From the category archives:

Books / Libraries

Killer Customers: Get Rid of Them and Boost Business Profits (Book Review)

“Angel Customers and Demon Customers” (also published as “Killer Customers”) is a book all business owners should read. One of the oldest myths in business is that every customer is a valuable customer. Many businesses strive to constantly acquire new customers without considering whether these customers will be profitable or perhaps even loss makers. Many [...]

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Are Libraries Important?

Today the existence of libraries in our midst is so much taken for granted that their significance as living institutions is almost lost to us. Why are libraries important, and why will they ever be so? credit: Marxchivist Libraries contain the heritage of humanity: the record of its triumphs and failures, its intellectual, scientific, and [...]

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Hello America by JG Ballard (Book Review) – Post Apocalyptic Vision of the Future

Climate change/global warming, worldwide water shortages, discussions about what would happen if the Gulf Stream stopped and peak oil have all been prominent in the news and very much in the zeitgeist during the last few years “Hello America”, a fictional post-apocalyptic story written in 1981 by British science fiction grand master JG Ballard brings [...]

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The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho: My Favourite Book

Reading The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho had been at the back of my mind since seeing it listed in the BBC Big Read top 100 books while living in the UK during 2003. When I finally read it unlike The Da Vinci Code there was substance behind the hype. The Alchemist is now my Favourite [...]

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The Tao of Pooh and Te of Piglet by Benjamin Hoff (Book Review)

I recently read and was very impressed by “The Tao of Pooh and Te of Piglet” by Benjamin Hoff, 2 fable-style stories in which Hoff uses Winnie the Pooh and the other characters from A. A. Milne’s stories to explain in simple terms the basic principles of philosophical Taoism. Pooh’s Way of doing things seems [...]

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Rats: A Year With New Yorks Most Unwanted Inhabitants (Book Review)

This book is not just an account of a year spent in a garbage strewn, rat infested alley in lower Manhattan. You’ll learn more than you thought was possible about rats and will probably be better at spotting rats in your own town/city when you’re walking through the streets at night because you’ll know the [...]

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ALIA Information Online Conference

I just attended the Information Online 2007 conference and exhibition held at Darling Harbour in Sydney from 30th January to 1st February 2007 There were speakers from around Australia and overseas on a range of topics – from information security to knowledge management, from managing in the virtual world to managing with disruptive technologies aimed [...]

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Putting Content Online: A Practical Guide for Libraries by Mark Jordan (Review)

The author of Putting Content Online: A Practical Guide for Libraries, Mark Jordan states that the book “is aimed at people who are developing collections of digitized and born-digital documents according to standard library principles, with a focus on the planning, technical, and operational aspects of such projects”. Jordan also notes that while archivists and [...]

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Watson's Dictionary of Weasel Words, Contemporary Cliches, Cant & Management Jargon

Weasel words are the words of the powerful, the treacherous and the unfaithful, spies, assassins and thieves. Bureaucrats and ideologues love them. Tyrants cannot do without them. The Newspeak of Orwell’s 1984 is an invention, but also a satire on real states such as the Soviet Union where death from starvation and abuse in slave [...]

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The Corporation (Joel Bakan) and Economics of Innocent Fraud (JK Galbraith)

The Corporation (Book & Movie Review) One hundred and fifty years ago, the corporation was a relatively insignificant entity. Today, it is a vivid, dramatic and pervasive presence in all our lives. Like the Church, the Monarchy and the Communist Party in other times and places, the corporation is today’s dominant institution. But history humbles [...]

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50 Books You Must Own – Books Alive

We suggest you purchase books from the following link to Seekbooks, the Australian discount online bookstore. By doing so you also Support this Website which gets a small comission for every Seekbooks sale made through a click from this website. THIS BLOG POST IS NO LONGER UPDATED. PLEASE VISIT www.booksalive.com.au for the latest details about [...]

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Buy or Sell 2nd Hand Textbooks and Earn $

Textbookexchange is the best website to buy and sell 2nd hand textbooks in Australia. It is a free service from Student Services Australia and a group of leading student organisations nationwide. It is estimated that at least 30% of students do not buy all of their “required reading” textbooks. The primary reason is lack of [...]

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Fahrenheit 451, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, How to Rule the World (Book Reviews)

I recently read these three books within one week. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, and How to Rule the World the Essential Handbook for Aspiring Dictators by Andre de Guillaume After reading them I realised that by coincidence all three books had a [...]

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Seekbooks Review – Buy Cheap Books from an Australian Online Bookstore

I have bought quite a few books from the Australian discount online bookstore Seekbooks including: The Joy of Work: Dilbert’s Guide to Finding Happiness by Scott Adam, The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett and What Color Is Your Parachute? By Richard Nelson Bolles. Seekbooks maintain a database of over 1.2 million [...]

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FREE Online Language Translation Services

There are several free online language translation services available including Yahoo Babelfish, Google Language Tools and SDL International’s freetranslation.com, this article summarises their offerings and tries to give an idea of where machine translation of text between languages is headed. Yahoo has recently relaunched Yahoo Babelfish, a new version of the venerable babelfish.altavista.com free online [...]

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