Posts by Kenneth Johnson

Run to failure: meaning operate your equipment (business) all out, don't bother to care for and maintain it (much less inspect it) properly — until everything has been pushed beyond its limits. To add insult to injury, ignore, and even penalize, your front-line people when they alert you to, or object to, the deliberate neglect.

Run to Failure: BP and the Making of the Deepwater Horizon Disaster, by Abrahm Lustgarten

It's been well over two years since the BP oil exploration 

Here is a selection of books new to the New York Times list of Business Best Sellers published in the print edition Sunday, November 11th, and, to catch up, the August 28th edition. Plus, a quick look at the Nielsen BookScan listing in the November 10th edition of the Wall Street Journal shows some titles new to this column. Enjoy!

Each title is noted with its ranking. Click on any of the titles below and place a hold to request the item. Remember to update your contact information (phone 

The October 13, 2012 Economist included its quarterly business book reviews. Here is a listing.

For those interested in the articles, you can find them through some of our electronic resources (I recommend our Custom Newspapers database, available from home with a library card — I have put a link to the 

PP23035 - Coreopsis plant named 'Star Cluster'Here are scans of the color plates of U.S. Plant Patents received at SIBL for the weeks of September 11, 18 and 25, 2012.

PP23008 - Chrysanthemum plant named 'CIDZ0002'Here are scans of the color plates of U.S. Plant Patents received at SIBL for the weeks of August 21 and 28, and September 4, 2012.

We pride ourselves on our United States patent system. But, to misquote, all patents are local (or at least national). So anyone who wants patent protection in another country will have to meet the filing and legal requirements of that national government. And, of course, do a patent search!

Fortunately, there is an online patent search site that will search almost all international patents (including United States patents): Espacenet (discussed below). Of course, as with United states patents, some types of research into patents for other 

PP22929 - Apple tree named 'Premier Star'Here are scans of the color plates of U.S. Plant Patents received at SIBL for the weeks of August 7 and 14, 2012.

Here is a selection of books new to the New York Times list of Business Best Sellers published in the print edition Sunday, August 5th. Also, a quick look at the Nielsen BookScan listing in the August 11th edition of the Wall Street Journal shows some titles new to this column. Enjoy!

Each title is noted with its ranking. Click on any of the titles below and place a hold to request the item. Remember to update your contact information (phone number or e-mail address), so you are notified when the book arrives for you at your

PP22915 - Kniphofia plant named 'Papaya Popsicle'Here are scans of the color plates of U.S. Plant Patents received at SIBL for the weeks of July 17, 24 and 31, 2012.

For additional Plant Patent plates for 2012, 2013 and 2014, these have been listed, with links, in the table posted here.

As before, please be careful in using these — they're really not appropriate to use for prior art or other similar searches. 

The Economist. You have to love it, you probably also hate it. A weekly journal with too much to read in a week (especially for slow readers). And it keeps arriving in the mailbox, even when you're on vacation. In other words, it's taken until now to get around to putting up a post about these books reviewed several issues ago.

For those interested in the articles, you can find them through some of our electronic resources (I recommend our

PP22847 - Poinsettia plant named 'NPCW10184'Here are scans of the color plates of U.S. Plant Patents received at SIBL for the weeks of June 26, and July 3 and 10, 2012.

Some may regret the passing of libraries receiving goverment information in paper form. But the goal of digitization isn't sensory deprivation; and anyway, paper materials started to disappear before the Internet came along — think microfiche, microfilm, even microcards (and yes, we have some of those at NYPL). Maybe someday all official goverment documents will be available online. However, not yet — there are still paper, and microform, collections here at SIBL.

PP22781 - Strawberry plant named 'Puget Crimson'Here are scans of the color plates of U.S. Plant Patents received at SIBL for the weeks of June 12 and 19, 2012.

For additional Plant Patent plates for 2012, 2013 and 2014, these have been listed, with links, in the table posted here.

As before, please be careful in using these — they're really not appropriate to use for prior art or other similar searches. Otherwise, please 

Did Cole Porter steal the music for some of his most popular songs? Ira B. Arnstein thought so. He took Porter, and several other songwriters, to court for copyright infringement during the 1930s and 1940s.

Unfair to Genius: The Strange and Litigious Career of Ira B. Arnstein, by Gary A. Rosen

"Tin Pan Alley" wasn't 

PP22768 - Hibiscus plant named 'DUP-FXL'Here are scans of the color plates of U.S. Plant Patents received at SIBL for the weeks of May 22, 29 and June, 2012.

For additional Plant Patent plates for 2012, 2013 and 2014, these have been listed, with links, in the table posted here.

As before, please be careful in using these - they're really not appropriate to use for prior art or other similar searches. Otherwise, please 

For a while now, it's been a pretty sure thing: U.S. Federal Government Documents are posted online, for anyone with Internet access to find. Or at least to look for - you can give the U.S. Government Printing Office (which we'll be calling the GPO) website a try. But if you might be researching older documents, you still may have to pay a visit to a U.S. Federal Government Depository Library like SIBL. And to help readers prepare for such a visit, this post will offer information about traditional resources 

Hydrangea plant named 'Hokomano' - PP22696Here are scans of the color plates of U.S. Plant Patents received at SIBL for the weeks of May 1, 8 and 15, 2012.

For additional Plant Patent plates for 2012, 2013 and 2014, these have been listed, with links, in the table posted here.

It's not quite time to worry about choosing your beach reading yet. But Memorial Day is coming, and so it is time to think ahead just a little. With that in mind, here is a selection of books new to the New York Times list of Business Best Sellers published this last Sunday, May 13th.

Also, a quick look at the Nielsen BookScan listing in the weekend's Wall Street Journal shows some titles new to this column, although one of them, The Art of the Sale, was mentioned in a recent look at