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May 30, 2009

Summer Reading, SI-Style

Hello all!

For those of you just biding your time until you can stroll the halls of West Hall with other SI'ers and chitter chatter about the ins and outs of information science, I present to you a list of books and websites recommended by current and recently-graduated SI students (and one former faculty member-gold star if you can guess who!). You may note an HCI-theme to the list, due to the group of HCI students who sent me whole lists of useful design books, but there are a lot of good books on the list. I went ahead and added my personal favorite for LIS students at the bottom (Don Borchert's Free for All).

A list of books recommended by SI students, for SI students…
• The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman (HCI)
• Scientific Collaboration on the Internet by Olson, G.M., Zimmerman, A., & Bos, N. (eds.) (HCI)
• A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. (ARM)
• More Product, Less Process: Pragmatically Revamping Traditional Processing Approaches to Deal with Late 20th Century Collections by Greene Meissner (ARM)
• Everything Is Miscellaneous by David Weinberger (LIS, ARM, HCI)
• Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything By Steven D. Leavitt (ICD)
• Prisoner's Dilemma by William Poundstone (ICD, IPol)
• Advancing Knowledge and the Knowledge Economy by Brian Kahin and Dominique Foray, eds. (All SI)
• Thinking Strategically: The Competitive Edge in Business, Politics, and Everyday Life by Avinash K. Dixit (ICD, IPol)
• Struck by Lightning: The Curious World of Probabilities by Jeffrey S. Rosenthal (ICD, HCI)
• Chance: A Guide to Gambling, Love, the Stock Market, and Just About Everything Else by Amir D. Aczel (ICD, HCI)
• Universal Principles of Design by William Lidwell (HCI)
• The Social Life of Information by John Seely Brown (All SI)
• About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design by Alan Cooper, Robert Reimann, David Cronin (HCI)
• Designing Interactions by Bill Moggridge (HCI)
• Morten T. Hansen, "When Internal Collaboration is Bad for your Company." HBR: April 2009 (IPol, HCI and ICD)
• Designing for Interaction: Creating Smart Applications and Clever Device by Dan Saffer (HCI)
• Designing for People by Henry Dreyfuss (HCI)
• Envisioning Information by Edward R. Tufte (HCI, IAR)
• Graph Design for the Eye and Mind by Stephen Kosslyn (HCI)
• Powers of Ten by Philip Morrison, Phylis Morrison and the office of Charles and Ray Eames (HCI)
• The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward Tufte (IAR, HCI)
• While You’re Reading, Gerard Unger (IAR, HCI)
• How to Lie With Statistics by Darrell Huff and Irving Geis (HCI, IAR, SC)
• Global Networks by Robert Hobbs, Mark Lombardi and Judith Richards (HCI,IAR, SC)
• Building Accessible Websites by Joe Clark (HCI)
• Don’t Make Me Think! by Steve Krug (HCI)
• The Trouble with Computers: Usefulness, Usability, and Productivity by Thomas Landauer
• The Magician's Book by Laura Miller (LIS)
• Life on the Screen by Sherry Turkle (SC, HCI)
• Why Things Bite Back by Edward Tenner (HCI)
• Code by Lawrence Lessig (IPol)
• Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam (CI)
• Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig (CI, IPol)
• Designing for the Social Web by Joshua Porter (HCI, SC)
• Sketching User Experiences by Bill Buxton (HCI)
• Subject to Change: Creating Great Products and Services in an Uncertain World by Peter Merholz, Todd Wilkens, Brandon Schauer and David Verba (HCI)
• Designing for Interaction by Dan Saffer (HCI, SC)
• Mental Models: Aligning Design Strategy with Human Behavior by Indi Young
• Memory's Library: Medieval Books in Early Modern England by Jennifer Summit (LIS)
• Free for All: Oddballs, Geeks and Gangstas in the Public Library by Don Borchert

Recommended websites
• Boxes and Arrows – http://boxesandarrows.com
• Adaptive Path – http://adaptivepath.com/blog/
• Johnny Holland – http://johnnyholland.org
• IXDA – http://www.ixda.org (discussion board)
• A list of recommended readings for interactive designers - http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/cliff-kuang/design-innovation/required-reading-interactive-designers
• Recommendations resulting from the IA Summit and Interactions conferences -
• http://www.likewowonline.net/web/ued/ixda-ia-recommendations.html
• Top 10 must-read IXD articles - http://www.ixda.org/discuss.php?post=41955

So, happy hunting! Remember, these are all suggested reading but, of course, you can always wait until you get here to start working through your own personal to-read list. Some of these are downright fun reads, while others are more useful than entertaining (this is why we read book reviews, friends, to avoid wasting precious slacktime). Ain't nothing wrong with enjoying a magazine in the sunshine on a nice summer day. :)

Posted by messelti at 12:24 AM | Comments (0)

May 27, 2009

Getting Ready for SI-Where Do I Start?

Hello all,

Now that school is out and the second deadline for fall admission has passed, I can't help but get a bit nostalgic for this time two years ago, when all of graduate school was ahead of me and I was SO FRIGGIN' PUMPED! Of course, I'm kind of a nerd and really like school, so after two years of slinging jazz and cocktails for teeny wages I was eager to start flexing my brain muscles again. Anyhow, it is with this in mind that I begin my summer blog series: "Getting ready for SI." My goal is to cover the various questions and concerns that may pop up between getting your notice of admission and walking into your first class.

Over the summer I'll give you some suggestions for SI-related reading, how to get around Ann Arbor once you're here, when/where to look for a part-time job, how to choose your first-semester courses, and probably a few other things.

The summer reading list should be up very soon. If you're a newly-admitted student and there's anything in particular you'd like to hear about, feel free to shoot me a line at messelti@umich.edu.

SI knows that choosing the right program is a big decision so new admits are given all the time they need to decide if SI is right for them. If you are newly admitted and have any questions, you can email si.admissions@umich.edu to begin correspondence with a member of the admissions staff, or arrange for a campus visit.

Oh yeah, and congrats!

Posted by messelti at 11:26 PM | Comments (0)