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Book Collection: Nonfiction is a cross-curricular database providing abstracts and searchable full text for thousands of popular nonfiction books. It covers core subject areas as well as information on careers, health, sports, adventure, technology, life skills, and more.
A collection of ebooks on a variety of subjects, shared with other Illinois college libraries.
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This e-book collection contains thousands of high-quality open access (OA) e-books from the world’s most trusted university presses and scholarly publishers.
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A great tool to learn about all sides of an issue. Perfect for persuasive papers and speeches, or just to learn more about current issues.
Scholarly ebooks from Oxford University Press through a shared Illinois college and university library collection. To narrow the search to nonrestricted items, in the blue box on the left, click on the checkboxes for Unlocked, Free, & Open Access, then click on Submit.
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This reference database provides detailed, user-friendly repair guides for all manner of small engines, from motorcycles and ATVs to generators and outdoor power equipment.
The Time Magazine Archive presents an extensive collection of the weekly news magazine (1923-2000) and is presented in a comprehensive cover-to-cover format.
Articles and professional association content about turfgrass.
Ebooks from the publisher Wiley through a shared Illinois college and university library collection.
A vivid portrait of the American prairie, which rivals the rainforest in its biological diversity and, with little notice, is disappearing even faster "This book describes--in loving, living prose--one of the world's greatest and most important landscapes. And it does so while there's still time to save some serious part of it."--Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature The North American prairie is an ecological marvel, a lush carpet of grass that stretches to the horizon, and home to some of the nation's most iconic creatures--bison, elk, wolves, pronghorn, prairie dogs, and bald eagles. Plants, microbes, and animals together made the grasslands one of the richest ecosystems on Earth and a massive carbon sink, but the constant expansion of agriculture threatens what remains. When European settlers encountered the prairie nearly two hundred years ago, rather than a natural wonder they saw an alien and forbidding place. But with the steel plow, artificial drainage, and fertilizers, they converted the prairie into some of the world's most productive farmland--a transformation unprecedented in human history. American farmers fed the industrial revolution and made North America a global breadbasket, but at a terrible cost: the forced dislocation of Indigenous peoples, pollution of great rivers, and catastrophic loss of wildlife. Today, industrial agriculture continues its assault on the prairie, plowing up one million acres of grassland a year. Farmers can protect this extraordinary landscape, but trying new ideas can mean ruin in a business with razor-thin margins, and will require help from Washington, D.C., and from consumers. Veteran journalists and midwesterners Dave Hage and Josephine Marcotty reveal humanity's relationship with this incredible land, offering a deep, compassionate analysis of the difficult decisions as well as opportunities facing agricultural and Indigenous communities. Sea of Grass is a vivid portrait of a miraculous ecosystem that makes clear why the future of this region is of essential concern far beyond the heartland.
Award-winning Atlantic staff writer Zoë Schlanger delivers a groundbreaking work of popular science that probes the hidden world of the plant kingdom, "destabilizing not just how we see the green things of the world but also our place in the hierarchy of beings, and maybe the notion of that hierarchy itself." (The New Yorker) It takes tremendous biological creativity to be a plant. To survive and thrive while rooted in a single spot, plants have adapted ingenious methods of survival. In recent years, scientists have learned about their ability to communicate, recognize their kin and behave socially, hear sounds, morph their bodies to blend into their surroundings, store useful memories that inform their life cycle, and trick animals into behaving to their benefit, to name just a few remarkable talents. The Light Eaters is a deep immersion into the drama of green life and the complexity of this wild and awe-inspiring world that challenges our very understanding of agency, consciousness, and intelligence. In looking closely, we see that plants, rather than imitate human intelligence, have perhaps formed a parallel system. What is intelligent life if not a vine that grows leaves to blend into the shrub on which it climbs, a flower that shapes its bloom to fit exactly the beak of its pollinator, a pea seedling that can hear water flowing and make its way toward it? Zoë Schlanger takes us across the globe, digging into her own memories and into the soil with the scientists who have spent their waking days studying these amazing entities up close. What can we learn about life on Earth from the living things that thrive, adapt, consume, and accommodate simultaneously? More important, what do we owe these life forms once we come to understand their rich and varied abilities? Examining the latest epiphanies in botanical research, Schlanger spotlights the intellectual struggles among the researchers conceiving a wholly new view of their subject, offering a glimpse of a field in turmoil as plant scientists debate the tenets of ongoing discoveries and how they influence our understanding of what a plant is. We need plants to survive. But what do they need us for--if at all? An eye-opening and informative look at the ecosystem we live in, this book challenges us to rethink the role of plants--and our own place--in the natural world.
An indispensable analysis of how the world really produces and consumes its food--and a scientist's exploration of how we can successfully feed a growing population without killing the planet We have never had to feed as many people as we do today. And yet, we misunderstand the essentials of where our food really comes from, how our dietary requirements shape us, and why this impacts our planet in drastic ways. As a result, in our economic, political, and everyday choices, we take for granted and fail to prioritize the thing that makes all our lives possible: food. In this ambitious, myth-busting book, Smil investigates many of the burning questions facing the world today: why are some of the world's biggest food producers also the countries with the most undernourished populations? Why do we waste so much food and how can we solve that? Could the whole planet go vegan and be healthy? Should it? He explores the global history of food production to understand why we farm some animals and not others, why most of the world's calories come from just a few foodstuffs, and how this might change in the future. How to Feed the World is the data-based, rigorously researched guide that offers solutions to our broken global food system.
A visual feast of garden design inspiration that embraces diversity and teaches you how to create a lush, colorful, edible, and meaningful garden wonderland of your own. "Through story and imagery,Garden Wonderlandreminds us over and over thatplants should be part of everyday for everyone- as food, experience, memory, and creativity."-Jennifer Jewell, creator and host of the Cultivating Place public radio program and podcast, and author of What We Sow Award-winning garden designer Leslie Bennett creates gardens filled with stunning layers of color and texture. But even more than that, they "feed the eye and nourish the soul" (Elle Decor). Featuring practical how-to information alongside examples from nineteen gardens, Bennett shows how to incorporate personal and edible elements into the landscape to honor a variety of cultures, while including families of all shapes and sizes, to create space that nurtures self, community, and more. For example, the team designed a garden for the cofounder of the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation to showcase art from emerging Black artists, while for a vegan chef's garden, they incorporated unusual vegetables that can't be found in grocery stores. A garden for a daughter of diplomats reflects the many places she's lived around the world; for a family that wants to beautify their neighborhood, they designed a vibrant community-oriented front yard. With chapters on floral, edible, gathering, healing, and cultural wonderlands, Bennett provides advice for tailoring a garden to your own needs, whether it's a place to host elegant garden parties, for children to play, to grow your own food and creativity, or a sanctuary to rest and relax. In Garden Wonderland, Bennett helps you unlock the potential of your garden to become a space of inspiring natural beauty, abundance, connection, and belonging.
Our Renewable Energy Future delves into the clean energy technology evolution and where our energy system is going. While the book's foundation is technology innovation, it brings a unique perspective that technology alone is not what has brought about the explosive growth of renewable energy and offers fresh insights into how technology, economics, social dynamics, policy, and geopolitics are forces affecting our energy future. This book is a culmination of Dr Arent's lifelong passion for energy, sustainable development, and renewable energy technology. It covers the journey of evolving technology, economics, political economy and geopolitics of clean energy over the last 40 years and provides insights for the coming decades. From a technology perspective, the book traces the arc of recent innovations and synthesizes innovations across multiple interacting perspectives into a description of Our Renewable Energy Future.