Word: groves
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Anyone who thinks electronic data storage is going to render print obsolete in the near future should consider Grove's Dictionary of Art, a 5-ft.-long shelf of 34 dark green-bound bricks of scholarship with a 720,000-item index, just published at the rebarbative price of $8,800 and worth every penny. This is, of course, the sister publication to the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, which, almost since its publication in 1878, has reigned unchallengeably as the authoritative work in its field. After the relentless barrage of propaganda about information that has been growing...
...Harold Macmillan, the former Prime Minister of Britain and owner of the family firm of Macmillan Publishers Ltd., just after the 20-volume sixth edition of the music dictionary was published. (Macmillan, which no longer has ties to the U.S. publisher of the same name, is the parent of Grove's Dictionaries.) If Macmillan had not been a privately owned company, it's unlikely that the Dictionary of Art would have gone ahead. The shareholders of a public company in these days of quick publishing fixes would almost certainly have got cold feet at the thought of so ambitious...
...make an epitome of all this? The overseer of the vast Grove project, editor and curator Jane Shoaf Turner, embraced its complexities and contradictions, and has done an astonishing job of marshaling the talents of some 6,700 contributors. The Dictionary of Art contains more than 41,000 entries, ranging from a few lines to near books in themselves; the section on frames, for instance, runs 128 pages. Spot checks reveal none of the awful jargon that disfigures so much academic writing; all seems clear and readable, and sometimes even dryly witty. And as you browse it, you realize what...
Unfortunately, that's exactly not the premise of this otherwise fascinating treatise, in which Grove offers up a readable user's manual for the new digital economy, plus a how-to for managers worried about their business and, by extension, their career. This book is about finding rational ways to survive what Grove calls the "10x"--tenfold--factors that can threaten to change everything about a business in an instant. Just as the car turned horse buggies into curiosities, new technology like the Internet, Grove predicts, will render obsolete hundreds of businesses that are thriving today. The lessons Grove...
...Grove argues that change can be managed if CEOs are smart enough to listen to their employees, who usually spot such shifts on their purchasing orders eons before boardroom execs see the impact on the bottom line. And to help filter real, important change from the vagaries that trigger expensive false starts, Grove offers a useful primer on what to look for. His deep understanding of the history of technology and his engineer's perspective on scientific revolutions make him a companionable guide. Among his "tests" for recognizing approaching shifts: imagine you have one silver bullet to place...