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USU's Richard Schockmel Faculty Book Room was dedicated at a reception to recognize all USU faculty authors who published books in 2011.

Richard Schockmel was the former head of Collections at USU, who passed away in 2003. His role was to shape the collections in the Merrill-Cazier Library. The Richard Schockmel Faculty Book Room houses books published by faculty and the Utah State University Press.

“He did a lovely job of building a really foundational collection here,” said Jennifer Duncan, head of Collections. “The collection consists of items purchased for research and teachings at Utah State as well as historical legacy of knowledge that we want to make available to students and teachers into the future.”

Three faculty authors were invited to speak at the event: Richard S. Krannich from the Department of Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology; Joseph Tainter from the Department of Environment and Society and Nathan Straight from the Department of English (Brigham City Campus).

Krannich authored a book entitled People, Places and Landscapes: Social Change in High Amenity Rural Areas. It focuses on the interplay between a region’s natural amenities and its socioeconomic evolution.

Tainter’s Drilling Down: The Gulf Oil Debacle and Our Energy Dilemma explains the real causal factors leading up to the worst environmental catastrophe in U.S. history. S

traight’s book, Autobiography, Ecology, and the Well-Placed Self: The Growth of Natural Biography in Contemporary American Life Writing expands the field of autobiography studies by describing an emergent genre, natural biography, that embeds the human subject in a more-than-human world.

“There were a number of people who came from a variety of disciplines,” said Duncan. “This event allows faculty members from all different kinds of departments and colleges to come together and see the diversity of research being done.”

- Nadiah Johari

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