By Robert Lisiecki
Want to stay up with the latest news in the industry? Well, you’ve come to the right place! I’ve gathered some of the latest buzz to share with you. Check out this past week’s noteworthy stories below.
Academic
Deconstructing Mr. Darcy: Just how rich was he?
| By Jennifer Albers-Smith |
I took this awesome class in college at University of Michigan that–10 years later–still resonates with me. It focused exclusively on Jane Austen and her contemporaries. We read all of Austen’s novels as well as Radcliffe, Burney, and Wollstonecraft, and it was easily the best four months of my academic career. The professor was really innovative and brought in one of her colleagues, Kathryn Dominguez, from the Economics department to do a lecture on what things cost in Jane Austen’s time. She put together this great PowerPoint deck that I still have to this day because I thought it was so intriguing.
Numbers pop up all the time in Austen’s novels, but the reader really has no sense of how rich Bingley and Darcy are or how “poor” the Bennets are by comparison.
In Other News: March Madness
A look at a current news item through the lens of different titles available on GVRL.
By Michelle Eickmeyer
Spring is in the air… or at least its on the calendar. And so are the sounds of fans cheering, odds shifting, brackets crashing and extra-squeaky shoes on the gym floor. (I mean seriously, how do they get those shoes to be so loud?!) Bracket-betting, foam finger throwing tantrums meets unbridled school spirit and athleticism. It’s the NCAA Division 1 Men’s Basketball Tournament! And its the 75th one! That’s kind of a big deal.
True Confessions of a Jane Austen Fan Girl
By Jennifer Albers-Smith
From the moment I read Pride and Prejudice in high school, I was hooked. I love Jane Austen’s novels, particularly Pride and Prejudice, with Sense and Sensibility coming in a distant second. I have read P&P over 10 times, watched multiple mini-series and movie adaptations, joined the Jane Austen Society of North America, and, still, I just can’t get enough.
Recently, I went to a library book sale in my hometown, and was browsing the adult fiction section. My sister happened across two books that had “Mr. Darcy” as part of the title, grabbed them, and handed them over. Of course, I purchased them and read them both the same week. One, Mr. Darcy’s Diary by Amanda Grange, was pretty good – better than most JA fan fiction novels. The other, though, left me completely bereft after reading – Mr. Darcy and the Secret of Becoming a Gentleman by Maria Hamilton. I loved it. The first thing I did after finishing it was look to see if there was a sequel.
In Other News: the Oscar Pistorius Trial
By Michelle Eickmeyer
A look at a current news item through the lens of different titles available on GVRL.
March 21, 2014 – The Oscar Pistorius Trial
Whether you knew him as the first athlete to compete in the Olympics with prosthesis (it’s impossible to call him disabled) or for his current trial for the shooting death of his former girlfriend, Oscar Pistorius has spent much time in the international spotlight. The highest of high and lowest of lows. At just 27 he has accomplished much, and as his trial moves forward it remains to be seen what the future holds for him.
Here are five titles which look at the Oscar Pistorius trial from different perspectives:
Rats Fleeing the Sinking Ship! Saving the Daily Mail Atlantic Edition for Prosperity
By Seth Cayley
The Atlantic Edition
In 2013, Cengage Learning released the Daily Mail Historical Archive 1896-2004, the complete archive of what the New Yorker has described as “the newspaper that rules Britain”. During our research into the project, we discovered a long-forgotten treasure of the newspaper’s history. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Daily Mail published an “Atlantic Edition”; a completely separate version of the newspaper for sale on the transatlantic liners that sailed between New York and Southampton.
In Other News: Malaysian Airlines Diaster
By Michelle Eickmeyer
A look at a current news item through the lens of different titles available on GVRL.
March 14, 2014 – The disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370
It’s the worst nightmare of any traveler, their family and most regular people. An airplane takes off at 12:41 am from Kuala Lumpur headed to Beijing with 239 people on board. Just two hours later… it’s vanished. The speculation began almost immediately: How had people boarded the plane with stolen passports? Was there a bomb? Could they have turned around? How long after the last radar ping was the plane still flying? Why is the ‘black box’ orange? In 2014, how do you lose a plane? With nearly a week passing, we know little more than we did the first day. The world continues to hope for the best, fear the worst, and wait for word.
Here are five titles which look at the the disappearance from different perspectives:
The Zipper Gets a Makeover
By Jennifer Albers-Smith
Under Armor is taking the zipper and giving it a radical makeover (check the story out here).
It turns out that the zipper made its first appearance at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. The zipper that was introduced there has undergone only minor modifications since then. That’s 121 years that this invention has remained mostly unchanged. Not many inventions have those bragging rights.
Finding a Needle in a Data Stack: It’s All about the Metadata
by Ray Bankoski
Thanks to the digital age, we have access to information like never before. Although a single online database may host millions of digital images, users can easily and quickly find the exact piece they need by inputting a simple search term. Well, this process may seem simple to the user, but an incredible amount of work goes into creating the ease of access so many take for granted. This seemingly magical solution is metadata, and it is the key to the world-renown Gale Digital Collections product line produced by Gale, part of Cengage Learning.
In Other News: Ukraine
By Michelle Eickmeyer
A look at a current news item through the lens of different titles available on GVRL.
March 7, 2014 – The Ukraine
For several weeks, the Ukraine and the Crimean region have been in the news. What started as a celebration of the region with the Winter Olympics has become a near hourly reporting of increased tensions, dividing lines and fear on all sides of the conversation.
Here are five titles which look at the Ukraine from different perspectives: