AUTHOR EVENT: Akiko Busch - "The Incidental Steward"
Oblong Books & Music - Rhinebeck, Sunday, May 5 at 4pm
This event will be held at Oblong Books & Music, 6422 Montgomery St., Rhinebeck, NY.
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A search for a radio-tagged Indiana bat roosting in the woods behind her house in New York’s Hudson Valley led Akiko Busch to assorted other encounters with the natural world—local ecological monitoring projects, community-organized cleanup efforts, and data-driven citizen science research. Whether it is pulling up water chestnuts in the Hudson River, measuring beds of submerged aquatic vegetation, or searching out vernal pools, all are efforts that illuminate the role of ordinary citizens as stewards of place. In this elegantly written book, Busch highlights factors that distinguish twenty-first-century citizen scientists from traditional amateur naturalists: a greater sense of urgency, helpful new technologies, and the expanded possibilities of crowdsourcing. Musing on the expanding potential of citizen science, the author celebrates today’s renewed volunteerism and the opportunities it offers for regaining a deep sense of connection to place.
Akiko Busch writes about design, culture, and nature for a variety of publications. She is the author of Geography of Home: Writings on Where We Live , The Uncommon Life of Common Objects: Essays on Design and the Everyday, Patience: Taking Time in an Age of Acceleration, and Nine Ways to Cross a River. Her work has been recognized by grants from the Furthermore Foundation and NYFA. She lives in the Hudson Valley.
“Every once in a while a place finds someone to speak for it. The hero of The Incidental Steward is the Hudson River and its valley---its woods and rocks, its schedules, changes, species, and mysteries. This book, gracious and intelligent, made me want to go look closely at the river, which I felt I had never seen properly before.”—Alec Wilkinson, author of The Ice Balloon
Location: Street: 6422 Montgomery St., Suite 6 City: Rhinebeck, Province: New York Postal Code: 12572-0482 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)
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A search for a radio-tagged Indiana bat roosting in the woods behind her house in New York’s Hudson Valley led Akiko Busch to assorted other encounters with the natural world—local ecological monitoring projects, community-organized cleanup efforts, and data-driven citizen science research. Whether it is pulling up water chestnuts in the Hudson River, measuring beds of submerged aquatic vegetation, or searching out vernal pools, all are efforts that illuminate the role of ordinary citizens as stewards of place. In this elegantly written book, Busch highlights factors that distinguish twenty-first-century citizen scientists from traditional amateur naturalists: a greater sense of urgency, helpful new technologies, and the expanded possibilities of crowdsourcing. Musing on the expanding potential of citizen science, the author celebrates today’s renewed volunteerism and the opportunities it offers for regaining a deep sense of connection to place.
Akiko Busch writes about design, culture, and nature for a variety of publications. She is the author of Geography of Home: Writings on Where We Live , The Uncommon Life of Common Objects: Essays on Design and the Everyday, Patience: Taking Time in an Age of Acceleration, and Nine Ways to Cross a River. Her work has been recognized by grants from the Furthermore Foundation and NYFA. She lives in the Hudson Valley.
“Every once in a while a place finds someone to speak for it. The hero of The Incidental Steward is the Hudson River and its valley---its woods and rocks, its schedules, changes, species, and mysteries. This book, gracious and intelligent, made me want to go look closely at the river, which I felt I had never seen properly before.”—Alec Wilkinson, author of The Ice Balloon
Location: Street: 6422 Montgomery St., Suite 6 City: Rhinebeck, Province: New York Postal Code: 12572-0482 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)
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