RSA Library Update - January 2007

What follows is a complete list of RSA library acquisitions for the month of January 2007. Fellows are welcome to e-mail library@rsa.org.uk if they wish to borrow any of these items, or search the library catalogue for thousands of other titles....

000s - Generalities

Michael Lesk
Understanding Digital Libraries
Morgan Kaufmann, 2005, 025.002 LES
Understanding digital libraries focuses on the challenges faced by librarians and computer scientists in a field that has been altered by the growth of the Web. This book first discusses technology and examines issues such as varying media requirements, indexing and classification, and more. It then tackles the human contexts in which digital libraries function.

I. H. Witten & David I. Bainbridge
How to Build a Digital Library
Morgan Kaufmann, 2002, 025.002 WIT
How to build a digital library offers the knowledge and tools needed to construct and maintain a digital library. The authors sketch the history of libraries - both traditional and digital - and their impact on present practices and future directions, as well as offering coverage of the practical standards used to represent and store information digitally.

100s - Philosophy & Psychology

Christopher Hitchens
Letters to a Young Contrarian
Basic Books, 2002, 168 HIT
Christopher Hitchens has made a career of disagreeing in profound and entertaining ways. While bemoaning the loss in contemporary society of the skill of dialectical thinking, he aims to inspire future generations of intellectuals, mavericks, rebels, angry young (wo)men and dissidents.

200s - Religion

Rowan Williams
Lost Icons: Reflections on Cultural Bereavement
Morehouse, 2002, 261.5 WIL
Lost Icons is a sobering inquiry into the structures that support (or fail to support) the development of authentic selfhood and the maintenance of a just society

300s - Social Sciences

Hugo De Burgh,
China: Friend or Foe?
Icon, 2006, 303.482 BUR
China's economy is growing phenomenally, with half the world's cranes currently on its soil. Its 1.3 billion people have around 300 million mobile phones, and a purchasing power second only to the US. Yet, especially in rural areas, there is widespread poverty. Tackling issues such as how China is managed and the way it uses its political and cultural influence, Hugo De Burgh asks whether China is a friend to be welcomed or a foe to be guarded against?

Mark Poster
Information Please: Culture and Politics in the Age of Digital Machines
Duke University Press, 2006, 303.483 POS
Information please conceptualises a relationship between humans and information machines that avoids privileging either the human or the machine but instead focuses on the structures of their interactions. Mark Poster explores how texts, images, and sounds are made different when they are mediated by information machines.

Mary Kaldor
New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era
Polity, 2006, 303.66 KAL
New and old wars deals with the implications of 'the new wars' in the post 9-11 world. Mary Kaldor shows how old war thinking in Iraq has greatly exacerbated what is archetypically new war - with insurgency, chaos and the occupying forces' showing a lack of direction and describes the lesson we need to learn about this different kind of conflict emerging in the 21st Century.

Anthony Crosland
The Future of Socialism
Constable and Robinson, 2006, 320.531
The Future of Socialism set out the philosophical framework for the New Labour project, decades before the movement itself materialised. This new edition includes a piece by Dick Leonard, Crosland's Personal Private Secretary, who knew the radical philosopher well, an introduction by Gordon Brown, and an afterward from Susan Crosland.

Department for Communities and Local Government
Developing the Local Government Services Market to Support a Long-term Strategy for Local Government
Communities and Local Government Publications, 2006, 320.8 DEP
This report presents key findings from an analysis of the local government market. It considers key challenges and opportunities faced by markets in local government services and identifies issues influencing the effectiveness of competition across the sector

Barton Biggs
Hedge Hogging
Wiley, 2006, 332.645 BIG
Hedge hogging looks at the investment and hedge fund world, through the eyes of industry legend Barton Biggs. This book reveals Biggs' experiences with friends and acquaintances over his investment years. It shows how the challenging battle for investment survival can be its own life-or-death struggle for individuals participating in this field.

RSA
Promoting Innovation and Renewing Creativity: A Balanced Intellectual Property Framework for the Digital Age
RSA, 2006, 346.048 RSA
In this latest addition to the RSA Adelphi Charter, respected professionals from a variety of different fields discuss the challenge of encouraging principals of intellectual property that actively encourage innovation and creativity.

James K. Boyce
Natural Assets: Democratizing Environmental Ownership
Island Press, 2003, 363.7 BOY
Low-income communities frequently suffer from a lack of access to, or lack of control over, the natural resources that surround them. Natural assets explores strategies for expanding the quantity and enhancing the quality of natural assets in the hands of low-income individuals and communities.

Bob Lingard
The RoutledgeFalmer Reader in Education Policy and Politics
Routledge, 2006, 379 LIN
The RoutledgeFalmer reader in education policy and politics provides the reader with an impressive selection of articles on all aspects of education policy and politics. Students of education policy and politics will find this Reader useful for further reading and understanding, as well as an essential overview of the most important issues surrounding the subject.

400s - Language

500s - Natural Sciences & Mathematics

600s - Technology (Applied Sciences)

Don Tapscott & Anthony D. Williams
Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything
Portfolio, 2006, 658.046 TAP
Today, encyclopedias, jetliners, operating systems, mutual funds, and many other items are being created by teams numbering in the thousands or even millions. While some leaders fear the heaving growth of these massive online communities, Wikinomics argues that this fear is folly, and that smart firms can harness collective capability and genius to spur innovation, growth, and success.

700s - The Arts

800s - Literature

Dennis Walder
Post-colonial Literatures in English: History, Language, Theory
Blackwell, 1998, 820.991 WAL
Post-colonial literatures in English is a textbook on the historical, linguistic and theoretical issues that form post-colonial literary study. This studies three cases: Indian fiction in English, Caribbean and Black British poetry and contemporary South African literature and well as looking at what might follow 'after post-colonialism'.
Fellows donation.

900s - Geography & History

Reference

ASLIB Directory of Information Sources in the UK
Routledge, 14th edition, 2006, REF 026 ASL
The leading information sources reference work on organisations of all kinds. Listings of over 11,000 information providers.

Makoto Ohno (ed.)
The Public Sphere, Intermediary Organizations, and Power in Modern Britain (5 volumes)
Aichi Prefectural University, 2006, REF RSA 062
This piece of research from RSA fellow Makoto Ohno examines the role the Society played in encouraging the cultivation of Madder in the mid-eighteenth century.
RSA history related item.

A.S.K. Hollis
Hollis Publishing, 2006, 6th edition, REF 659.202
Ask Hollis is a comprehensive directory of associations and organisations representing a membership, a mission or a message. It includes profiles of over 6,000 associations, pressure groups, unions, institutes, societies, and represents various interest areas from abrasives through to zoos, from industrial sectors to charities and the consumer.

Who's Who 2007
A & C Black, 159th edition, 2006, REF 920.009
This is the 159th annual edition of the internationally famed big red book, the standard, up-to-date source book of information on people of influence and interest in all fields.