referencebooks

Encyclopedia of Fraud: 2005 Edition

By Joseph T. Wells, CFE, CPA

Published by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners

This is a 7" by 9.5" hardbound book running to 848 pages including the brief bibliography, plus appendices and a preface.

The preface states that this encyclopedia is intended for an audience of "practitioners and academics," which could easily mislead a literal-minded person. It's not practitioners of fraud who are the intended audience, of course, but academics and accountants and other investigators of fraud.

The book has entries on numerous fraud schemes, organized by both topic and type of scheme, as well as entries about fraud cases and "notable fraudsters." Here is a list of the first fifteen entries in the book:

• Adelphia
  
• Antar, Eddie
  
• Antitrust
  
• Asset Misappropriation
  
• Asset Valuation, Improper
  
• Atkins, Charles and William hack
  
• Attitudes Toward and Perceptions of Fraud
  
• Auditing for Fraud
  
• Auto Sales Fraud
  
• Automotive Repair Fraud
  
• Avant!
  
• Avocational Crime
  
• Bait and Switch
  
• Banco Ambrosiano
  
• Bankruptcy Fraud
  

Entries on types of fraud are the longer ones, often going on to easily a dozen pages. Biographical and historical entries are a little shorter but are also often several pages in length. The prose is clear and enjoyable to read, so that it's easy to get a lot of knowledge about different varieties of fraud and fraud cases quickly and easily.

One entry caught my eye in the table of contents - an entry for Marcus Garvey. This two and a half page entry summarizes the story of Marcus Garvey and J. Edgar Hoover's politically-motivated pursuit of him on fraud charges. The entry is very clear in stating that the Garvey case was not a case of fraud but of persecution for political reasons; this makes it interesting that the case is written up in the book at all. I suppose the author felt that the record still needs to be set straight.

The book is good but somewhat weak from a design standpoint, which is not surprising given that its publisher is a professional association with priorities other than publishing. It's a useful reference work for business and history students and scholars.

Encyclopedia of Public Relations

Robert L. Heath, Editor

Published by SAGE, 2005.

This is a two-volume work measuring 8.5" by 11" and running to 1067 pages including the index and nine appendices, plus a preferatory section of 31 pages. The books are printed in larger type, two columns per page.

The preface makes clear from the outset that this work is not so much a reference source for public relations practitioners and those preparing for a public relations career as it is a reference for those interested in critical questions surrounding public relations and its role in society. In fact, the first eleven paragraphs of the preface are concerned with questions about public relations' role and its value, with much attention paid to critics who feel that we would be better off without public relations altogether. The editor takes pains to place himself at the balanced center of the debate, but this "objective" stance is intriguing given that it is in terms of a "debate" that doesn't actually happen; that is, critics of public relations are rarely allowed into discussions with those who practice it or take it for granted. So, essentially, this is a reference work intended for a social science academic context where critics of public relations stand to benefit from factual and detailed information, in one way or another.

For an idea of what is covered, here are the first fifteen article titles in the "S" sequence:

• Sampling
  
• Sandbagging
  
• Scales
  
• Schoonover, Jean
  
• Search engine
  
• Securities and Exchange Commission
  
• Segmentation
  
• Semiotics theory
  
• Situation analysis
  
• Situation ethics
  
• Situational theory of publics
  
• Smith, Rea
  
• Social construction of reality theory
  
• Social exchange theory
  
• Social movement theory
  

Entries range from one to a few pages in length. The writing is academic but not unnecessarily dense. Some knowledge of the social sciences would be a benefit to the reader in understanding the entries on some of the more theoretical topics. The entry on "Impression management theory" goes into a good deal of depth and discusses aspects of dramaturgical theory that many social science students might not encounter elsewhere, and public relations practitioners might never encounter, though they might make use of it in everyday practice.

This is a surprisingly interesting, deep, and critical book about public relations, most useful to social critics and social science researchers, but also of potential interest to public relations practitioners and those entering the field.

The New Nonprofit Almanac and Desk Reference: The Essential Facts and Figures for Managers, Researchers, and Volunteers

By Murray S. Weitzman and Nadine T. Jalandoni of Independent Sector and Linda M. Lampkin and Thomas H. Pollak of Urban Institute.

Published by Jossey-Bass, 2002.

This is an 8.5" by 11" paperback running to 247 pages including the appendices and index, plus a list of tables, list of figures, a foreword, an introductions, acknowledgements, and an overview and executive summary.

This book is a compilation of data, from a variety of sources, about the nonprofit or independent sector of the economy. ("Nonprofit sector" and "independent sector" are roughly synonymous terms, but one difference seems to be that "independent sector" clearly includes religious organizations.)

The book is divided into five chapters. Chapter One talks about the size and scope of the independent sector in the US economy, including things like employment figures, economic value of volunteer work, and number of organizations. Chapter Two talks about paid employment, including information on the number of employees by subsector, what they earn, demographic information and employment trends. Chapter Three talks about private philanthropy, including on overview of how much is given by individuals, foundations, and corporations; and giving trends in relation to changes in tax law. Chapter Four estimates revenue from private giving, government payments, private payments (dues, fees, etc.), and investment income, and also estimates how these funds are used. Chapter five presents tables having to do with tax filings by 501(c)(3) organizations, broken down by state and region. Additionally there are four appendices: the National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities classification system (simplified); notes on methodologies used in arriving at the estimates included in the book; a web directory for organizations with information on the nonprofit sector; and a glossary.

This is a useful book for people studying economics and policies that relate to nonprofits, as well as some people in nonprofit management.

Taking the Measure of Work: A Guide to Validated Scales for Organizational Research and Diagnosis

By Dail L. Fields

Published by SAGE, 2002.

This is a 7" by 10" hardcover book running to 327 pages including the bibliography and indices, plus an introduction.

The preface is simply a paragraph explaining the need that this book addresses; previously, there did not exist any good compilation of measures and questionnaires to use when interviewing employees to diagnose problems in an organization or otherwise meausure its functioning from the point of view of workers. The problem was encountered by both academic researchers and management consultants. So what this book does is simply compile measures, validated within the standards of sociology research methods, that look at job satisfaction, organizational commitment, job characteristics, job stress, job roles, organizational justice, work-family conflict, person-organization fit, work behaviors and work values. The book is intended for practical use by researchers and management consultants. It is not a bibliographic guide to measures found elsewhere, but an actual source of tools, though citations to the original publications are given.

A typical measure is given in two facing pages. A short paragraph describes the measure, relating the situation of its origin and purpose. Then there is a statement of its reliability, a paragraph on its validity as determined by further experiments (cited), a citation of the source (including original and modified items), a list of items and instructions for the questionnaire, and a brief rundown of modified items and instructions. That's all that's given for each measure, but it is enough for practical purposes and allows the book to include many useful meaures. Here are the titles of some measures found in the book:

• Measure of Ethical Viewpoints
  
• Helping and Voice Behaviors
  
• Organizational Culture Profile
  
• Fairness Perceptions of an Organizational Policy
  
• Job Role Ambiguity
  
• Cross-Culutural Role Conflict, Ambiguity, and Overload
  
• Commute Strain Scale
  
• Frustration with Work
  
• Job Demands and Decision Latitude
  
• Subjective Monotony
  
• Extent of Computer Use
  
• Empowerment at Work Scale
  
• Social Support
  
• Commitment to a Parent Company Versus Local Operation
  
• Pay Satisfaction Questionnaire
  

This is a very useful reference book.

Directory of Foreign Firms Operating in the United States, 11th Edition

Edited and Published by Uniworld Business Publications, Inc., 2002.

This is a thick clothbound book measuring 8" by 10" and running to 1459 pages.

The main part of the book is simply a directory of foreign companies doing business in the United States, divided by country. In addition to this directory, there are two alphabetical lists at the end of the book; the first is an alphabetical listing of these foreign companies and the second is a list of the American "affiliates" of these companies (companies set up in the U.S. by these foreign companies for doing business here).

Opening the book at random, I'm on page 495, which is in the directory section for France. This page has three French firms listed and four American affiliates. Each directory entry (whether for a foreign firm or an American subsidiary) gives the name of the firm, the business address, the CEO's name, telephone and fax numbers, a website address, a revenue and an employment figure, and a few words stating what kind of business the firm is engaged in.

The list of American affiliates is good reading for those who are scandalized by foreign ownership of U.S. companies. For example, did you know that Maker's Mark, the classic "handcrafted" Kentucky bourbon, as well as true-blue American brands Dunkin Donuts' and Basin-Robbins are owned by the British company Allied Domecq, PLC? Scandalous!

The thing which is never quite adequately addressed by business reference sources that provide company information, whether directories like this or sources like "Brands and their companies," is the fact that a "company" is, today, an easily manipulable legal fiction, and often just a shell for legally organizing the work of contracting firms that operate without much of a visible presence in reference sources and are often set up overseas. Few sources do the work of tracing ownership of companies to individual investors (who can be citizens of any country with homes in many), information which isn't necessarily public to begin with. So, it is a little unclear what a "foreign firm" or a "domestic firm" actually is.

Nevertheless, it is good to have a compilation of directory information such as this. Useful for business programs, journalism programs, and other uses.

Encyclopedia of White-Collar and Corporate Crime

Lawrence M. Salinger, Ph.D., General Editor.

Published by SAGE, 2005.

This is a work in two 9" by 11" hardbound volumes that run to a total of 974 pages including the index and appendices, plus an introduction, a reader's guide, a timeline, list of contributors, and a list of articles. The volumes are laid out in large type in two columns.

The first sentence in the introduction is: "In the 2000's, white-collar crime has become a topic of almost daily news." Depite the overshadowing news of the September 11th, 2001, the Enron scandal was big enough to have a lasting effect on the way our culture thinks about corporate America. This reference work is a result of that.

The entries cover people, companies, laws, and convictions. The editor acknowledges that not everything that could be considered a white-collar crime has been included. I notice a pattern, however, in that violent crimes by corporations are generally omitted. This could include such things as violence against protesters (to the point of killing) in Africa by oil company-employed paramilitaries and violence against striking union members by thugs employed by strikebreaking law firms throughout American labor history. This reinforces the misperception that crimes by corporations all involve manipulation of numbers and documents (which can be harmful enough to real people). They mostly do involve documents, but they can also involve blood and broken limbs. The book also shies away from cases where the record shows clear guilt, but because of corruption the criminals managed to avoid conviction, as well as practices that are technically legal but morally offensive to society to the point of inspiring new policy developments.

That said, this resource has a lot of great information in it on white-collar crime. Here is the full list of entries in the "E" sequence, which is one of the shorter sequences:

• E. F. Hutton
  
• Eastern Europe
  
• Economic Espionage
  
• Edelhertz, Herbert
  
• Eisenhower, Dwight D.
  
• Eli Lilly
  
• Elite Crime
  
• Embezzlement
  
• Employee Crimes
  
• Employee Safey
  
• Enron Corporation
  
• Environmental Protection Agency
  
• Equity Funding Scandal
  
• Ethics
  
• Ethics Reform Act
  
• Extortion
  
• Exxon Valdez
  

Entries are informative, well-written, and signed by the contributor responsible. One strength of the book is the extensive provision of legal citations relating to specific cases.

This is a good and welcome reference book overall, but would be better if the editor had more courage to risk controversy.

Artists & Writers Colonies: Retreats, Residencies, and Respites for the Creative Mind

Researched, edited, and written by Robyn Middleton, Mindy Seale, Martha Ruttle, Emily Stephens, Stacey Loomis, Nicole Peterson.

Published by Blue Heron Publishing, 2000.

This is a 6" by 9" paperback book running to 330 pages including a classified index, plus twenty pages of preferatory material. The binding of this book is not of particularly good quality.

The "How to Use This Book" section begins,

Artists & Writers Colonies includes residency, retreat, and fellowship opportunities for all types of creative people, including artists, writers, performers, and scholars. This book focuses on opportunities that provide either the time, space, or money for you to work on creative projects that the conditions of your everyday life prevent you from completing. Artists and writers are simply in search of a place where they have the luxury to make their art their top priority. Luckily, there are people who understand this and have made a career out of supporting the creative efforts of their fellow artists by maintaining these colonies and programs.

The listings in the book fall into five categories: Residencies; Retreats; Fellowships and Grants; Opportunities for Playwrights; and Artist-in-Residence Programs. Within the different categories, the opportunities vary in terms of the competitiveness, the amenities offered, length, the degree of seclusion offered, and cost (except for fellowships and grants). Entries are grouped by geographical region and then by state.

Opening the book at random, I'm looking at pages 100 and 101, which have two entries and the beginning of a third; however, the first entry is just a note to inform readers that the Ossabaw Island Project is discontinued; this note only take a few lines. The full entry on these pages is for the Penland School of Arts and Crafts' Artist-in-residence program. This entry, a typical one, gives three lines on "Who Can Apply;" seven lines of "Provisos" or qualifications; information on the dates of operation and location of the program; four lines on its history; seven lines on "What They Offer;" three lines describing the facility, seven lines on how to apply, and information on the application deadline and the cost of the program ($250 per month).

This is a very useful book for artists and writers. The team of author/editors, who were all interns at Blue Heron when they compiled this directory, should be congratulated.

Encyclopedia of Furniture Materials, Trades, and Techniques

By Clive Edwards

Published by Ashgate, 2000.

This is a black, clothbound book measuring 10" by 10" and running to 254 pages including the bibliography. The printing and paper stock are very fine. The middle of the book has a section of beautiful color plates.

What the title doesn't say is that the book is primarily about the history of furniture making, rather than about contemporary techniques that a modern-day furniture maker would use (unless they are attempting to duplicate authentically an historical style), though some modern techniques are included. The introduction makes this clear, and also makes clear that furniture design is not covered, only furniture manufacture. The result is a very limited and specific reference book of use to a pretty small group.

For an idea of what is covered, here are the first fifteen entries in the "T" sequence, "see" reference excluded:

• Tabaret (Tabouret/Tabourette/Tabaray)
  
• Tabbinet
  
• Tabby
  
• Table opening and extending mechanisms
  
• Tacking
  
• Tacks
  
• Taffeta
  
• Tambour
  
• Tammy
  
• Tape joint
  
• Tapestry
  
• Tasmanian Oak
  
• Teak
  
• Templates
  
• Tension top
  

Entries range in length from a few lines to a few pages, but are mostly on the shorter end. The prose is clear, informative, and very British.

This is a valuable reference book with a very narrow focus.

International Book Publishing: An Encyclopedia

Edited by Philip G. Altbach and Edith S. Hoshino

Published by Garland, 1995.

This is a 7" by 10" hardbound book running to 736 pages including a section of statistical tables and a long index, plus 26 pages of preferatory material.

What makes this encyclopedia of book publishing unique are its strong international orientation and the analytical and bibliographic nature of the articles. The second half of the book is comprised of articles on book publishing in specific countries and regions throughout the world. The first half of the book is almost more of a handbook than an encyclopedia, owing to the greater length of the articles, which are all signed, and their smaller number. The articles are titled as articles in a handbook might be, rather than by encyclopedic topic. For an example of what I mean, here's a list of the first twenty articles in the book:

• Book Marketing in the United States
  
• Bookselling in the United States
  
• Children's Publishing
  
• College Textbook Publishing
  
• Copyright in the United States
  
• Designers and Manufacturers
  
• The Economics of Book Publishing
  
• The Economics of the Publishing Project
  
• Editors
  
• Education for Publishing
  
• Electronic Publishing: New Technologies and Publishing
  
• Feminist Publishing
  
• Freedom of the Press and Censorship
  
• The History of Book Publishing in the United States
  
• The History of International Book Publishing
  
• International Book Production Statistics
  
• International Copyright
  
• International Donor Agencies and Book Development
  
• International Scholarly Publishing
  
• Libraries and Publishers
  

This list takes us up to page 222 of the book.

Each article is an essay by a recognized expert and finishes with a generous bibliography. The articles are clearly written and very informative, making this an interesting and valuable book on the publishing industry.

Dictionary of Strategy: Strategic Management A-Z

By Louise Kelly and Chris Booth

Published by SAGE, 2004.

This is a small reference book, a paperback measuring 6" by 9" and running to 185 pages plus a brief preferatory section.

The first paragraph of the preface introduces this book very clearly:

Excellent leaders are excellent strategists. This dictionary is an invitation: an invitation to think strategically, an invitation to learn the words that allow for strategic debate. Some key words from this book that may form your view of strategy are strategy as algorith, acronym, and aphorism. This is not a comprehensive dictionary; instead it is eclectic, it is cutting edge.

The book's authors are both faculty members at Alliant International University, a rather interesting institution whose business school has a strong specialization in sustainable organizational practices and has a relatively humanistic outlook on business and business education. So when this book calls itself "cutting edge" in the preface I supress my impulse to dismiss it as a trendy business vaportext, and my curiosity is piqued. The test for me of a glossary of "cutting edge" business terms, however, isn't only to examine them for their ideology but to ask how precisely the book defines its terms. This book doesn't do half badly by that measure. In fact, there's even an entry for "management expressions," defined as cliché terms that bog down management communication, illustrated with examples like, "the take-home message is...," "window of opportunity," "meeting the challenge," but also, interestingly, "cutting edge."

For a sense of what is covered, here are the first fifteen entries in the "H" sequence:

• Hamel, Gary (1954- )
  
• Harvard Business School (HBS) Approach
  
• Harvest Strategy
  
• HDLD
  
• Heads Up
  
• Hershey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Model
  
• Hidden Agenda
  
• Historical Analogy
  
• History of Strategy (Brief)
  
• Homogenization
  
• Horizontal Diversification or Expansion
  
• Horizontal Integration
  
• Horns and Halos
  
• Hostile Takeover
  
• Hub
  

Definitions are mostly very brief and give a pretty clear idea of what is meant by a term. They do communicate, overall, a brisk, bold, young, aggressive, break-from-the-past idea of business success, which in itself constitutes an ideology, but that's what people mostly look for in a business reference resource. In that sense, however, the main title of the book, "Dictionary of Strategy," is a little misleading, because strategy is also a political and a military study, and there are ways that strategy can be studied in general, outside of specific contexts. In reading the book I found myself interested in reading an encyclopedia of strategic thinking that might cover terminology from strategic management, military strategy, political strategy, labor strategy, etcetera. This book doesn't do much in terms of introducing the reader to actual strategic thinking, but rather transmits a superficial familiarity with a specific type of business vocabulary.

Somewhat useful for business people and business students.

2006 Poet's Market

Nancy Breen, Editor.

Published by Writer's Digest Books, 2006.

This is a 7" by 9" book running to 572 pages including the indexes (general and special).

The cover says:

WHERE AND HOW TO PUBLISH YOUR POETRY

1,800+ listings for magazines and journals, presses, contests, workshops, and more

Includes exclusive interviews with poets and editors on the craft of poetry.

This is simply the best and most complete guide for people wanting to publish their poetry. It is divided into four major sections: Articles & Information, Markets (which has the bulk of the book, a directory of publishers of poetry), Resources, and Indexes. The Articles & Information section includes:

• Getting Started (and Using This Book)
  
• Frequently Asked Questions
  
• Roundtable: Poetry Contests
  
• Opening Doors to Poetry
  
• Mistakes Poets Make
  
• Dealing With Problem Editors
  
• Complaint Procedure
  
• Are You Being Taken?
  
• Self-Promotion
  
• Important Market Listing Information
  

The directory of poetry publishers lists publishers in alphabetical order. Entries include small icons that indicate aspects of the publisher's operation - whether it's in another country, whether they pay money (and not just free copies of the publication), whether they welcome submissions from beginning poets, etc. For each publisher listed there is contact information, information on what kind of poetry the publisher publishes, information about its market and the physical product, statistics on the number of submissions they get versus how many they publish, distribution and price information, instructions on how to submit, and various other information, sometimes including statements by the editors of the magazine or book publisher on such things as the state of poetry today, pet peeves, or tips on writing.

The section called Resources contains directories of conferences & workshops, organizations, poets in education, and glossaries of listing terms and poetry terms. The index section includes an index of chapbook publishers, book publishers, an index based on openness to submission, a geographical index, a subject index, and a general index.

This is an indispensible book for poets who are serious about writing poetry and want to explore their publishing options. This is the 21st annual edition of the book.

A Freethinker's A-Z of the New World of Business

By Stuart Crainer

Published by Capstone Press, 2000.

This is a 6" by 9" paperback running to 304 pages plus an introduction.

The graphic design of this book is notable, and I'll mention it first because it's what you see first. The book shouts "cyber." It's entirely printed in a futuristic sans-serif font, on paper that's heavily watermarked with a fuzzy background of digital-looking text. The unorthodox design reinforces the "freethinking" theme of the title.

Few books from 2000 are as dated as this, because what the book is about is, essentially, the "new economy" that just a year or so after the book's publication turned out to be an illusion. That makes the book a rather embarrassing testament to the trendiness, sloppy thinking, conformism, and lack of basis in reality of so much popular economic and business discourse.

The book is indeed a reference book though. It is a dictionary aimed at providing some help for people who are intimidated by the pace of change in the "new economy" and want to know what all those buzzwords mean, but are embarrassed to ask the person in the next cubicle because it is an admission of inferiority. Having the book on one's shelf, however, declares that one is a "freethinker."

The entries are ordered alphabetically and cover People (commentators, executives, tech and motivational gurus, internet celebrities), Organizations (think tanks, with-it retailers, brands, educational institutions), and Ideas (all kinds of new-age cyber-capitalist things in this category).

There is some information in this book that is still relevant in today's business world, but mostly it represents a dated example of the quickly changing, fear-based market for the latest thing. Not recommended.

The Shorter Encyclopedia of Real Estate Terms

By Damien Abbott.

Published by Delta Alpha Publishing, 2004.

Subtitled: "Based on English and North American Practice, including Australian, Canadian, New Zealand, Scots Law, Civil Law and Latin terms."

This is a 7" by 9" paperback running to 973 pages, plus a preface, acknowledgments and a user guide.

Though called an encyclopedia of Real Estate terms, definitions are mostly on the short side, so it could equally be called a dictionary. What makes it a "shorter" encyclopedia, though, is not the brevity of the entries but the fact that French terms and lengthy references were removed from the 2nd edition of the full Encyclopedia of Real Estate.

There are about 7,500 terms defined in the book. Definitions have markers that give a special indication if the term has a geographically limited usage. Terms defined elsewhere in the Encyclopedia are indicated with bold text. There are also frequent see also references and references for further reading, as well as in-text citations to relevant statutes and case law.

The first fifteen entries in the "R" sequence are:

• rachmanism
  
• rack rate
  
• rack rent
  
• Radburn
  
• radical title
  
• radius clause or radius restriction clause
  
• range
  
• range land
  
• range line
  
• ransom strip
  
• ratable estate
  
• ratable value
  
• ratchet clause
  
• rate
  
• rate cap
  

As you can see, this book goes far beyond what someone needs to know to buy or sell a house, or even to be successful Realtor, especially because of its international scope. It seems most useful as an adjunct reference work for those studying the history or background to real estate practice and law, or wanting to get into real estate in a different English-speaking country.

1001 Chemicals in Everyday Products, 2nd Edition

By Grace Ross Lewis.

Published by Wiley Interscience, 1999.

This is a smaller paperback, measuring 7.5" by 9" and running to 388 pages including the index of chemicals and appendix, plus a preface.

This book aims to provide very basic information on the uses and dangers of a large number of chemicals found in common comsumer products.

It starts with a thirty-someodd page section with common questions and answers about common chemicals. These are things like "Why is it some food packaging does not list what is inside?," "Someone said that flounder, sole, and halibut are healthier to eat than tuna fish. Why is this so?," "Why is talcum powder dangerous?," etc. There are a total of 205 questions briefly answered in this section. All of these questions are easy to imagine coming up at the reference desk, so I think it's good to keep this book in mind as an information source for questions concerning chemicals. Unfortunately, these question-and-answer pairs aren't really indexed and are organized simply in the form of an arbitrary list in four sections (food additives, cosmetics, cleaning products, and miscellaneous), so access for reference purposes in this section isn't that great.

The bulk of the book, though, is devoted to information on 1001 chemicals. These are organized alphabetically by chemical name. 1001 chemicals in 250 pages or so doesn't leave a lot of room for detail, so what you get for each chemical are a brief statement of how it is used - that is, what kind of products it is used in and what it does - and precautions for use (whether it is an allergen, toxic if swallowed or breathed, a carcinogen, an irritant, etc.). Finally, for each chemical there is a list of synonyms, including trade names (all of which are found in the index in the back).

This is a fairly useful book, but like many reference books it makes one imagine that reference book it could have been. A book twice as long with twice as much information about each chemical would be great. Perhaps it could include some more technical information, but even strictly as a consumer book it could be more extensive and have other types of information of use to non-experts, such as information on the history of a chemical's use, regulatory information (including other countries where products are manufactured) and dissenting opinions about safety.

Overall it's a good book for a consumer audience with uses in an academic setting as well.

The Big Book of Business Quotations

Copyright Bloomsbury Publishing, 2003. No other author/editor credit is given.

Published by Basic Books, 2003.

This is a 7" by 9" paperback book running to 454 pages including a rich keyword and author index, plus a list of categories and a brief note to readers.

As a collection of quotations, this is a rather interesting one. It's longer and more diverse than average, drawing on the words of not just business executives but also politicians, social critics and other notable figures. The quotations are offered as a "source of thoughts and advice for presentations, reports, and speeches" in the day to day life of business people (and business students, of course). They seem to be chosen well to illustrate arguments that a business person might be trying to make, about his company, his plan, his services, etc. Accordingly, the 150 subjects covered include Economics, Efficiency, Employees, Employers, Enthusiasm, Entrepreneurs, Excellence, and Executives, but not Ethics. (It doesn't include Morality, either, but to be fair, it does include Conscience, Honesty, Corporate Responsibility, and Corruption and Scandal.)

There are over 5,000 quotations in the book, from over 1,500 authors. A strength of the book is that the quotations are well cited, giving the name and birthdate of the author, a statement indicating something about who they were or are, and the title and publication date of the source.

Here are three randomly selected quotations from the book.

From the section on "Publicity:"

Silence is the virtue of fools.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English philosopher and statesman. De Dignitiate et Augmentis Scientiarium

From the section on "Money:"

I've always had a place for every dollar that came in. I've never seen the day where I could say that I felt rich. Generally you have to worry about paying the bills.
J. Paul Getty (1892-1976) U.S. entrepreneur, oil industry executive, and financier. Interview, Evening Standard [London] (February 11, 1974)

From the section on "Criticism:"

A free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.
Adlai E. Stevenson (1900-1965) U.S. statesman and author. Speech (October 1952)

The Handbook of Country Risk 2003: A Guide to International Business and Trade

By Coface (a business consulting firm).

Published by Kogan Page Ltd., 2003.

This is a 7" by 10" clothbound book running to 395 pages, plus a preface and an introduction.

The book is intended for businesspeople involved in global trade and foreign investment, to give them quick information on the riskiness of the business climate in different countries.

For each country, we get a map showing its location in its area of the world, a "Coface analysis" number summarizing its short and long term risk, a list of the country's "strengths and weaknesses" from the point of view of an investor or trader, a couple of paragraphs on the risk assessment of that country describing its economic and political issues, a table of economic indicators, summaries of the situation in various economic sectors, and a summary of the "payment and collection practices" there.

This book is an illustrative example of how an information resource can contain lots of objective information at the same time it is highly ideological. The facts and figures in the book are objective and useful, but it is all working from the point of view of global capitalism. Therefore, "slowness in privatization" is always presented as a "weakness," and a strong public sector means that "reforms are still needed."

The ideological bias of the book is problematic from an academic standpoint, but the book is intended for practical uses, and is aimed at an audience that shares its ideology.

Exactly how practical the book is is questionable. It does a good job of summarizing country information relevant to global trade, but if I imagine myself in the shoes of a capitalist considering building a factory in Hungary, as busy as I am doing business things, I think that three pages of information would not be sufficient for my needs. But perhaps there are situations when a global capitalist needs this type of country-by-country breakdown. Our business students might find it useful in their studies about global trade.

Professional Ethics and Insignia, 2nd Edition

Edited by John P. Stierman, Kathleen E. Joswick, Jeanne Koekkoek Stierman, and Roderick L. Sharpe.

Published by Scarecrow, 2000.

This is a 9" by 11" clothbound book running to 445 pages including an index of professions, plus a foreword and a preface.

The book presents the codes of ethics of 222 professional organizations. The compilers followed a broad definition of "profession," but were unable to include a significant number of ethical codes for professional associations that did not respond to their inquiries or grant them permission, so the list is just slightly odd.

It is interesting to see these codes of ethics compiled in a book this way, since each code was created by a specific professional with that group as its audience, and the audience of the book is a different group, a group of students, consumers, and citizens who may be interested in working on an ethical code for another purpose, considering professional ethics generally, or monitoring the behavior of a professional group in terms of its own ethical code.

Among the professional groups included are:

• Air Traffic Control Association
  
• American Arbitration Association
  
• American Bed and Breakfast Association
  
• American Library Association
  
• American Nuclear Society
  
• American Psychiatric Association
  
• American Society of Newspaper Editors
  
• Association of Management Consulting Firms
  
• Botanical Society of America
  
• The Direct Marketing Association
  
• Genetics Society of America
  
• International Association of Chiefs of Police
  
• Music Teachers National Association
  
• National Guild of Hypnotists
  
• National Property Management Association
  
• Public Relations Society of America
  

This is a potentially very useful reference book.

The International Handbook on Innovation

Edited by Larisa V. Shavinina.

Published by Elsevier Science on their Pergamon imprint, 2003.

This is a very heavy 7" by 10" hardbound book, running to 1171 pages of slick paper including the author and subject indexes, plus a long table of contents section, acknowledgments, contributors' bios, and a preface.

This book covers recent research on innovation, mainly from an industrial psychology perspective, but drawing on many disciplines. The introduction says,

"The purpose of the handbook is multifold: (a) to pose critical questions and issues that need to be addressed by research in a given subfield of innovation; (b) to review and evaluate recent contributions in the field; (c) to present new approaches to understanding innovation; and (d) to indicate lines of inquiry that have been, and are, likely to continue to be valuable to pursue. This handbook does not provide the kind of literature reviews usually found in textbooks. The conventional understanding of a handbook -- as a compendium of review chapters suggesting a guide to practice -- seems to be very restricted in the context of the field of innovation. The 'handbook' title suggests a guide to practice only in cases where the body of knowledge is understood to be complete and more or less unchanging. For example, 'Handbook of Mathematical Formulae', or 'Handbook of Motorcycle Repair'. However, the study of innovation is a body of knowledge under dynamic theoretical development, and so I prefer to use the 'International Handbook on Innovation' instead of the 'International Handbook of Innovation'. I hope readers will find the present chapters lively and provocative, stimulating greater interest in the science of innovation."

The book is classified in the BF's in our library, based on the judgment, following LC's subject tracings, that it is mostly about the personal qualities underlying innovativeness. While it is about that, it is really more about innovation as something that can be pursued by companies, research organizations and educational or cultural institutions in a deliberate, managed way, and therefore might be more appropriately classified in some other way. It is, I grant, not easy to classify well.

The book is divided into fifteen parts, each with a number of chapters. The fifteen parts are:

1. INTRODUCTION
   
2. THE NATURE OF INNOVATION
   
3. INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN INNOVATIVE ABILITY
   
4. DEVELOPMENT OF INNOVATION ACROSS THE LIFE SPAN
   
5. ASSESSMENT OF INNOVATION
   
6. DEVELOPMENT OF INNOVATION
   
7. INNOVATIONS IN DIFFERENT DOMAINS
   
8. BASIC APPROACHES TO THE UNDERSTANDING OF INNOVATION IN SOCIAL CONTEXT
   
9. INNOVATIONS IN SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
   
10. INNOVATION IN MANAGEMENT
    
11. INNOVATION LEADERSHIP
    
12. INNOVATION AND MARKETING
    
13. INNOVATION AROUND THE WORLD: EXAMPLES OF COUNTRY EFFORTS, POLICIES, PRACTICES AND ISSUES
    
14. INNOVATIONS OF THE FUTURE
    
15. CONCLUSION
    

This review is getting a little long, but I really want to share the chapter titles under "Innovations in Different Domains" for a sense of the scope of the book:

1. Dimensions of Scientific Innovation
   
2. Do Radical Discoveries Require Ontological Shifts?
   
3. Understanding Scientific Innovation: The Case of Nobel Laureates
   
4. Innovation in the Social Sciences: Herbert A. Simon and the Birth of a Research Tradition
   
5. Poetic Innovation
   
6. Directions for Innovation in Music Education: Integrating Conceptions of Musical Giftedness into General Educational Practice and Enhancing Innovation on the Part of Musically Gifted Students
   
7. Determinants of Technological Innovation: Current Research Trends and Future Prospects
   
8. Innovation in Financial Services Infrastructure
   
9. Innovation in Integrated Electronics and Related Technologies: Experiences with Industrial-Sponsored Large-Scale Multidisciplinary Programs and Single Investigator Programs in a Research University
   

Before seeing this book I had never considered that the phenomenon of innovation itself could be studied as a science. The book makes up an impressive collection of evidence that a real beginning has been made to a science of innovation. Precisely because innovation involves creativity at its core and anything that can be put in terms of static scientific principles or laws seems to be, well, something other than creativity, the idea of a science of innovation seems counter-intuitive. But browsing through the book shows that there is much that we can learn about innovation, how it comes about, and how to foster it.

This is a useful book for people who see themselves as innovators or want to study how to foster innovation in their own organizations.

Webster's New World Finance and Investment Dictionary: Your guide to the terms, phrases, and jargon of the financial world

By Barbara J. Etzel.

Published by John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2003.

This is a 6" by 9" paperback running to 369 pages, including a section of chart (graph) shapes commonly found in financial communication.

This is simply a dictionary of terminology used in the world of finance and investment. The introduction makes the case for having a new one such as this, based on the fact that the last few years have seen new terminology entering the financial world as a result of growing complexity of financial instruments, new developments in accounting, legislation (such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act) and other changes.

Most definitions in the book are two or three sentences in length, though some go on for several paragraphs. They are written clearly, mostly in layman's language, and are sufficient to communicate a general idea of what the term means, sometimes without getting into the real nitty-gritty details. As an example, here is the definition of "oversubscribed":

oversubscribed   A term used in underwriting to describe a new stock or bond that has more buyers than available shares. If an offering is oversubscribed, its price will often shoot up once it begins trading on the market. By using a green shoe provision, which allows the underwriter to sell more shares, the underwriter can modestly increase the number of shares offered.

For an idea of what's in the book, here are the first fifteen entries in the "F" sequence:

• fabless
  
• face value
  
• face-amount certificate
  
• factoring
  
• factory orders report
  
• fair value
  
• fairness opinion
  
• fallen angel
  
• family of funds
  
• Fannie Mae
  
• FASB (See Financial Accounting Standards Board)
  
• fast market
  
• Fastow, Andrew S.
  
• fast-track trading authority
  
• FCF (See free cash flow)
  

Not showing up in this list are the many foreign financial terms which have become important in the global financial industry. A strength of the book is its inclusion of many Islamic, Japanese and other foreign terms, as well as the names for the currencies of most countries.

This is a useful book for business people, business and finance students, and anyone getting a bit deeper in to the world of finance in their own lives.

Getting Wiser to Teens: More Insights Into Marketing to Teenagers

By Peter Zollo of Teen Research Unlimited.

Published by New Strategist Publications, 2004.

This is a hardbound book measuring 6" by 9" and running to 424 pages including the index, plus an author's note and acknowledgments.

As you can tell from the title, this book is an update to previous editions.

Though it is treated as a reference book in our library, it is a book that could also be read cover-to-cover and sold to business people as a regular book. It is a guide to understanding teens, for people who want to view teens as a market for what they have to sell. In other words, it is a book of insights useful for building strategies to manipulate the behavior of teenagers.

The eleven chapters are titled as follows.

1. Why Teens Are Important Consumers
   
2. Teen Psyche
   
3. Teen Attitudes
   
4. Teen Types, Trends, and Music
   
5. Teen Social Concerns
   
6. Teens at Home and School
   
7. Teens and Friends
   
8. Teen Lifestyle
   
9. Teens and Brands
   
10. Teens and Media
    
11. Marketing and Advertising to Teens
    

Each of these chapters have subchapters, with titles like, "Teen Income Sources," "Teen Value Monitor," "What Makes a Person Very Cool," "What Teens Dislike About Being Teen," "Teen / Types: Teen Segmentation System," "Teen Social Concerns by Gender," "How Parents Punish Teens," "What Teens Usually Do at a Party," "'Like to Do' versus 'Actually Do,'" "What Makes a Brand 'Cool,'" "Where Teens Meet Their Friends."

Rather than directly providing strategies for how to manipulate teens, this book communicates background knowledge, generated from survey research and focus groups, about teens and how they live. Its descriptions of teen life are written simply and communicate a lot of information. It is a voyeristic book, in the sense that what it communicates are aspects of life that teens usually aren't eager to share with adults.

It is rather interesting that the information generated by all of this research is not being presented to parents and teachers, whose uses of it would be the most legitimate, but to people who are after the kids' money, and who are in fact competing with parents and teachers for a share of influence over teens' decision making as well as their ultimate value formation.

A disturbing book, useful for somewhat nefarious practical purposes.