Top Shelf

by Ann Willard and John Stanton, SWC Librarians

Top Shelf is a weekly column where librarians share some of their favorite resources with you.

Book Selection

Ever thought about moving somewhere for a job or for retirement or just for a change of scene? Most of us have, and even if you are not currently considering a move, the electronic reference book Cities Ranked & Rated by Bert Sperling & Peter Sander, makes fascinating reading. Although SWC only holds the 2004, 1st edition (the 2007, 2nd edition is now out), you can go to the website http://www.bestplaces.net/ to get a free membership and updated information. Sperling is the author who started Money Magazine’s original “Best Places to Live” list and he has been creating such lists for 20 years. The other author, Sanders, has his MBA and has worked for over 20 years as a marketing and logistics specialist for a high-tech firm.

Most of the data in this reference work are obtained from public sources such as the US Census, but additional data are obtained from industry associations and trade groups. Over 400 cities are compared in one volume, 276 in the US and 27 in Canada. Although the actual city profiles are only two or three pages in length per city, you can quickly glance at an entry to see what the authors consider to be the main pros and cons, as well as the city’s score and ranking. For fun I looked up San Diego where I live and compared it to Fort Worth (where my brother lives) and Minneapolis-St.Paul (where my sisters live). San Diego is rated highly for such things as its great year-round climate and future job growth; however it ranks only 74 and gets a score of 71.5 because of such things as the high cost of living and urban sprawl. Everyone knows about the harsh winters in Minneapolis, but because of other attributes like its education and diverse economy, its rating is 24 and has a score of 83.9. Fort Worth is also ranked higher than San Diego, earning a ranking of 36 and a score of 80.5, because of its great arts and culture, economy and cost of living, and proximity to Dallas. Still, I wouldn’t trade my house in San Diego for a life back in the Midwest!

While reviewing Cities Ranked & Rated, I stumbled across the book America’s Top-Rated Cities, published in 2007 by Grey House Publishing. You’ll find this reference book in hard copy at both the main campus and in the Otay Mesa, HEC Library; Reference HA 214.A43 2007. A four-volume set, SWC decided to collect vol. 2, the Western Region. Only 100 cities with populations of 100,000 or more are included in this work, but the profiles are much longer and the resources used to provide rankings and data are extensive. For San Diego I found 27 pages of material, seven of which were lists of rankings summarized from various other publications. For instance, did you know that in 2005 San Diego was ranked number two in the nation as one of “America’s Best Mannered Cities?” Unfortunately, the SWC Library does not own the volumes in which Fort Worth and Minneapolis are included so I could not read about those cities in depth. Appendix C of America’s Top-Rated Cities, vol. 2 does include over 130 pages of “Comparative Statistics”, which compares all 100 cities, including Fort Worth and Minneapolis.

So whether or not you have a move planned in the near future, take a look at these reference works for hours of interesting comparisons!

For more information on accessing e-books from off campus, read about Remote Access on our website.

-Ann.


Website Selection

Freakonomics -- http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/

With the financial crisis in the news so much these days a reading of the blog Freakonomics might be in order. This blog combines economics with pop culture in an interesting and entertaining way. The book Freakonomics was written by Dubner and Levitt. Their book Freakonomics has sold 3 million copies worldwide. The blog, begun in 2005, is meant to keep the conversation going.

Stephen J. Dubner is an author and journalist who lives in New York City. Steven D. Levitt is a professor of economics at the University of Chicago. Recurring guest bloggers include Ian Ayres, Jessica Hagy, Daniel Hamermesh, Sudhir Venkatesh, and Justin Wolfers.

A blog is contraction of the words "web log" and is a website that contains the personal musings of one or more authors. So, if you would like to read some interesting analysis of the current financial crisis, give this blog a look.

-John S.