WSU Retention List Stories

The Krueger Library retention list includes some scarcely-held novels by the famed poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. It also has a book that discusses the legacy of a long-forgotten story that his nineteen-year-old lover and soon-to-be wife drafted one summer when she was inspired by a ghost-story-writing challenge. Everyone still quotes Zastrozzi, but no one remembers … Frankenstein!

Shelley, Percy Bysshe, and Stephen C Behrendt. Zastrozzi: A Romance; St. Irvyne, or, The Rosicrucian: A Romance. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2002.

Shaw, Debra Benita. Women, Science, and Fiction: The Frankenstein Inheritance. Houndmills, Hampshire: Palgrave, 2000. 

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.

(Note: None of our many copies of Frankenstein are rare enough to be on the Krueger Library retention list.)

For everyone who wants to put on a classroom skit to demonstrate a concept in business law, there is a book for you on the Krueger Library retention list. “To be or to litigate?” … now that’s a question!

Cordell, Christobel M. Dramatizing Business Law. Portland, Me: J.W. Walch, 1965. 

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.

For all of you fans of Hrotsvit von Gandersheim—the medieval nun who was perhaps the first female playwright from what is today Germany—one of the books on the Krueger Library retention list is a monograph of essays about her and her works. The final essay discusses her influence on the 20^th century novelist John Kennedy Toole.

Hrotsvit of Gandersheim: rara avis in Saxonia? a collection of essays / compiled and edited by Katharina M. Wilson. Ann Arbor, Mich: Medieval and Renaissance Collegium, 1987.

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.

Originally posted March 27,2024

Winona State has had faculty in both Leadership Education and Business Administration who have been interested in Lean Manufacturing and Lean Management ideas. Well-known titles in leadership, such as Bolman’s Reframing Organizations, are not on the retention list, but several books about Lean Management are.

Emiliani, Bob. Real Lean Volume Two: Critical Issues and Opportunities in Lean Management. Kensington, Conn: The Center for Lean Business Management, LLC, 2007.

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.

Fifty years ago, in 1975, Benoit Mandelbrot coined the word fractal in a French-language book entitled Les Objets Fractals. The term describes geometrical shapes that have fractional dimensions. These mind-bending shapes can make beautiful graphics, because many fractal shapes are self-similar at increasingly small scales.

The original French-language book is so rare, it is only held by two libraries in the world, both in Switzerland. Fractals took off in popularity, though, and none of the English-language books by Mandelbrot held by the Krueger Library are rare enough to be on our retention list. The one book on our retention list that features fractals is a collection of abstracts from a conference where fractals were used to study materials science, such as the fracture mechanics of polymer composites. (The book has no graphics, so I have added below a photo of a fractal shape (creative commons license).

Fractal Aspects of Materials - 1989: Extended Abstracts. Pittsburgh: Materials Research Society, 1989. 

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.

Some philosophers argue that individual humans left to their natural impulses are fundamentally despicable, and that civilization reins in our negative tendencies. Other philosophers argue that humans are fundamentally good, but that civilization has corrupted us.

The shorthand for this debate is “Hobbes or Rousseau?” To paraphrase and simplify Hobbes, without civilization, life would be nasty, brutish, and short. To paraphrase and simplify Rousseau, humans were born free but are everywhere in chains. Rest easy, the Krueger Library retention list has you covered, whether you lean toward Hobbes or Rousseau.

Rogers, G. A., et al. Leviathan: Contemporary Responses to the Political Theory of Thomas Hobbes. Bristol, England: Thoemmes Press, 1995.

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, and Pierre Burgelin. Du Contrat social. Paris: Flammarion, 1992.

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.