Ford Library Blog

Schumpeter, Joseph A. Can capitalism survive? : creative destruction and the future of the global economy. Harper Perennial, 2009.

A role of economists is to provide economic analysis of recessions such as the current one created by the financial crisis and provide strategies for restoring economic growth and prosperity.

Leading up to the current recession, The Federal Reserve lowered interest rates to make housing more affordable, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac developed a federal program enabling people to qualify for homes that ordinarily would not.

Subsequently, people purchased homes they could not afford and some lost their jobs due to the recession. Wall Street banks invested too heavily in risky loans rather than diversifying, accumulating toxic assets leading to tremendous losses.

Hayek goes as far to say that central banking destabilizes the economy. In the recent recession, government intervention led to inflation, over building, a housing bubble, and then economic indicators became unrealistic.

In addition to the destabilized housing market, the financial crisis had a ripple effect on travel, retail, the automobile and oil industries, and led to significant number of lost jobs.

Can Capitalism Survive? is excerpted from Joseph Schumpeter’s 1942 classic Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. This is where he proposed business cycles are caused by technological innovation, referred to as creative destruction. In Capitalist economies, markets eliminate obsolete technologies and utilize innovations to create new avenues for economic growth. (more…)

One of our Library users has shared a concern with the Library Staff over cell phone use in the Library.

Please be considerate of your fellow Library users, and follow the two simple guidelines below regarding cell phone use in the Library.

1. Set your cell phone to vibrate or silent mode.

2. If you get a call while in the Library, please take the call in:

• one of the copier rooms (located near the circulation desk or at the back of the Library)
• one of the Library restrooms
• in the hall outside the Library

Thanks for your consideration and cooperation!

Ford Library has created a presence on Twitter to give you fast, byte-sized access to important Library news.

Twitter is a web site/service that lets you send and receive up to 140 characters worth of quick info or news about what you happen to be doing at any given moment. You can also receive updates or “tweets” via your favorite IM software or over your cell phone.

You can follow us on the Twitter web site (no account necessary), or sign up to receive our updates via IM or cell phone. We’ve also embedded a Twitter widget on our Library Info page to show you our 3 most recent updates when you visit our site.

Please feel free to send any comments or questions about our new Twitter service to: reference-librarians@fuqua.duke.edu.

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All Duke University Libraries (including Ford Library) will be releasing a new version of our online library catalog on Wednesday, July 9th.

The new online catalog interface will include many new features and functions:

• improved display of holdings and locations (which library has what book)
• single click search refinement (show results by library, format, and more)
• book cover image displays
• save searches as persistent bookmarks
• save/view searches as dynamically updated RSS feeds
• and more …

We encourage you to try out the new catalog interface before Wednesday to get a feel for how to perform all the searches and operations that you’re familiar with in our current catalog interface.

The “Classic” catalog interface will still be accessible (although not indefinitely!) from within the new catalog.

Please feel free to send any comments or questions about the new catalog to: reference-librarians@fuqua.duke.edu.

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Hanson, Jarice. 24/7: How Cell Phones and the Internet Change the Way We Live, Work, and Play. Praeger, 2007.

Media guru Marshall McLuhan had a famous slogan in the 1960’s, “The medium is message”. He meant that communication media had a meaning separate from the content. At the time, he was talking about television and film. But the slogan still applies. Technology changes the culture and the way people relate to each other. Every generation has a particular communication technology that helps to define their worldview and their way of communicating.

Author Jarice Hanson claims that in their short histories, cell phones and the internet have sparked significant changes to traditional attitudes, values and behaviors. Perceptions of time and space are altering. Public and private activities are blurring.

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Are you thinking of attending Duke’s Second Annual Conference on Intellectual Property Markets for Technology: Challenges and Opportunities?

Then you may also want to check out any of these excellent books on these subjects available at the Ford Library: (Click on any of the titles below to check availability or to place a hold.)

• Strategic Use of Information Technology for Global Organizations by M. Gordon Hunter and Felix B. Tan
• The Consequences of Information: Institutional Implications of Technological Change by Jannis Kallinikos
• Innovate or Perish: Managing the Enduring Technology Company in the Global Market edited by Edward Kahn
• The Clean Tech Revolution: The Next Big Growth and Investment Opportunity by Ron Pernick and Clint Wilder
• Information Resources Management: Global Challenges by Wai K. Law
• E-Business Innovation and Process Management edited by In Lee
• Future Thinking, Learning, and Leading: Applying Multiple Intelligences to Success and Innovation by Irving H. Buchen
• 24/7 How Cell Phones and the Internet Change the Way We Live, Work, and Play by Jarice Hanson
• Blind Men and The Elephant: Demystifying the Global IT Services Industry by Was Rahman and Priya Kurien

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