1 The Chosen One, Carol Lynch Williams. Kyra reads books from the mobile library, which might seem not exactly rebellious, but it is when you’re in a cult and reading books is forbidden.
2 Andromeda Klein, Frank Portman. Andromeda’s life is a quirky mess, but when books start going AWOL from the library she’s onto it, possibly with the help of her dead friend Daisy who may be trying to send her messages. The story of a teenage occultist who finds herself pitted against dark powers, including some “friends of the library”.
Libraries and romance
3 Honey, Baby, Sweetheart, Deb Caletti. Not only does it feature a librarian – Ruby’s mother – but also a bookclub. A book geek full house. Never fear though, it also features lots of romance (historical and current). Deb Caletti is often compared to Sarah Dessen, who’s the next suspect.
4 The Truth About Forever, Sarah Dessen. Macy chooses between a boring and safe life (involving a job at the organised library) and a more unpredictable and interesting one (involving a job in disorganised catering). The choice also involves two boys.
5 Cupid’s Arrow, Isabelle Merlin. Fleur’s mother inherits a fabulous library from a famous French author. Retrieving this library from Avallon in France brings mystery, romance and, the publisher’s website says, an “interactive web element”.
6 The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffeneger. The last word in romantic books featuring librarians. Henry works at the Newberry in Chicago, which is serious library stuff.
Libraries and fantasy
7 The Thief, Megan Whalen Turner. Not giving too much away, but one of the characters who may or may not be Gen lives in the library in Eddis, since his/her close-ish relatives have a history of being vile to him/her, and he/she is probably insufferable back.
8 Wicked Lovely, Melissa Marr. The tireless and devoted Seth proves to be a useful researcher and, like a lot of useful researchers, visits the library to find out stuff (and to be harassed by faeries he can’t see).
9 Harry Potter…, J K Rowling. The library is the ultimate solution, according to Hermione. A bit like a cup of tea, but ultimately containing more information.
10 Alcatraz versus the Evil Librarians, Brandon Sanderson (a children’s book). The evil librarians are trying to take over the world. Because if you’re trying to do that, librarian is the obvious career path (under the radar, see).
Let me know about any more.
One of the catalogues we (the library) have on our website is Easyfind (or AquaBrowser), which, as the name suggests, makes searching for material easy. It recommends similar items to whatever someone searches for. Handy for browsing! It also keeps track of the most popular searches over the last 30 days, which gives an idea of what’s popular with Wellington library users.
Here’s a list, in order of popularity.
1. twilight
2. harry potter
3. fiction
4. book
5. the wire
6. novel
7. jodi picoult
8. star wars
9. shantaram
10. true blood
11. naruto
Some other popular searches were ‘my sisters keeper‘, ‘the lovely bones‘, ‘depression‘, ‘author: stephenie meyer‘, ‘death‘, ‘lonely planet‘, ‘poop‘, and ‘road code.‘
There were also some queries that had no suggestions. These included ‘hoagland and breisch‘, ‘narto‘, ‘facts on rarotonga in a book‘, ‘55566‘, ‘stomp the yarf‘, ‘fykfout/”//;‘, ‘mtrjteogfshse‘, and ‘james belch.‘
If you have the excellent fortune of studying music at school you might like to use MyGateway databases when you’re doing some research or analysing a piece of music in its historical context.
1) Oxford Music Online
This is a database bristling with the most well-respected music reference titles, including The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, The Oxford Companion to Music and The Oxford Dictionary of Music. Apart from a huge collection of articles and biographical entries, tools also include timelines, topical guides and research resources. You need to enter your library card number and surname to access the database.
2) Naxos Music Library and Naxos Jazz Library
Wanting to listen to what you’re studying? Whether it’s the Brandenburg concerto in D Major, or Keith Jarrett, you should find what you’re looking for. Again, these databases require your library card number and surname.
3) Allmusic.com
Heaps of info on popular music, including bios, discographies, reviews, recommendations. Definitely more information than you could possibly want, organised in a very easy to use format.
Also have a look at the popular topics classical page; it’s got links to other websites, recommended journals and lots of advice on how to find classical stuff in the library (since it can be a bit of a mission).
ps: totally confused about the difference between an acciaccatura and an appoggiatura? Don’t laugh, these can be important little things. Music theory books are to be found here on the catalogue.
Not into reading long books? The Lazy Readers’ Book Club is an American site with, well, lazy readers in mind. Not that you are, but sometimes there just isn’t enough time. If that’s the case, you might like to browse their recommendations: the books are generally under 250 pages long.
Found via Contra Costa County Library.
Not so long ago we asked which magazines should get added to the Young Adult (YA) magazine collection. Not too many people responded, but that’s okay! We’re not too disappointed! As a consequence we have added Entertainment Weekly to the YA collection – it means you can issue it for free on a YA card. (If you reserve it through the catalogue be sure to reserve the YA copy.)
We are also adding Shonen Jump. It’s not yet in the system but there is a website. Good news for manga fans, is it not. Okay, cool.
Library Week is now over, and people have won prizes and reviewed and written and created art, and here are some results from the competitions we told you about:
The Graphic Novel competition, 13 to 18 year olds, and for 19+ year olds.
The video competition (voting is open until the 23rd of August).
Also, here’s how the interactive story panned out.
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, which was one of the books we liked best in 2008, is available for download from Overdrive, WCL’s audiobook collection.
You should have a look at what’s available; for example there’s also Bloody Jack by L A Meyer (for pirate lovers), or Lewis Hamilton (for lovers of sports in which (mostly) very little men with very strong necks hurtle around tracks at a fast pace in cars that sound like bumble bees), or What Would MacGyver Do? (for lovers of getting out of sticky situations using only duct tape and hair gel).
So don’t forget Overdrive: visit, browse, listen to excerpts, download etc.
The Central Library has got an impressive collection of Zines on the first floor for your browsing and borrowing pleasure. If you want to keep up with the play on what’s hot in the Zine world, what’s new to the collection, plus read some insightful interviews with Zine writers/publishers (thanks to Carmel) then visit the library news blog (tag: zines).
If you’re a creative, self-publishing type then you might be interested in the library week graphic novel competition (our post is here, more info is on the library week website here).
Have a good weekend!
ps: what’s a zine? Well, have a look here.
NZ’s Library Week (the 10th to the 16th of August) is nearly upon us, and there are some competitions that you can take part in now. The first is a graphic novel competition;
Artists have a week to illustrate and upload their own 4 frames to follow on from the story posted to the website so far. A winner will be chosen at the end of each week and their frames will be made the next permanent line of the story. There are 2 age categories (13 – 18 yrs and 19 yrs +) for this competition meaning there will be 2 versions of the story.
and the second is a video competition;
We’re asking amateur film makers of all ages to make a short film in the style of a movie trailer telling us why you love your library or just promoting libraries in general. Videos could incorporate music, comedy, dance or interviews but should be no more than 3 minutes long.
There’s also a writing competition for year 6, 7, and 8 students.
Are you studying Photography or just keen and naturally talented? We asked Françoise, library staff member and photographer, about photography books and resources and she’s given us a list (yay, list) of recommended reading and viewing.
1 The Genius of Photography, by Gerry Badger (770.9 BAD)
This landmark book explores the key events and images that have marked the development of photography. What is it that makes a photograph by Nan Goldin or Henri Cartier Bresson stand out among the millions of others taken by all of us every single day? The Genius of Photography examines the evolution of photography in its wider context: social, political, economic, technological and artistic. A great reference book on this evermore influential artform.2 A Century of Colour Photography, by Pamela Roberts (770.9 ROB)
This comprehensive collection offers fine examples of the art of colour photography, covering every major technical and artistic development in colour photography over the last 100 years, since the Lumière brothers made the autochrome process commercially available in June 1907.3 Contemporary New Zealand Photographers, by Hannah Holm & Lara Strongman (770.9931 CON)
Designed to accompany the exhibition that toured New Zealand in 2006, this book is a must for anybody interested in photography today in New Zealand. All the major contemporary photographers of the country are featured here with text and some key images. An essential reference.4 Magnum (779 MAG)
Founded in 1947 by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa and other eminent photographers, Magnum is an agency of elected photojournalists who independently photograph what they choose rather than what they are assigned. Regarded as the best of their profession, their images can have a lasting impact on viewers and be truly inspirational. Magnumdegree is a book about history and humanity, journalism and art, offering a vision of the contemporary world at the beginning of the new millennium. It contains over 600 colour and black-and-white photographs by 69 Magnum photographers, including original contributions from Cartier-Bresson.
5 Street & Studio: An Urban History of Photography, by Ute Eskilden, Florian Ebner and Bettina Kaufmann (779.2 STR)
The street allows photographers to conceal cameras and catch subjects unaware, in informal settings. By contrast, the studio permits both photographers and subjects to present carefully composed images to the world through elaborate staging and technical tricks. Street and Studio provides a revealing look at the history of photography through the contrasts and tensions between these two traditions.
6 The Polaroid Book, by Steve Crist and Barbara Hitchcock (779 POL)
In existence for over 50 years, the Polaroid Corporation’s photography collection is the greatest collection of Polaroid images in the world. Begun by Polaroid founder Edwin Land and photographer Ansel Adams, the collection now includes images by hundreds of photographers throughout the world and contains important pieces by artists such as David Hockney, Helmut Newton, Jeanloup Sieff and Robert Rauschenberg. The Polaroid Book, a survey of this remarkable collection, pays tribute to a medium that defies the digital age and remains a favourite among artists for its quirky look and instantly gratifying, one-of-a-kind images.
7 Digital Photography Masterclass, by Tom Ang (775 ANG)
One of Britain’s best-known photographers, Ang has hosted a popular BBC TV series called A Digital Picture of Britain and won the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award. In this book, the author teaches how to look at the world with a photographer’s eye and offers tutorials, photographic assignments, and step-by-step image-manipulation exercises. A perfect introduction for budding photographers.
8 Fashion & Advertising, by Magdalene Keaney (778.92 KEA)
In these workshops, World’s Top Photographers discuss and explore the technical and artistic aspects of photographer: lighting, composition, colour, tone and imaging. Stunning images and in-depth interviews plus checklists and tips-and-hints panels make this book a beautiful and practical manual.9 Henri Cartier-Bresson in India, by Henri Cartier-Bresson (779.9954)
From 1947 through the 1980s, founder of Magnum, Henri Cartier-Bresson photographed all aspects of India’s multi-facetted society, from refugee camps to the Maharaja of Barodea’s birthday celebration. His gift of observation and connections infuse all these photos, revealing the essence of a country that has captured the world’s imagination.10 Handboek: Ans Westra Photographs, by Ans Westra, Luit Bieringa and Cushla Parekowhai (770.92 WES)
Born in the Netherlands, Ans Westra came to New Zealand in 1957. In a few short years she was to embark on her life-long photographic journey documenting the lives and cultures of New Zealanders. This book is an in-depth insight into more than 130 documentary images by one of the most influential photographers of this country.11 Life, by Lennart Nilsson (779.949611 NIL)
Lennart Nilsson took the first image of a living human embryo in the 1960s and stunned the world. Life is an amazing book of images documenting human life from DNA through fetal development and birth. The second half of the book focuses on the human body, its organs, tissues, and the things that eventually threaten life – bacteria and viruses. Science meets Art in this incredible journey to the centre of the human body.12 Pictures from the Surface of the Earth, by Wim Wenders, Peter-Klaus Schuster and Nicole Hartje (779 WEN)
For many years, famous German Wim Wenders (Wings of Desire, Buena Vista Social Club) has taken an old panorama camera along with him on his travels. The result is a collection of landscapes and cityscapes, photographs of architecture and nature where few humans appear, taken in the United States, Japan, Australia, Israel, Cuba and Germany.
13 Africa, by Sebastiao Salgado (779.996 SAL)
This stunning book, entirely in black and white, is a photographic document of Africa by Sebastiao Salgado, but also a homage to the history, people, and natural phenomena of this continent. Renowned Mozambique novelist Mia Couto describes how today’s Africa reflects the effects of colonisation as well as the consequences of economic, social, and environmental crises. Moving and inspiring.
Françoise has also kindly subcategorised them for us like so -
Want more?
Visit the library Art Resources page for books, magazines, useful websites and other tools, including art-related online databases. Oxford Art Online, for example, is great for searching for biographical information on famous photographers (you’ll need to enter your library card number and surname to access).
I never did History, so I’m no help, but some of the library databases might be – here’s a short introduction to some of what My Gateway has to offer History students.
1) History Resource Centre. This is a comprehensive database of journals, articles, book and encyclopedia entries which amounts to a great place to start for researching an essay or project. You can do person or subject searches (there’s also an advanced option where you can limit your search using Boolean operators), and resulting articles also display related search topics, which is great if you want to expand on your subject.
The History Resource Centre also offers a thorough research guide, with tips on sources, historical analysis, note taking and how to organise your essay.
2) Discovering Collection. The Discovering Collection is a great database for several topics, including science, literature, biographies, and of course history. You can conduct your own searches or browse their popular topics. Their “Topic Trees” are also a useful starting point (subjects like “Cultures” and “World History” get broken down into more specific areas) if you’re not sure what you’re interested in researching.
For both of these databases you’ll need to enter your library card number and surname.
3) Papers Past. Looking for some primary source material for a New Zealand history project? Papers Past is an interesting database of New Zealand newspapers dating from 1839 to 1920. For example, you can browse the Evening Post issues from 1865 to 1915, which is great for getting a sense of what was going on in Wellington (excellent if you’re writing a historical novel!).
There is a whole heap more to select from on the My Gateway History page so have a look some time when you’re stuck.
From Tuesday the 9th to Saturday 13th June the YA area at Central Library will be transformed into a planetarium as it hosts the NightVisionz Cosmodome. Using a digital audio visual show to simulate the stars and a dome large enough to take 30 people inside at a time, visitors will be able to boldly journey through the night sky and learn about Matariki and other constellations with astronomer Ron Fisher.
The Cosmodome is a great experience for children, teens, and adults alike and will be open to the public from 4-8pm from the Tuesday to Friday and 10am-4pm on the Saturday. Entry is by gold coin donation and sessions are on the half hour – people just need to turn up.
Read more about it at our astronomy blog (I write some of the posts there!) The astrodome/planetarium/cosmodome looks like a large, inflatable, and blue igloo.
When you use the library catalogue do you sometimes feel a bit like there’s this needle you lost and the last time you saw it was in that rather large haystack over there? Well, never fear; we’ve come up with a list of hints (some big, some small, some obvious, some notso) that should make looking for stuff a bit easier. The page is here.
If you yourself have some handy hints that you’d like to share then let us know.
Studying English? We could help you out if you’re stuck for resources.
In the wonderful alternate world of My Gateway there are some impressive literature databases that should make essay writing, like, really easy (provided you keep refering to the question, make sure your conclusion covers the points mentioned in your introduction etc etc).
1) Books and Authors (you’ll need to put in your library card number and surname for authentication). This here database lets you browse in any number of ways, from basic searches like genre (including inspirational!), author and title, through to the Who/What/Where/When search, which is a fantastic illustration of Venn diagrams. You type in your parameters and where the circles intersect should provide a list of books relevant to your needs. Books and Authors also has comprehensive lists of award winners and bestsellers (US) and recommendations.
But enough of that, on to the good stuff: the database has a thing called “My Reading Room” that allows you to create lists, and write and store reviews. Excellent.
2) Literature Resource Centre (again, library card number and surname required). Very useful for literary research. You can select, for example, an author or book title, and you’ll find a comprehensive list of reviews, critical essays and overviews. There’s also a literary timeline which will tell you who else was writing and what was going on historically which will help you put the book/author in context. The author browse also contains a comprehensive bibliography (including articles and short stories). The database works equally well for classic authors like Laurence Sterne and contemporary writers like Stephenie Meyer.
Also: last year we did a spotlight on Fiction Connection, which is useful if you’re wondering what to read next, and also also Melissa pointed out Literature Map, which is quite a cool tool for working out who writes like who.
Next time we’ll focus on something like History or Classics.
p.s. if you want some advice on an essay you’re writing then visit the Studyit message boards, where actual teachers give you teacherly advice before you have to hand anything in. Very useful.
Are you looking for books about women and girls who “follow their dreams and pursue their goals, challenging cultural and familial stereotypes to gain an education, taking charge and making plans for community, regional, national, and world change”? Then the Amelia Bloomer Project blog is a good place to start (and also the website, where the above quote comes from).
The site contains both fiction and non-fiction selected by a (deep breath) committee of the Feminist Task Force of the Social Responsibilities Round Table of the American Library Association, and they take their job seriously! There is some good stuff in here.
Some of my suggestions in my Top 10 Strong Females list made it into the Amelia Bloomer lists, so that’s gratifying.
So who was Amelia Bloomer and did she have anything to do with underwear? Her Wikipedia entry is a good place to start to find out – there are a couple of bio links at the bottom. For more indepth research you should definitely check out (ha, Simon!) look at [edited: Simon] the Biography Resource Centre on My Gateway (you’ll need to enter your library card number and surname when prompted). Here you can search for specific names (i.e. Amelia Bloomer) or you can search by occupation (”feminist” works as an occupation in this instance), gender, nationality… or do fancier Boolean things. This database is fantastic for NCEA research.
Thanks to everyone who offered to come in and tell us how our next teen event should look. We are meeting this Thursday (14th), 4-5pm in the Central Library Staffroom (2nd floor).
It’s not too late to join us – just fill in your details below or ring 801-3737. If we miss your call (we might be out sourcing the chocolate fish), just leave your name and show up on the day.
If you’ve ever seen the sky at night – the moon rising over Lake Taupo, say, or maybe you can see what might be Venus – and thought to yourself, “that looks awesome, I should take a photo of it”, and you do, but the photo just looks like toothpaste on your best black top and you can’t understand why, then hurry to the Central Library tonight. Hurry!
Would you like to take photographs of the night sky? Not sure what to use or where to begin? John Field from the Wellington Astronomical Society will explore and explain how to use your Digital SLR camera and software to produce images that were previously beyond the scope of amateur photographers. Topics include what you need, how DSLR cameras work, what settings to use, how to polar align your mount using a DSLR, taking unguided images using a tripod, piggy-back and prime focus imaging through using a telescope, and image processing using freely available software. John will also include both the good, the bad and the ugly images he has taken to show what can go wrong and what you get when it all goes right
That’s happening tonight (May the 13th) at 7pm on the second level of the Central Library.
We’re looking for a group of 15-20 year-olds to help us design our next teen event. You don’t need any specialist skills, just the desire to tell us what you think & share your ideas. Oh, and an hour or so free to come and talk with us sometime in the next couple of weeks. We’ll provide the chocolate fish!
Interested? Then please fill in your details below and we’ll be in touch. (Javascript may need to be enabled for it to work.)
… and the $52,000 fine is waived. Who says librarians aren’t reasonable?
The library now has Twilight on DVD. If the book’s popularity is anything to go by, the reservation queue for the DVD will quickly become huge. Here are some links to the catalogue entries; the YA copy is 50c for a YA cardholder, but the adult copy is the full $4 charge. There will also be ‘Select‘ copies, which cost $4, are issued for 3 days, but are available directly from the shelf (when not taken) as they can’t be reserved.
Twilight DVD – YA Copies
Twilight DVD – Adult Copies
We will be getting more copies soon. The film is rated M for supernatural themes and violence. The official trailer is after the Read more …
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