Neighborhood Library Books
Title: "How to Make Meetings Work"
Author: Michael Doyle, David Straus
About:
The interaction method:
- Increases productivity up to 15 percent;
- Works whether you’re in a hierarchical (authoritarian) or horizontal (democratic) organization;
- Gives everybody a feeling of greater participation and influence;
- Helps you whether you’re a decision maker, leader, or rank-and-file meeting-goer;
- Analyzes 16 types of problem people at meetings and tells you what to do about them;
- Tells you how to develop agendas and arrange meeting rooms and even seats in specific ways that make meetings pay off;
- Shows you how a facilitator, a recorder, and a group memory help generate more and better solutions to problems, and ...
- Even tells you seven reasons for not having a meeting!
Title: "For the Love of Cities: The Love Affair Between People and their Places"
Author: Peter Kageyama
About:
The mutual love affair between people and their place is one of the most powerful influences in our lives, yet rarely thought of in terms of a relationship. As cities begin thinking of themselves as engaged in a relationship with their citizens, and citizens begin to consider their emotional connections with their places, we open up new possibilities in community, social and economic development by including the most powerful of motivators--the human heart--in our toolkit of city-making. The book explores what makes cities lovable, what motivates ordinary citizens to do extraordinary things for their places and how some cities, such as New Orleans, Detroit, and Cleveland are using that energy to fill in the gaps that "official"city makers have left as resources have disappeared. Meet those amazing people who are truly "in love"with their cities and learn how they are key to the future development of our communities.
Title: "Building Communities from the Inside Out: A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community's Assets"
Author: John P. Kretzmann and John L. McKnight
About:
This guide summarizes lessons learned by studying successful community-building initiatives in hundreds of neighborhoods across the U.S. It outlines what local communities can do to start their own journies down the path of asset-based development.
Title: "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Robert's Rules of Order (2004)"
Author: Nancy Sylvester
About:
Perfect for the new president of a small group or the chairman of a large formal meeting, this guide explains everything from the ladder of motions to how to use Robert's Rules for any size or type of meeting. Expert parliamentarian Nancy Sylvester helps tailor the most popular form of parliamentary procedure today to meet any organization's needs.
Title: "Facilitator's Guide to Participatory Decision-Making"
Author: Sam Kaner
About:
The third edition of this ground-breaking book continues to advance its mission to support groups to do their best thinking. It demonstrates that meetings can be much more than merely an occasion for solving a problem or creating a plan. Every well-facilitated meeting is also an opportunity to stretch and develop the perspectives of the individual members, thereby building the strength and capacity of the group as a whole.
This fully updated edition of The Facilitator's Guide to Participatory Decision-Making guides readers through the struggle and the satisfaction of putting participatory values into practice, helping them to fulfill the promise of effective group decision-making. With previous editions already embraced by business and community leaders and consulting professionals around the world, this new book is even more insightful and easy to use.
Title: "Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action"
Author: Simon Sinek
About:
Why are some people and organizations more innovative, more influential, and more profitable than others? Why do some command greater loyalty?
In studying the leaders who've had the greatest influence in the world, Simon Sinek discovered that they all think, act, and communicate in the exact same way-and it's the complete opposite of what everyone else does. People like Martin Luther King Jr., Steve Jobs, and the Wright Brothers might have little in common, but they all started with why. Drawing on a wide range of real-life stories, Sinek weaves together a clear vision of what it truly takes to lead and inspire.
Title: "Robert's Rules of Order in Brief (2011)"
Author: Henry M. Robert III
About:
Robert's Rules of Order, Newly Revised, In Brief was first published in 2005 to meet the need for a simple and short book on parliamentary procedure. This second edition of In Brief is now updated and revised to match the new full edition of Robert's Rules of Order, Newly Revised, also published this year.Written by the same authorship team behind the officially sanctioned Robert's Rules of Order, this concise, user-friendly edition takes readers through the rules most often needed at meetings-from debates to amendments to nominations. With sample dialogues and a guide to using the complete edition, Robert's Rules of Order, Newly Revised, In Brief is the essential handbook for parliamentary proceedings.
Title: "Robert's Rules of Order 10th Edition (2000)"
Author: Henry M. Robert III, William J. Evans, Daniel H. Honemann, Thomas J. Balch
About:
The classic work on parliamentary procedure. Older edition.
Title: "Pocket Neighborhoods: Creating Small-Scale Community in a Large-Scale World"
Author: Ross Chapin
About:
Introduces an antidote to faceless, placeless sprawl ― small scale neighborhoods where people can easily know one another, where empty nesters and single householders with far-flung families can find friendship or a helping hand nearby, and where children can have shirt-tail aunties and uncles just beyond their front gate.