National Library Discovery Services

New Developments in National Library Discovery services to support education and research
by Tony Boston, Assistant Director-General, Resource Sharing, National Library of Australia.
Presented by Alia-Arcom and Libraries Australia SA

This talk was about some exciting developments of National Library databases including the addition of meta-data from Libraries Australia to Google books allowing searches to include results from Libraries Australia. This feature may be expanded to include commercial journal databases allowing meta-data and holdings information to be searched and displayed from Google. We also looked at how the other national library databases are increasing their contemporary and in-copyright content. Music Australia now allows users to hear 30 second samples of in-copyright music and Picture Australia in conjunction with Flickr allows users to post images of Australia. Upcoming projects for Libraries Australia include a biographical database of important Australians and a consolidated search interface for the independent databases.
Power point presentation (11MB)

Basic RSS 101

Presented by ALIA-SA.
This workshop demonstrated how to set up RSS reader accounts using Google Reader and Bloglines. It showed how to obtain feeds from a variety of sources and how to manage and share feeds.

Sensible Library Technology - Doing More With Less!

On the 6th of March Jessamyn West gave a presentation on free and practical web.2 applications being utilised by libraries. Jessamyn is a great speaker and has the ability to inspire enthusiasm without hyperbole. You can find Jessamyn's blog at: http://www.librarian.net/ . Jessamyn has put her presentation on-line at: http://www.librarian.net/talks/aus2.0/

Online/Offline

On the 14th February (Library Lover's Day) ALIA Information Science SA presented Online/Offline, a synopsis of the talks presented at the 2007 Information Online conference. The discussion included the use of pod and videocasts in libraries, federated searches and website design. Online presentations for the Sydney conference are available on the Information Online website.

Wiki Basics 101

A Web 2.0 workshop presented by ALIA-SA

In this workshop we looked at contributing to established Wikis such as Wikipedia and Wikis used in libraries such as the Charles Sturt Library Wiki. We also created Wikis using the free web based applications PeanutButterWiki and Wikidot.

Google Librarian Central

Google Librarian Central features a blog about google resources relevant to libraries, a newsletter with articles on how to get more out of Google and some colorful and bold PDF guides to effective searching with the various google applications.

LibraryThing

LibraryThing is a web based application for creating an on-line catalog for your home library. Your catalog can feature cover art and your own meta-data in the form of tags. LibraryThing can direct you to catalogs of users with similar collections for browsing or you can search the entire database at once for a title or author. LibraryThing also features discussion groups (including 'librarians who LibraryThing'), a suggester/unsuggester for reader guidance, and book reviews by users. This is a fantastic social networking and reader awareness resource. A basic LibraryThing account is free. Here's my catalog.

LibraryU

LibraryU is an on-line training suite for anyone involved in library work. It offers a broad range of courses including cataloging, customer service and reader awareness. It automatically tracks where you are up to in your courses and features resources such as glossaries, bibliographies and web links for each module. A fantastic PD resource and it's free!

Valleys of Stone : The Archaeology and History of Adelaide's Hill's Face

Valleys of Stone is a very accessible write up of the Hills Face Zone Cultural Heritage Project, an archaeological and historical survey of the Adelaide Hills undertaken by Flinders University. It is nicely presented and features color reproductions of early paintings of the Hills and photos drawn from the State Library database. It may also inspire you to attempt the Yurrebilla Trail, a heritage and nature trail stretching from Athelstone to Belair developed as part of the project.

Botanical Illustrations

An exhibition drawn from The Barr Smith Library's Special Collections to coincide with the Botanical Riches exhibitions is on display in the Barr Smith foyer until the end of January.

Flora's Jewels : The Art of the Botanical Book

This exhibition traces the development of the illustrated botanical book from the Renaissance herbal with woodcuts, through the copperplate engravings of the Eighteenth Century to lithography in the Nineteenth Century.

This is a companion to the Temple of Flora exhibition (see below) and is being held at Carrick Hill. The exhibitions are jointly promoted under the title Botanical Riches and are being run in conjunction with the release of the book Botanical Riches : stories of botanical exploration by Richard Aitken, published by Miegunyah Press

Entry to Carrick Hill House is $8:50.

While at Carrick Hill you can walk the Children's Literary Trail which features a Hobbit hole and a Jungle Book safari. Entry to the grounds and the trail is free.

Blogging Basics 101

On Wednesday November 15th I attended an introductory blogging workshop for librarians (hence this blog). The event was run by ALIA SA in the Computer Training Room in the Barr Smith Library. Participants were given a brief overview of blogging software and pointed towards some utilities for enhancing blogs. We were also shown some personal blogs by librarians and multi-user blogs used to promote library services or aid professional development. Participants could post articles and comments to the Blogging Basics 101 blog (which contains links to some great blogs and resources relevant to librarians) and following the discussion we were encouraged to create our own blogs in the computer lab. This event was promoted on the askPLASA mailing list. You can subscribe to the list from the PLAIN intranet. If you want to start blogging try Blogger.

Temple of Flora

Currently showing at The Museum of Economic Botany in the Adelaide Botanic until 25th February 2007, Temple of Flora : stories of botanical exploration is an exhibition of illustrated herbals and Botanical books dating from the 16th Century to the present with an emphasis on books from the 18th and 19th centuries. Highlights include Leonhard Fuchs De historia stirpium commentarrii insignes, published in 1542 which features 'the earliest picture of a maize plant to appear in print', Robert Thornton's Temple of Flora, (which you can view online at the Digital Library for the Decorative Arts and Material Culture) and John Gerard's Herball or Generall Historie of Plants edited by Thomas Johnson. Guided tours of the gardens to view some of the plants illustrated in the exhibition can be booked through the Friends of the Botanic Gardens of Adelaide. This is also a chance to view the garden's recently completed Schomburgk Pavillion.

Temple of Flora is open 10am-4pm daily and entry is free.

Monster Blood Tattoo

As part of the One Book One Salisbury promotion Adelaide writer and illustrator D.M. Cornish, author of the fantasy book Monster Blood Tattoo, was interviewed by Dyan Blacklock in front of an appreciative audience of young fans and excited library officers at the Mawson Lakes Library on October 31st. David and Dyan talked about the striking design features of the book and some of the things that influenced the creation of the Tutin language and the geography of the Half-Continent. Especial treats were a peek into one of the journals in which David jotted down his initial ideas and sketches for the Half-Continent and a look at some of the stunning pictures to be included in Lamplighter the second book of the series. In promoting this event the library service ran a competition in which young readers were asked to design a cruorpunxis based on their favourite description of a monster taken from the novel. David presented the winners with signed promotional artwork and a signed copy of the book. Winning entries and photos of the winners can be found at the Salisbury Library service's website.

D.M. Cornish's blog can be found at Monster Blood Tattoo.blogspot.com
The official website for the book is: monsterbloodtattoo.com