who harnessed the wind: creating currents of electricity and hope. New York: William Morrow. William Kamkwamba of Malawi was forced to drop out of school at age 14 when that country experienced its worst famine in fifty years and his family could no longer afford the $80 a year tuition. Determined to find a way to make life better for himself, his family, and his community, and inspired by an old science textbook he found in a nearby library, he built a windmill out of scrap metal, tractor parts, and blue-gum trees that produced the electricity that only two percent of Malawians could afford. William was able to return to school and has continued to help his village through the worldwide attention that his inspirational story has achieved. Nancy Knowlton. (2010). Citizens of the sea: wond rous creatures from the Census of Marine Life. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society. This book was released near the conclusion of the Census of Marine Life, an unprecedented and comprehensive ten year international effort to assess the diversity, distribution, and abundance of marine life globally. 2,700 scientists from over 80 nations around the globe participated in 540 expeditions and countless hours of land-based research to identify more than 1,200 new marine species, with another 5,000 or more still awaiting formal description. Authored by Nancy Knowlton, Sant Chair for Marine Science at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, Citizens of the Sea reveals some of this diversity through skilled underwater photography from National Geographic and Census researchers. Yellow Bird [John Rollin Ridge]. (1955). The life and adventures of Joaquin Murieta the celebrated California bandit. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Originally published in 1854, this book established the legend of Joaquin Murieta, the Gold Rush era Mexican bandit and folk hero who inspired numerous stories, the fictional character of Zorro, a movie, and the first Soviet rock opera. Persecuted by Americans and determined to seek revenge for their killing of his half-brother, Murieta organized an outlaw company number over 2,000 men who for two years menaced Californians with kidnappings, bank robberies, cattle thefts, and murders before he was killed by the California State Rangers. If he existed at all. Mark Sisson and Jennifer Meier. (2010). The primal blueprint cookbook. Malibu, CA: Primal Nutrition. Learn to re-harmonize your diet with your evolutionary genetic mandate and adopt simple, sustainable lifestyle behaviors. Mark Sisson is the founder & publisher of MarksDailyApple.com, and is credited with spearheading the worldwide "Primal" health movement that challenges many well-accepted elements of conventional wisdom by adapting the nutritional cornerstones of hunter-gatherer fare for the culinary tastes and variety of the 21st century. Jennifer Meier is a graduate of the prestigious California Culinary Academy in San Francisco, and she researched and tested each of the recipes in the cookbook over a two-year development period. Oliver A. Houck. (2010). Taking back Eden: eight environmental cases that changed the world. Washington, DC: Island Press. Using a set of case studies of environmental lawsuits brought in the U.S and seven other countries around the world beginning in the 1960s, this book describes a revolution at the nexus of law and ecology: ordinary citizens with lawyers using their standing as citizens in challenging corporate practices and government policies to change not just the way the environment is defended but the way that the public interest is recognized in law. Oliver Houck, environmental attorney, professor of law, and former General Counsel and Vice-President of the National Wildlife Federation, depicts the places protected, as well as the litigants who pursued the cases, their strategies, and the judges and other government officials who ruled on them.