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1 – 10 of 200AN Englishman sees at once, with the New England landscapes about him, that he could easily make his home there—in the exhilaration of the moment he clean forgets the quota and…
Abstract
AN Englishman sees at once, with the New England landscapes about him, that he could easily make his home there—in the exhilaration of the moment he clean forgets the quota and the fact that he isn't wanted, and Al Capone, prohibition, and the slump. New England is as far from Hollywood as Old England is. Its hills are of granite and the harsher rocks. Its woods, with trees reminiscent of home, yet certainly foreign, are still savage, and the Indian place‐names remind you that the frame‐houses are recent invaders. See it under snow and the sun, when the temperature is dropping to zero though the sky is blue, and you begin to understand why so much New England poetry and thought is as delicate and austere as a flower on stoney ground. These people, for generations, have had to keep resolutely watchful and on their guard, knowing they could survive only if they could get corn enough to husband. They have some residue from the memories of their forefathers of the stockaded settlement, when the Indians were lurking in the dark swamps without. Their hope has been bleak enough in their fight against granite and snow, and the seas of the North. Enduring through long and relentless winters, when nature was arctic, they made more of any sign of spring in the heart, or in the fields, than we should. Mysticism, a sense of relationship with a purpose behind the harsh and unforgiving show of things, is natural and consolatory to lonely folk who, as Thoreau somewhere remarks, have to get through hard times, like bears, by sucking their own paws. There is nothing else. With all against them, they kept watch at the stockade, waiting for morning. What is heard in the silence of the mind, while enduring in loneliness, can be expressed only in austere images. Says Emerson: “What generous beliefs console. The brave whom Fate denies the goal! If others reach it, is content; To Heaven's high will his will is bent.” Emerson was not ironic; those words occur in a tribute to his dead brother.
Those responsible for purchasing reference books for libraries rely to a great extent on reviews that appear in those journals which, broadly speaking, constitute the library…
Abstract
Those responsible for purchasing reference books for libraries rely to a great extent on reviews that appear in those journals which, broadly speaking, constitute the library press. The idea of a library press, though it is usually identified with a number of periodicals—known either by their brief names, such as The Booklist, or by their initials, LJ, RQ, and WLB, probably should be extended to include such standard “authorities” as ALA's Guide to Reference Books and many of the volumes in Bowker's buying guide series. In these periodicals and monographs, librarians take it upon themselves to express judgments on new books that do in fact have an influence on purchase decisions.
IT was unlikely that I should remember, even when in Boston, Massachusetts for the first time, that there was a pond called Walden, presumably near, and good for rod and line…
Abstract
IT was unlikely that I should remember, even when in Boston, Massachusetts for the first time, that there was a pond called Walden, presumably near, and good for rod and line. Walden is a familiar name, but it suggests only some rare ideas—ideas so rare, you may retort, that they could not embody so much as an image of a pond. That may be so—I bear in mind my schoolmaster's comment on Thoreau. The comment was “all moonshine.” I defend myself with the suggestion that moonshine is all right. It is said that phases of it are so admired by everybody at times that they will swear it is plain daylight; they will go as far as to declare, of their particular lunar phase, that if you can't see things plainer by its light then you are probably a traitor or an atheist. We know that in our rough island story there was once a Hidden Hand, obvious enough by moonlight, but invisible by day. I am all for freedom in moonshine.
Sarah Lawson, Sheila Apted, Monica Dart, Chris Saunders, R Moss and Alan Duckworth
ANY TIME YOU can buy a hardback Walden in good condition for sixty‐five cents, you should grab it. And so I did. Thoreau would have approved, for I contemplated just what…
Abstract
ANY TIME YOU can buy a hardback Walden in good condition for sixty‐five cents, you should grab it. And so I did. Thoreau would have approved, for I contemplated just what sixty‐five cents was and whether I was likely to find another Walden for less. I set it to one side for further consideration while I browsed through other volumes in the little bookshop on 40th Street in Philadelphia. Here was a Proust for ninety cents, here was Billy Budd, here was an old edition of Hawthorne. The Proust, however, staggered under the weight of heavy inky under‐scorings; I already had a copy of Billy Budd; and the Hawthorne, I knew, existed in much better editions. Later there was a tempting French dictionary and an interesting cache of history books, but one by one Walden vanquished all comers. By the end of the afternoon it was the only possible purchase.
The purpose of this article is to outline possibilities for the integration of text mining and other digital humanities computing techniques into library catalogs and “discovery…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this article is to outline possibilities for the integration of text mining and other digital humanities computing techniques into library catalogs and “discovery systems”.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach has been to survey existing text mining apparatus and apply this to traditional library systems.
Findings
Through this process it is found that there are many ways library interfaces can be augmented to go beyond the processes of find and get and evolve to include processes of use and understand.
Originality/value
To the best of the author's knowledge, this type of augmentation has yet to be suggested or implemented across libraries.
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Nonviolent civil disobedience is a vital and protected form of political communication in modern constitutional democracies. Reviews the idea of both demonstrating its continued…
Abstract
Nonviolent civil disobedience is a vital and protected form of political communication in modern constitutional democracies. Reviews the idea of both demonstrating its continued relevance, and providing a basis for considering its uses as an information‐age strategy of radical activism. The novelty of the forms of speech and action possible in cyberspace make it difficult to compare these new methods of expression easily. Whether in cyberspace or the real world, civil disobedience has historically specific connotations that should be sustained because the concept has special relevance to the political theory and practice of constitutional democracy. Civil disobedience is a unique means of political expression that is used to provoke democratic deliberation about important questions of just law and policy. Among the significant problems that new forms of radical political practice in cyberspace introduce is that their practitioners and advocates neglect the need to distinguish between violence and nonviolence. Examines that problem and others that are central to considering theoretical and political implications of radical activism in general, and civil disobedience in particular, in cyberspace.
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This paper attempts to trace and describe the role played by the government sector – the state – in promoting economic growth in Western societies since the Renaissance. One…
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This paper attempts to trace and describe the role played by the government sector – the state – in promoting economic growth in Western societies since the Renaissance. One important conclusion is that the antagonism between state and market, which has characterised the twentieth century, is a relatively new phenomenon. Since the Renaissance one very important task of the state has been to create well‐functioning markets by providing a legal framework, standards, credit, physical infrastructure and – if necessary – to function temporarily as an entrepreneur of last resort. Early economists were acutely aware that national markets did not occur spontaneously, and they used “modern” ideas like synergies, increasing returns, and innovation theory when arguing for the right kind of government policy. In fact, mercantilist economics saw it as a main task to extend the synergetic economic effects observed within cities to the territory of a nation‐state. The paper argues that the classical Anglo‐Saxon tradition in economics – fundamentally focused on barter and distribution, rather than on production and knowledge – systematically fails to grasp these wider issues in economic development, and it brings in and discusses the role played by the state in alternative traditions of non‐equilibrium economics.
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Li‐teh Sun, John C. O’Brien and Qi Jiang
The collapse of the Soviet Union and the success of the US economy at the end of the second millennium do not necessarily mean the end of socialism. In fact both capitalism and…
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The collapse of the Soviet Union and the success of the US economy at the end of the second millennium do not necessarily mean the end of socialism. In fact both capitalism and socialism are beneficial for a unitary human development, which consists of both material and spiritual development. Capitalism, with its emphasis on self‐interest and individual freedom, has been crucial to material development. But socialism, with its preference for other‐interest and collective necessity, is conducive to spiritual development. Thus, what is needed for further development of the human race is a unitary economics that synergizes capitalism and scoialism.
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Henry H. Rossbacher, Tracy W. Young and Nanci E. Nishimura
Thoreau heartily accepted the motto, ‘that government is best which governs least’. Our forefathers braved treacherous oceans and alien lands emboldened by that belief, after…
Abstract
Thoreau heartily accepted the motto, ‘that government is best which governs least’. Our forefathers braved treacherous oceans and alien lands emboldened by that belief, after enduring the Crown's heavy hand invading and restricting their religious and personal lives. That is why, among the many freedoms embodied in our Constitution, the right to privacy was included in the Fourth Amendment to protect individuals from arbitrary intrusion by the state. The right has been fundamental to the establishment of a more tolerant society devoted to the principles of liberty and justice for all.
Man has been seeking an ideal existence for a very long time. In this existence, justice, love, and peace are no longer words, but actual experiences. How ever, with the American…
Abstract
Man has been seeking an ideal existence for a very long time. In this existence, justice, love, and peace are no longer words, but actual experiences. How ever, with the American preemptive invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq and the subsequent prisoner abuse, such an existence seems to be farther and farther away from reality. The purpose of this work is to stop this dangerous trend by promoting justice, love, and peace through a change of the paradigm that is inconsistent with justice, love, and peace. The strong paradigm that created the strong nation like the U.S. and the strong man like George W. Bush have been the culprit, rather than the contributor, of the above three universal ideals. Thus, rather than justice, love, and peace, the strong paradigm resulted in in justice, hatred, and violence. In order to remove these three and related evils, what the world needs in the beginning of the third millenium is the weak paradigm. Through the acceptance of the latter paradigm, the golden mean or middle paradigm can be formulated, which is a synergy of the weak and the strong paradigm. In order to understand properly the meaning of these paradigms, however, some digression appears necessary.
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