Wellington City Libraries

On Thursday, 28 May, 2009

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.

Still haven’t found what you’re looking for?

By Grimm

On Tuesday, 26 May, 2009

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.

Help! I Have This Essay…

By Grimm

On Monday, 25 May, 2009

In library news, stuff to learn

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.

Join us. Join us. Join us.

On Wednesday, 13 May, 2009

FormSpring – Online Form Creator

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.

Astrophotography

On Wednesday, 13 May, 2009

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.

Are we almost amazing – or not?

On Tuesday, 5 May, 2009

FormSpring – Online Form Creator

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.)

Twilight DVD all go!

In library news, movies (they're like books that move!), new stuff (ooh, shiny!)

On Wednesday, 22 April, 2009

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 …

Quizzing In Kilbirnie

By admin

On Wednesday, 18 February, 2009

Just a quick note …

Bring your family to the Ruth Gotlieb Library on Thursday 26th February at 6:30pm for an exciting quiz night. There will be a special kids’ round and prizes. A fun night out for the entire family. Teams of 8 or less.

Waitangi Day Quiz. Win something!

On Wednesday, 11 February, 2009

In competition!, library news

Waitangi Day was last weekend, and the library is running a quiz about it! Answer the questions and you could win an MP3 player. Enter it here.

Overdrive

On Thursday, 5 February, 2009

Did you know that you can download audio books through this library? Well you can!

Explore our growing collection of digital audio books and use your library card to download titles to your computer, transfer them to a compatible MP3 player (including iPods), or burn selected books onto a CD for listening on the go. Available 24/7, now your library is always open!

There are loads of books there worth downloading. Even Twilight is there. For a tour of Overdrive (the name of the audiobook service) go here.

Almost Amazing Race

On Tuesday, 27 January, 2009

The Almost Amazing Race is almost upon us. What is the Almost Amazing Race? I can’t tell you too much at this stage, only:

1. that there will be prizes
2. it is on the 28th of March
3. it’s only for teens

Keep your eyes peeled for more details. (I mean read this blog.)

Art Space

On Tuesday, 27 January, 2009

In art and stuff, library news

If you’re a young artist and would like to display your work – paintings, drawings, photographs, daguerreotype, etchings, and so on – in the Central Library, send us an email. We have created some display space in the young adult area, and it’s only for teens; we want the place to feel like it’s yours. Which it is, in a way, given how rates work.

Our email is teenblog@wcl.govt.nz.

Gooooooooooooogle Books

By Grimm

On Monday, 15 December, 2008

Google Books is a pretty cool book-specific search engine (including magazines) which you can use to, as the name suggests, search for info on books. Being Google it’s pretty neat and tidy and easy to use, although (being Google) you still have to use your brain a bit when you sift through the information it gives you – it’s quantity rather than quality with Google, remember!

So what does it give you? Type in the title of a book and you’ll get a page with a synopsis, book cover (just to check you’ve got the right one I guess), a list of online reviews and references from web pages… plus the option to buy online (using Amazon or Fishpond) or check to see if it’s at your local library*.

If you have a Google account you can even create a library of items so you can keep track of what you like and what you’ve read.

This is all extremely useful if you’re doing an extensive book review – it saves you a lot of trawling and cuts to the chase.

* This is done via worldcat. Worldcat is a catalogue of every possible book/CD etc you could imagine which links to libraries around the world – you just have to type “New Zealand” in the location information field and then select “Wellington City Library” and you’ll end up directly in the WCL catalogue page for that particular book. Cool.

Twitting

On Tuesday, 9 December, 2008

The Wellington City Libraries now has a Twitter page. Very Web 2.0! It lets us tell people what we’re up to. The Twitter homepage goes into more detail about Twitter and how it works; you can join up and let others know what you’re up to (if you want them to know).

Databases: read interesting news online!

By Grimm

On Tuesday, 2 December, 2008

On Wednesday, 26 November, 2008

Press Display* is, like, the most popular newspaper resource at work, it has to be said. At the touch of a couple of keys (namely your library card number and surname) and one or two mouse clicks you can read newspapers from around the world, from Angola to Zimbabwe (the Angolan newspapers appear to be in Spanish or Portuguese or some such, but I can tell you that the Business Weekly (1 December issue) in Zimbabwe was very happy that Germany was doubling aid).

The papers are in full colour, with all their photos and all. New Zealand papers available include the Clutha Leader, the Kaikoura Star and the Motueka News. They even have the Hutt News and the Upper Hutt Leader (two leaders?).

It’s too easy to use really – either pick a paper or search a topic: if you want more on *that* book or *that* movie then in moments you can enjoy articles from newspapers as diverse as The Gulf News, The Guardian (Charlottetown, Canada), Corriere della Sera (??) and the Philippines Daily Inquirer.

You will be the most informed person you know.

* It’s the resource at the top of the “Newspapers” section of MyGateway.

Databases: Fiction Connection

By Grimm

Wellington City Libraries has access to a whole range of databases (located in mygateway) that don’t get used nearly enough, so we thought we’d highlight some for you so you can have a go. First up I thought I’d find something not too study related: Fiction Connection. This one’s at the top of the Books & Authors list in My Gateway (you need to use your library card number and last name as username and password).

Fiction Connection is a stupidly easy to use tool (it’s also got a quick tour, just in case). You search for an author or book title and get a list, as per your average library database (in fact it uses Aquabrowser, like our Easyfind search), then you can hit the “find similar” button to (as the name suggests) find similar titles. For example, I was told if I enjoyed Nation by Terry Pratchett then I might like to try Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve or Apocalypse by Tim Bowler (which we don’t have, oops) or, or…

You can get fancy and refine your search, for example by location, setting, time frame, topic, or you could just use it like a slightly rigged lucky dip.

You’ll never run out of things to read this summer.

Zinefest ’08

On Friday, 14 November, 2008

The library has a massive collection of local and international zines*. Check out the library’s zine page for more information. The annual Zinefest is tomorrow; here are the details!

* Independently and inexpensively produced magazines, usually with a fairly limited circulation.

The 2nd annual Wellington Zinefest is returning this Saturday November the 15th. The Wellington City Libraries’ Zine Collection will be there, along with your favourite zine librarians, so even if you have empty pockets, you can still come along and browse our diverse range of zines. There will also be heaps of other ziney stalls, workshops and talks to get you into the DIY spirit. Oh and food, there will be tasty treats too!

Be there!

Wellington Zinefest 2008
Wesley Church Hall (map)
11am – 3pm, 15th November
More info on the Zinefest MySpace page.

And if you’re keen on zines, look for this book in the library: Whatcha Mean, What’s a Zine? : The Art of Making Zines and Mini Comics, by Mark Todd. A great place to start, especially if you can’t make it to the Zinefest.

Your own little Library Elf

On Monday, 10 November, 2008

Library Elf is a free service that will email you when a reserve has come in, or if any items are overdue or – and this is especially handy! – a few days before something is due, so that you may return it before we start charging our reasonable overdue fees. There is a demo here. All you need to do is to sign up; it requires your library card number and surname to access the library’s database and your email address to mail out reminders.

Be aware, however, that it’s not connected to Wellington City Libraries (it is based in Canada), and you ought to check their privacy policy first.

Internet Public Library

On Tuesday, 30 September, 2008