Books on change management LO12211 -"BookWatch"

Bill Godfrey (bgodfrey@ozemail.com.au)
Wed, 22 Jan 1997 21:08:46 +1000

Over the last year I have been developing a Web site with reviews and
commentaries on books in the general field of management of change. There
are now about 130 books on the base of which about 70 were added in 1996.
There is a free area and an area which is accessible by subscription at
US$95 a year - see details below.

The objective is to help busy managers to keep up to date with useful
ideas and concepts - the site is intended as a 'business' rather than an
'academic' resource, in that it makes no pretensions to representing the
complete 'literature'. The test is 'Would reading this book help managers
to do or to understand their job better?' and reviews/ commentaries are
written from that perspective.

New listings are added each month and a hard copy digest is issued
quarterly. Topic articles with recommendations on books in a particular
field, a searchable database, short reviews (about 50 words) and, (in the
last few days) a bulletin board are open to anyone visiting the site; full
access to the detailed reviews and commentaries and the hard copy digest
come with the subscription. The site is not sponsored and does not sell
books - in order to preserve reviewing independence.

If you want to explore the site, it is at

http://webtrax.com.au/BB/BookWatch.bbd

If you want to check the detailed reviews in more depth, I can issue a
short term visitor password on request.

Apart from hoping people will find it worthwhile to subscribe, I am
looking for fellow reading junkies, preferably practising managers or
consultants, who would be interested in participating in the project - by
drawing attention to books which should be added, by acting as reviewer
(particularly as a specialist in a specific field), or whatever. I am told
that about 5,000 titles a year are published in the general area of
business and management alone, so even sorting out what to review is quite
a task. In addition, I am trying progressively to add older 'classics' -
books of enduring value published before 1994.

The site has been accepted by many major publishing houses as a reviewer,
so review copies are supplied on request and become the property of the
reviewer. One of my problems, being in Australia, is that books are often
released here outrageously late (Capra's Web of Life, which I reviewed in
November, won't be released here until February), so I would welcome
collaborators in the US and UK in particular who can get earlier access.
If the site is successful, I would be able to discuss sharing the gains;
at present it is quite a costly venture.

I would welcome all enquiries :

Bill Godfrey <bgodfrey@ozemail.com.au>
8 Reibey Place
Curtin, ACT, 2605
Australia
Tel: (61) 6 282 2256
Fax: (61) 6 282 2447

-- 

bgodfrey@ozemail.com.au (Bill Godfrey)

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