The Colorado River is in crisis. Persistent drought, climate change, and growing demands from ongoing urbanization threaten this life-source that provides water to more than forty million people in the U.S. and Mexico. Coupled with these challenges are our nation’s deeply rooted beliefs about the region as a frontier, garden, and wilderness that have created competing agendas about the river as something to both exploit and preserve. Over the last century and a half, citizens and experts looked to law, public policy, and science to solve worsening water problems. Yet today’s circumstances demand additional perspectives to foster a more sustainable relationship with the river. Through literary, rhetorical, and historical analysis of some of the Colorado River’s lesser-known stakeholders, Tributary Voices considers a more comprehensive approach to river management on the eve of the one-hundredth anniversary of the signing of the Colorado River Compact, which governs the allocation of water rights to the seven states in the region. Ranging from the early twentieth century to the present, Tributary Voices examines nature writing, women’s narratives, critiques of dam development, the Latina/o communities’ appeals for river restoration, American Indian authors’ and tribal nations’ claims of water sovereignty, and teachings about environmental stewardship and provident living. This innovative study models an interdisciplinary approach to water governance and reinvigorates our imagination in achieving a more sustainable water ethic.

In Tributaries, poet Laura Da’ lyrically surveys Shawnee history alongside personal identity and memory. With the eye of a storyteller, Da’ creates an arc that flows from the personal to the historical and back again. In her first book-length collection, Da’ employs interwoven narratives and perspectives, examines cultural archetypes and historical documents, and weaves rich images to create a shifting vision of the past and present. Precise images open to piercing meditations of Shawnee history. In the present, a woman watches the approximation of a scalping at a theatrical presentation. Da’ writes, “Soak a toupee with cherry Kool-Aid and mineral oil. / Crack the egg onto the actor’s head. / Red matter will slide down the crown / and egg shell will mimic shards of skull.” This vivid image is paired with a description of the traditional removal path of her own Shawnee ancestors through small towns in Ohio. These poems range from the Midwestern landscapes of Ohio and Oklahoma to the Pacific Northwest, and the importance of place is apparent. Tributaries simultaneously offers us an extended narrative rumination on the impact of Indian policy and speaks to the contemporary experiences of parenthood and the role of education in passing knowledge from one generation to the next. This collection is composed of four sections that come together to create an important new telling of Shawnee past and present.

Communications * Standard Dictionary is a comprehensive compilation of terms and definitions used in communications and related fields. Communications is defined as the branch of science and technology concerned with the process of representing, transferring, and interpreting the meaning as signed to data by and among persons, places, or machines. Communication is defined as the transfer of information between a source (trans mitter, light source) and a sink (receiver, photodetector) over one or more chan nels in accordance with a protocol, and in a manner suitable for interpretation or comprehension by the receiver; or as a method or means of conveying informa tion of any kind from one person or place to another. In short, communications is a branch of science and technology, whereas com munication pertains to the actual transfer of information. Thus, the word com munication should be used as a modifier, as in communication center, communi cation deception, and communication line, just as in the field of electronics one speaks of electronic devices and electronic circuits.

Now in its Third Edition, the Communications Standard Dictionary maintains its position as the most comprehensive dictionary covering communications technologies available. A one-of-a-kind reference, this dictionary remains unmatched in the breadth and scope of its coverage nd its pprimary reference for communications, computer, data processing, and control systems professionals.