Training of Sci-Tech Librarians and Library Users (Science & Technology Libraries,)

Author : Ellis Mount Edition : 1 Number of Pages : 72 Publisher : Routledge Mental Hea List Price : $31.00 Amazon Price : $31.00 Used Price : $19.51

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TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER : THE ROLE OF THE SCI-TECH LIBRARIAN

Publisher : The Haworth Press USA

Info-tech?: A guide for young professional librarians (AAL pointers)

Format : Import Author : J. E Rowley Number of Pages : 90 Publisher : Association of Assistant Librarians

Librarian's Internet Survival Guide: Strategies for the High-Tech Reference Desk

Author : Irene E. McDermott Number of Pages : 267 Publisher : Information Today List Price : $29.50 Amazon Price : $8.74 Used Price : $4.49

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Customer reviews

Recommended for the unique needs and problems of a librarian by .. Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA)
Deftly edited Barbara Quint (Editor, Searcher Magazine), The Librarian's Internet Survival Guide: Strategies for the High-Tech Reference Desk by Irene E. McDermott (Reference Librarian and Systems Manager, San Marino Public Library, California) is a useful and "user-friendly" instructional guide, especially written for librarians concerned with how they can get the most out of computer search engines, how to find people and public records with a minimum of fuss, tracking down both current and dated news, cyber-shopping, web-based email, creating web pages, computer troubleshooting, and much, much more. Although written and especially recommended for the unique needs and problems of a librarian, this very practical primer can also come in quite handy for any lay user still adjusting to the onset of the information age and what school and community libraries can offer them.

Eyes of the Calculor (Greatwinter Trilogy)

Author : Sean Mcmullen Edition : 1st Number of Pages : 587 Publisher : Tor Books List Price : $27.95 Amazon Price : $19.95 Used Price : $0.46

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Customer reviews

But can it do nested integrals? by .. Michael Battaglia ()
Let me be clear here: this is not a jumping on point. For some reason the books aren't numbered as a trilogy of sorts but that's basically what they are . . . McMullen is decent at giving exposition but being I read the first two in the series I'm probably a poor judge of how well he brings people up to speed.

Though, with that said, it may not be as difficult as all that as a lot of the concepts that powered the first book are gone, as well as most of the characters (while some folks have carried over, he's generally introduced an entirely new cast every time) . . . the end of the second book marked a bit of a sea change for the status quo, with one of the Big Concepts, the Call, being resolved entirely. The problem is that unless you've read the previous books you're not going to realize exactly how big a deal this is and how McMullen has been slowly shifting the overall direction over the course of the three books and stripping away what you thought were the core concepts before they could become gimmicks, which while not groundbreaking, at least shows a willingness to mess with his own rules.

Anyway, as the first book showed us Australia and the second book put us in North America, the last book here starts to let the cultures mingle, with the flyers and the librarians getting almost equal time. Also, the Avians become a bigger force in the novel as they don't have to worry about getting shot in the face every time they poke their heads up. Like the other novels there is a lot going on and also like those other novels there's probably too much going on. Nobody can accuse McMullen in lacking ideas and the plots spin and collide and parallel each other like he expects to be dead by the time the book is over and has to get it all down now. This can be a bit disorienting, as it means the story moves too quickly and some of the deeper character motivations tend to get lost in the shuffle as you start to question why exactly people are doing the things they're doing.

The kickoff event for all of this is Mirrorsun (don't ask) shorting out all the electronics on the planet for some reason, throwing everything into a bit of chaos. From there situations escalate, although with all the political manuevering and fighting it gets hard to tell exactly what the stakes are or who is on what side unless you start keeping a scorecard. The characters are mostly memorable, although there's so much to keep track of that nobody really gets to stick around in a scene for very long. There are some returning faces, including a few surprising ones. Some of the characters (I can think of two in particular) appear to have gone some radical personality changes in between books, which might be a little off-putting and not everyone is totally developed beyond "He's good at math and clever" . . . but the constant shifting about tends to alleviate that issue. If it's even an issue.

But his dialogue remains sharp and funny at times, the ideas are bursting out all over and everything is juggled well enough that it takes a while before you start wondering where this is all going. Yes, it gets resolved and chances are we won't see these people again. Which I'm okay with, by this point I think he's taken the story as far as he can in this setting and just based on these books I'd be curious to see what else he can do.

You don't hear too much about McMullen in the circles of SF and that's a shame because purely judging by these novels he's inventive and is able to imagine futures that are interesting without being totally depressing. Hopefully he's becoming more known outside of Australia but if you're looking for SF that isn't a bit off the beaten path without going radically experimental, this isn't a bad place to check out.

Australian SF Reader by .. Blue Tyson ()
In the final Greatwinter book the emerging technology is zapped by Mirrorsun, EMP-style. This forces fallback to the old human powered/slave conscript calculors full of scientists and mathematicians.

With no Call, the aviad societies are now a lot more vulnerable to human expansion, not being able to move around in safety in Call times. The aircraft no longer work, so the horses available in Australia become an important resource the North Americans want to gather.

Multiple threads in this book.

Interesting but confused by .. Max Robitzsch (Erzhausen, Germany)
I really wanted to like this book. The American airlord society that McMullen introduced in the second book was a fascinating read, and the connection with the Australian cultures was sure to be interesting as well.

But then it all went crazy. The cetaceans apparently evolved into a superior civilization in a couple weeks and then subjugated humanity via the sexual fantasies of a geek programmer (I'm not kidding). Then the two main characters become certifiably crazy and in the end, evil (fascinating in itself, but only barely believable). The worst thing though is that the story at times becomes totally unreadable because everyone seems to betray everone at least once - and often in the space of a single paragraph without much further explanation.

At times you really have to read things several times over to make out whats hapening, and while this might be praise in some cases, it ain't here.

As it is, you won't regret reading it - it still is a great book - if you liked the ones before it. But you sure wish he had restrained himself in some case or edited some areas more.

If you are looking for something original in the Sci Fi genere, here it is!! by .. Lincoln Griffith (High Point, NC)
Sean McMullen is a fellow Aussie but I won't let that cloud my judgment. The book is a page turner from the begining. It is fast paced and broad in scope. Sean has a rich imagination and has created a fascinating and very dangerous post apocalyptic (is there such a word?) Australia.

This is one of a 3 part series. The other two novels are equally as good and if you read the first one you will have to get the others.

Also read "The Centurians Empire" and "Voyage of the Shadowmoon" by the same Author.

Stands Alone by .. Victoria (Canada)
For some reason, I didn't discover this was actually the last in a trilogy until halfway through the book, when it became clear that there was a complicated plot that had occured earlier. However, this did not at all stunt my enjoyment of Eyes of the Calculor, but perhaps it did limit it.

McMullen definately has his own magnificent and very readable style, combining a sense of humour with wonderfully endearing yet complex characters, politics, religion and society, magic, technology and science, all set just under two thousand years in the future. The plot is complicated enough to allow an immediate re-reading, and many "Oh!" moments, where everything clicks into place.

Although Eyes of the Calculor was fabulous as a stand alone book, I recommend it be read in sequence, in order to clean up issues of history and organisation of the society (which is quite complicated and worth understanding).

If you're looking for something light and funny and completely new and unlike most other science fiction, this is the book (and series) for you. 4.5 stars.