The Book Store, Google partner on eBooks
Through an affiliation with Campus eBookstore, The Book Store at Western has reached an agreement with Google eBooks to distribute public domain and commercial eBooks.
Google eBooks is a new form of cloud-based digital book allowing readers to access their libraries on almost any device from one single repository regardless of where the books were purchased.
“This aligns perfectly with our goal to provide more choice in the materials we deliver, and positions us to remain competitive in the changing marketplace,” says Steve Alb, Western Retail Services director.
Google offers hundreds of thousands of titles ranging from new releases and best sellers in every category to classics in the public domain frequently used on courses throughout North America.
For customers of The Book Store, the partnership brings eBooks to the same platform they are already using for academic texts. In the future, look for offerings from smaller and academic publishing houses to expend, even to the point of offering students the opportunity to buy textbooks multiple formats.
Integration of the platform to approximately 200 individual campus store websites is underway. Integration and affiliation for other campus stores will begin in the next 60 days. Participating stores earn a percentage off every order placed through its link.
Canadian Campus Retail Associates Inc. and the Independent College Bookstores Association Inc., (ICBA) own and operate Campus eBookstore in Canada and the United States.
Robertson’s essay honoured
Kirsty Robertson, contemporary art and museum studies professor, has been awarded the Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English’s Priestley Prize, recognizing the best essay published in English Studies in Canada (ESC) in a given year. The prize was awarded for Threads of Hope: The Living Healing Quilt Project, which appeared in Volume 35 of ESC in a special issue on Aboriginal Redress.
Award of Excellence nominations sought
Nominations for this year’s Western Award of Excellence are now open. The Western Award of Excellence is the highest level of campuswide recognition for the exceptional performance of Western staff. Visit the website for more information on the award and to download a nomination form.
All Western community members – faculty, staff and students – along with London community members are encouraged to nominate an individual or team of staff who have been instrumental in supporting others and nurturing the Western’s experience.
Since the awards first began, 49 Western staffers have received the Western of Excellence and more than 500 outstanding staff have been nominated. The awards for 2012 will be presented at a reception in February 2012. Nominations close on Friday, Dec. 2.
Summers to deliver Beattie lecture
Former U.S. Secretary of Treasury Lawrence Summers will speak on a range of current economic, legal and media issues during an hour-long conversation moderated by Chrystia Freeland, Reuters news global editor-at-large. The free public event is scheduled for 5 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 22 at The University of Western Ontario’s Faculty of Law, Room 38.
Summers, President Emeritus of Harvard University, will be the fourth annual Beattie Family Business Law speaker.
Summers has served on the economic team of three U.S. presidents – Ronald Reagan (1982-83), Bill Clinton (1999-2001) and Barack Obama (2009-2011). He was vice-president of development economics and chief economist of the World Bank and Undersecretary of the Treasury for International Affairs. Currently, he is the Charles W. Eliot University Professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
Geoff Beattie, LLB ’84, Thomson Reuters deputy chairman, CEO of The Woodbridge Company Limited and Western’s fundraising campaign chair, established the Beattie Family Lecture Series in Business Law in 2008. Past speakers in this series include economist Robert Shiller, Nobel Prize-winning economist George Akerlof and Leo E. Strine Jr., Vice Chancellor of the Delaware Court of Chancery.
Join the conversation on campus sustainability
As part of Western’s Imagine 2022 initiative, you are invited to participate in a Virtual Sustainability Slam, an online brainstorming session on sustainability ideas for the Western community. Over the next three weeks, log on and join the conversation at your leisure. Share your ideas, or comment on other ideas, in this anonymous, open forum.
Visit the website to find out more.
Contributions from the forum will inform the President’s Advisory Committee on Environment & Sustainability (PACES) in its efforts to craft a 10-year sustainability vision for Western. This vision will be complete by January 2012.