Yosemite Display at Branner
May 15th, 2008
Just in time for your next field trip, come see our new display about Yosemite National Park.
Yosemite National Park, California. Cathedral Peak, viewed from Cathedral Pass, showing cut terrace. 1908. G.K. Gilbert. [via] USGS.
Visit us in person, or go to Branner’s Library Thing for a full list of books and maps on display.
We have additional copies of many of the display items available for you to take with you on your next Yosemite excursion.
List 2: International Polar Year
September 13th, 2007
Polar Station at Sodankyla, Finland.
In preparation for the new quarter, we have a new display in Branner. The theme is polar, arctic + antarctic, in honor of the third International Polar Year. Visit the library to see the books in person or see the list virtually on Library Thing. We’ll be amassing Polar Year e-sources on del.icio.us under the tag “ipy.”
If you’d like to find books from the last display “General Interest Earth Science reading”, click to List 1 in the blog or the tag list 1 on Library Thing.
Image from NOAA, “First International Polar Year.”
Branner’s LibraryThing
May 30th, 2007
You may have noticed a new feature in the sidebar of the BrannerBlog. We are experimenting with a service called “LibraryThing,” an online cataloging application that allows us (or you) to catalog books, tag them, and generally engage in the whole web 2.0, social networking thing: think facebook for your home library. Read more about library thing, visit our catalog, or start your own.
Right now our “catalog” is small, home to the first of our recommended reading lists. And of course you can visit good old socrates, our comprehensive catalog, to find countless other books, maps, and journals held by Branner.
Question: I would like a general geology book, not a textbook, something engaging for a general audience.
April 6th, 2007
This is a tough question, but a list I’ve been meaning to compile for a while.
This particular patron walked away with Assembling California by John McPhee and Roadside geology of northern California by David Alt. Other recommendations follow (the books themselves will be on display in Branner for browsing and borrowing). This list is intended as a starting point, by no means exhaustive.
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General interest earth science-themed reading:
- The Age of the Earth by Dalrymple; QE508 .D28 1991
- Annals of the Former World by McPhee; QE77 .M38 1998 which includes:
- Basin and Range; QE79 .M28 1981
- In Suspect Terrain; QE78.3 .M36 1983
- Rising from the Plains; QE79 .M29 1986
- Assembling California; QE89 .M37 1993
- Beyond Oil: the View from Hubbert’s Peak by Deffeyes; TP318 .D44 2005
- Cataclysms on the Columbia by Allen; QE581 .A43 1991
- Collapse by Diamond; HN13 .D5 2005
- Field notes from a Catastrophe by Kolbert; QC981.8 .G56 K655 2006
- Krakatoa by Winchester; QE523 .K73 W56 2003B
- Life: a natural history of the first four billion years of life on earth by Fortey; QH366.2 .F69 1997
- The Map that Changed the World by Winchester; QE22 .S6 W55 2001
- Plate Tectonics by Oreskes; QE511.4 .P53 2001
- The Rejection of Continental Drift by Oreskes; QE511.4 .O74 1999
- Something New Under the Sun by McNeill; GF13 .M39 2000
- T-Rex and the Crater of Doom by Alvarez; QE506 .A48 1997
- Volcano Cowboys by Thompson; QE521 .T48 2000
Other lists from the blogogeosphere (or is it the geoblogosphere?):
Apparent Dip’s Great Science Book Challenge
Geology Home Companion’s Geology Reading List
California Council of Geoscience Organization’s Armchair Geologist Reading List
Stay tuned for future lists, and updates to the aforementioned. Anticipated themes include: environmental classics, geobiographies, geology of California, fuel for thought. Please send suggested titles or potential themes our way.