The Topp Twins’ bio: Pride eBook Club special!

Celebrate Wellington Pride by joining us in reading Untouchable Girls: The Topp Twins’ Story. From March 8 to March 17, we’re providing unlimited eBook copies of the Topp Twins’ acclaimed biography. That means no waiting in long reserves queues – you’ll get free and instant access on Libby!

Untouchable Girls is described as ‘a rollicking, intimate, uproarious romp through the triumphant lives of Jools and Lynda that will make you want to sing, to go on the road, ride horses, fall in love and never stop laughing’ (Kete Books) — find out more below, or borrow a copy today!

Untouchable girls : the Topp Twins’ story / Topp, Jules (eBook)
“The iconic Kiwi duo – comedians, country music stars, yodellers, lesbians – in their own words. This is the incredible story of how a couple of country kids from Huntly became much-loved Kiwi icons and TV stars, with their own unique brand of original country music and comedy that has captivated audiences in New Zealand and overseas for more than 40 years. Jools and Lynda Topp aka The Topp Twins tell this story in their own words, describing their adventurous lives through laugh-out-loud anecdotes and heartwarming tales. As well as enjoying long careers as country music stars and comedians, with their characters like Camp Mother & Camp Leader and Ken & Ken, the twins have always stood up for their political beliefs and have been embraced by New Zealanders from all walks of life. Including never-before-told stories and images, this is a nostalgic and important historic record of the lives of two ground-breaking and inspiring women, and of the times through which they’ve lived.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

 

Deep Dive: New Year’s resolutions

a coffee on a table with the phrase "set goals not limits"

The year is almost over, which means you might be starting to think about New Year’s resolutions and goal setting. It can be difficult to know where to start, so we’ve compiled some helpful information from our eLibrary resources. Read on for peer reviewed studies, LinkedIn Learning courses and an overview of some of our helpful eResources.

Image of letters spelling SMART with the text - Specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely.

Research based articles on goal setting

It appears that how you frame your goal has a huge effect on how successful you might be in achieving it. Health and medicine journal Lancet tackles this topic in their article Have a healthy new year: easy to say, hard to do, which approaches this topic from the perspective of doctors trying to design a successful health campaign. The journal states that “physicians need to know when to emphasise the positive consequences of making a change versus the negative consequences of not changing.” The article goes on to state that people can be motivated either by believing “negative things will happen to them if they continue to behave as they do”, but they can also be motivated by the “positive effects” that they expect from a change in their behaviour. The article suggests changing up the framing around messaging if an attempted approach isn’t working. For example, “familiar statements such as “smoking is bad for you” […] lose their emotional impact”, and so you might instead promote the positive effects of not smoking. This aligns with the findings of Public Library of Science‘s article on New Year’s resolutions, which found that participants had more success achieving their goals with a positive “approach-orientated” mindset, rather than a negative “avoidance-oriented” approach.

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What’s on PressReader? Art Magazines!

Frankie magazine, displayed on a tablet against a pile of magazines on a table

Visit PressReaderPressreader is one of our great eLibrary resources that is accessible with your library card. It allows you unlimited access to thousands of newspapers and magazines from more than 100 countries in over 60 languages. Within this blog series, we will be showcasing some of the titles that are currently available on PressReader, beginning with the art magazines.

You can discover amazing new artists or get ideas for your own artwork in these magazines. They cover a whole range of different types of art such as photography, fine arts and contemporary art. You can even check out some of our foreign magazines with the translation feature. See some of the art magazines we’ve selected below or explore the full selection on PressReader.

If you want to read PressReader content and haven’t before, here’s how to get started:

  • Visit PressReader.com, and click the sign in button (top left corner)
  • Select the ‘Library Card’ option and search for ‘Wellington City Libraries’
  • Enter your Library card number, and your ‘PIN’ (the default is the last 4 numbers of your phone number), and click the ‘Sign in’ button – you’re all set!

Some titles to get you started…

ArtReviewArtReview | Country: United Kingdom | Language: English
“Founded in 1949, ArtReview is one of the world’s leading international contemporary art magazines, dedicated to expanding contemporary art’s audience and reach. ArtReview features a mixture of criticism, reviews, reportage and specially commissioned artworks, and offers the most established, in-depth and intimate portrait of international contemporary art in all its shapes and forms.” (PressReader)

Inuit Art QuarterlyInuit Art Quarterly | Country: Canada | Language: English
“The Inuit Art Quarterly is published by the Inuit Art Foundation. Established in 1987, the Inuit Art Foundation is a not-for-profit charitable organization that provides support to Canada’s Inuit arts communities and is the sole national body mandated to promote Inuit artists and art within Canada and internationally.” (Inuit Art Quarterly)

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Deep Dive: Bird of the Year

a collage of nz native bords

Aotearoa’s favourite election is back; it’s time for Forest & Bird’s Bird of the Year competition. This year the stakes have been raised, with Aotearoa being asked to determine our Bird of the Century! Visit their website to review the candidates and make your vote. Voting opens 9am today, Monday 30 October!

One amazing aspect of Bird of the Year is that it always garners mass online engagement. The New Zealand Journal of Psychology published a fascinating paper on this phenomenon, titled ‘lemme get uhhhhh froot’: Internet memes for consciousness-raising in Aotearoa’s Bird of the Year conservation campaign. Bird of the Year memes have become an annual pastime that truly seems to grip the nation. This paper explores how memes from past Bird of the Year campaigns are an example of combining humour and activism online. New Zealanders are encouraged to not just vote, but create campaigns for their bird of choice. As well as everyday New Zealanders, politicians and celebrities are also known to run campaigns for their favourite birds, with the especially passionate creating “dedicated social media accounts, sharing memes to support their candidate and oppose rivals.” In their research, they found that “memes mobilised humour and fear, cultural ideas about what it means to be a New Zealander, and information about how to conserve endangered species.”, while also critiquing themselves through self-referential humour that asks “questions about the potentials and pitfalls of online engagement.” This paper suggests that the “playful-serious nature of memes can provide a vehicle for speaking difficult truths in ironic ways.” The plight of our native birds certainly is a difficult truth, with “more than 80% of New Zealand’s native bird species are threatened or at risk and 23 species face an immediate high risk of extinction (Department of Conservation, n.d.a; Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, 2017).”

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Deep Dive: Artificial Intelligence

Welcome to a new blog series, called Deep Dive. In this series, we look at a trending topic and find interesting points of view from different library eResources. This week, we explore the topic of artificial intelligence.

A screen shot from ‘How to think about AI…and how to live with it’.

For a brief introduction to AI, you might like to check out this cover story from New Scientist, ‘How to think about AI…and how to live with it’. In this story, the magazine explores questions such as “how does Chat GPT work?”, “how will generative AI transform the world?” and “could AI ever become conscious?”. This article also explores chatbots churning out misinformation, scientists wondering if they can give AI a sense of ‘feeling’ by connecting them to a robot ‘body’, and ways that AI is already assisting in medical breakthroughs. There’s also a story about a journalist who asked ChatGPT to help suggest a recipe, only to be told to use roast potatoes as a garnish, a nonsensical but delicious idea. Those wanting a brief overview of the topic of AI might also enjoy the eResource Opposing Viewpoints In Context (Gale), which provides helpful summaries on a range of topics, including AI.

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OverDrive app retirement 1 May: Helpful resources

Libby will soon replace the legacy OverDrive app - Helpful resources

Libby will soon replace the legacy OverDrive app - Helpful resourcesThis is a quick reminder that from 1 May, the original OverDrive app will be discontinued and replaced with OverDrive’s Libby app. The OverDrive app was removed from app stores in February last year for new downloads.

Need help getting started with Libby? Find some resources below!

‘Getting Started with Libby’ webinar recording

On Thursday 27 April, OverDrive ran a one-hour webinar for New Zealand libraries that covered many topics to do with getting started with Libby. You can watch a video of the recording here (transcript also available):

Watch the webinar recording

PDF Getting Started Guides

Here are some handy PDFs that link to help articles and short video clips to make getting started and learning new tips and tricks easy for you:

  • Getting Started with Libby PDF - downloading the app and signing in
  • Libby Tips and Tricks PDF - get the most out of the Libby app

Further links, or get in touch!

For more information about this upcoming change, read:

Please note, the OverDrive website will remain available as this is built-in functionality for some eReader devices — just the original OverDrive app is being retired.

If you need support or would like any further information about these changes, please email us at enquiries@wcl.govt.nz