Hutchins Library News Blog

Now that Thanksgiving has come and gone, the holidays shopping season is in full swing. As you shop, whether in a bricks and mortar store or online, do you ever wonder where some of the items you buy come from? Do you wonder how those products get to the stores? Well, today's book selection From Our Shelves answers those questions and more. This week I read Ninety Percent of Everything: Inside Shipping, the Invisible Industry That Puts Clothes On Your Back, Gas In Your Car, and Food On Your Plate. The book looks at the shipping trade, a business that very few people outside the trade even consider. Yet most of what we consume in the United States comes to stores via shipping containers, and those shipping containers come across oceans on giant container ships. The book's author did the research, spoke to people in the trade, and even spent time traveling in a container ship so we can learn what it is like.

The book features an interesting narrative, and the author strives to represent as many parties involved in the trade as possible. It is also very well documented. If you are interested in topics such as business, logistics, supply chains, and labor, this may be a book for you. If you just wonder how the merchandise you buy gets to your stores, this may be for you as well.

Book details from the library catalog:

Ninety Percent of Everything by Rose George

Call Number: Stacks 387.544 G348n 2014

ISBN: 9781250058294

Publication Date: 2014-09-09

Eye-opening and compelling, the overlooked world of freight shipping, revealed as the foundation of our civilization On ship-tracking Web sites, the waters are black with dots. Each dot is a ship; each ship is laden with boxes; each box is laden with goods. In postindustrial economies, we no longer produce but buy, and so we must ship. Without shipping there would be no clothes, food, paper, or fuel. Without all those dots, the world would not work. Yet freight shipping is all but invisible. Away from public scrutiny, it revels in suspect practices, dubious operators, and a shady system of "flags of convenience." And then there are the pirates. Rose George, acclaimed chronicler of what we would rather ignore, sails from Rotterdam to Suez to Singapore on ships the length of football fields and the height of Niagara Falls; she patrols the Indian Ocean with an anti-piracy task force; she joins seafaring chaplains, and investigates the harm that ships inflict on endangered whales. Sharply informative and entertaining, Ninety Percent of Everything reveals the workings and perils of an unseen world that holds the key to our economy, our environment, and our very civilization.

Via Abby Houston ('16), Digital Initiatives Librarian:

Hi, everyone!

Hutchins Library invites you to visit a new interactive installation, "Walls: The Unconventional Canvas," located next to the Reference Desk on the main floor! 

Seniors Cait Fouch and Erin Sainsbury created a paper-mâché wall out of discarded campus paper materials. They invite everyone to view and add to the wall over the next weeks leading up to the 410 Expo on November 30:

"For our GSTR 410 project, we made a wall to show how they can be used to bring people together. PLEASE add something meaningful or important to you to our wall! It can be anything you want. Please make it appropriate and use the materials provided. 🙂"

All campus members are encouraged to write, paint, draw, etc. directly on the wall or using sticky notes. Reach out to Cait or Erin with any questions about the project.