New Titles Tuesday, June 12

Here are the 10 eBooks added to the catalogue in the past week. Click on a title form more information. TWU login may be required

 Building the American highway system [electronic resource]: engineers as policy makers /Bruce E. Seely. Seely investigates the influence that the Bureau of Public Roads established from 1890 through 1956 in a probing account of an instance where science prevailed over democracy, essentially because Americans were confident that the engineers could resolve even the most complex problems.

 Democratizing innovation [electronic resource] /Eric von Hippel. In Democratizing Innovation, the author looks closely at the emerging system of user-centered innovation. He explains why and when users find it profitable to develop new products and services for themselves, and why it often pays users to reveal their innovations freely for the use of all. Von Hippel’s many examples of user innovation in action range from surgical equipment to surfboards to software security features. He shows that product and service development is concentrated among “lead users,” who are ahead on marketplace trends and whose innovations are often commercially attractive.

 The electric city [electronic resource]: energy and the growth of the Chicago area, 1880-1930 /Harold L. Platt. Using Chicago as a test case, Platt investigates the emergence of an urban-based, energy-intensive society over the course of half a century in this first book-length history of energy use in the city.

 Feasts and riot [electronic resource]: revelry, rebellion, and popular consciousness on the Swahili Coast, 1856-1888 /Jonathon Glassman. A botched attempt by German adventurers to conquer Muslim towns on the East African coast in 1888 led to the collapse of civil authority in Swahili Towns. Feasts and Riot explores events leading up to the crisis, examining the nature of class conflict and popular consciousness in precolonial Africa.

 Folklorist of the coal fields [electronic resource]: George Korson’s life and work /Angus K. Gillespie ; foreword by Samuel P. Bayard. A biography starting with Korson’s three years as a reporter on the Wilkes-Barre Record  after his graduation from high school in that city, his two years with the Jewish Legion in Palestine and Egypt during World War I, and his single year at Columbia University. Then come his studies of mining folklore —both in the eastern Pennsylvania and in the South and Midwest. Korson’s intellectual outlook is shown as two-sided: on one hand, an understanding that folklore is best presented in the holistic context of a community’s way of life; on the other, a conviction that reform is more congruent with American social ideals than revolution.

 The inextinguishable blaze [electronic resource]: spiritual renewal and advance in the eighteenth century /A. Skevington Wood. With an enthusiasm informed and controlled by diligent scholarship and up-to-date research, Skevington Wood here tells the gripping story of the eighteenth-century, and shows how the candle of men like Master Ridley and Latimer, that had become the refining fires of Puritan times, had now turned into an inextinguishable blaze that would, in the century to follow, carry the Light of the World to the ends of the earth.

 Lake Erie fisherman [electronic resource]: work, identity, and tradition /Timothy C. Lloyd and Patrick B. Mullen. Lloyd and Mullen began their fieldwork in 1983 and ended it in 1985. They spent a total of twelve weeks on or along the Lake, observing, interviewing and documenting the work of commercial fishermen on fishing boats, at shore seining sites, at local fish wholesale houses and at leisure. They were able to document the techniques and customs of gill-net fishing before it was prohibited by state regulation. They found active verbal, material and customary traditions shared among local fishermen, through which the culture and identity of this group are expressed.

 The making of Bamana sculpture [electronic resource]: creativity and gender /Sarah C. Brett-Smith. The Making of Bamana Sculpture describes both the techniques and the rituals used by Bamana blacksmiths in Mali, West Africa, when they carve sacred sculpture. Chronicling the process of decision-making that results in a commission, it provides a detailed account of the carving process and also analyses the meaning of this process. Sarah Brett-Smith demonstrates that Bamana sculptors compare the process of producing a ritual object both to sexual intercourse and to childbirth. Her study details how Bamana sculptors become ‘great’ artists, how this process requires a shift from a ‘male’ to a ‘female’ gender identity, and why the Bamana believe that the ambitious artist must make tragic sacrifices to win renown.

 The merchant of art [electronic resource]: an Egyptian Hilali oral epic poet in performance /by Susan Slyomovics. Study focuses upon the life and artistry of an illiterate professional Egyptian poet and musician, Awadallah.

Music, ritual, and Falasha history [electronic resource] /Kay Shelemay. Extensive textual and musical transcriptions of prayers recorded during rituals in Beta Israel prayerhouse.