Reading, Writing and RECON : Military Professional Reading Lists

Roughly stated RECON is a mission to obtain information about an adversary, or the characteristics of an area. Today military professionals must know more about their profession and the world they live in, than ever before. For many gathering this information includes books, both electronic and digital. All branches of the military have recommended and/or required reading lists. The Combined Arms Research Library (CARL) at Fort Leavenworth, has one of the better-maintained list of these lists on the web. Their page of Military Professional Reading Lists links to more than twenty-five different lists. However, between the five branches of the military, their schools, commands, and civilian government the number of lists is almost impossible to enumerate.

As part of Steen library's collection development efforts, librarians will often use tools such as bibliographies and professional reading lists when purchasing materials to support learning, instruction, and research at SFA. For Military Science, the library has made a specific effort to acquire all of the books on "The U.S. Army Chief of Staff's Professional Reading List." (2004, this list has been superseded by the U.S. Army Center for Military History Professional Reading List) In addition many other titles from other military reading lists are part of the library collection. In an effort to make locating the hundreds of titles available at Steen Library from several of these lists, I recently created a spreadsheet this information and posted it on the web. The page "Combined Military Professional Reading List" provides easy access to titles owned by the library from many different lists. Links to some of the official lists are on the "List of Lists" page of the spreadsheet. The library owns almost all the titles from "The U.S. Army Chief of Staff's Professional Reading List", as well as many or most of the titles found on other reading lists. Through inter-library loan any additional titles not currently owned by Steen Library are readily available to the SFA community.

If you would like to recommend a favorite title or list of titles for Steen Library, contact your reference librarian.

R. Philip Reynolds preynolds (AT) sfasu.edu rm. 202b 936.468.1453 Subjects - Computer Science, Military Science, Philosophy, Religion, Political Science, Geography, Kinesiology

Ministry Of Truth : Whitehouse Web Site

Ministry of Truth

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

"Reality Control" ...if all records told the same tale-then the lie passed into history and became truth. "Who controls the past", ran the party slogan "controls the future: who controls the present controls the past."

This Process of continuous alteration was applied...to every kind of documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance.

....[documents] were recalled and rewritten again and again, and were invariably reissued without any admission that any alteration had been made.

George Orwell 1984

Changes in White House documents raise concern about rewriting history

news bureau
University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign

11/25/08

Craig Chamberlain, Social Science Editor
217-333-2894; cdchambe@illinois.edu

The Bush White House has been rewriting part of its history, according to University of Illinois researchers Scott Althaus (ALL’-touse) and Kalev Leetaru (KAHL’-iv lee-TAR-oo). It “has quietly deleted or modified key documents in the public record that are maintained under its direct control,” they write, in a report posted online this week and cited in a story in The New York Times.

They argue, however, that “updating lists to keep up with the times is one thing. Deleting original documents from the White House archives is another. Back-dating later documents and using them to replace the originals goes beyond irresponsible stewardship of the public record. It is rewriting history.”

Airbrushing History American Style (Full Report)

The authors of the report show how to locate altered or deleted documents from the public record on the White House web site. You will need to hurry because in January the site will be gone. It could be deleted or put in an archive with restricted access.

Print, books, cultural literacy, and "the classics" are as relevant today as the day the were first written.

R. Philip Reynolds preynolds (AT) sfasu.edu rm. 202b 936.468.1453 Subjects - Computer Science, Military Science, Philosophy, Religion, Political Science, Geography, Kinesiology