WSU Retention List Stories - Research Hub at Winona State University

This past Friday was Albert Einstein’s 146^th birthday. Einstein is so popular in academic libraries that none of our biographies of him are on the Krueger Library retention list. However, a collection of his letters with fellow Nobel-prize-winner Max Born is on our retention list.

Einstein, Albert, Max Born, and Hedwig Born. The Born-Einstein Letters: Friendship, Politics, and Physics in Uncertain Times … with Commentaries by Max Born. Houndmills, UK: Macmillan, 2005.

Recap: In 2022, twenty-four Minnesota libraries joined together in a commitment to retain over a half-million print books which are scarcely-held in Minnesota. It is called the Minnesota Shared Print Collection. This is one of the stories from the Winona State share of the collection.

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Story Sixty-Two: April Fools … NOT! A Very Serious Examination of Humor

Books studying the psychological and neurological mechanisms of the human capacity for humor tend not to be a barrel of laughs. This book on the Krueger Library retention list is a case in point. For example, Dr. Ruch states, “This need to distinguish among facets of humorous and humorless personalities can be deduced from the fact that cultures typically have developed a rich vocabulary of humor-related nouns …” This observation is not a knee-slapper in English, though I am told it is much funnier in the original German.Ruch, Willibald. The Sense of Humor: Explorations of a Personality Characteristic. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1998.Recap: In 2022, twenty-four Minnesota libraries joined together in a commitment to retain over a half-million print books which are scarcely-held in Minnesota. It is called the Minnesota Shared Print Collection. This is one of the stories from the Winona State share of the collection. ...

Story Sixty-One: Local Karst Geology

Some of the books on WSU’s retention list deal with geological formations found in the local area. The Karst geology of the region sometimes amplifies issues with groundwater contamination.Sweeting, Marjorie Mary. Karst Geomorphology. Benchmark papers in geology; 59. Stroudsburg, PA: Hutchinson Ross, 1981.Recap: In 2022, twenty-four Minnesota libraries joined together in a commitment to retain over a half-million print books which are scarcely-held in Minnesota. It is called the Minnesota Shared Print Collection. This is one of the stories from the Winona State share of the collection. ...

Story Sixty: Born was not born Einstein, but Einstein was Einstein born

This past Friday was Albert Einstein’s 146th birthday. Einstein is so popular in academic libraries that none of our biographies of him are on the Krueger Library retention list. However, a collection of his letters with fellow Nobel-prize-winner Max Born is on our retention list. Einstein, Albert, Max Born, and Hedwig Born. The Born-Einstein Letters: Friendship, Politics, and Physics in Uncertain Times … with Commentaries by Max Born. Houndmills, UK: Macmillan, 2005.Recap: In 2022, twenty-four Minnesota libraries joined together in a commitment to retain over a half-million print books which are scarcely-held in Minnesota. It is called the Minnesota Shared Print Collection. This is one of the stories from the Winona State share of the collection....

Story Fifty-Nine: Mathematically, (20 + 25) * (20 + 25) = 2025

Today is Pi Day, the date that is closest to the value of the mathematical constant Pi (3.14159…). Mathematicians are excited about this year. 2025 is a perfect square: it is 45 squared. The number 45 itself is a special number. It is one of the “triangular numbers.” That means that, starting at one, a sequence of natural numbers sum to it. In this case, 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 9 = 45. Because of these two facts, there is a cornucopia of curious mathematical expressions that are equivalent to the number 2025, such as this one: 13 + 23 + 33 + 43 + 53 + 63 + 73 +83 + 93 = 2025.The last year that had these mathematical properties was the year 1296. Such a year will not come again until the year 3025. Enjoy it while you can, math nerds!The branch of mathematics that explores triangular numbers is Number Theory. One book on the Krueger Library retention list which discusses triangular numbers is:Rademacher, Hans. Topics in Analytic Number Theory. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1973. Recap: In 2022, twenty-four Minnesota libraries joined together in a commitment to retain over a half-million print books which are scarcely-held in Minnesota. It is called the Minnesota Shared Print Collection. This is one of the stories from the Winona State share of the collection.(Credit for pointing out to me these mathematical details goes to Paul Weiner, the retired Chair of the Math Department at St. Mary’s University, and to his number theory chums.) ...