Military History Day at Croydon Library

Military History Day

An early reminder to watch out for our Military History Day on Saturday 11th October from 10 to 4pm.

There will be speakers, displays, a military ephemera expert, ERL’s family history librarian will be there to help find family military history, there will be book sales and new books to borrow.

Come in and ask Alan about the day.

Computer Classes at Croydon Library

Computer Training available at Croydon Library

The library regularly holds computer training sessions for beginners the next session is on Wednesday 1st of October at 10am

Learn:
* How visit a Web site by typing an address.* How to use Internet Explorer to surf the Web.* How to search the Web effectively.* How to print a Web page.* How to put a Web page in your favourites.This class does assume some familiarity with a computer mouse.

It is a 2 hours introductory session costing $30. The classes are limited to 3 participants to ensure individual attention.

Follow up classes covering email basics are available at regular intervals the next on Wednesday 8th October at 10am

Sessions are also available covering family history the next on Thursday 9th October at 10am.

Hairy Harry: a school holiday activity

Hairy Harry’s

Tuesday 30th September at 11am suitable for ages 4+

Bring your own stocking and make a Hairy Harry to take home.

A free activity, book at the library or phone us on 9294 5640

Library Thing

Keeping track of your reading

So many patrons want to know of a way of keeping track of what they have read. There is a solution and it is called Library Thing. Recently the staff at ERL undertook a learning program about Web 2.0 and Library Thing is one of the new web-based applications we all learnt about. Take a look and see if you find it as addictive as some of us did

Library Thing can be found at http://www.librarything.com/

Library thing allows you to:
Create your own personal online catalogue of books
Rate and categorise (tag) books you have read
Find new books by similar authors or on similar topics
Get book recommendations
Interact with people who enjoy the same reading interests. You can check out other people’s libraries, see who has the most similar library to yours and swap reading suggestions.

Library Thing is very easy to use and free to join visit the above website and create an account for yourself.

Story Times at Croydon during the school holidays

Story Times at Croydon during the school holidays

Normally Story times at Croydon are
Tiny tots 0 to 12 months Thursday at 1pm
Toddlers 1 to 3 years Friday at 11am
Pre schoolers 3 to 5 years Tuesdays at 11am

BUT PLEASE NOTE DURING THE SCHOOL HOLIDAYS PRE-SCHOOLER STORY TIME IS NOT HELD

Friday 26th September at 11am a special Toddler time for 1 to 3 year olds with the theme of frogs. Come and join in with your toddler in stories, songs and rhymes. The session runs approx. 20 minutes

Tuesday 30th September at 1pm Tiny tots time for the 0 to 12 month olds. Short, attention grabbing stories, rhymes and activities.

Friday 3rd October at 11am. Our monthly Auslan toddler time. An Auslan interpreter joins the regular librarian to present a session suitable for 1 to 3 year olds. All welcome.

Women's sufferage at Croydon Library

Become part of history at Croydon Library.

2008 sees the celebration of the centenary of Women’s Suffrage in Victoria. In 1891 many Victorian women signed a petition for suffrage. This document is housed at the public records office and has been digitised and can be searched on line. Check to see if your ancestors signed it at
http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/WomensPetition/

As a celebration a recreation of the petition is being undertaken. At Croydon Library you can sign a piece of calico that will be complied with many others from all over Victoria. Maybe one day your great-great grandchildren will find your name on record.

The calico is at the front desk and men are allowed to sign this time.

Robert Dessaix at Croydon Library

Robert Dessaix at Croydon Library

As part of The Maroondah Writers’ Festival Robert Dessaix will be at Croydon Library on Saturday 4th October at 7pm.

Robert Dessaix is a self-described dilettante, a man who has worn many hats. Probably best known a broadcaster with the ABC for over ten years where he was producer and presenter of an interview show called “Books and Writing”.

At the age of 50 in1994 Dessaix published his autobiography A Mother’s Disgrace, which tells of his childhood and his time studying in Russia but mostly concentrates on his search to find his birth mother and the relationship they developed. He has also published Night Letters, Corfu and Twilight of Love…Travels with Turgenev. His latest book, Arabesques, will be published just prior to the Festival.

Sophie Cunningham, herself a successful author and now editor of Meanjin, will join Robert.

Finger food and wine will be served from 7pm Cost $20 full.
Bookings through the North Ringwood Community House, 120 Oban Rd, North Ringwood 3134. Phone (03) 9876 3421 Credit card booking over the phone available or pick up a booking form from the library or online at our web page, www.erl.vic.gov.au

#23 i have finished!!!!!!!

Is it over or is it just the beginning?
Over the last month i have learnt so much about just what is available on the internet now and how it is changing how people interact and learn and amuse themselves.
I only hope i don't forget it all due to lack of use.......that is the main thing to remember....keep using these applications so you can really see how they can be useful in work and home life.
What did i enjoy? i love the idea of tagging ....i enjoyed library thing and know i will use it a lot....i hurry to finish a book now so i can add it to library thing. I will use delicious.....mmmmm some things i am not so sure about but ......
As an end of this project i am going to write some of Croydon library's blog and my mind is trawling over the tricks and applications i can use or introduce to the public. So have a look and see what i have learnt.

#22 Audio books

There is a lot out there....and they seem very cheap.....I do wonder why someone would borrow from a library when they are so easy to download from the internet and there is no risk of fines.
The Project Gutenberg is an enormous undertaking.....over 1 million books available as e books!!!
Even Dymocks the booksellers has an e book area although i think it is through an American company.
I believe there are e book readers ....is it Sony who is developing them ...making the ebook a tangable item where you can actually read the text on a screen rather than just listen to it.
Personally i can't see them replacing the good old hard copy but who knows what direction the reading public will take.

#21 Podcasts

Podcasts.....this discovery made me think of getting an MP3 player and subscribing to the wealth of podcasts out there. I had a look at the podcast organising sites such at Podcastalley and i am not not so sure they are for me. I prefer a much more personal approach of looking at sites and seeing if they have podcasts availalbe as RSS feeds. I subscribed to some ABC radio podcasts and to Maryanne's library podcasts of author talks and the ERL library radio show. The subscribe function did not include bloglines so i had to copy and paste the URL to subscribe. Once again I need more hours in the day to listen to all of this....one podcast i liked was walking tours of Melbourne.....you could download these and use a MP3 player to do the walks......there is just so much out there.
I did not have much luck in creating my own podcast as i could not download the needed program this lead me to wonder how the library records and posts the author talks....i will have to ask someone.

#20 You too can Youtube

My family discovered Youtube long ago and have been posting short videos of a couple of years. This one was at a great night out at the Speigletent in at the arts centre. It was an Melbourne salon orchestra playing a range from wonderful gypsy music to vienenese waltzs.

#19 discovering Web 2.0 tools

I had a browse through the Web 2.0 award winners for 2008 and found many of the applications we have covered in this Library 2.0 course. Library Thing was there, PBwiki, technorati, bloglines.......the list goes on.

I had a look at the winner in the travel category a site called farecast.....I could not see the benefits over most airline booking sites but I am sure they are there.

In the visual arts award an application called colorblender was interesting and would certainly be of help.

But my favourite was in the music area ....an application called lastfm....a music organising application along the lines of library thing but in this case for music. You can develop a profile and suggestions about music you might like is developed along with a history of your musical tastes.

I am sure all the winning applications are amazing ....one thing that did surprise me was googlemaps winning over googleearth.........

#18 Web-based App

Thin clients? this is the way of the future....apparently....you don't need lots of software and power at your computer.....most of the work is done on the web.

I looked at Zoho.....it seemed to work in a very similar manner to microsoft word but the difference been I can send the link to others and they can edit and change my document online.

I imagine this will be useful and make life easier.

zoho practice

I am not really sure how Zoho works......surely it is the same as microsoft word? what are the benefits? I can create a document and others with access to zoho can edit it and add their piece. So it might be useful for students doing group projects or in the work place. I imagine i will see how it works when i finish writing this.

#17 playing around with PBwiki

I had a good look around this wiki. I added my favourite book and found ERL's list of favourite blog to which i added mine....easy and interesting to see how many Victorian public libraries are involved in Learning 2.0. The libraries have staff with many new skills....i wonder how it is showing up in the every day running of the libraries.
This is the link to the PBwiki page I updated with my blog address
http://plcmclearning.pbwiki.com/Favorite%20Blogs

#16 so what's in a wiki

Wiki's ....webpages you can add to and alter at whim. Interesting concept. I really like Wikipeadia and have yet to find bad information on it although i did once find a very biased view of a particular politician.
I noted on many of the examples i looked at that a log on or some sort of registration process is required if you want to add or alter a wiki....our own ERL wiki having such a restriction....i imagine this stops unwanted material.
I do believe that wikis have yet to hit their straps .....they have so much potential. There is much information out there that we all hold and this shared could be very powerful....think of all the problems that could be solved if we all put our heads together and compiled our indivdual knowledge and wikis are the perfect forum for this.

#15 On library 2.0 and web 2.0

The new world is coming but there are still so many wanting traditional services from the library. Real books are still in high demand. I believe the future will be a "mash up" (see i have learnt some new terms:-)) of the old and the new.
We have so much information available at our finger tips now and people want it quickly so i believe the reference librarians skills will need to grow quickly to keep up with all the possible sources and search methods now avaialble.
I believe the library has a good public face as a friendly, accessible place to visit and now with the technology available people are able to access the library in so many new ways. In a way the library has to relinquish some of its power and realise that the public are partners in information seeking. And that the public can offer something to the library. We as library workers need to get used to beta versions and come to realise we are all collaborative partners in the great information search and share in all we all have to offer.