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Showing posts from November, 2011

Book of the Week (November 28, 2011

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Retirement Heist: How companies plunder and profit from the nest eggs of American workers By Ellen E. Schultz Call Number:  HD 7125 .S38 2011 New York Times Review Publisher's Description:   "'As far as I can determine there is only one solution [to the CEO's demand to save more money]', the HR representative wrote to her superiors. 'That would be the death of all existing retirees.'" It's no secret that hundreds of companies have been slashing pensions and health coverage earned by millions of retirees. Employers blame an aging workforce, stock market losses, and spiraling costs- what they call "a perfect storm" of external forces that has forced them to take drastic measures.  But this so-called retirement crisis is no accident. Ellen E. Schultz, award-winning investigative reporter for the Wall Street Journal , reveals how large companies and the retirement industry-benefits consultants, insurance companie

University Library Website Survey

As you may know, the University Library is surveying our users about our website. This is your chance to let us know what you like, what you don't like, and what you'd like to change about our site! University Library Website Survey: http://bit.ly/uwsp-library Further Details: Participation in our survey is anonymous. You also have the option to volunteer for a second survey, and to enter a prize drawing. These options are obviously not anonymous, and are not in any way connected to your survey data. You can read more about this on the first page of the survey. Prizes you can win include: one Amazon Kindle Fire e-reader/tablet, one 30-minute massage from Much Needed Masses, and four $5 gift certificates to Emy J's. Some folks have asked about how the winners of the drawing will be chosen. The entries will be exported into a spreadsheet in random order. A random number generator will be used to choose winners according to their row in the spreadsheet. According to our

Book of the Week (November 14, 2011)

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Balzac's Omelette:  a delicious tour of French food and culture with Honoré de Balzac By Anka Muhlstein Call Number:  PQ 2178 .M8413 2011 Publisher's Description: "Tell me where you eat, what you eat, and at what time you eat, and I will tell you who you are." This is the motto of Anka Muhlstein’s erudite and witty book about the ways food and the art of the table feature in HonorĂ© de Balzac’s The Human Comedy . Balzac uses them as a connecting thread in his novels, showing how food can evoke character, atmosphere, class, and social climbing more suggestively than money, appearances, and other more conventional trappings. Full of surprises and insights, Balzac’s Omelette invites you to taste anew Balzac’s genius as a writer and his deep understanding of the human condition, its ambitions, its flaws, and its cravings. Review of Balzac's Omelette and two other books on food history in the Washington Post .

Book of the Week (November 7, 2011)

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The Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President By Candice Millard Call Number:  E 687.9 .M55 2011   Review from the New York Times Publisher's Description : James A. Garfield was one of the most extraordinary men ever elected president. Born into abject poverty, he rose to become a wunderkind scholar, a Civil War hero, and a renowned and admired reformist congressman. Nominated for president against his will, he engaged in a fierce battle with the corrupt political establishment. But four months after his inauguration, a deranged office seeker tracked Garfield down and shot him in the back. But the shot didn’t kill Garfield. The drama of what hap­pened subsequently is a powerful story of a nation in tur­moil. The unhinged assassin’s half-delivered strike shattered the fragile national mood of a country so recently fractured by civil war, and left the wounded president as the object of a bitter behind-the-scenes struggle for power—ov