ABC-CLIO

21st-century learning in school libraries.

Fontichiaro (Birmingham, Michigan Public Schools and U. of Michigan, Ann Arbor) presents a collection of 90-plus articles building on the beliefs developed in the Standards for the 21st-Century Learner document released in October 2007 by the American Assn. of School Librarians. Written by leading school librarians and educators from across North America, the articles were originally published in School Library Media Activities Monthly. Eleven thematic chapters cover 21st-century learning standards, 21st-century learners, envisioning a vibrant library media program, the 21st-century school library media specialist, reading, inquiry-based teaching and learning, assessment, collaboration between library media specialists and classroom teachers, creating a toolkit of instructions strategies, and sample elementary and secondary lesson plans. Suitable for use in preservice classes, in practitioner study groups, or as a reference for individuals. Libraries Unlimited is an imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC. (Annotation ©2010 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

America for sale; how the foreign pack circled and devoured Esmark.

In this very readable book, Bouchard (President, Esmark, Inc.) and Koch (Economics, Old Dominion University) argue that the purchase by foreigners of critical and strategic U.S. assets is a danger to the nation's economic future. To make their case, the authors examine the events leading up to the 2008 sale of steel giant Esmark to a Russian firm — a sale that put more than half of U.S. steel production into foreign hands. The authors describe and analyze the actions of the main players before the sale, including those of Esmark's board of directors, officials of the United Steelworkers Union, and major public stockholders. The book offers legislative and policy prescriptions aimed at preventing similar sell-offs of important industrial assets in the future. Delivering an important message, this book will appeal to anyone interested in the global economics, the steel industry, or the decline of the U.S. industrial base. (Annotation ©2010 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

America's home front heroes; an oral history of World War II.

After years of watching from the sidelines, World War II finally came to the US with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. For the next four years millions of US GIs fought and died in battles across the globe. Life also changed for those people who were left at home. Some went to work in defense industries; some were interred and sent to camps; many grew up without the presence of both parents. Transcribing the recollections of dozens who lived through the war years, Stacy Enyeart has brought together an interesting combination of memories and perspectives in this oral history collection. The personal touches provided by these oral histories make the events of the time come alive, reminding us that those events were very real, changing the lives of everyone who lived through the era. (Annotation ©2010 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Animal rights; a reference handbook, 2d ed.

This reference work on animal rights has been comprehensively updated in its second edition. Author Sherry (educator and author) examines the increasing controversy over the uses and treatment of animals and the views and sympathies of animal rights advocates, professionals who work with animals, and the general public. He explores those points of view by discussing the relationships between humans and animals from scientific, philosophical, legal, and religious perspectives. New features of the second edition include: updated biographical sketches and 20 new entries, a greatly expanded bibliography, a clarification of the differences between animal rights and animal welfare, and relevant key concepts such as anthropomorphism, sentience, sapience, and pain and suffering. (Annotation ©2010 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The apocalypse is everywhere; a popular history of America's favorite nightmare.

This book traces manifestations of the apocalypse of the biblical Book of Revelations in American popular culture. The author first seeks to demonstrate how widespread apocalyptic visions are before turning to an exploration of their roots in the Bible and in other religious traditions and surveying their historical development to the present day. She then turns back to the present, examining occurrences of apocalyptic ideas in movies, books, comics, games, music, art, televangelism, presidential speeches, and elsewhere. (Annotation ©2010 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Beatniks; a guide to an American subculture.

A historian of American culture and art, Bisbort profiles the first counter-culture generation to be branded by modern marketing. He describes the origins of the beat generation during World War II, how the beats turned into beatniks, the emergence of a beatnik voice, and the spread of the phenomenon from Manhattan to the US and the world. Support material includes a timeline, biographical sketches, a glossary, lists of movies and magazines, and lists of precursors and progeny. (Annotation ©2010 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Beginning cataloging.

Useful for people studying to be library technicians, both in classroom settings and on their own, this volume includes practical information on descriptive cataloging, choosing access points, and making the calls on subject headings and classification. It mostly covers cases where the cataloger starts with cataloging-in-publication (CIP) data but also includes information on conversion to appropriate Sears subject headings. Written by Jean Weihs, who has taught cataloging to librarians, library technicians and school librarians for the past fifty years, and Intner (library science, Simmons College), this practical handbook includes a wealth of exercises, a glossary, and a useful index containing references to both text and to figures and examples. (Annotation ©2010 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Building parent engagement in school.

Sacramento, California-based educator Ferlazzo teaches high school-level English language learners; Hammond has been in education for 35 years, working as a teacher from preschool to college, a curriculum coordinator, a researcher, and a teacher educator. Together they have created a concise introduction for educators on engaging parents as active players in the school community — particularly in lower-income and urban schools — by basing parents' involvement in issues that motivate them in authentic ways, and by helping them develop the power to act. After explaining the concept of parent engagement, the authors present four chapters describing successful parent-involved school projects from around the US. Libraries Unlimited is an imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC. (Annotation ©2010 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The business of higher education; 3v.

Universities are now run like businesses, for better or worse, and have been for over a quarter century. The debate remains fierce as to the efficacy and appropriateness of using the business model in education, with real concerns as to its effect on the quality of education. The 35 essays of this 3-volume work present both sides of the argument on a range of issues, with the volumes grouped into three themes: leadership and culture, management and fiscal strategies, and marketing and consumer interests. The chapters address such heated topics as the history and importance of academic freedom and tenure, the move towards consumer-driven administration, the importance to an institution of branding, the history of state tax support, the use of universities for corporate research and development, and developing an environment of entrepreneurship in the university. Likely to raise the blood pressure on many readers, this is a thoughtful collection on a timely topic that will be of interest to policy makers and administrators. (Annotation ©2010 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Carlos Santana; a biography.

This biography of guitarist Carlos Santana is appropriate for high school students and above. The nine chapters describe the artist's early initiation into music through his family in Mexico, his now legendary Woodstock appearance and subsequent work with Columbia Records, his connection to Indian guru Sri Chinmoy, two marriages, his profound response to the deaths of Miles Davis and Stevie Ray Vaughan in the same year, and Santana's four decades (and counting) of musical output and experimentation. (Annotation ©2010 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Celeb 2.0; how social media foster our fascination with popular culture.

Social media come in a variety of forms. Some, like MySpace, support shared video viewing. Others, like blogs, provide a forum for shared written thoughts. Breaking with the traditional approach of media companies presenting and controlling the content of information, the world of Web 2.0 makes the consumer an active participant in how information is disseminated. In the new world, we all have the ability to be our own media outlets. These new online realities have totally redefined how companies in the entertainment business reach their fans, which is increasingly through means they can no longer control. Burns provides an interesting analysis of this new media environment and what it portends for our future. (Annotation ©2010 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Charleston Conference proceedings 2008.

The year 2008 was the 28th anniversary of the Charleston Conference, an event for information exchange among librarians, library vendors, and publishers. Papers from the conference are presented here, in sections on budgets, collaboration, content development, formats, management, thinking out of the box, and technical issues. Some specific subjects examined are knowledge management in acquisitions, bibliographic control and the Library of Congress, microfilm as a primary and secondary source, and the role of the library in a fully Googlized world. Other subjects are the merging of the university databases, practical issues of access to databases in acquisitions and research, and an open source solution for managing electronic resources. Bernhardt is electronic resources librarian at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. Libraries Unlimited is an imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC. (Annotation ©2010 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

China.

For general readers and high school students, LaFleur (history and anthropology and Asian studies, Beloit College) introduces China's history and culture, from the political and technological dominance of the imperial period to the present day. A group of American specialists in Chinese history, economics, cultural anthropology, political science, languages and literatures, and music cover the country's economy, society, geography, religion, politics and government, social classes, culture, education, literature, arts, etiquette, leisure activities, popular culture, languages, cuisine, industrialization, gender issues, population control efforts, human rights controversies, contemporary issues like pollution and the adoption industry, and key people, places, and events. (Annotation ©2010 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The choice of war; the Iraq War and the just war tradition.

Weeks (politics and foreign policy, Ringling School of Art and Design) critiques the George W. Bush administration's reasons for waging war against Iraq in 2003 within the context of met the concepts of jus ad bellum (justice of war) and jus in bello (justice in war). He analyzes NSS 2002, the national security document that became the blueprint for the Bush Doctrine, and looks at how the Bush Doctrine clashed with long-standing principles of just war. About 20 pages of documents are included. The author is professor emeritus of international affairs at New York University. Praeger Security International is an imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC. (Annotation ©2010 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Chronology of the evolution-creationism controversy.

The modern controversy has roots that go far back in the history of human thought, contend Moore, Mark Decker, and Sehoya Cotner (all biology, U. of Minnesota-Minneapolis), and they begin in 2700 BCE in Egypt to trace some of the ideas and ways of thinking about the degree to which the physical world is self-contained. The chronology extends to 2009 and the discovery of what is now thought to be the oldest human remains. Marginal symbols indicate such categories as legislation and legal cases, argument from design and Intelligent Design, the age of earth, and social Darwinism and eugenics. Greenwood is an imprint of ABC-CLIO. (Annotation ©2010 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The civilian-military divide; obstacles to the integration of intelligence in the United States.

One of the areas of weakness exposed by 9/11 was the lack of coordination among the various intelligence agencies in the US. Some of those agencies are part of the military. Others are part of civilian bureaus. The competitive make-up of these organizations, their entrenched methodologies and hierarchies, the separation of powers within the government, and a certain level of distrust make cooperation in the overall intelligence community difficult to accomplish. Expanding on her doctoral thesis, Stanton offers a detailed examination of all these issues, providing a valuable assessment of this important piece of the war on terrorism. (Annotation ©2010 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Collaborative units that work; TEAMS award winners.

The collaborative lesson plans and units compiled here have been classroom-tested by elementary through secondary media specialists and teachers who are winners of the Gale Library Media Connection TEAMS Award. Projects are presented in a consistent format, with a project overview, timeline, notes on the roles of the teacher and the media specialist, and advice on measuring success, funding the project, materials and resources, and sustaining the project. Projects range from an author's night for elementary grades, through high school units on using graphic novels with ESL students and advanced academic literacies. Numerous examples of surveys, parent letters, rubrics, student self-assessments, and other materials are provided. Editor Vande Brake is a former journalist with experience working in K-12 public education as a communications specialist. (Annotation ©2010 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Combating transnational terrorism; searching for a new paradigm.

Based on a 2008 conference organized by the Pluscarden Programme for the Study of Global Terrorism and Intelligence at Oxford University, this collection assesses alternatives to the Global War on Terror initiated by the Bush administration. The contributors examine how the United Nations has worked together in confronting Al Qaeda, how the use of military force in Afghanistan could be improved, and how development aid could best be delivered. The nine papers also evaluate critically the relevance of both traditional and new media in spreading and countering transnational terrorism. The high quality and thoughtfulness of the writing makes the volume an essential addition to all college libraries. (Annotation ©2010 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Competing voices from Native America; fighting words.

This is a documentary reader that provides a broad array of Native and non-Native primary source perspectives on key issues and events in Native American history. The presentation is chronological and thematic, with fourteen chapters focusing on origins of the world and "discovery;" spirituality and faith (1550-1805); land and the environment (1500s-1810); war and revolution (1675-1800s); the removal era (1800s-1840s); key events in western expansion (1864-1890); the era of assimilation and allotment (1887-1934); the Indian New Deal era (1928-1941); the termination era (1945-1970); Alcatraz (1969), the occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters (1972), and other key events of the Red Power era; the case of Leonard Peltier (accused and convicted, unjustly according to supporters, of killing two FBI agents during a 1975 shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation; contemporary federal Indian law and jurisdiction; Indian gaming; and Indian representation, museums, and the repatriation of Indian bones. (Annotation ©2010 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Competing voices from the Mexican Revolution; fighting words.

Edited by Frazer (history, St. Francis, Xavier U., Canada), this is an annotated documentary reader that provides a survey of the diverse views and debates that surrounded the events of the Mexican Revolution of 1910 through the presentation of excerpts from memoirs, polemical tracts, literary works, diplomatic and political correspondence, and newspaper articles, as well as a few of the most important plans and manifestos, such as those issued by Francisco Madero and Emiliano Zapata. The views of such key individuals as those just mentioned and Porfirio Díaz, Ricardo Flores Magón, and Francisco "Pancho" Villa (for example) are included, as well as more minor figures and representatives of women, peasants, and the working class. Perspectives from the United States, from President Woodrow Wilson to radical journalist John Reed, are also included, but those are the only documents included from a non-Mexican country. A number of the materials are presented in English for the first time. (Annotation ©2010 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Conflicting currents; Japan and the United States in the Pacific.

Nine chapters, presented by Murray (emeritus, The Ohio State U., US) and Ishizu (military history, National Institute of Defense Studies, Japan), explore the grand and military strategic planning of the United States and Japan over the course of the 20th century. The articles collectively place the relationship between the two countries within the context of the formation of their overarching strategic goals in different eras. Praeger Security International is an imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC. (Annotation ©2010 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)