Hutchins Library News Blog

Welcome to “From Our Shelves” where I read a book from our library collections and write a short review about it. This week I am featuring Verified: how to think straight, get duped less, and make better decisions about what to believe online (link to library catalog) by Mike Caulfield and Samuel S. Wineburg. 

This book is an essential guide everyone using the internet needs to have handy. This book teaches how to be skeptical of what you see online and how to evaluate it. In a time when the internet and social media are full of scams, click bait, rage bait, and other deceptions, this book gives you the tools to separate the crap from the few good things that remain. 

Caulfield, one of the two coauthors, created the SIFT method (Stop, Investigate, Find other coverage, Trace the claim). This is one of the research methods we teach here in library instruction to empower our students to evaluate what they find online and act accordingly. Their lessons are relatively easy and teach you how to assess quickly, so you can find the information you need and navigate the web efficiently. 

Locally, this book may be of interest in writing classes that require research. It may also be of interest for some journalism classes. 

If you read this book, or any other book in our collections or just any interesting book, feel free to leave a comment and let us know. 

Welcome to another edition of “From Our Shelves” where I read and review a book from our collections. This week's featured title is Barons: money, power, and the corruption of America's food industry (link to library catalog) by Austin Frerick. The book includes a foreword by Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation (link to library catalog). 

This book is the real life account of seven robber baron dynasties and the empires they created. The book does not skimp on the details and gives us a solid and strong picture of these baron dynasties and how they control not just the American food systems but also food systems around the world. 

The men, and they are mainly men, like to portray themselves as self-made men, but that is often far from the truth. They may have started out with a smart idea, concept, and/or product, but they did not do it all on their own. They had various forms of help along the way. Some ways were legal, others not so much. Often, the American government and U.S. taxpayers helped pay for their exploitative and often morally questionable successes. In one case, there is even a Nazi fortune involved. 

The book is very easy to read. Corporate history books can often be long and dense, written for specialists. This book is written for regular secular readers. It explains concepts with ease, keeps jargon to a minimum, and it has a good narrative pace.

Locally, the following subject areas may want to consider this book for their classes: 

• General Studies.
• Peace and Social Justice.
• Political Science.
• Economics.
• Business Administration.
• Agriculture. 

Welcome to another edition of “From Our Shelves” where I read a book from our collections and write a short review. 

This week I read War Made Invisible: how America hides the hidden toll of its military machine (link to library catalog) by Norman Solomon. In this book the author discusses in detail how the United States stays in a continuous state of war, but its citizens have no idea it is happening. The US Government uses all kinds of propaganda and subterfuges to cover up the constant warfare, and the American media is complicit in the process. This is something that both political parties maintain when they are in power. 

The book mainly stays within the late 20th Century and into the 21st Century. The role of 9/11 in ramping up the American war machine is prominent, but the United States was already deep in constant warfare well enough before 9/11.The narrative in the book is not fully linear; the author often jumps back and forth in time. Overall, the military industrial complex is very much alive, well, and wealthy in the United States. The book is not an easy read at times, but it is worth reading. It is well written and accessible. Locally, classes in political science may be interested in adding it to their reading lists.