Hospitality Insight

With an emphasis on aligning technology to business strategy, Technology Strategy for the Hospitality Industry provides an interesting study of how IT has shifted from a back-of-the-house support role to one of strategic significance. IT in the hospitality industry has evolved from a focus on performing manual processes more cost-effectively to an emphasis on knowledge-based systems that can help drive revenues, make better business decisions, and create a competitive advantage.

Technology Strategy for the Hospitality Industry contains 13 chapters and covers issues such as IT fundamentals and specific software and systems in the hospitality industry. Technology Strategy for the Hospitality Industry can be found on the New Book shelf in the library (call number TX911.3 E4 N95).

The 2010 edition of Trends in the Conference Center Industry is now available in the library. Published by PKF Consulting, it provides a statistical and financial profile of the conference center industry, covering facility profiles, rate and occupancy statistics, meeting statistics, marketing, revenues, expenses & profits and human resources.

Trends in the Conference Center Industry is located in the library reference section (call number TX911.2 T74). For additional sources, check out the library’s MICE industry guide (Meetings, Incentives, Conventions, and Events).

Taking its central theme of the role of entrepreneurship in the context of tourism development, Tourism and Entrepreneurship: International Perspectives provides an interdisciplinary examination of the most recent developments in both tourism and entrepreneurship.

Several key themes are explored throughout this book, including: tourism; innovation and entrepreneurship; the role and nature of individual and collective entrepreneurship in different contexts; the role of tourism in responding to development opportunities created by global forces; and issues associated with tourism strategies and policies.

Tourism and Entrepreneurship: International Perspectives can be found on the New Book shelves in the Nestlé Library (call number G155 A1 T589155).

In 2008, the Cornell Library collaborated with Microsoft to create approximately 80,000 digital books from titles in our collection. These digital books are now all in the public domain. In addition to storing them locally for archival purposes, we shared them with the Internet Archive for inclusion in their “American Libraries” collection of digital books. This collection includes thirty books from the Hotel School Library. The transfer was made using the “rsync protocol” over the National LambdaRail (similar to the very fast Internet2 network), a method that allowed a pool of two hundred of Internet Archive’s servers to rapidly pull files from CUL’s archival storage. The digital books are accessible with no restrictions at: http://www.archive.org/details/cornell The Internet Archive is now offering Kindle versions of the books in this collection for un-restricted download.
Print-On-Demand
The Cornell Library currently list 57,000 titles for sale via print-on-demand (POD) from Amazon. To date, Amazon has sold 6,000 copies from this collection, averaging 1,200 books/month. The top 5 selling titles in 2010:
• A Colored man’s reminiscences of James Madison – 78
• Quail breeding manual – 34
• On Religion: Speeches to its Cultural Despisers – 32
• Popular Stories of Ancient Egypt – 20
• Fiat Money Inflation in France (note: Andrew Dickson White is author) – 20
This summer the Library will submit approximately 500 Wordsworth collection titles suitable for POD.

Geography and history combine to shape the food patterns and cultures of countries and regions throughout the world. The Nestlé Library has recently acquired a new book that investigates what and how people eat. Food Around the World: A Cultural Perspective uses maps, photographs and recipes to build an appreciation of the world’s cuisines.

The third edition includes a new chapter on Australia and New Zealand, expanded maps and illustrations, new study aids and new recipes that reflect food and cultural patterns around the globe. Food Around the World: A Cultural Perspective can be found on the New Book shelf in the library (call number TX353 M396).

Handling Qualitative Data: A Practical Guide introduces students and practitioners to qualitative research in a uniquely practical manner. The book advocates a progressive accumulation of skills and understanding of methodological issues as they are needed. This enables the student to perform efficaciously from the start by immediately being in a position to handle, reflect upon and get results from, small amounts of data, giving them a launch pad to more complex endeavours.

The emphasis is on working with data and it covers all the processes of making, meeting, sorting, coding, documenting and exploring unstructured records.

Handling Qualitative Data: A Practical Guide can be found on the New Book shelf in Nestlé Library (call number H62 R53).

Using a mixture of academic and popular sources, Globalization: A Basic Text provides an interesting introduction to the major topics in globalization studies. Driven by a range of theories from imperialism to neo-liberalism (as well as the major types of cultural theory), the book examines the key events in the history of globalization.

Among the major topics covered are the economy, culture, technology, media, the Internet, migration, the environment, global inequalities, and the future of globalization.

Globalization: A Basic Text is on the New Book shelf in the library (call number JZ1318 R577).