Virtual Library Extended Information....
Last updated: 2/27/2026.
This page provides extended descriptions of various Virtual Library submissions. It is not meant to be accessed directly.
Berman, Bill - Influence and Impact: Discover and Excel at What Your Organization Needs From You The Most
This book provides a step-by-step guide to identifying your enduring strengths, the needs of the organization and your manager, and the cultural norms by which work is accomplished.
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Carson, John - The Measure of Merit: Talents, Intelligence and Inequality in the French and American Republics, 1750-1940
The Measure of Merit seeks to understand how merit and intelligence came to be linked within French and American conversations about democracy and equality. It explores some of the similarities and differences in the ways that two republics, born at approximately the same moment and with similar commitments to equality and opportunity, have at the same time confronted the issue of difference, especially “natural” inequality. Both in one way or another eventually turned to testing as a way of establishing merit, and in each the response was as much one of anxiety as approbation. Some worried that the tests might be wrong: inaccurate, ill-conceived, and doomed to choose the wrong people based on the wrong criteria. Others, however, were unsettled by the opposite: that the tests might conceivably be right, and thus that some people really were naturally better than others. What if inequality was the product not of poor environment or personal choices but the luck of the genetic draw, and what if scientists could “see” the difference?
The Measure of Merit explores what might be termed this shadow language of inequality paralleling the much more visible rhetoric of republican equality in France and America, and traces its changing history up to the moment where it assumed the form invoked within the affirmative action debates of the early twenty-first century. Both nations turned to seemingly impersonal and objective methods to make, or at least justify, decisions about merit, about who gets access to what opportunities. And in both nations these methods developed as thoroughly modern solutions to a similar problem raised by their shared revolutionary heritages: having toppled aristocratically organized societies in the name of natural rights and the people’s sovereignty, what would be put in their place? How could a new elite be selected and justified within a political ideology also celebrating equality and universal rights? How, in other words, could inequality be rendered legitimate?
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Chaffetz, David - Raiders, Rulers, and Traders
Over time, horses came to power mighty empires in Iran, Afghanistan, China, India, and, later, Russia. Genghis Khan and the thirteenth-century Mongols offer the most famous example, but from ancient Assyria and Persia, to the seventeenth-century Mughals, to the high noon of colonialism in the early twentieth century, horse breeding was indispensable to conquest and statecraft.
Scholar of Asian history David Chaffetz tells the story of how the horse made rulers, raiders, and traders interchangeable, providing a novel explanation for the turbulent history of the “Silk Road,” which might be better called the Horse Road. Drawing on recent research in fields including genetics and forensic archeology, Chaffetz presents a lively history of the great horse empires that shaped civilization. The Economist named this one of the best books of 2024.
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Chaffetz, David - Afghanistan in Turmoil
(Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-) Vol. 56, No. 1 (Jan., 1980), pp. 15-36 (22 pages)
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Firestein, Gary - Firestein and Kelley's Textbook of Rheumatology
The fully revised 12th Edition retains the user-friendly, full color format, providing in-depth guidance in rheumatology with an ideal balance of basic science and clinical application. New editors, new chapters, and new illustrations keep you fully up to date on recent advances in genetics and the microbiome, current therapies, and other rapid changes in the field.
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Heilbroner, Peter - El Pajarero
More about (all of) Peter's music...
I feel lucky and inspired by my band members in Peter Louis Octet. Since instrumentalists aren’t listed on online streaming platforms, I will pay homage to them here: superb alto saxophonist/flutist Oscar Feldman, who leads his own latin jazz group and has played with an array of Latin jazz greats; tenor saxophonist Michael Webster, whose arrangements have been featured in many jazz venues; trumpeter Fred Maxwell, former accompanist of Alicia Keys, Dizzy Gillespie, the Temptations and Frank Sinatra; and Matt McDonald, who works with jazz groups all over NYC, including at the Blue Note and Village Vanguard. My rhythm section of John Marino, Art Guevarra and Nanae Atarashi is wonderfully balanced and skilled in their own right.My compositions and arrangements reflect my long love affair with jazz and Latin music, which started midway through my Harvard years. The most recent album, El Pajarero, was partly inspired (as in the songs Novo Airao, El Pajarero, and Tangara) by travel in South America. But I really call on a number of influences. There is a funky Beatles arrangement (Come Together) and a gorgeous arrangement of standard (Nature Boy) that were written by Oscar and Mike from the band. On the recent album and the previous one, Ring Shadows, I do versions of tunes by Mose Allison and Cole Porter.
Peter's YouTube channel is here.
Peter's music is also available from Spotify: It's been a dream of an experience, and I hope listeners enjoy the music. And come hear us! Gigs on PeterLouisOctet.com.
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Jacker, Mike - Taken By The Wind: Memoir of a Sailor's Voyage in a Bygone Era
This was prior to GPS navigation and accessible open ocean weather forecasts. None of us had been at sea before. My memoir recounts the evolution of the journey including detailed preparations, life at sea and ashore, fascinating people we encountered, and a multitude of eye-opening adventures along the way. The book is suitable for sailors and non-sailors alike.
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Juster, Kenneth I. - It's Time for America and India to Talk Trade
To promote their commercial and strategic objectives, the two countries must also play a central role in developing the economic framework for a free and open Indo-Pacific. Failing to do so would provide opportunities for other countries, such as China, to create a trade order that would leave India and the United States on the outside looking in.
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Juster, Kenneth I. - Japan-India Relations: Vital to the Indo-Pacific
The lecture discusses the central role of former Japanese Prime Minister Abe in developing the concept of the Indo-Pacific, the strategic significance of the Japan-India relationship, and the key challenges and opportunities for that partnership in the areas of trade, investment, infrastructure, defense, and diplomacy.
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Kouffman, Joyce - Wildflowers
This video is a selection from a 40-minute audio recording entitled "Fierce Unruly Joy", which also includes vocal art by Lisbeth Scott. Video link will be published on this page.
See also: In Memoriam.
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Lavin, Maud - Mermaids and Lazy Activists
From Susan Orlean--
"Fantastic and fantastical, Mermaids and Lazy Activists is a wonder--a rare instance of a book with a mission that is a pleasure to read. It's a sexy, sassy environmental tale that is as inspiring as it is delightful."
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Leman, Valerie - Marines and Medicine: How Two Leathernecks Became Doctors, Fast Friends After World War II
Both earned Silver Star medals as USMC officers who served in the Pacific theater in WWII. They bonded over their shared experiences and became lifelong friends and colleagues in a group practice in Corvallis, Oregon. Published in Leatherneck Magazine, Dec 1 2023.
You can download the full article here (copyright, reproduced with permission and courtesy of, Leatherneck Magazine of the Marine Corps, Marine Corps Ass'n).
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Long, Claudia Hagadus - Chains of Silver
Although Marcela's parents survive, she is left unprotected. Marcela’s forthright speech and budding sexuality lead her into situations beyond her comprehension, ending with her exile to the northern silver-mining town of Zacatecas.
Marcela grows up to be one of the richest, most powerful women in Zacatecas. Her husband's death unleashes a new cascade of disasters. With her own children in danger, Marcela at last recognizes and appreciates the sources of her mother's power, and her own.
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Long, Claudia Hagadus - Nine Tenths of the Law
Aurora's memories haunt them as they chase the menorah across New York City and across the decades of history, leaving murder, mayhem, and Chinese food in their wake.
Told with wry humor and deep feeling,
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Phua, Kai Hong - Global Health Challenges: Report to the Trilateral Commission
The report explores the relationship between health and economic growth, trade, innovation, global security and global governance. It focuses in particular on infectious diseases as a significant global health challenge, and looks to the origin, causes, and effectiveness of various interventions employed for different epidemics.
In evaluating the global response to pandemics, it looks at each in terms of the viability and effectiveness of regional and cross-border collaboration to deploy health care systems, surveillance, lab testing, communication, and human resources and equipment.
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Phua, Kai Hong - Asian Trends Monitoring: Diversities and Disparities in Development
During the first phase, the bulletins initially provided a comprehensive examination of trends in economics, health, and environment. In the second phase, the ATM project focused its research on poverty and related challenges of urbanisation. The sections that follow outline the major policy areas of the ATM project. This is followed by an overview of each of the 25 bulletins.
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Phua, Kai Hong - Singapore Chronicles: Healthcare
Various trends in the healthcare system are covered within the context of rapid socio-economic, demographic and epidemiological transitions. Also discussed are national policies in response to healthcare challenges within broader regional and global trends, offering lessons and other policy implications for the future development of Singapore’s healthcare system.
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Phua, Kai Hong - Ageing in Asia: Contemporary Trends and Policy Issues
The book covers ageing and related developments occurring in the most dynamic industrializing and urbanizing societies of emerging Asia. It includes topical issues such public policies and responses to current challenges from the growing needs of an ageing population due to rise of chronic non-communicable diseases, amidst rapidly changing social, cultural, economic and political changes in the region.
The main purpose of the book is to provide useful comparisons of social care systems undergoing rapid transitions, and to offer some examples of best practices and lessons to respond to the changing needs due to population ageing.
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Richardson, Katherine - Earth beyond six of nine planetary boundaries
Additional Authors: Steffen, W., Lucht, W., Bendtsen, J., Cornell, S.E., Donges, J.F., Drüke, M., Fetzer, I., Bala, G., Von Bloh, W., Feulner, G., Fielder, S., Gerten, D., Gleeson, T., Hofmann, M., Huiskamp, W., Kummu, M., Mohan, C., Nogués-Bravo, D., Petri, S., Porkka, M., Rahmstorf, S., Schaphoff, S., Thonicke, K., Tobian, A., Virkki, V., Wang-Erlandsson, L., Weber, L. & Rockström, J.
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Richardson, Katherine - Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene
Additional Authors: Steffen, W., Rockstrom, J., Lenton, T.M., Folke, C., Liverman, D., Summerhayes, C.P., Barnosky, A.D., Cornell, S.E., Crucifix, M., Donges, J.F., Fetzer, I., Lade, S.J., Scheffer, M., Winkelmann, R.& Schellnhuber, H.J.
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Richardson, Katherine - Climate tipping points – too risky to bet against
Additional Authors: Lenton, T.M., Rockström, J., Gaffney, O., Rahmstorf, S., Steffen, W., Schellnhuber, H.J.
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Richardson, Katherine - Planetary Boundaries guide humanity’s future on Earth
Additional Authors: Rockström, J., Donges, J.F., Fetzer, I., Martin, M.A., & Wang-Erlandsson, L.
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Sachs, Jeffrey - The Ages of Globalization: Geography, Technology, and Institutions
Sachs emphasizes the need for new methods of international governance and cooperation to prevent conflicts and to achieve economic, social and environmental objectives aligned with sustainable development.
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Schulenberg, David - Printing the Probestücke: An Eighteenth-Century Music Publication by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
In this article, David includes reference to a letter he sent in 2014 to Harvard Magazine about instruments at Harvard, and the university's role in establishing HIPs (historically informed performances), that is, the use of historical instruments and techniques for early music. Find that letter here.
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Schulenberg, David - Recent Editions and Recordings of Froberger and Other Seventeenth-Century Composers
Volume 13 (2007) No. 1
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Schulenberg, David - Seven Flute Sonatas by King Frederick the Great of Prussia
CD recording: fortepianist in seven works, recorded at Sanssouci Palace, Potsdam (Germany), HCD 32698
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Schuman, Carl - Connecticut Criminal Procedure
The book consists of 16 chapters, each written by a different lawyer or judge, on all aspects of the criminal process from arrest to sentencing and post-conviction remedies. I serve as the editor. We have recently published our 4th edition, which is 977 pages.
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Toff, Nancy - Monarch of the Flute: The Life of Georges Barrere
Barrère's story is a musical tale of two cities, and this book uses his life as a window onto musical life in Belle Epoque Paris and twentieth-century New York.
Recurrent themes are the interactions of composers and performers; the promotion of new music; the management, personnel, and repertoire of symphony orchestras; the economic and social status of the orchestral and solo musician, including the increasing power of musicians' unions; the role of patronage, particularly women patrons; and the growth of chamber music as a professional performance medium.
A student of Paul Taffanel at the Paris Conservatoire, at age eighteen Barrère played in the premiere of Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun. He went on to become solo flutist of the Concerts Colonne and to found the Sociètè Moderne d'Instruments á Vent, a pioneering woodwind ensemble that premiered 61 works by 40 composers in its first ten years. Invited by Walter Damrosch to become principal flute of the New York Symphony in 1905, he founded the woodwind department at the Institute of Musical Art (later Juilliard). His many ensembles toured the United States, building new audiences for chamber music and promoting French repertoire as well as new American music. Toff narrates Barrère's relationships with the finest musicians and artists of his day, among them Isadora Duncan, Yvette Guilbert, André Caplet, Paul Hindemith, Albert Roussel, Wallingford Riegger, and Henry Brant. The appendices of the book, which list Barrère's 170 premieres and the 50 works dedicated to him, are a resource for a new generation of performers.
Based on extensive archival research and oral histories in both France and the United States, this is the first biography of Barrère. It was published in conjunction with the centennial of his arrival in the United States in May 1905.
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Toff, Nancy - The Flute Book, 3rd Edition
Teachers and flutists at all levels have praised Nancy Toff's The Flute Book, a unique one-stop guide to the flute and its music. Organized into four main parts--The Instrument, Performance, The Music, and Repertoire Catalog--the book begins with a description of the instrument and its making, offers information on choosing and caring for a flute, sketches a history of the flute, and discusses differences between members of the flute family. In the Performance section, readers learn about breathing, tone, vibrato, articulation, technique, style, performing, and recording.
In the extensive analysis of flute literature that follows, Toff places individual pieces in historical context. The book ends with a comprehensive catalog of solo and chamber repertoire, and includes appendices with fingering charts as well as lists of current flute manufacturers, repair shops, sources for flute music and books, and flute clubs and related organizations worldwide.
In this Third Edition, Toff has updated the book to reflect technology's advancements--like new digital recording technology and recordings' more prevalent online availability--over the last decade. She has also accounted for new scholarship on baroque literature; recent developments such as the contrabass flute, quarter-tone flute, and various manufacturing refinements and experiments; consumers' purchase prices for flutes; and a thoroughly updated repertoire catalog and appendices.
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Toff, Nancy - Georges Barrère and the Flute in America
The catalog for an exhibition at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, November 1994 - February 1995, in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of Barrère's death and of its own seventy-fifth anniversary, the Club sponsored this exhibition at the New York Public Library.
Barrère founded the New York Flute Club in 1920. In 1994, in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of his death and of its own seventy-fifth anniversary, the Club sponsored this exhibition at the New York Public Library, which also houses the Club's archives.
Barrère was a student of Altès and Taffanel. At Juilliard, his students included William Kincaid, Meredith Willson, Frances Blaisdell, Arthur Lora, Samuel Baron, and Bernard Goldberg. Barrère played a pivotal role in the universal adoption of the silver flute in the United States and owned the first platinum flute in this country. As a soloist, recitalist, and member of numerous chamber ensembles, Georges Barrère inspired major additions to the flute's solo and chamber repertoire, most notably Charles Tomlinson Griffes's Poem and Edgard Varèse's Density 21.5. His many premiere performances include the Hindemith Sonata and the Roussel Trio for flute, cello, and harp.
The catalog by New York Flute Club archivist-historian Nancy Toff, includes a biographical essay; 40 photos and illustrations, many from private collections and never before published; rare documents and letters; a list of Barrère's published music; chronology, and bibliography.
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Toff, Nancy - The Development of the Modern Flute
The early 1800s saw a revolution in the history of the flute as soloist perceived the need for instruments that suited the increasing complexity and power of the music of the day. This work discusses the breakthroughs of Boehm and others whose experiments in design led to rearrangements in the placement and size of tone holes, and the configuration of keys to allow manipulation of distant holes.
As the door opened to change, many different design ideas were put forth. The author provides astute insights on each advance, showing clearly the linkage between design change on the one hand, and performance practice and musical composition on the other. This historical background provides a firm basis for discussion of present-day compositional techniques, both traditional and “avant-garde.” More than 150 photographs show the various models in detail. There is also an appendix which shows the flute systems used by leading players and another listing the numerous “avant-garde” notations.
This, then, is probably the definitive study of the flute and as such represents a significant contribution to instrumental literature. It is also a boon to flutists interested in maximizing their understanding of their instrument and its literature.
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Toff, Nancy - The New York Flute Club: A Centennial History
From its beginnings in Georges Barrère’s apartment—a reading of the Kuhlau Grand Quartet—to 100 flutes performing at Governors Island, the New York Flute Club has served as a model for flute clubs worldwide.
Founded by Georges Barrère and his students and colleagues, among them William Kincaid and Lamar Stringfield, it has presented some 700 professional concerts featuring a who’s who of professional flutists and has witnessed more than 190 premieres. Its competition, founded in the 1970s, has helped launch the careers of many important flutists worldwide.
The 36-page booklet includes a rich selection of archival photographs and concert programs, a list of the 190-plus works premiered at the Club, the winners of the New York Flute Club Competition, and the winners of its two composition competitions. A downloadable pdf version of the booklet may be found here.
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Weil, Peggy - GoneGITMO
Exhibited LaBORAL, Spain 2009; MMOMA, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Russia 2013
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Wexler, Natalie - The Writing Revolution 2.0: A Guide to Advancing Thinking Through Writing in All Subjects and Grades
Building on the success of the original best-seller, this new edition of The Writing Revolution adds valuable guidance for teachers seeking a way to bring their students' writing ability up to rigorous state standards. As thousands of educators have already discovered, The Writing Revolution provides the road map they need, clearly explaining how to incorporate the Hochman Method into their instruction, no matter what subject or grade they're teaching and regardless of the ability level of their students. The new edition provides a reorganized sequence of activities and even more student-facing examples, making it easier than ever to bring the method to your classroom.
The Writing Revolution isn't a separate curriculum or program teachers need to juggle. Rather, it is a method providing strategies and activities that teachers can adapt to their preexisting curriculum and weave into their content instruction. By focusing on specific techniques that match their students' needs and providing them with targeted feedback, The Writing Revolution can turn weak writers into strong and confident communicators. In addition, the method can:
- Identify misconceptions and gaps in knowledge
- Boost reading comprehension and learning
- Improve organizational skills
- Enrich oral language
- Develop analytical abilities
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Wright, Thomas - The Forgotten Killer: Rudy Guede and the Murder of Meredith Kercher
One is the victim, Meredith Kercher, who was by all accounts a lovely, intelligent young woman full of great promise. Her murder was a terrible tragedy. The other is Rudy Guede—the actual murderer.
This book shows that the evidence against Guede was overwhelming from the beginning.
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