When researching what books I want to do my research on, I found it more difficult to find interesting books that have been published within the last two years. However, I wanted to make sure that I picked a book that involved the digital divide and the social inequalities distributed globally. After some time, I found three that interested me.

1) “Technology, Society and Inequality: New Horizons and Contested Futures (Digital Formations)” by Erika Cudworth, Peter Senker, and Kathy Walker

2) “Digital Cities: The Internet and the Geography of Opportunity (Oxford Studies in Digital Politics)” by Karen Mossberger, Caroline J. Tolbert, and William W. Franko

3) “Digital Solidarity in Education: Promoting Equity, Diversity, and Academic Excellence through Innovative Instructional Programs” by Mary T. Kolesinski

“Digital Cities: The Internet and the Geography of Opportunity (Oxford Studies in Digital Politics)” has the most pages with 368 and comes out with the best editorial reviews as it’s listed as a “must read”. “Digital Solidarity in Education: Promoting Equity, Diversity, and Academic Excellence through Innovative Instructional Programs” costs the most at $37.95.

“Technology, Society and Inequality: New Horizons and Contested Futures (Digital Formations)” is found in 82 libraries in WorldCat and has the subject classifications of information technology with economic and social aspects and capitalism with moral and ethical aspects.

“Digital Cities: The Internet and the Geography of Opportunity (Oxford Studies in Digital Politics)” is held by 166 libraries in WorldCat and the most out of these three choices. The subject classifications are internet and government policy, computer networks with social aspects and the digital divide.

“Digital Solidarity in Education: Promoting Equity, Diversity, and Academic Excellence through Innovative Instructional Programs” is found in 80 libraries in WorldCat and has the classifications of educational innovation, multicultural education, and educational equalization.

The subject classifications are all very similar yet have different tweaks to them based on different aspects applied to each subject. They do offer more interesting terms that could be used for further search including capitalism.

The book that seems to have generated the most chatter on the web is “Technology, Society and Inequality: New Horizons and Contested Futures (Digital Formations)” since it had the most search results on Google Books; however, not one of the three books had a review on Google books. “Digital Cities: The Internet and the Geography of Opportunity (Oxford Studies in Digital Politics)” and “Digital Solidarity in Education: Promoting Equity, Diversity, and Academic Excellence through Innovative Instructional Programs” were the two that had ebooks available and with extended previews available to look at it online.

Unfortunately not one of the three books that I chose were found on LibraryThing.

At this point in time I am going to choose the book “Technology, Society and Inequality: New Horizons and Contested Futures (Digital Formations)” because the description on Amazon captured my interest the most.

There were no academic reviews on this book on Project Muse or ProQuest. However, I found an academic review on the site Peter Lang—International Academic Publishers. The review was done by Professor David Gann of Imperial College London. David Gann hasn’t written any books himself, but has written many successful online journal articles involving technological innovations including “Organizational Learning and the Technology of Foolishness: The Case of Virtual Worlds”.

http://www.peterlang.com/index.cfm?event=cmp.ccc.seitenstruktur.detailseiten&seitentyp=produkt&pk=76717&cid=537

Overt the weekend assignment

This weekend, my search for books began simply with the term "information technology", where I found hundreds of books, a large number of them based on using information technologies in the workplace and management books, most of which seamed useful to implement learning, but none of which seamed interesting. So i refined my search to "information technology" and "society" but i also changed the relevance to books with the most popular, hoping that would assist to access to book that sole purpose wasn't educational. The first book i came upon was at the top of the best seller list for books on technology on Amazon, called The Innovators: How a group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Changed the World (October 2014). The Innovators is about the significant people who changed our lives by influencing the technological revolution, people such as Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Robert Noyce, ect. While it did have a very high popularity score on LibraryThing, i could not find this book on WorldCat, nor on Google Books, which i suspect is because it was published 2 weeks ago, therefore eliminated it form my choices of reading material, it was also almost 600 pages long.
The second book that caught my eye was Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future (July 2014) which seamed interesting to me because it was a about the world in 2393 and how the negligence of mankind affected the future. But i did not choose this book, for a couple of reasons, 1-it is only 104 pages long, and 2- It seams to sway from the information technology and more simply at our technologies that caused great climate change. It was also only at 282 libraries and had 22 responses on Google Books, but only 3.5 stars.
The final book i found that genuinely caught my attention was a book that gained popularity for its response to digital technologies impact on our society and most importably on American economy. How its not to far off from the years that our lives and major corporations will be reinvented by these technologies. This book is called  The Second Machine Age. Work Progress and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technology (January 2014) which is 320 pages long and $15.66. WorldCat says it is at 1269 libraries, subjects being Economic development, Information Technology-Economic Aspects and Progress-Social aspects, all of which relate to what i searched. Although it had few reviews on Google Books, it gained highly positive responses on LibraryThing. While on ProQuest, i did not see any reviews by major national newspapers, it had numerous positive responses calling it a "very important book" but it is also stated that there are important issues in this context that the book only mentioned in passing, and doesn't develop arguments on issues it needs to. Another article states the book as "ambitious, engaging and at times terrifying" which makes me even more interested in reading it.

"Learn 'n' Go; Technology and Work." The Economist Jan 25 2014: 71,n/a. ProQuest. Web. 13 Oct. 2014 .

Marien, Michael. "The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies." Cadum 2.2 (2014): 174-9. ProQuest. Web. 13 Oct. 2014.

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Online over the Weekend

The three books I considered were 1. the App Source 2. The Death of the PC and 3. Moving Data the I Phone and the Future of Media. I'm very interested in how cellular technology has progressed over recent decades, so in Amazon I typed the rise of the I Phone in the search bar. I was given a wide variety of results and ended up choosing these three based on how catchy their title was. Moving Data the I Phone and the Future of Media costs the most at $26.55 and also has the most pages with 360. The app source had the best reviews on amazon while Moving Data had the worst reviews. After that, I looked up all three books on WorldCat and found that Moving Data the I Phone and the Future of Media was found in the most libraries at 572 while the App source was found in just one library in Singapore. Then i proceeded to look up all three books on Google Books to see which book has generated the most chatter on the web. The App Source and The Death of the PC generated little to no chatter with almost no reviews, while Moving Data generated a decent amount of chatter, but lacked any substantial academic reviews. After this, I made an account on Library thing and looked up all three books. The App Source didn't even come up on Library thing while the Death of the PC was found and read by two other members on the site. Moving Data was read by seven people on the website. After this search, I started to lean closer to the Death of the PC as I used to have a PC and it was cool to see what the two other members posted about their recent experiences with a PC computer. I then looked up all three books on ProQuest and Project Muse and found no reviews on any of the three books. I simply found pictures of their table of contents and things of that nature. I found this very interesting as I found all types of non-academic reviews on the internet but was unable to find anything on Scholarly websites. After all the research I have done, I have decided to choose the Death of the PC by Max Baxter-Reynolds. Below is a picture of the book cover provided by Amazon:

Online over the weekend

For this assignment, I started searching digital age on Amazon. I came up with 3 choices which I went into further research on other sites as well. My results are as followed. The first I found was, In Real Life: Love, Lies, and Identity in the Digital Age by Nev Schulman. It was published on September 2, 2014, contains 257 pages, and costs $14.40. World Cat said that it is found in 151 libraries and is classified as social sciences. Google Books had 21 reviews on this books, mostly giving it a 4/5 ranking. On Library Thing, because it is a very new book, there were only 9 members, and had a 950,433 popularity ranking. The next book I researched was Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other by Sherry Turkle. It was published on October 2, 2012, contains 384 Pages, and costs $9.85. World cat said it was available in 2195 libraries, and stated that the subjects include information technology, social aspects, interpersonal relations. Google Books had 18 reviews on this book, mostly 3/5 stars, and it was said to be very though provoking. Library Thing had 561 members for the book and had a 17,757 popularity ranking. It said it was very fascinating but disturbing as well. The last book I researched was The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr. It was published on June 6, 2011, contains 280 Pages, and costs $9.40. World Cat said this book was available in 2512 libraries, and had the subjects of neuropsychology and internet psychology. Google Books had 856 reviews, mostly 4/5, said to be thought provoking and relatable in our modern society. Library Thing had 1488 members, a popularity ranking of 1992, and seems to have very mixed reviews and lower ratings than those on google books. In the end,I chose the first book because I thought that would be the most interesting for me to read. When I looked up the book on ProQuest and Project Muse, I didn’t find any scholarly articles or reviews, but there were many magazine articles on the book.  

“Leaders Eat Last”

When I began my search for a book I started with search terms such as “information society”, “information technology”, “social media”. It was surprising that the results on Amazon were either not relevant or books that were older than two years old. As I narrowed down the search terms and searched within specific publishing dates I was able to find relevant books.

The Three candidates were

1. How Google Works by Eric Schmidt (Hardcover $17.99) 4.9 stars, 304 pages
2.  Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t by Simon Sineck (Hardcover $16.40) 4.6 Stars, 240 pages
3. Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street Paperback by John Brooks  (Author)(Paperback $11.06) 4.1 stars, 464 pages

Worldcat

1. “How Google Works” is held by 316 libraries.
2. “Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t”  by 570 libraries
3.  “Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street “ is held by 333 libraries

All three of these books have search terms relating to business and management. “How Google Works” also has search terms relating to internet use. “Leaders Eat Last” had the most specific search terms. They were Leadership, Corporate culture, Organizational change, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Workplace Culture, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Leadership, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / General, Organizational Culture, Organizational Innovation, trust. Additionally, the only book that had any reviews on google books was “How Google Works”. However, the book that has generated the most buzz on the web is “Leaders Eat Last”. Out of all three books this book also had the most reviews on Amazon. According to reviews I found on “How Google Works” it apparently reads a lot like a textbook and is quite boring (it only had 33 reviews on amazon). Reviews for “Business Adventures” state that the book is boring and its stories are quite dated. Reviews for “Leaders Eat Last” stated that the author takes a while to get into the actual point of the book, leadership, but other than that it is an interesting read. On Library Thing “Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street” was the most mentioned book however the reviews were not very positive. “Leaders Eat Last” was the next most popular book on Library Thing.

I would like to read “Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t” by Simon Sineck because it seems the most interesting and most talked about from the three books I chose. Also, it seems to be the most relevant to my interest in the workings of corporate America. (http://www.amazon.com/Leaders-Eat-Last-Together-Others/dp/1591845327/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1413168898&sr=1-9&keywords=social+interaction)

Scholarly Reviews

1)      This book review was published in the trade journal Management Today. It was found on Proquest

"Books: Lessons from the Marine Corps." Management Today (2014): 22. ProQuest. Web. 13 Oct. 2014.

Book Project - Pirate Politics The New Information Policy Contests

To start out my search for the right book for me, I went as generic as possible and searched “information society” in Amazon.  From that, I found an abundance of prospects to choose from.  However, nearly all of the books were published from more than two years ago, with some of them even dating back to the ‘80s.  I decided to narrow my search after the lack of acceptable publication dates to “information society technology”.  The urge to write about any type of technology must have sprouted in the late 2000s as there was an abundance of books published then along with a sufficient amount published in the time frame we are narrowed down to.

             The first book I came across that I might have an interest in reading was To the Cloud: Big Data in a Turbulent World.  It is a 284 page book published in May of 2014 and depicts the different areas the cloud has grounded itself in in the information society.  The book looks at the possible benefits as well as the negatives the cloud has to offer, including the scandal of the NSA.  The second book I found is called Raw Data is an Oxymoron.  In its 192 pages, the book, published in January 2013, talks about how information is not a raw resource people find but instead depicts it as a cultural resource generated by and for the people.  It highlights the time of prehistory data all the way up to the modern data age and the different challenges we face with data.  Both of these texts seemed promising, but they did not quite have the appeal I was looking for.  Luckily for me though, the third time is the charm. 

            The third book I found is called Pirate Politics: The New Information Policy Contests.  In 2006, a Swedish file sharing engine called the Pirate Bay, was taken down, resulting in the formation of the Swedish Pirate Party after a group of computer programmers and the like started to complain about recent government enforcements.  The novel follows a political movement that feels the internet should be used as a place for file sharing in the form of free expression.  The 240 page book, published in January 2014, follows the new idea of “cultural environmentalism”.  Even though the book is relatively recent, it still has a strong following, being the most frequently read/purchased book of the three I had chosen.  It also had the most positive reviews out of all of the books I had selected to look at with Library Thing giving it three stars.  Goodread’s Miguel Caetano reviewed the book, being extremely critical of what the author left out while also giving it three stars.  If something can receive a high level of criticism yet still receive three stars, there must be something noteworthy about the book that is worth diving in to find out and is one of the big reasons I chose this as my book.  I am looking forward to seeing how the information society has had its different effects on different political systems throughout the world.  

                                                 

"A Review of Pirate Politics: The New Information Policy Contests."Goodreads. Goodreads, 204. Web. 13  Oct. 2014.   

"Pirate Politics: The New Information Policy Contests (The Information Society Series) Hardcover –    January 24, 2014." Pirate Politics: The New Information Policy Contests (The Information Society Series): Patrick Burkart: 9780262026949: Amazon.com: Books. N.p., 2014. Web. 13 Oct. 2014.