Originally published in 2002, The Encycloepdia of Mathematics, is considered a primary tool for this field. Recently, a free, wiki-based online version has been released by its publisher containing all the original articles which can be updated along with new submissions, all under the editorial auspices of the European Mathematical Society. More than 8,000 can be accessed in all the sub-fields of mathematics.
Archive for Books
Welcome to Amazon Publishing
Not content to be a retailer, Amazon recently announced that it will publish around 40 titles a year beginning this fall. This article – Larry Kirshbaum shares many more details on how Amazon Publishing will work – provides an excellent overview of this new venture. For those unfamiliar with Mr Kirshbaum, he is the former head of the Time Warner Book Group and one of the industry’s giants. C-SPAN has video interviews and discussions with him. More information on this development is found at: Business Week, Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times.
50,000+ Books on Theology and Religion
The Theological Commons, residing at the Princeton Theological Seminary, features tens of thousands of books freely available in digital format. The vast majority of these titles date from the 1801 to the present; almost 40,000 are in English. Searching can be done by author, title, date, language, and full text; if you go to the Internet Archive version of this collection, you can search by subject. When we were earnest gaduate students, our doctoral work (alas, never completed) centered on the Waldensian faith, a pre-Reformation dissident group whose descendants still practice both here and in Europe. (For those interested, here are some brief treatments from encyclopedia.com as well as a short monograph written in 1880 but still referenced – Waldo and the Waldensians before the Reformation by Emilio Comba or its longer companion from 1889 – The History of the Waldenses of Italy) Using the Theological Commons and searching under “Waldensians,” and its variants ”Waldenses” and “Vaudois,” we were able to call up works that 35 years ago were very difficult to find, let alone read. A great place to research the history of religions using contemporary sources. (For those further intrigued by the Waldensians, please peruse these volumes of the Bollettino della societa di studi valdesi. Again, if we only had had access to these digital versions back in the day!)
History of the Crusades
This six-volume work, taking over 20 years to publish, covers the gamut of this years long conflict. The articles are written by experts and provide in-depth information from architecture to the Albigensian Crusade. Browsing by volume is available as is a full text search; each volume is also accompanied by a gazetteer. Volume six concludes with a very lengthy bibliography on the Crusades. A comprehensive and invaluable work on this subject. (We have it in paper at home.) Excerpted translations of primary sources are here at the Medieval Sourcebook. Some other translations include: Crusades, A Documentary History; The First Crusade; The Accounts of Eye-Witnessess and Other Participants; Crusade of Richard I, 1189-92. Extracts….; Memoirs of the crusades, by Villehardouin & De Joinville; The Fourth Crusade (selected translations); Letters of the Crusaders; and The ecclesiastical history of England and Normandy. The History Channel had a two-part presentation on the Crusades; here they are: Part 1 and Part 2. A brief overview of the Crusades is at infoplease. Maps, timelines, online lectures and course material are available from Professor Knox of Boise State (well done, sir!).
Historic Medical Texts
The Medical Heritage Library is a collaborative project involving major medical libraries with the goal of digitizing rare medical texts. As of this writing, almost 30,000 items from the 17th to 20th centuries are available for perusal. Searching is by author, title, or subject. Examples include a 1567 Latin version of Raymund Lull’s treatise on alchemy and handbooks of popular medicine. There are many entries on nursing as well.
Isaac Newton’s Papers Online
Isaac Newton, one of the world’s greatest mathematicians, left behind thousands of pages when he died. Numerous dead-tree collections have been published of his papers but the Cambridge Digital Library states: “ The Library holds the most important and substantial collection of Newton’s scientific and mathematical manuscripts and over the next few months we intend to make most of our Newton papers available on this site.” Those works that are now available have been transcribed for easier reading. Another ongoing electronic project can be found at The Newton Project where almost 5 million transcribed words of Newton’s writings are available online. This site also includes a listing of the books in Newton’s library that were used in his own research/writings; these are not digitized, but a quick look through some repositories such as HathiTrust or Internet Archive will pull some of them up.
Digital Dictionaries of South Asia
Spearheaded by the University of Chicago, the twenty-eight modern literary languages of South Asia are being represented online in this freely accessible site: Digital Dictionaries of South Asia. Ranging from Assamese to Urdu, the dictionaries, primarily from the previous two centuries, were chosen by language experts and digitized. As of this writing, eighteen languages have digital dictionaries. Needless to say, this is an ongoing project as more works are expected to be added. In addition, primers and readers in some of these languages are also online.
2011 Best Books
Here they come! (This list will be expanded as new sites appear.) Amazon (spread over 20 categories); Publishers Weekly (multiple categories); Young Adult Library Services Association (including picks for reluctant readers); 100 Notable Books of 2011 (The New York Times); Best Books of 2011 (Kirkus Reviews); 2011 USA Best Books; Top 25 Academic Titles for 2011 (Choice);
The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, 3d ed, Is Online
Fanboys and fangirls alike! Rejoice! The beta edition of the Encyclopedia of Science Fictions has been released! (In the spirit of transparency, we must reveal that we were a charter member and executive officer of the NYU Speculative Fiction Society and co-editor of its ‘zine – Aurora. And still read the stuff to this day.) To be completed at the end of 2012 with a word count north of four million, this iteration contains 3.2 million words of enlightenment. You can search via author, theme, media, or culture. The articles offer frank assessments of their subject matter, contain extensive author checklists, and are full of links. We’ll be reading this over the weekend; after all, we have finished going through the Internet.
16th Century Music Books Online
Some of the oldest printed music books in the world, many too fragile to be handled, have been rendered into their digital versions. They are searchable by composer, title, date, and subject. More than 300 volumes are available at Early Music Online.
Google Books Settlement Rejected
Justice Chin, in a written opinion, has turned down the Amended Settlement Agreement (ASA) originally worked out between Google and copyright holders. Including a legal memo from Germany that considers Google a ”serial scanning infringer,” Justice Chin concludes that the ASA is not “fair, adequate and reasonable”(22) Background information on this important case can be found at: Google Books Settlement and Privacy (EPIC); Google Book Settlement (American Library Association, please read the informative Guide for the Perplexed: Part I, Part II, and Part III); The Google Library Project: Is Digitization for Purposes of Online Indexing Fair Use Under Copyright Law? (CRS); Google Book Search (New York Times Topics); and Google Books Bibliography (replete with many links).
List of Borders Bookstores Closing
This database, extracted from the bankruptcy filing, lists the almost 200 stores being shuttered. In this area, we will lose Fort Lee and the store at Garden State Plaza; California is losing 36 Borders.
Summer Reading Lists
Don’t know what to read for the summer? (Luckily, that is not a problem for us!) We heartily recommend perusing the various lists attached to Rebecca’s Pocket. This ever-expanding enumeration takes you from science fiction to historical fiction to vampire fiction to business school reading. There are dozens of lists to examine. Enjoy!
Gulf War and Health
This umbrella title collects together various reports issued by the Institute of Medicine on the health probelms and illnesses of those who served in the Gulf. The most recent volume, no.8, deals with existing health problems and possible future implications.
Free Online Biomedical Texts
There are more than a few current biomedical texts available for perusal online. First of all, check out the NCBI(National Center forBiotechnology Information) Bookshelf which contains well over 700 titles ranging from Patient Safety and Quality: An Evidence-Based Handbook for Nurses (2008) to Dynamics of Cancer (2007). Not to be ignored is the National Academies Press’ Health and Medicine site which contains current monographs on everything from diseases to minority health. And the Merck Manuals Online Medical Library are free, updated versions of the venerable Merck manuals augmented with audio and visual material.
Intelligence Community Legal Reference Book
This almost 1000 page tome, from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, contains enabling legislation and executives orders ranging from the National Security Act of 1947 to executive order 13493(2009). “The Intelligence Community draws much of its authority and guidance from the body of law contained in this collection.”(p.iii)
Free Online Pandemic Book Collection
Thanks to the National Academies Press, the Pandemic Influenza Special Collection of ten books is available online. Including such works as “The Threat of Pandemic Influenza: Are We Ready? Workshop Summary,” all these works can be read in HTML format. When you go to the list of books, you will see a link – “Buy this single book” – under each title. Simply click on that link and you will be taken to another page featuring the book in question, like this. You’ll notice there is a red tab in the upper left quadrant which states: Read This Book Online, Free!. Click there and the HTML version will be accessible. Additional related titles may be read here and here.
2009 Pulitzer Prizes Announced
The awards were announced this afternoon at 3PM. The New York Times garnered five Pulitzers. For other book awards, please look at this site as well as this site from bookwire. A previous blog entry will direct you to other resources as well.
Biographies of Scientists
This posting was triggered by the recent announcement that the papers and most of the writings of Charles Darwin are now available online. This site contains not only his personal writings but most, if not all, of his published work along with a treasure trove of information about him. Where else can we find accurate online information on scientists? Every academic library worthy of the name has the basic print sources which include the Dictionary of Scientific Biography and its supplement – the New Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Most good libraries also have at least one biography database; for instance, Guarini has Biography Collection Complete and Biography Reference Bank for its students and faculty. Are there other electronic resources which can be used by everyone? The answer is yes! Biographical Memoirs are brief biographies of deceased members of the National Academy of Sciences. Published since 1877, there are over 900 memoirs extant, with the vast majority available electroncially. Among those profiled are Gabriel Almond, Thomas Edison, and Glenn Seaborg. The National Library of Medicine hosts Profiles in Science which highlights leaders in 20th century biomedical research. Here you will find biographical information along with representational papers(article, documents, notes, etc) of such luminaries as Barbara McClintock and Paul Berg. Eric Weisstein’s World of Scientific Biography contains over 1,000 entries of varying lengths which can be searched via gender/minority/historical periods/branch of science/prize winners. The Galileo Project features 631 detailed biographies of the scientific community during the 16th and 17th centuries. Biographies can be searched by discipline/patronage/birthplace/religion/means of support. Infoplease presents Notable Scientists arranged by discipline; the biographies are culled from the 6th edition of the Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia. Contemporary scientists are profiled at the Hall of Science site where biographies, interviews(both audio and video versions), and photo galleries are available. The Faces of Science: African Americans in the Sciences provides biographical information(including patents held) as well as delineating women scientists and those who were awarded the first science PhDs. Mathematicians can be found at the MacTutor History of Mathematics site where one can search by chronological period or gender; included are interactive birthplace maps. Biographies of Women Mathematicians is replete with information with additional fillips such as a listing of the women PhDs prior to 1930 and comprehensive list of other sites to visit for both math and science biographies. Invent Now Hall of Fame includes standard biographical information along with the impact of each invention; here you can also search alphabetically by the invention name. Along the same lines, you can profit from visiting the Inventor of the Week and its archive page where you can search by inventor or field. The History of Biology site has some biographies of interest; physicists and astronomers are at this PBS site; the Center for the History of Physics has many online interviews available; and Biographies of Famous Chemists should not be overlooked. And lastly, the Nobel Prize page is a most valuable place to find biographies, interviews, and documentaries on the current and past award winners in the different subject fields.
Autism Legislation Database
Autism profoundly affects those who have it and those who care for them. The National Conference of State Legislatures has produced the Autism Legislation Database. Covering legislation from the 2008 session on, you can search by state, topic, or keyword. This is particularly important for New Jersey as this state has the highest rates of autism(for a variety of reasons) in the country as reported in this study by the CDC. In addition to appropriate databases, the Library also has a fine collection of works on this disability, among them these recent books:
Autism spectrum disorders : interventions and treatments for children and youth.
Autism spectrum disorders : psychological theory and research.
The encyclopedia of autism spectrum disorders.
Helping children with autism become more social :ways to use narrative play.
Identifying, assessing, and treating autism at school.
