Showing posts with label National year of reading 2012. Show all posts
Showing posts with label National year of reading 2012. Show all posts
Update Your Personal Details during July for a Chance to Win
Discover is the National Year of Reading theme for July, and we are asking you to ‘Discover’ what the new library search, Encore, has for you.
There are a number of new features in your library account that you might not yet know about and we are encouraging all library members to take a look and update their account details.
For instance, did you know that you can now opt in to have the library save a record of all the items you borrow? Or that you can elect to receive messages from the Library via email?
To take advantage of these new options you must make some choices for your own personal library account. Since you have to login to your account to update your preferences it's a perfect time to make sure that your contact details (phone, address and email) are all up to date as well.
For your chance to win just login to you library account online during July and check / update your contact details and account preferences as necessary. Then click on the Enter Now button on the account page, add your name, phone & email and you're in the draw to win.
You will need your Library Card number (the barcode number on your card) and PIN. If you don't know your PIN you will need to visit one of the Shire Libraries and ask for it to be reset. You could take that opportunity to ask our staff to show you how to login.
(note: you can reset your PIN online from the login page, but only if we already have your current email address. If not, the online reset will not work)
The options in your account include:
Items checked out - a list of items on loan to you and their due dates.
Requests (hold) - Lists the items you have requested & your place in the queue.
Unpaid fines and bills - Provides details of the outstanding charges.
Modify Personal Information - Add OR update your email address, mobile and/or home phone
Modify PIN - change your PIN.
Preferred Searches - View and manage your favourite to searches to quickly run them each time you login.
Reading History - Opt in to keep a list of all the items you borrow from this day on.
My Ratings - See the ratings you have given items in the catalogue.
My Reviews - Manage the reviews you have added to items in the catalogue.
My Lists - Save items from the catalogue in personalised lists.
Update Your Details Now
Check the Library website for full details of the Competition Terms and Conditions.
There are a number of new features in your library account that you might not yet know about and we are encouraging all library members to take a look and update their account details.
For instance, did you know that you can now opt in to have the library save a record of all the items you borrow? Or that you can elect to receive messages from the Library via email?
To take advantage of these new options you must make some choices for your own personal library account. Since you have to login to your account to update your preferences it's a perfect time to make sure that your contact details (phone, address and email) are all up to date as well.
For some extra motivation (as if you needed it!) we are offering everybody who checks/updates their personal account details during July the chance to win a $200 JB HiFi voucher.
For your chance to win just login to you library account online during July and check / update your contact details and account preferences as necessary. Then click on the Enter Now button on the account page, add your name, phone & email and you're in the draw to win.
You will need your Library Card number (the barcode number on your card) and PIN. If you don't know your PIN you will need to visit one of the Shire Libraries and ask for it to be reset. You could take that opportunity to ask our staff to show you how to login.
(note: you can reset your PIN online from the login page, but only if we already have your current email address. If not, the online reset will not work)
The options in your account include:
Items checked out - a list of items on loan to you and their due dates.
Requests (hold) - Lists the items you have requested & your place in the queue.
Unpaid fines and bills - Provides details of the outstanding charges.
Modify Personal Information - Add OR update your email address, mobile and/or home phone
Modify PIN - change your PIN.
Preferred Searches - View and manage your favourite to searches to quickly run them each time you login.
Reading History - Opt in to keep a list of all the items you borrow from this day on.
My Ratings - See the ratings you have given items in the catalogue.
My Reviews - Manage the reviews you have added to items in the catalogue.
My Lists - Save items from the catalogue in personalised lists.
Update Your Details Now
Check the Library website for full details of the Competition Terms and Conditions.
Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky
If you're at all interested in how social networking via the web is changing the way society operates, here's a book for you!
Clay Shirky studies the effects of the internet on society and is a well known (in the web world at least) thinker and speaker. In this book he takes a look at how the increasingly social nature of the web, think Facebook, Foursquare, etc., is changing the very nature of our society.
One of the main themes of the book is that technological change can only really change a society once the technology has become ubiquitous. Call it a paradigm shift if you like but Shirky argues that we are only just heading into the territory where the Web 2.0 tools are 'not new' and that we are only beginning to see the ways that these tools will change the way society works. He poses a lovely tech history question to illustrate his point:
When Web 2.0 tools become ubiquitous everyone becomes a content creator. This is what Chris Anderson calls the democratisation of production in his book, The Long Tail. Shirky argues that once the lines blur between producers or publishers and consumers there is a fundamental change in the way our society operates, that "the category of 'consumer' is now a temporary behavior rather than a permanent identity." (Here Comes Everybody, p. 108). The result is that previously impossible things start occuring.
Martin
One of the main themes of the book is that technological change can only really change a society once the technology has become ubiquitous. Call it a paradigm shift if you like but Shirky argues that we are only just heading into the territory where the Web 2.0 tools are 'not new' and that we are only beginning to see the ways that these tools will change the way society works. He poses a lovely tech history question to illustrate his point:
Which went mainstream first, the fax or the Web?
People over 35 have a hard time understanding why you'd even ask - the fax machine obviously predates the Web for general adoption. Here's another: which went mainstream first, the radio or the telephone? The same people often have to think about this question, even though the practical demonstration of radio came almost two decades after that of the telephone, a larger gap than separated the fax and the Web. We have to think about radio and television because for everyone alive today, those two technologies have always existed. And for college students today, that is true of the fax and the Web. Communications tools don't get socially interesting until they get technologically boring. The invention of a tool doesn't create change; it has to have been around long enough that most of society is using it. It's when a technology becomes normal, then ubiquitous, and finally so pervasive as to be invisible, that really profound changes happen, and for young people today, our new social tools have passed normal and are heading to ubiquitous, and invisible is coming.
Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody. p105.
When Web 2.0 tools become ubiquitous everyone becomes a content creator. This is what Chris Anderson calls the democratisation of production in his book, The Long Tail. Shirky argues that once the lines blur between producers or publishers and consumers there is a fundamental change in the way our society operates, that "the category of 'consumer' is now a temporary behavior rather than a permanent identity." (Here Comes Everybody, p. 108). The result is that previously impossible things start occuring.
The hallmark of revolution is that the goals of the revolution cannot be contained by the institutional structure of the existing society. As a result, either the revolutionaries are put down, or some of those institutions are altered, replaced, or destroyed. We are plainly witnessing a restructuring of the media businesses, but their suffering isn't unique, it's prophetic. All businesses are media businesses, because whatever else they do, all businesses rely on managing of information for two audiences - employees and the world. The increase in the power of both individuals and groups, outside traditional organisational structures, is unprecedented. Many institutions we rely on today will not survive this change without significant alteration, and the more an institution or industry relies on information as its core product, the greater and more complete the change will be. (my emphasis)The book is full of fascinating, real life examples and situations that the Internet enables, which would have been completely impossible pre-web. It's a few years old now but I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I think it's just as relevant as ever.
Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody, p. 107.
Martin
Miles Franklin Literary Award: 2012 Long List announced
The Miles Franklin Literary Award, 2012 Long List has been announced, with seven of the thirteen contenders being women. This is noteworthy, as no women have appeared on this list in two of the past three years. To win this prestigous prize, the winning author "must present Australian life in any of its phases". Best of luck to each of the authors listed below.
Blood by Tony Birch
The spirit of Progress by Steven Carroll
Spirit house by Mark Dapin
The precipice by Virginia Duigan
All that I am by Anne Funder
Sarah Thornhill by Kate Grenville
Five Bells by Gail Jones
Foal's Bread by Gillian Mears
Autumn Laing by Alex Miller
Cold Light by Frank Moorhouse
Past the shallows by Favel Parret
The street sweeper by Elliot Perlman
Animal people by Charlotte Wood
The short list will be released in April, and the winner announced in June 2012.
Each of these books are available in the library, so why not read some of the nominated titles, and tell us about your favourites.
Blood by Tony Birch
The spirit of Progress by Steven Carroll
Spirit house by Mark Dapin
The precipice by Virginia Duigan
All that I am by Anne Funder
Sarah Thornhill by Kate Grenville
Five Bells by Gail Jones
Foal's Bread by Gillian Mears
Autumn Laing by Alex Miller
Cold Light by Frank Moorhouse
Past the shallows by Favel Parret
The street sweeper by Elliot Perlman
Animal people by Charlotte Wood
The short list will be released in April, and the winner announced in June 2012.
Each of these books are available in the library, so why not read some of the nominated titles, and tell us about your favourites.
Lunch Time Read Aloud for Adults
How often have you read stories to your children, grandchildren or brothers & sisters and wished someone would do the same for you?
In celebration of the National Year of Reading, library staff are reading aloud adult stories at lunch time.So bring your lunch, settle in, relax and be entertained on the first Wednesday of each month.
Last month Dianne (from Interlibrary Loans) read several shorter stories, mostly from Australian collections.
Bag Limit - a short, sharp story about duck hunters and ghostly spirits AND The Rock Lobster Club - a young man is dismissive of his father's safe, boring life as a newsagent in the suburbs. He moves to the city and tries life in the fast lane. He comes unstuck when trying to be cooler than he is. Both from the collection Under Stones by Bob Franklin.
The Rip by Robert Drewe. A dad and his estranged daughter stroll along a beach the morning after a shark attack. At the expense of his fragile relationship with his daughter he goes into the water to help a woman who falls in a rip.
Melinda read a funny poem so you could have a laugh and shift around in your chairs.
Camel College by Matthew Crompton. A man travelling in India despises the country, but comes to understand and love it after a tour guide explains his Camel College philosophy. From The best travel writing 2011.
Camel College by Matthew Crompton. A man travelling in India despises the country, but comes to understand and love it after a tour guide explains his Camel College philosophy. From The best travel writing 2011.
How I met my daughter / Max Barry from the Herding Kites collection. A couple have fertility problems and follow a prescribed pattern in an attempt to fall pregnant. When their daughter eventually arrives, dad feels shut out. Tragedy strikes, and the dad has to learn to look after his daughter whilst his wife is in hospital. Can he manage a close relationshipwith both his wife and his daughter - or only one or the other?
At an extra read aloud which was scheduled in celebration of Seniors Week Melinda (our Children's Librarian) read A Man for All Seasons. An Australian Story about rugby league coach Wayne Bennett. Followed by a clever poem, The Death of Reading by crime writer Jeffrey Deaver. Then a good murder story - Lamb to the slaughter by Roald Dahl.
On the 4 April starting at 1pm, come along and hear Jacinta, our Reference Librarian read her selection.
Throughout this year, on the first Wednesday of the month, bring your lunch and listen to a variety of library staff read their favourites.
Wednesdays 1pm - 1.45pm, Sutherland Library - Southern Lounge
See you on the 4th April.
2012 The National Year of Reading
Read and Think
The National Year of Reading theme for March is Think. This month is the time to think about what you are reading, and consider reading something that makes you think, whether its laterally-outside the box, critically, creatively or constructively.Here are some books that make you think.
Fiction
Still Alice by Lisa Genova
Lone wolf by Jodi Piccoult
Brave new world by Aldous Huxley
The alchemist by Paul Coelho
The 19th wife by David Ebershoff
We need to talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver
The da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
The handmaids tale by Margaret Atwood
The shack by William P. Young
Non Fiction
Dr Karl's brain food by Karl Kruszelnicki
How is the internet changing the way you think by John Brockman
30 second philosophies: The 50 most thought provoking philosophies each explained in half a minute edited by Barry Loewer
The LEGO idea book: you can build anything by Daniel Lipkowitz
The end of money: From cellphones to superdollars, a globetrotting search for the future of cash by David Wolman.
What do you think of these books? Tell us what else you've read that's made you think.
Photo credit: "Globe" by Flickr user carrotmadman6
Adult Summer Reading Club
The first annual Adult Summer Reading Club has come to an end. There has been a lot of reading going on in the Shire over Summer, with a grand total of 1225 entries in the competition over the eight weeks it was run.
The winners of the final 3 weekly prizes were:
Week 6 Winner ( 20/01/2012): Brian from Caringbah, who read "Online investing on the Australian Sharemarket" by Roger Kinsky, rating it 5 stars.
Week 7 Winner ( 27/01/2012): Judith from Sutherland, who read the mystery "The cold light of mourning" rating it 4 stars.
Week 8 Winner(3/02/20120: Fiona from Caringbah, who read "Tiger men" by Judy Nunn, rating it 3 stars.
The Grand Prize of an E-Reader was won by Lynn from Sylvania, who read "The price of love" by Peter Robinson, 4 rating it stars.
Congratulations to all our winners, and thankyou to all readers who participated.
Looking for a laugh?
The National Year of Reading theme for February is laugh. So this month read something that makes you giggle, guffaw, snicker, chuckle, chortle or at least smile! Here are some reading suggestions that may tickle your funny bone!
Roseannearchy: dispatches from the nut farm by Roseanne BarrEducating Jack: The alternative school logbook 1982-1983 by Jack Sheffield
Unusual uses for olive oil by Alexander McCall Smith
Snuff by Terry Pratchett (39th book in the Discworld series)
How I became a famous novelist by Steve Hely
Socks are not enough by Mark Lowery
The old romantic by Louise Dean
Life, liberty and the pursuit of sausages by Tom Holt
To fetch a thief by Spencer Quinn
Worth by Jon Canter
Explosive eighteen by Janet Evanovich
Photo credit: "Strange loop" by Flickr user CarbonNYC
Photo credit: "Strange Loop?" by Flickr user Carbon NYC
Amazing books you just want to keep reading...
Have you read a book that is so amazing you just can’t stop reading it? A book that you read in a day, or a book that keeps you reading late into the night, telling yourself, just one more page, OK, make that one more chapter, then I’ll put the book down…
You know the books, the ones that draw you in and are just too compelling to let go. You may find yourself neglecting the housework, your loved ones, eating and even sleeping.
The book that for just a short while, becomes your constant companion, accompanying you everywhere you go to ensure you can take advantage of every spare moment to read another page or two. It could be a story of mystery, an adventure, romance, suspense or even horror. It might be a book that has made you think, that has touched your heart or inspired you in some way.
Rediscover your love of reading in this, The National Year of Reading, 2012, and try one of these books that we're sure you will want to keep reading (and reading) until the end of the very last page of the story.
Caleb’s crossing by Geraldine Brooks
The hunger games by Suzanne Collins
The passage by Justin Cronin
The litigators by John Grisham
The house of silk by Anthony Horowitz
A game of thrones by George R.R Martin
The night circus by Erin Morgenstern
Scarecrow and the army of thieves by Matthew Reilly
The Lord of the rings by J. R. R. Tolkein
The Black Prism by Brent Weeks
The hunger games by Suzanne Collins
The passage by Justin Cronin
The litigators by John Grisham
The house of silk by Anthony Horowitz
A game of thrones by George R.R Martin
The night circus by Erin Morgenstern
Scarecrow and the army of thieves by Matthew Reilly
The Lord of the rings by J. R. R. Tolkein
The Black Prism by Brent Weeks
What books have you read that you just couldn't put down?
Photo credit: Flickr user o5com
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