Ford Library Blog

Midler, Paul. Poorly made in China : an insider’s account of the tactics behind China’s production game. Wiley, 2009.

Paul Midler could be said to be biting the hand that feeds him. After all, he has built a lucrative career as a China-based manufacturing consultant, using his expert knowledge and insight into Chinese history, language, and culture. And yet, he has penned a work that, while frank in its admiration for many Chinese cultural idiosyncrasies, is also sharply critical of both the questionable ethical basis on which the Chinese have built their gargantuan export economy, and the impatience and greed of American businesses in rushing to embrace the perceived advantages of having their product lines manufactured in China.

In the 240 smoothly written and eminently readable pages of Poorly Made In China, Mr. Midler recounts his daily experiences in creating and managing relationships between Chinese factory owners and American importers, giving us example after example of why the Chinese, in his opinion, win at every hand dealt at the negotiating table of price and quality. Thus the importer and the U.S. consumer often have a good chance of ending up with a product that either degrades in quality over time or increases in cost without benefit to the consumer, or both.

Read more …

The library staff has a training session in the database room Friday October 9 from 9 am to 10 am.

Sorman, Guy. Economics does not lie : a defense of the free market in a time of crisis. Encounter Books, 2009.

Curiously, the Nobel Committee has awarded prizes to economists with theories supporting contradictory approaches for understanding and managing national economies ranging from Keynesian to free market. Guy Sorman’s Economics Does Not Lie gives a unique perspective to why this enigmatic phenomenon has occurred.

Traditionally, economics is thought of as a social science. Sorman argues economics has become more of a science with the aid of algorithms, mathematical models, and computers to interpret data. Subsequently, these tools for improving models for economic policy analysis should prove one approach is correct, and provide guidance during recessions. If economics is a science, it teaches us that markets provide the most efficient economy according to Sorman. Despite the America’s current economic problems, our land of opportunity still provides a standard of living envied throughout the world. Read more …

The WRDS web site will be unavailable during scheduled maintenance from 12:00 noon – 8:00pm EST on Tuesday, September 29, 2009.

However, access should continue for for faculty and PhD users accessing WRDS through UNIX and PC SAS Connect. Interactive queries during this period should also continue to run unaffected.

We apologize for any inconvenience caused by this peak use time outage. The services of a non-WRDS IT contractor, who was available only during business hours, were required to complete the upgrade.

View a list of the affected databases.

If you experience difficulty connecting to the WRDS web site after 8pm tomorrow, please send an email to reference-librarians@fuqua.duke.edu.

The end of the Bernie Madoff story has yet to be written, but books are already rolling off the presses, including five books in the month of August alone.

Here is a list of titles just purchased by the Ford Library last week.

• Betrayal: The life and lies of Bernie Madoff
  by Andrew Kirtzman
  Written like a novel, this book is the most readable of the lot, and gives readers an inside look at Madoff, his family and the investors.
• Too Good to be True: The rise and fall of Bernie Madoff
  by Erin Arvedlund
  A well researched book by an investigative journalist, who first warned investors about Madoff in Barrons in 2001, providing the clear explanations about how hedge funds and Madoff’s scam worked.
• Madoff with the Money
  by Jerry Oppenheimer
  A portrait of Madoff as a flawed man, as revealed through anecdotes from his family, friends and business associates.
• Catastrophe: The story of Bernard L. Madoff, the man who swindled the world
  by Deborah and Gerald Strober
  One of the first books about Madoff,  published by two historians in March 2009, is a chronicle of the weeks immediately before and after Madoff’s arrest.
• Bernard Madoff: Masterminding a billion dollar fraud
  by Filiquarian Publishing, LLC
  A summary of news articles about the Madoff scandal.

Tip: If any of these books are currently checked out, you can recall them by clicking the “Get this Title” text in the catalog record when you follow the links above. More about recalls …

© Reviewer: Meg Trauner & Ford Library – Fuqua School of Business.
All rights reserved.

All ProQuest databases (including ABI-INFORM Complete) will be temporarily unavailable this weekend while the vendor performs necessary system maintenance.

This maintenance outage will take place from Saturday, September 26, 2009, at 11:00pm EST to Sunday, September 27, 2009 at 10:00am EST.

Fuqua & Duke users may select alternative databases for article searches during the maintenance window by visiting our Databases By Subject page.

Thanks for your patience during this essential maintenance.

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UPDATED: The popular Vault.com Online Career Library web site will be rolling out a major redesign on Tuesday, October 6th. Monday, September 28th

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In addition to a re-branding of the site, here is a quick summary of the changes and how they will affect your use of the site.

• Fuqua School of Business students, faculty, & staff only will continue to access the new Vault Career Insider site from Ford Library’s secure web page link at: http://library.fuqua.duke.edu/internal/vaultlib.htm
• The new site is designed to be personalized, so you will need to create an individual user account after connecting. Although, this may add an extra step to your access, there are several benefits: Read more …

Latest titles are:

Pride and Glory
Rudo y Cursi
State of Play
Sugar
Sunshine Cleaning
Tom and Jerry’s Greatest Chases
Trouble the Water
Velveteen Rabbit
Yes Man

Nilekani, Nandan. Imagining India : the idea of a renewed nation. Penguin Press, 2009.

Software entrepreneur Nandan Nilekani is proud of the economic progress made by India in the last 25 years, but senses that the inequities that remain are limiting India’s ability to take full advantage of global opportunities. The challenges must be resolved before India can rise to a new level of prosperity, yet within India, there is resistance.

Nilekani posits that ideas lead economic and social policy. He explains the evolution of ideas in India, including core beliefs among the population. He discusses changes in attitudes that are the heart of India’s success, some of which have been implemented and others that have yet to see results. He sees India’s human capital, English proficiency and information technology as huge advantages in a globalized world.

The most important driver for growth lies in expanding access to resources and opportunity. Nilekani charts a new way forward for a young and impatient nation.

© Reviewer: Meg Trauner & Ford Library – Fuqua School of Business.
All rights reserved.

The Director’s Picks

Fuqua School Dean Blair Sheppard asked Ford Library Director, Meg Trauner to select 5 recent business books that should “be on his nightstand”.

Click the titles below for information on location and availability.

• The Post American World by Fareed Zakaria
  - Optimistic view of a world no longer dominated by the U.S.
  - Also available as an audiobook.
• What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis
  - Control is out. Connection is in.
  - Also available as an audiobook.
  - Read the full review.
• How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer
  - Based on new research in neuroscience.
  - Read the full review.
• Imagining India: the idea of a renewed nation by Nandan Nilekani
  - Cultural intelligence on how India operates.
• Fool’s Gold: How the bold dream of a small tribe at J.P. Morgan was corrupted by Wall Street greed and unleashed a catastrophe by Gillian Tett
  - Gripping narrative and education on derivatives.
  - Read the full review.