Queensland public library news

Australian Copyright Council

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:29:32 +1000

Information sheets for libraries
The Australian Copyright Council's website is a good place to start if you are looking for some quick and easy to understand information concerning copyright and lending institutions. Bookmark this website for future reference.
Source: Australian Copyright Council website, 2009

72% of Australian homes have broadband

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:28:59 +1000

Australia ranks ahead of US for home broadband access
South Korea, where 95 per cent of homes have broadband, topped a world survey on access to the high-speed internet. Among other Asia-Pacific nations, Australia ranked 11th with 72 per cent, Japan ranked 16th with 64 per cent, New Zealand ranked 25th with 57 per cent and China ranked 43rd with 21 per cent. The United States, where just 60 per cent of households had broadband as of last year, ranked 20th in the survey of 58 countries by Boston-based Strategy Analytics, released on Thursday.
Source: SMH website, 19 June 2009

A Literary Legend Fights for a Local Library

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:28:26 +1000

By Jennifer Steinhauer
Fiscal threats to libraries deeply unnerve noted science fiction writer Ray Bradbury, who spends as much time as he can talking to children in libraries and encouraging them to read. A funding crisis at Ventura Country, where property taxes provide most of the financing for libraries, had left a $650,000 budget hole.
Source: New York Time website, 19 June 2009

Position vacant – Alice Springs Town Council

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:28:01 +1000

Children and Youth Services Librarian
Alice Springs Town Council is seeking an enthusiastic and suitably qualified person to develop and deliver Library programs, resources and services to children and young adults.
Closing date 10 July.
Source: Alice Springs Town Council, 2009

NoveList Select Puts Readers' Advisory In OPACs

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:27:19 +1000

Edited by Josh Hadro
EBSCO Publishing's NoveList has introduced NoveList Select, a product that embeds the NoveList readers' advisory tool's recommendations directly into the OPAC. The service provides recommendations based on a user's search term, cross-checking it against a database of information on more than four million fiction and nonfiction titles to serve up read-alikes and similar materials based on author, genre, and subject criteria.
Source: Library Journal, 15 June 2009

Library of Congress YouTube pilot

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:26:41 +1000

In April 2009, the Library of Congress launched a pilot project on YouTube to offer selected items from its collections of early motion pictures, along with recordings of Library-sponsored events, lectures and concerts. As a pilot project the Library is sharing items from the collections with people who enjoy video but might not normally visit the Library’s website. To view the video on YouTube, go to the Library of Congress channel at: http://www.youtube.com/loc. You do not need a YouTube account to watch or embed the videos you find there; you would need to sign up for a free account to subscribe to the channel. All Library content that can be accessed on the YouTube channel is available on the Library of Congress web site.
Source: Library of Congress website, 2009

Just a click for a century of news

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:26:14 +1000

By Peter Jackson
The British Library has put two million digitised pages from 19th century newspapers online, taking research out of its dusty reading rooms into people's homes. The pay-as-you-go service brings a century of history alive from Jack the Ripper to WG Grace. The website allows anyone to search over two million pages from 49 national and regional newspapers like the Daily News, Manchester Times or Penny Illustrated Paper.
Source: BBC News, June 2009

Oshkosh Public Library turns off security system

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:25:46 +1000

By Amy Jo Schaenzer
For the past four months, the Oshkosh Public Library has been operating without a security system protecting more than 300,000 books and other materials that make up its collection. A new automated checkout system—installed in February—is not compatible with the old system at the library. Each piece of the collection needs to be retrofitted with radio frequency identification tags and new security gates must installed before the alarm system will once again work While the new security gates have been ordered, library staff is working to tag the entire collection, a task expected to take five years at a minimum.
Source: The Northwestern, 21 June 2009

How Twitter will change the way we live

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:12:55 +1000

By Steven Johnson
The most fascinating thing about Twitter is not what it's doing to us, but what we're doing to it. The one thing you can say for certain about Twitter is that it makes a terrible first impression. You hear about this new service that lets you send 140-character updates to your "followers," and you think, Why does the world need this, exactly? It's not as if we were all sitting around four years ago scratching our heads and saying, "If only there were a technology that would allow me to send a message to my 50 friends, alerting them in real time about my choice of breakfast cereal."
Source: Time.com, 5 June 2009

Wired teens tuned to multi-tasking

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:12:42 +1000

By Rodney Chester
As their parents complain of not having enough hours in the day while struggling to deal with the modern disease of an overflowing inbox, their digital native children have a novel solution to modern time management. This generation juggle their media-rich lifestyles to squeeze 38 hours of activities into every day. While their parents spent much of their teenage years wasting hours in front of a passive TV screen, research reveals how children and teenagers manage to multi-task with multiple media channels at once. A new study shows that young people spend 41 per cent more time online that the rest of us, which reflects their different media diet that includes two hours less reading books in a given week and 3.7 hours less watching television.
Source: news.com.au, 13 June 2009

Web 3.0 concepts explained in plain English

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:12:22 +1000

By Miguel A. Mayne
A great resource for presentations, slides and links to related articles explaining the latest in Web 3.0 concepts.
Source: Digital Inspiration, 9 June 2009

Libraries of the future (1965!)

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:12:07 +1000

Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is featuring the scanned work “Libraries of the future / by J. Licklider” (1965), based on a study sponsored by the Council on Library Resources conducted between November 1961 and November 1963. There are five different ways to view the complete book online, including online, pdf and full text. There are some interesting sections, including “The relevance of digital computers” and the very accurate prediction that in the year 2000 your desk would be “primarily a display and control station … and it’s most vital part may be the cable that connects it…”. The scanned version also includes notations and highlights made by the previous borrowers of the physical item – see if you agree with their opinions!
Source: Bibliofuture, 14 June 2009

ABC News (America) shuttering in-house library

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:11:47 +1000

By Felix Gillette
“Another bricks-and-mortar media bibliothèque fell victim to the digital age.” In an email to staff, David Westin, the president of ABC News, announced that its existing research library on the second floor of its 47th street building would be converted into a smaller, more cyber-focused "Digital Research Facility." "Our extensive, hard copy library filled with periodicals and other materials is no longer necessary in the digital age," wrote Mr. Westin. "The time has come to re-shape that library to reflect today’s world."
Source: The New York Observer, 4 June 2009

Budget crunch forces entire Seattle public library system to close

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:11:34 +1000

The Seattle Public Library, press release 3 June 2009
The entire Seattle Public Library system will shut its doors for a week beginning August 31st. The move is expected to save the Library $655,000 of the $1 million it needs to save due to budget reductions. An additional $300,000 in cuts will "include management and administration layoffs, extending the staff computer replacement schedule and reducing the training budget." The closure also includes the SPL website. During the closure there will be no access to the Web site (www.spl.org) and no staff members will be working to maintain and troubleshoot problems. Online computer sign-ups, the online reference service and other features will not be available."
Source: Book Patrol website, 3 June 2009

Exhibition kit loans

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:11:17 +1000

What's on - State Library of Queensland
"The State Library of Queensland holds an interesting range of exhibition material in kit form for loan to public libraries and other organisations. These display kits are photograph-based and deal with a wide range of topics relating to Queensland and its history e.g. women's suffrage, photography and social history".
Source: State Library of Queensland website, 2009

New database on trial

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:11:02 +1000

InfoBase eBook Master Collection
Visit our Database on trial page to test run InfoBase eBooks. With access to approximately 2,500 titles in the collection you are bound to find titles that will be of interest. This platform is very easy to use, either to search an individual title or an entire collection. The database trial will end in mid July.
Source: State Library of Queensland website, 2009

Picture Queensland now available in One Search

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:10:47 +1000

Discover your communities images in One Search
One Search now provides access to the South Bank collections and almost 50,000 images from the pictorial collections of the State Library’s John Oxley Library. Other digital collections, including images from Picture Queensland contributors and Queensland Stories will be added to One Search over the next few months.

Discovery through One Search comes with a significantly faster search experience with no limits on the number of search results returned. One Search also offers clients a number of social networking tools, including tagging and commenting as well as the ability to store favourite records.
Source: Louise Denoon, Heritage Collections - State Library of Queensland

Multilingual Health Databases – on trial

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:31:11 +1000

We are pleased to announce the trial period for Multilingual Health Databases has been extended until the 31 July 2009. The feedback from the initial trial of this database has been overwhelming, numerous and positive.

Multilingual Health Databases provide translated articles about common medical conditions and procedures in an easy-to-understand manner. In addition to keyword searching, this suite of databases offers an interactive body map that assists the user in locating full text articles about health-related topics for all areas of the body.
All of the evidence-based content included in Multilingual Health Databases is written by experienced medical writers and independently reviewed by medically-credentialed experts. The articles in MHD are reviewed and updated on a regular basis to reflect the most recent information and research available.
Multilingual Health Databases are available in the following languages: Arabic, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, French, Farsi, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog (Filipino) and Vietnamese.
Source: State Library of Queensland website, 2009

LiveSmart.net.au

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:30:23 +1000

Live Smart is where young people can find information in 6 languages to get by in the real world
LiveSmart.net.au is a new multilingual living skills website for young people and their workers. The website provides living skills info in six languages (Arabic, Amharic, Dinka, Swahili, Karen and English) and features an interactive ‘make your own budget’ tool. The website includes information about housing, managing mobile phone bills, getting legal advice and staying happy and healthy.
Source: Thanks to Denise O'Connor, Children and Young Peoples Program, State Library of Queensland.

The little book of public libraries

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:29:34 +1000

ALIA Public Libraries Summit
"ALIA is at the final design stage of producing something we've all been talking about for a while - a quick, simple summary of why libraries are so important, giving library supporters the words and ideas they need to champion our cause".
Source: ALIA website, 2009