BUSINESS AND CAREER ELECTRONIC BOOKS

Business and career eBooks and eAudiobooks  are available 24/7 with your library card!

If you haven’t tried eBooks yet, there is a great collection available through the Guelph Public Library website.

You will find help sheets for various eReaders under the eLibrary, eBooks and eAudiobooks tab on the main page of the website. Once you’ve got the software or apps installed you are set to go!

Our largest collection of electronic books is from the Overdrive digital download library service (see the quick link button over on  the right hand side of the main webpage, it’s bright blue and says Download in big letters!). Log in to the service with your library card number/Pin. Items can be signed out for 14 or 21 days, you can place holds on items out and best of all, there are no late fees.

New titles are added each month and you can choose Business and Career books as a category in the menu.

We also have some classic business titles available through our other vendor Ebscohost. This collection is closed, so no new titles are added, but there are some great classic titles in the Business and Economics category.

Under eLibrary, click on eBooks and eAudiobooks and scroll down to the providers category, choose Ebscohost.

Have a look, there are some gems.

If you are having difficulty with your device, you can now book an eExpert online by filling out a form. You can see this on the left hand side of the eBook how to page. One of our eBook experts will be happy to help you at a time convenient for you.

With electronic resources, the library is always open.

Rocky times for GenY?

Let’s hope not, but a recent survey by TD Canada Trust showed that 34% of Gen Y (Millennials,born in the early 80’s to early 00’s) are having a hard time saving due to the high cost of their education, low salaries or difficulty even finding employment and unfortunately , impulse buying.

The survey found that at least 36% had a hard time resisting purchasing items they knew they couldn’t afford. This is double the amount of boomers who shell out beyond their means.

The average school debt is listed at $28,000, but I have heard higher amounts quoted as well.

Here are some titles to consider borrowing (FOR FREE!) from the library to help you budget and save money:

A dollar in your pocket

The behavior gap: simple ways to stop doing dumb things with your money

Money rules: rule your money, or your money will rule you

The money book for everyone else

The wealthy barber returns

You can search for more titles in the catalogue by using a subject search of either Budgets, Personal or Finance, Personal.

If you have a look at many of the bank websites, they also have some sections offering advice to students regarding saving and investing.  You can also look up more articles on this topic by accessing the library website and clicking on eLibrary , eResources and then choosing the category Newspapers and Magazines. Remember, it’s all free with your Guelph Public Library card.

Whither goest the mighty RIM?

An article in today’s Guelph Mercury,  indicates that the glory days of Blackberry are over with the flop in the sales of the new smartphone. The company is scrambling to regain from losses sustained over the past few years and of course the board shakeup not too long ago. Check out these items if you want to read more about the history of the company that could do no wrong just a few years ago:

Blackberry planet

Blackberry : the inside story of research in motion

For more recent articles regarding the highs and lows of the company, check out our eresources for current (and older) newspaper/magazine articles.

Under eLibrary, pick eResources and then choose Newspapers and magazines.

Here’s hoping Blackberry can come back from the brink once more.

Detroit files for bankruptcy

Detroit filed for bankruptcy on Thursday, the largest U.S. city to do so. After failing to reach concessions with creditors, the bankruptcy expert the state hired in March filed for Chapter 9 yesterday. The city has lost around 250,000 residents between 2000 and 2010, bringing it to a population of around 700,000. Services have been slashed, the murder rate is the highest it’s been for 40 years and there are many abandoned buildings just left to decay.

We went to Detroit last year, and we walked the beautiful river front and the downtown area. The people were friendly, the areas we visited were interesting and we did feel relatively safe. We saw homes that were boarded up as well however, and sadly many of those were occupied. We visited the abandoned train station which is probably the biggest symbol of decay in the city. (Michigan Central Station)

How did a city that was once the proud Motor City come to this?

Check out the following items from our collection:

Detropia

Detroit: a biography

Detroit : an American autopsy

You can also read the current newspaper articles about Detroit and the bankruptcy filing in our Elibrary eresources, by clicking on the newspaper and magazine tab and choosing Library Press Display.

There are also some pretty interesting documentaries available online, check out topdocumentaryfilms.com

We may be visiting Detroit again this summer, and I wonder what difference we will see.

 

New Books

Retail Revival : Reimagining Business for the New Age of Consumerism by Doug Stephens

Traditional retail is becoming increasingly volatile and challenged as a business model. Brick-and-mortar has shifted to online, while online is shifting into pop-up storefronts. Virtual stores in subway platforms and airports are offering new levels of convenience for harried commuters. High Street and Main Street are becoming the stuff of nostalgia. The Big Box is losing ground to new models that attract consumers through their most-trusted assistant–the smartphone. Whats next? Whats the future for you–a retailer–who is witnessing a tsunami of change and not knowing if this means grasping ahold of new opportunity or being swept away? “The Retail Revival “answers these questions by looking into the not-so-distant retail past and by looking forward into a future that will continue to redefine retail and its enormous effect on society and our economies.

Happy money : the science of smarter spending by Elizabeth Dunn 

In this helpful, enthusiastic book, authors Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton address the relationship between happiness and money, and you might be surprised by what you learn: having more money doesn’t necessarily equate to more happiness. Instead, it’s how you spend it that counts. Their five principles of money — buy experiences (not stuff), make your purchases a treat (rather than an everyday thing), buy time, pay now and consume later, and invest in others — will allow you to wrest the most happiness from your spending. And the more of these principles you can combine in one purchase, the more happiness you’ll experience. Backed up by solid research, this book ultimately offers “helpful ways to think about improving quality of life as it relates to finances” (Kirkus Reviews).

Decisive : how to make better choices in life and work by Chip Heath

When faced with a difficult choice, what do you tend to do? According to brothers and bestselling authors Chip and Dan Heath, how you approach making decisions is more important than the decision itself. To help strengthen your decision-making process, they offer four principles to follow: widen your options, reality-test your assumptions, attain distance before making a decision, and prepare to be wrong. They follow up with real-world examples of these best practices. And while they focus on case studies from the business world, the tools explained here can be used in your personal life as well.

Business brilliant : surprising lessons from the greatest self-made business leaders about how to build wealth, manage your career, and take risks by Lewis Schiff

What’s the difference between the self-made wealthy and the not-so-wealthy? In addition to the size of their bank accounts, quite a lot, actually. For one, most self-made millionaires have learned the art of negotiation, aren’t afraid to fail, and spend energy nurturing contacts. In Business Brilliant, author Lewis Schiff offers up seven principles that set these wealthy individuals apart, explains a four-step program for greater financial success, and includes profiles of successful entrepreneurs who embody these principles. Though it takes a different tack than many personal finance books, Business Brilliant may nevertheless help you improve your financial situation.

If you are interested in receiving new book information to your inbox, check out GPL’s NextReads service. A newsletter will be sent bimonthly to your inbox that gives you titles and descriptions on new books by topic.  Sign up for Business and Personal Finance and any other of the 25 newsletters.

Canadian made

There was an interesting article in the Guelph and Waterloo papers last week about the attempt to make clothing here in Canada (like we used to). The John Forsyth Shirt Company closed down the plant in Cambridge earlier this year leaving 110 people unemployed. The former director of manufacturing bought out some of the assets and has reopened the factory under the name Canadian-Made apparel. Some of the former Forsyth workers are back on board as well. Read the story here:
The Waterloo region area has been hard hit with factory closures, so this is some good news.
In the light of recent events Canadian made in a factory that must adhere to safety regulations sounds pretty darn good. More than 1000 people have died in Bangladesh because of a lack of safety concerns and due care. Perhaps we have to take another look at how we buy what we buy. Many of the clothes made overseas are less expensive, but at what cost?

Unions

Unions, both their importance and problems, are topics that are hard to avoid this week. As I write this the death toll in the Bangladesh factory collapse has risen to over 300. Thinking about these workers, it is difficult not to conclude that there is a basic right that they are being denied: the right to organize collectively as workers and fight for their own safety, health, work conditions and wages. I heard someone speaking on the CBC about how the government in Bangladesh is corrupt and ineffective, that organizations running the factories are largely criminal. Not only is there no one acting in the interest of these workers, everything is against them in advocating for themselves. This includes the multinational companies whose products these workers produce. In the logic of capitalism, a company like Joe Fresh (who’s products were produced in the factory that collapsed) does not own or manage the factory but hires a company who hires a company that organizes contracts with factories, and somewhere along this chain someone hires a (largely symbolic)company that monitors safety. This long line of divestment stretches around the world from product to producer to consumer, leaving the worker at the very bottom of a very dark place. 

It wasn’t so long ago that the exploited worker was the foundation of western manufacture and service industries. The working conditions we read about in Bangladesh were a fact of life in Canada until labour unions started demanding better conditions. In 1872, 1500 Hamilton workers marched in support of a radical idea- a 9 hour work day- thus began the long history of organized labour in this country. It’s a different story today. Do a Google news search for “unions”, and you will find the news is mostly bad: US Steel (which took over Stelco) is locking out its workers this week in Nanticoke ON, Alberta prison workers are on a strike that the provincial government is trying to declare illegal, LCBO workers are also talking strike. In the eyes of the current federal government, and increasingly the general public, unions are seen as a hindrance to the economy, they are overentitled workers complaining about benefits and wage increases that are only dreamt of in nonunionized sectors. And it is getting hard to argue against this, especially after all the hard feelings surrounding the teacher strike this year. On the other hand, someone working in retail, manufacturing, public service and other areas, should be able to have a decent job in this country and unions are the way to attain that. Its seems there are potential extremes on both sides- on one side there can be too much union power, to point where workers demands cripples an industry and it becomes no longer viable, or it becomes that employers cannot afford the increasing costs of its fulltime employees and fills the workforce with that loophole that is part-time work. The other side is no organized labour, like with the Bangladesh garment workers, who have no protection against the tyranny of a global economic capital system that demands the cheapest production costs to attain maximum profit.  

Do we need a new model? Is collective bargaining as it has been done in Canada for over a hundred years need rethinking? And what can be done to help garment workers in Bangladesh?  Adam Smith in the Wealth Of Nations wrote:

What improves the circumstances of the greater part can never be regarded as an inconveniency to the whole. No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.

Smith thought that a free market economy, including the advantages of industrialization, would lift everybody out of a life that was “solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short” to quote Thomas Hobbes. Undoubtedly we need to start thinking of today’s global economy as one interconnected society that is as rich as its poorest members. Maybe there something that unions here can do to help labour organization elsewhere? and maybe unions here have much to learn by talking with workers around the world?

some books:

A quest for humanity : the good society in a global world

Working people

 The Canadian labour movement : a short history

Canadian labour in crisis : reinventing the workers’ movement 

Can we put an end to sweatshops?

Wal-Mart : the face of twenty-first-century capitalism

Will Target change the face of Canadian retail?

 

We’ve had the official opening now and the stores seem to be doing well. I’ve been known to cross the doorstep to consume! I loved the fact that I was not subjected to someone’s choice of music to shop by I must say; apparently it’s company policy. The aisles are also uncluttered, and I notice that a competitor nearby seems to have cleaned up their normally blockaded aisles in response to this.

There is a great article in Canadian Business (Oct. 15/12) called Target’s Friendly Invasion.

Canada, having been a little more recession proof than the United States, is viewed as a lucrative market for Target. The article can be read through the library e resource, Ebscohost, by clicking here

We will have to wait to see what the eventual fall out will be for the other large retailers in this country. Since Canadians have gone from a nation of savers to a nation of spenders with household debt still at record levels, perhaps we would be better served to take a look at the following titles:

Shiny objects: why we spend money we don’t have in search of happiness we can’t buy, or Affluenza: the all consuming epidemic.

Workplace sturm und drang

My apologies to Goethe!

David Posen, author of The little book of stress relief, has published a new book with the interesting title of “Is work Killing You?  a Doctor’s Prescription for Treating Workplace Stress”.

Dr. Posen sums up the major stressors in the workplace today as The Big Three, volume, velocity and abuse.  Volume is the increase in workload due to many different reasons, including few workers to pick up the slack, leading to overload and work-life imbalance. Velocity is how speed in the workplace has ramped up dramatically (mostly technology driven), leaving employees running to keep up. Abuse is the aspect of workplace bullies, interpersonal conflicts or harassment, and the inevitable physical and emotional effect this has on employees.

The author implores employers to address this problem of good stress (we need some stress in our lives after all) versus bad stress as the bad stress adversely affects “the bottom line” at some point with increased absenteeism for example and loss of productivity. Working longer hours doesn’t necessarily mean a more productive worker.  He also has some harsh words for the ever popular “multitasking”. He thinks this is inefficient and leads to more mistakes and accidents. Dr. Posen also discusses something he likes to call “work swirl”. This is continual change in the workplace, be it technological, new initiatives, constant reorganizing, etc.  Poor planning and communication can make this “work swirl” extremely  stressful.

I’m only part way through the book, but it does give food for thought. Looking forward to any tips he has that can be implemented, although the book is more directed towards changing the workplace rather than the worker.

Place your hold here

Mortgage rates in the news again. Is the Finance Minister doing the right thing for home owners?

 The statesman who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, would not only load himself with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it. 1

Adam Smith

The CBC reports today that Manulife dropped its posted interest rate for a five-year fixed mortgage to 2.89 per cent only to revoke that rate later on in the day after Finance Minister Jim Flaherty called them up and said “oh no you don’t”. I wrote recently about Mr. Flaherty expressing his disapproval over low rates posted at BMO, at that time he said that he was worried about a “race to the bottom” where competition between banks results in even lower rates which in turn could increase the amount of buyers seeking homes in an already expensive housing market. There is a fine line between being concerned and actively persuading a bank to raise it rates. Is Flaherty safe-guarding what is perceived as a weak housing market, or intervening in what is a free market price that potentially saves customers thousands of dollars? If Flaherty was intervening in the cost of a cup of coffee by telling Tim Hortons to raise their prices, people would go crazy. But the housing market is such a volatile issue and people are worried about potential losses, maybe this kind of intervention is necessary?

I read an article this morning criticizing the way the Finance Department under the Conservative government is changing what it sees as its role in the economy. One main indicator of this is that instead of a budget on March 21^st we are getting the “Economic Action Plan 2013”. The article by NP commentator Terence Corcoran, was called “A budget by any other name…” and I write ‘was’ because I can no longer find it on the National Post website. Here’s a bit form the article:

Instead of setting the date for the coming year’s federal budget, as has been tradition for decades if not most of a century, Mr. Flaherty announced Thursday that he has set March 21 as the date for “Economic Action Plan 2013.” …The words “Economic Action Plan” imply national economic strategic-planning on a grand scale; great leaps forward; a big government with its hands and feet on the levers of growth and prosperity… In the budget business, the Harper Conservatives have seized the high ground in portraying budgets as key drivers of economic performance.

Corcoran points out that the shift from ‘budget’ to ‘action plan’ is significant, and implies the very opposite of what many fiscal conservatives of the Adam Smith school think of as good governance. Corcoran continues:

Budgets, after all, are not the fuel of growth. They are the government’s plans to take money out of the economy via taxes and spend it on a million different things. And as the United States has learned, government spending does not necessarily create growth, but the tax increases extracted to finance that spending can certainly undermine growth.

We will see how much action the Conservative government is planning on taking on Thursday, but if today’s action by Flaherty is any indication, it may be more than we want or need. But what do I know… I leave the last word to Adam Smith:

It is the maxim of every prudent master of a family, never to attempt to make at home what it will cost him more to make than to buy…What is prudence in the conduct of every private family, can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom. 2

Find more great Adam Smith quotes here.

1.The Wealth Of Nations, Book IV, Chapter II, p. 456, para. 1

2.The Wealth Of Nations, Book IV Chapter II, pp. 456-7, paras. 11-12.