LSU Faculty Published Books

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When Freedom Would Triumph: The Civil Rights Struggle in Congress, 1954-1968

2007
Robert Mann

When Freedom Would Triumph recalls the most significant and inspiring legislative battle of the twentieth century -- the two decades of struggle in the halls of Congress that resulted in civil rights for the descendants of American slaves. Robert Mann's comprehensive analysis shows how political leaders in Washington -- Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, John F. Kennedy, and others -- transformed the ardent passion for freedom -- the protests, marches, and creative nonviolence of the civil rights movement -- into concrete progress for justice. A story of heroism and cowardice, statesmanship and political calculation, vision and blindness, When Freedom Would Triumph, an abridged and updated version of Mann's The Walls of Jericho: Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, Richard Russell, and the Struggle for Civil Rights, is a captivating, thought-provoking reminder of the need for more effective government.
Mann argues that the passage of civil rights laws is one of the finest examples of what good is possible when political leaders transcend partisan political differences and focus not only on the immediate judgment of the voters, but also on the ultimate judgment of history. As Mann explains, despite the opposition of a powerful, determined band of southern politicians led by Georgia senator Richard Russell, the political environment of the 1950s and 1960s enabled a remarkable amount of compromise and progress in Congress. When Freedom Would Triumph recalls a time when statesmanship was possible and progress was achieved in ways that united the country and appealed to our highest principles, not our basest instincts. Although the era was far from perfect, and its leaders were deeply flawed in many ways, Mann shows that the mid-twentieth century was an age of bipartisan cooperation and willingness to set aside party differences in the pursuit of significant social reform. Such a political stance, Mann argues, is worthy of study and emulation today.
From Shane to Kill Bill: Rethinking the Western

2007
Patrick McGee

From Shane to Kill Bill: Rethinking the Western is an original and compelling critical history of the American Western film.

Provides an insightful overview of the American Western genre Covers the entire history of the Western, from 1939 to the present Analyses Westerns as products of a genre, as well as expressions of political and social desires Deepens an audience's understanding of the genre's most important works, including Shane, Stagecoach , The Searchers, Unforgiven , and Kill Bill Contains numerous illustrations of the films and issues discussed.
Inside the Church of Flannery O'Connor: Sacrament, Sacramental, and the Sacred in her Fiction

2007
Joanne Halleran McMullen

Inside the Church of Flannery O?Connor offers significant new essays by leading scholars?William A. Sessions, John F. Desmond, Jill Pelaez Baumgaertner, Ralph C. Wood, and John R. May'who have advanced the codification of O?Connor as a writer preoccupied with religious, and especially Catholic, themes.In counterbalance, the collection presents voices of sharp dissent? chiefly Joanne Halleran McMullen and Timothy P. Caron. These scholars find themselves at odds with O?Connor's own interpretations and with much of the existing scholarship concerning her work. Contributors Helen R. Andretta, Stephen C. Behrendt, and Robert Donahoo explore theological, philosophical, and scholarly issues completely outside this dichotomy, such as comparative literature and the influence of consumer culture on her writing. The promise of such a diverse collection rests in the dialogues between and among their essays. One will not find consensus within these pages, nor even a settled path for the future of O?Connor studies. Rather, the collection puts on record the state of affairs during this period of transition, when those scholars who knew O?Connor personally are declining in number and canonical authority, and those who know her as a field of study as opposed to a flesh-and-blood human being are in ascension. Both groups have much to learn from each other.
Clarence John Laughlin: Prophet Without Honor

2007
A. J. Meek

Clarence John Laughlin (1905- 1985) of New Orleans is arguably the father of photographic surrealism in America. He was best known for his photographs of old plantation homes and his book, Ghosts along the Mississippi, but his life's work was varied and broad. Laughlin was a mainstream photographer who was published in many national magazines. His contemporaries and associates included photographers Minor White, Wynn Bullock, and Edward Weston, as well as legendary editor Maxwell Perkins. Laughlin was, however, often marginalized and ignored due to misunderstandings of his work and his often volatile personality. Equally annoying to many was his devotion to capturing images that depicted, with a zealous and sometimes disturbing sense of self-righteousness, the evil and poverty that he saw in the world. A. J. Meek looks into the controversial life of one of the greatest photographers in American history. Through interviews with Laughlin's colleagues, friends, and family, the author details the tumultuous connection between the struggles of the artist's life, including strained professional relationships and failed marriages, and the work that brought him fame. A. J. Meek is professor emeritus of art at Louisiana State University. His previous books include Gettysburg to Vicksburg: The Five Original Civil War Battlefield Parks, Gardens of Louisiana: Places of Work and Wonder, Exploring Black and White Photography, and Red Pepper Paradise: Avery Island, Louisiana. John H. Lawrence is director of museum programs at The Historic New Orleans Collection.
A Companion to William Faulkner

2007
Richard C. Moreland

This comprehensive Companion to William Faulkner reflects the current dynamic state of Faulkner studies.

Explores the contexts, criticism, genres and interpretations of Nobel Prize-winning writer William Faulkner, arguably the greatest American novelist Comprises newly-commissioned essays written by an international contributor team of leading scholars Guides readers through the plethora of critical approaches to Faulkner over the past few decades Draws upon current Faulkner scholarship, as well as critically reflecting on previous interpretations
Celebrations and Connections in Hispanic Literature

2007
Andrea E. Morris and Margaret Parker

The volume Celebrations and Connections in Hispanic Literature is itself a celebration of a tradition of scholarly dialogue in a relaxed, festive atmosphere. The articles included here began as papers presented at the 25th Anniversary Edition of the Biennial Louisiana Conference on Hispanic Languages and Literatures, held in Baton Rouge Louisiana, February 23-24, 2006. Each of the authors responds in innovative ways to the idea of connecting texts, contexts, and genres, as well as to the disconnect that is often present between what we perceive as Hispanic identity and the experience of those left on the margin. Topics include Celebrating and Rewriting Difference: (De)colonized Identities, Word and Image in the Spanish Golden Age, and Latin American Literature and Politics, among others. The collection is demonstrative of current trends in Hispanic literary and cultural criticism, which are increasingly less bound by traditional regional and temporal constructs. While each author's research is rooted in a specific socio-historic context, their combined contributions to the present volume provide a far-reaching perspective that expands the notion of text to go beyond the literary and engage a multitude of disciplines. ait emphasizes the often illuminating connections among literary and cultural texts which can be drawn when one conceives of Hispanism and its literary and cultural fields as shaped by trends and issues, rather than divided by periods and regions (...) What strikes me most is the newness of each piece. While each is very well informed, none rehearses old historical or theoretical ground more than is absolutely necessary, but rather presents either a new or overlooked text or offers a new approach. Leslie Bary, University of Louisiana, Lafayette An impressive array of well-established and younger scholars has produced a volume whose scope is the entire Hispanic world extending from the Golden Age to the contemporary era. (...) This volume will be of interest to all scholars and critics of Hispanic literature as well as to historians and political scientists. Many of the essays challenge traditional assumptions about the colonization of the Hispanic world as well as the motivations for the revolutions for independence whose influence is still strongly alive in contemporary treatments of fundamental questions of national identity, race, class, and gender. C. Chris Soufas, Jr., Tulane University.
Murmur: Approximation Démontable

2007
Laura Mullen

Poetry. Cross-Genre."Wildly absorbing, MURMUR is a gorgeous genre-bender: detective novel, film noir and memoir (and autopsy of all three), tricked out with bloody mirrors, blue murder, mutable coffins, loopy interrogations and a dead bombshell's shoes. This is one fabulous book!"--Rikki Ducornet

"Laura Mullen floods the confines of the 'detective novel' with all possible events, all murderers and all murdered so that, at any point in the narrative, everything has happened and everyone has done it. MURMUR is a further-fiction of displacement and testimony that calls us to the task of deciding not only whether we would or would not do a thing but also whether we even know the difference between the two. A gripping exploration into the brutality of our time that you will not soon forget."--Renee Gladman

"MURMUR collects an astonishing array of sorties into language as a terra incognita occasioning the uncanny and always troubled confluence of the subject, the bodies it inhabits and the linguistic remainder. Mullen animates narrative at the level of its basic semantic pulse. You'll meet a talking corpse, a severed head, a heart drawn on an open palm and the gradual destruction of a face. Mullen is as much an expert in the comic and grotesque, as in the restless and anonymous. With a majestically controlled impatience she constructs a textual space both unnerving and familiar. These are splendid texts of the nameless ones (a 'messenger,' the 'caller,' the 'reader') who interrupt and witness the murmur of the linked deictic shadows of a recurring 'she' and 'he.' Never since Beckett has the unnamed been so chilling precisely because it is unnameable."--Steve McCaffery

"Laura Mullen's MURMUR finds the crime in the moments between actions, in language overheard, doubling back, in a style both unnerving and comforting; always midsentence we feel death never dying, 'real despite or because of the staging,' and in the background, Duras, Hitchcock--the passions of mundane horrors always ready for our pleasure, discovery. MURMUR stays the mind like an unforgettable dream."--Thalia Field
Troubled Waters: Steamboat Disasters, River Improvements, and American Public Policy, 1821-1860

2007
Paul F. Paskoff

In Troubled Waters, Paul F. Paskoff offers a comprehensive examination of the federal government's river improvements program, which aimed to reduce hazards to navigation on the great rivers of America's interior during the early and mid-nineteenth century. Danger on the rivers came in a variety of forms. Shoals, rapids, ice, rocks, sandbars, and uprooted trees and submerged steamboat wrecks lodged in river beds were the most common perils and accounted for the largest number of steamboat disasters. This daunting array of river hazards required a similarly broad range of efforts to remove or at least ameliorate them. Against a variety of obstacles -- natural, political, and technological -- the river improvements program succeeded in reducing the rate of steamboat loss, even as steamboat traffic dramatically increased. Its success, Paskoff argues, demonstrates that the federal government was far more active than generally thought in promoting economic growth and development in the years leading up to the Civil War.The river improvements program was one of the most volatile issues in national, sectional, and state politics, touching on questions of economic development, constitutional law, partisan politics, and sectional rivalry. Paskoff examines the controversial program from its beginnings during the early republic to 1844, giving careful attention to the policies of Andrew Jackson's administration. He explores the array of objections to the program -- some grounded in a strict interpretation of the Constitution and others in a concern over alleged federal wantonness, corruption, and waste -- and follows the political story through the administration of James K. Polk forward to secession. Paskoff also explains the fiscal, economic, and technological aspects of the hazard problem and its solution, analyzing the federal government's fiscal condition, its capacity to undertake such an ambitious program, and the influence of conditions in the larger economy, including effects of the Mexican War, upon the federal government's finances.Paskoff's lively analysis rests on a bedrock of impressive quantitative evidence, including databases containing every documented steamboat wreck -- more than 1,200 -- on American rivers, lakes, and coastal waters; construction and engine data for more than 600 steamboat packets; and all relevant federal appropriations and expenditures measures, more than 2,300 spending projects in all. Vigorously researched and vividly told, Troubled Waters is an essential contribution to the history of internal improvements in the antebellum United States.
Troubled Waters: Steamboat Disasters, River Improvements, and American Public Policy, 1821-1860

2007
Paul F. Paskoff

In Troubled Waters, Paul F. Paskoff offers a comprehensive examination of the federal government's river improvements program, which aimed to reduce hazards to navigation on the great rivers of America's interior during the early and mid-nineteenth century. Danger on the rivers came in a variety of forms. Shoals, rapids, ice, rocks, sandbars, and uprooted trees and submerged steamboat wrecks lodged in river beds were the most common perils and accounted for the largest number of steamboat disasters. This daunting array of river hazards required a similarly broad range of efforts to remove or at least ameliorate them. Against a variety of obstacles -- natural, political, and technological -- the river improvements program succeeded in reducing the rate of steamboat loss, even as steamboat traffic dramatically increased. Its success, Paskoff argues, demonstrates that the federal government was far more active than generally thought in promoting economic growth and development in the years leading up to the Civil War.The river improvements program was one of the most volatile issues in national, sectional, and state politics, touching on questions of economic development, constitutional law, partisan politics, and sectional rivalry. Paskoff examines the controversial program from its beginnings during the early republic to 1844, giving careful attention to the policies of Andrew Jackson's administration. He explores the array of objections to the program -- some grounded in a strict interpretation of the Constitution and others in a concern over alleged federal wantonness, corruption, and waste -- and follows the political story through the administration of James K. Polk forward to secession. Paskoff also explains the fiscal, economic, and technological aspects of the hazard problem and its solution, analyzing the federal government's fiscal condition, its capacity to undertake such an ambitious program, and the influence of conditions in the larger economy, including effects of the Mexican War, upon the federal government's finances.Paskoff's lively analysis rests on a bedrock of impressive quantitative evidence, including databases containing every documented steamboat wreck -- more than 1,200 -- on American rivers, lakes, and coastal waters; construction and engine data for more than 600 steamboat packets; and all relevant federal appropriations and expenditures measures, more than 2,300 spending projects in all. Vigorously researched and vividly told, Troubled Waters is an essential contribution to the history of internal improvements in the antebellum United States.
Materials Selection and Applications in Mechanical Engineering

2007
Aravamudhan Raman

Unlike any other text of its kind, Materials Selection and Applications in Mechanical Engineering contains complete and in-depth coverage on materials of use, their principles, processing and handling details; along with illustrative examples and sample projects. It clearly depicts the needed topics and gives adequate coverage with ample examples so that ME students can appreciate the relevance of materials to their discipline.

Featuring the basic principles of materials selection for application in various engineering outcomes, the contents of this text follow those of the common first-level introductory course in materials science and engineering. Directed toward mechanical engineering, it introduces the materials commonly used in this branch, along with an exhaustive description of their properties that decide their functional characteristics and selection for use, typical problems encountered during application due to improper processing or handling of materials, non-destructive test procedures used in maintenance to detect and correct problems, and much more. What's more, numerous examples and project-type analyses to select proper materials for application are provided. With the use of this unique text, teaching a relevant second-level course in materials to ME majors has never been easier! Covers all aspects of engineering materials necessary for their successful utilization in mechanical components and systems. Defines a procedure to evaluate the materials' performance efficiency in engineering applications and illustrates it with a number of examples. Includes sample project activities, along with a number of assignments for self exercise. Keeps chapters short and targeted toward specific topics for easy assimilation. Contains several unique chapters, including microprocessing, MEMS, problems encountered during use of materials in mechanical components, and NDT procedures used to detect common defects such as cracks, porosity and gas pockets, internal residual stresses, etc. Features commonly used formulae in mechanical system components in an appendix. Several tables containing material properties are included throughout the book.
Consciousness and Truth in Don Quijote and Connected Essays

2007
Joseph V. Ricapito
Anne McCaffrey: A Life With Dragons

2007
Robin Roberts

Anne McCaffrey: A Life with Dragons is the biography of a writer who vividly depicted alien creatures and new worlds. As the author of the Dragonriders of Pern series, McCaffrey (b. 1926) is one of the most significant writers of science fiction and fantasy. She is the first woman to win the Hugo and Nebula awards, and her 1978 novel The White Dragon was the first science-fiction novel to appear on the New York Times hardcover bestseller list. This biography reveals a fascinating and complex figure, one who creates and re-creates her fiction by drawing on life experiences. At various stages, McCaffrey has been a beautiful young girl who refused to fit into traditional gender roles in high school, a restless young mother who wanted to write, an American expatriate who became an Irish citizen, an animal lover who dreamed of fantasy worlds with perfect relationships between humans and beasts, and a wife trapped in an unhappy marriage just as the women's movement took hold.

Author Robin Roberts conducted interviews with McCaffrey, her children, friends, and colleagues, and used archival correspondence and contemporary reviews and criticism. The biography examines how McCaffrey's early interests in theater, Slavonic languages and literature, and British history, mythology, and culture all shaped her science fiction. The book is a nuanced portrait of a writer whose appeal extends well beyond readers of her chosen genre.
Group Rationality in Scientific Research

2007
Husain Sarkar

Under what conditions is a group of scientists rational? How would rational scientists collectively agree to make their group more effective? What sorts of negotiations would occur among them and under what conditions? What effect would their final agreement have on science and society? These questions have been central to the philosophy of science for the last two decades. In this 2007 book, Husain Sarkar proposes answers to them by building on classical solutions - the skeptical view, two versions of the subjectivist view, the objectivist view, and the view of Hilary Putnam. Although he finds these solutions not completely adequate, Sarkar retrieves what is of value from them and also expropriates the arguments of John Rawls and Amartya Sen, in order to weave a richer, deeper, and more developed theory of group rationality.
Structures of Scientific Collaboration

2007
Wesley Shrum

How technology and bureaucracy shape collaborative scientific research projects: an empirical study of multiorganizational collaboration in the physical sciences.

Collaboration among organizations is rapidly becoming common in scientific research as globalization and new communication technologies make it possible for researchers from different locations and institutions to work together on common projects. These scientific and technological collaborations are part of a general trend toward more fluid, flexible, and temporary organizational arrangements, but they have received very limited scholarly attention. Structures of Scientific Collaboration is the first study to examine multi-organizational collaboration systematically, drawing on a database of 53 collaborations documented for the Center for History of Physics of the American Institute of Physics. By integrating quantitative sociological analyses with detailed case histories, Shrum, Genuth, and Chompalov pioneer a new and truly interdisciplinary method for the study of science and technology. Scientists undertake multi-organizational collaborations because individual institutions often lack sufficient resources--including the latest technology--to achieve a given research objective. The authors find that collaborative research depends on both technology and bureaucracy; scientists claim to abhor bureaucracy, but most collaborations use it constructively to achieve their goals. The book analyzes the structural elements of collaboration (among them formation, size and duration, organization, technological practices, and participant experiences) and the relationships among them. The authors find that trust, though viewed as positive, is not necessarily associated with successful projects; indeed, the formal structures of bureaucracy reduce the need for high levels of trust--and make possible the independence so valued by participating scientists.
Napoleon's Sorcerers: The Sophisians

2007
Darius Alexander Spieth

During Napoleon's rule, Freemasonic circles in France invented rituals that allegedly first took place in the temple structures of ancient Egypt. This book looks at the cultural environment and intellectual background of one such pseudo-Egyptian secret society, the Sacred Order of the Sophisians.
Recent Advances in Data Mining of Enterprise Data: Algorithms and Applications

2007
Evangelos Triantaphyllou

This self-contained book provides three fundamental and generic approaches (logical, probabilistic, and modal) to representing and reasoning with agent epistemic states, specifically in the context of decision making. Each of these approaches can be applied to the construction of intelligent software agents for making decisions, thereby creating computational foundations for decision-making agents. In addition, the book introduces a formal integration of the three approaches into a single unified approach that combines the advantages of all the approaches. Finally, the symbolic argumentation approach to decision making developed in this book, combining logic and probability, offers several advantages over the traditional approach to decision making which is based on simple rule-based expert systems or expected utility theory.
Cajun Women and Mardi Gras: Reading the Rules Backward

2007
Carolyn Ware

Cajun Women and Mardi Gras is the first book to explore the importance of women's contributions to the country Cajun Mardi Gras tradition, or Mardi Gras "run." Most Mardi Gras runs--masked begging processions through the countryside, led by unmasked capitaines--have customarily excluded women. Male organizers explain that this rule protects not only the tradition's integrity but also women themselves from the event's rowdy, often drunken, play.

Throughout the last century, and especially in the last fifty years, women in some prairie communities have insisted on taking more active and public roles in the festivities. Carolyn E. Ware traces the history of women's participation as it has expanded from supportive roles as cooks and costume makers to increasingly public performances as Mardi Gras clowns and (in at least one community) capitaines. Drawing on more than a decade of fieldwork interviews and observation in Mardi Gras communities, Ware focuses on the festive actions in Tee Mamou and Basile to reveal how women are reshaping the celebration as creative artists and innovative performers.
Performing the Victorian: John Ruskin and Identity in Theater, Science, and Education

2007
Sharon Aronofsky Weltman

Performing the Victorian: John Ruskin and Identity in Theater, Science, and Education by Sharon Aronofsky Weltman is the first book to examine Ruskin's writing on theater. In works as celebrated as Modern Painters and obscure as Love's Meinie , Ruskin uses his voracious attendance at the theater to illustrate points about social justice, aesthetic practice, and epistemology. Opera, Shakespeare, pantomime, French comedies, juggling acts, and dance prompt his fascination with performed identities that cross boundaries of gender, race, nation, and species. These theatrical examples also reveal the primacy of performance to his understanding of science and education. In addition to Ruskin on theater, Performing the Victorian interprets recent theater portraying Ruskin ( The Invention of Love, The Countess , the opera Modern Painters ) as merely a Victorian prude or pedophile against which contemporary culture defines itself. These theatrical depictions may be compared to concurrent plays about Ruskin's friend and student Oscar Wilde ( Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde , The Judas Kiss ). Like Ruskin, Wilde is misrepresented on the fin-de-millennial stage, in his case anachronistically as an icon of homosexual identity. These recent characterizations offer a set of static identity labels that constrain contemporary audiences more rigidly than the mercurial selves conjured in the prose of either Ruskin or Wilde.
Hunk City: A Novel

2007
James Wilcox

A writer who Anne Tyler says has real comic genius returns with a brilliant new novel of the culture wars in the Deep South James Wilcoxs novels, with their trademark blend of humor and compassion, have been lauded by critics and readers alike. In Hunk City, Wilcox takes us to southeast Louisiana, where Burma van Buren, thanks to a recent inheritance, is the wealthiest woman in St. Jude Parish. Still working at a bargain store, Burma is having trouble finding the right charity with which to share her fortune. As she tries to keep hope alive and convert the citizens of Tula Springs to a radical faith-based egalitarian democracy, Burma becomes entangled with a certain Dr. Schine, her landscape designer, though she hasnt resolved her life-long passion for Mr. Pickens, who up and married a severe evangelical from a neighboring town. Meanwhile, Mr. Harper, Burmas staunch Republican accountant with eyelashes to die for, works to keep her money out of the hands of the local Democrats. Will Burma find happiness with either Dr. Schine or Mr. Pickens? Will Burma ever find a suitable place for her millions? In Hunk City, James Wilcox brings his unique humorous touch to a topic that sorely needs it.
What Gets Into Us: Stories

2006
Moira Crone

In What Gets Into Us, the new collection of short stories by Moira Crone, a curious child discovers that some believe ""the gods who made this world didn't make it right, and they are terribly sorry about it."" A nine-year-old girl is the only one who realizes that her mother's mental illness has put the family's survival at stake. A shy African American woman confronts evil directly in a terrifying act of love. A teenage orphan replaces a wayward son in a privileged but unhappy family. A young carpenter decides that if his baby is going to be born right, he will have to commit a crime and build the world anew. Fayton, North Carolina, is a rural town in which everyone knows everyone else's business. Crone explores this fictional landscape and its inhabitants from many angles. The stories follow the lives of men and women who grew up together in Fayton. Full of memorable characters from several generations, this story cycle evolves into a chronicle of a region and its characters. Through it, Crone meditates on the mix of history and spirit that shapes souls and creates community. From the perspectives of its various protagonists-white and black, male and female, young and old-we watch as Fayton comes to deal with the charged issues of race, feminism, southern traditions, and the unforeseen changes wrought by economics and technology. What Gets Into Us is a powerful story cycle that resonates as deeply as a classic novel. Moira Crone is the author of the novel Period of Confinement and two collections of short stories. Four of her stories have appeared in New Stories from the South: The Year's Best. This collection includes her novella, ""The Ice Garden,"" which won the 2004 William Faulkner/Wisdom Prize.
Geographic Information Systems and Public Health: Eliminating Perinatal Disparity

2006
Andrew Curtis

Geographic Information Systems and Public Health: Eliminating Perinatal Disparity is designed to introduce a community health group to the potential of using a geographic information system (GIS) to improve birth outcomes. Chapters in this book provide an overview of why geography is important in the investigation of health, the importance of the four main components of a GIS (data input, manipulation, analysis and visualization), how important neighborhood context is when using a GIS, and the general differences found between urban and rural health environments. In addition, the reader is introduced to the importance of GIS and confidentially, how a mobile urban population may impact GIS findings, and why pregnant mothers should catered for when making disaster response plans. Examples are drawn heavily from the Baton Rouge Healthy Start program, with one chapter providing an overview guide as to how GIS can be incorporated in the initial grant writing stage for such a program.
Ethics in Media Communication: Cases and Controversies

2006
Louis A. Day

Have you ever wondered exactly what ethical standards exist in the media? ETHICS IN MEDIA COMMUNICATIONS: CASES AND CONTROVERSIES explains it all and shows you that there's a lot more to the story behind the scenes. Whether the issue is censorship, privacy, or accuracy, the media is governed by ethical norms that you need to know. And because it's packed with case studies and review tools, this media ethics textbook is the one that will help out on the test as well.
Reference, Assessment, and Evaluation

2006
Tom Diamond

Learn effective ways to assess and evaluate reference services in YOUR library

Innovation and the constant evolution of technology continually spur academic librarians to find superior ways to deliver high quality reference service to students, faculty, and researchers. Reference Assessment and Evaluation offers librarians and administrators a plethora of fresh ideas and methods to effectively assess and evaluate reference service in any academic library. Leading experts share their own best practices in delivering digital reference, training staff and student workers, and providing instruction through case studies from academic libraries of all sizes.

Because of fiscal pressures, the need to attract the best and brightest students and faculty to the academy, and increased competition from Internet search engines, the evaluation and assessment of reference service remains one of the most important challenges for academic libraries. Reference Assessment and Evaluation provides practical tips and clear examples on assessing and evaluating several diverse aspects of reference services. This book discusses in detail case studies from various colleges and universities on wide-ranging issues such as virtual reference evaluation, merging reference desks, peer evaluations, library instruction, and staff development. Academic libraries of all types will find opportunities to modify these innovative ideas to remain at the forefront of reference service.

Topics in Reference Assessment and Evaluation include:
a case study of the library at the University of Colorado at Boulder's efforts to implement a drop-in research consultation program for students enrolled in the introductory writing course
coordination of an annual professional development program for specialized instruction targeted at faculty and staff members at Colorado State University
peer observation between the reference staff members of Augustana College Library and St. Ambrose University Library
the merging of San Jose State University's government publication desk with the reference services desk--along with the public library's reference desk
Valparaiso University's main library's training and use of student assistants
analyzing user and librarian satisfaction within virtual reference transactions
evaluation of the University of South Alabama's Baugh Biomedical Library's chat reference service
evaluation of the University of Texas at Arlington's virtual reference service
library technology's impact on reference desk statistics
statistical analysis of reference desk data for staffing needs at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Gerstäcker's Louisiana: Fiction and Travel Sketches from Antebellum Time Through Reconstruction

2006
Irene S. Di Maio

A global traveler and adventurer, the German author Friedrich Gerstäcker (1816--1872) first arrived in Louisiana in March 1838, paddling the waterways leading from the wilds of the northwestern part of the state near Shreveport south to cosmopolitan New Orleans. He returned to the state in 1842, living for a year in the areas of Bayou Sara, St. Francisville, and Pointe Coupée -- then considered the most beautiful garden and plantation land along the Mississippi River. In 1867 he briefly visited Louisiana again, observing the devastation wrought by the Civil War and the turmoil of Reconstruction. No mere armchair tourist, Gerstäcker fully engaged himself in exploring Louisiana -- its landscapes, peoples, and Peculiar Institution. He was in the unique position of being both an insider and an outsider, and his sojourns in the state served as the basis for travel books, short stories, and novels. Gerstäcker was a remarkable raconteur and a highly popular author. During his lifetime and beyond, his writings conveyed the tenor of southern life to a German-speaking audience. Now, compiled and translated into English by Irene S. Di Maio, they offer a window on nineteenth-century Louisiana across several decades of growth and upheaval.Gerstäcker's aim as a writer was to inform and entertain, especially through humor, drama, and suspense. His works -- including his fiction -- sustain an almost ethnographic level of detail. The stories, travel sketches, and novel excerpts included here comment on slavery and its aftermath, ethnic and racial diversity, transcultural relations, and immigration and multilingualism. Gerstäcker's impressions of Louisiana remain relevant and deeply engaging.
Stable Isotope Ecology

2006
Brian Fry

A solid introduction to stable isotopes that can also be used as an instructive review for more experienced researchers and professionals. The book approaches the use of isotopes from the perspective of ecological and biological research, but its concepts can be applied within other disciplines. A novel, step-by-step spreadsheet modeling approach is also presented for circulating tracers in any ecological system, including any favorite system an ecologist might dream up while sitting at a computer. The author's humorous and lighthearted style painlessly imparts the principles of isotope ecology. The online material contains color illustrations, spreadsheet models, technical appendices, and problems and answers.