it's all greek to me

Information Service Questions of the Day

Late this afternoon I received a phone call from a lady requesting books in other languages.
I began to explain to her that we have books in other languages in each of our branches (Community Languages collection), and was there a particular language she was interested in? She said that she was after books in Greek, and did we have a printed catalogue?
I had a sudden visual memory surge of timber draws with metal handles filled with hole punched index cards in the library of my childhood, but I moved on.
I asked if she had internet access at home so she could look at our online catalogue, but she did not.
I said that I would be happy to show her our catalogue when next she is in the library. ('I' being the collective Information Services team because I move across branches with no set routine, so I was suggesting that anyone on our team will be happy to show her).
It is then that she said that she would like the books for her elderly husband, and that she would like a printout to show him the titles as he is unable to come in.
I had searched on 'Greek' and collection: Community Languages by this time and found 7 titles.
Our Community Languages collection is sourced from SLQ.
I said that we could certainly print out a list of seven titles. As I mentioned our source, my customer asked if she could have a printout of their titles. I thought that might be a different thing entirely, especially in its entirety.
She wanted printouts to show her husband at home. She was particulary keen to see if the titles were in English as well as Greek because she does not speak Greek. She did not want to have to keep coming back asking if we had this title or that title.
After contacting Heather (assistant cataloguer who liaises with SLQ for commlang supplies) I got back to the customer with the relevant information in front of me. A quick search on SLQ's commlang collection found 1604 titles in modern Greek fiction and nonfiction.
I suggested she come in to the library so information services staff could show her the search, she could select a range and we could print out a list.
Of course not all of those from the search are available, but we can sift through to discover which of these we can request for our customer.
Generally our library service has a changeover of languages six monthly, but SLQ is open to requests as necessary.
Our customer was pleased and said that she would visit on Friday. She asked if I would be there. Unfortunately not, but I advised her who would be available that day and have sent that staff member details of our search today.
A bit of a heads up too, because we do not at the moment have printer access from that information services point. Our hard drive was just returned after a ritual cleansing, and the KM guy just said we would be able to find the printer name and add - unfortunately no.
I'd checked everything else with him when he was there. Spydus access, network access, email access, clone screening. Just not the printer *sigh*

Letting the customer know that we can provide her with access to a list of Greek books for her husband was a good result for her, and for us as enhancing the usage of our community language resources is one of our kpi targets. Needs to rise 15%.
Today I contributed to literacy satisfaction and percentages. Yay.

I recently worked with Heather to source nonfiction books in the Urdu language for a customer recently arrived from Pakistan. Our Customer Services team is working on providing a suite of information for our new members from Somalia.

Hey Dorothy, we are not in Maryborough anymore...


SLQ's LOTE collection languages: http://www.slq.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/file/0009/73638/SLQ_-_LOTE_collections_prefix_-_May2008.pdf

* I also had an enquiry from a gentleman about Indigenous resources. I showed him our collection and mentioned similar collections in the other branches. He was very impressed with the range and how it was organised.
This time a nice memory of Kerry, our Indigenous Resources librarian, came to me. She would have been happy that the collection suited the gentleman.
He had a very cute daughter who wanted chapter books and cookery books. I showed her the way and asked what she liked to cook. "Cakes!" We looked through a few and I read out some mouthwatering cake names. She laughed.
Another good day at the office.

townsville stories and townsville authors

i am discovering more richly evocative townsville literature, thanks to library colleagues who have lived here for longer than I. and soon it will be time again for one title one townsville, which was such a success earlier this year with alex miller's journey to the stone country.

which book will be the one that all townsville reads?

i have most enjoyed estelle pinney's house on the hill because estelle portrayed the multiculturalism of townsville, and her characters covered the landscape well.
the story revolves mostly around a family of women, but the men are also strongly drawn, especially Nicos, the Greek cafe owner and Belle's sometimes lover.

a few weeks ago i smelled the luscious aroma of monsoon season that so beautifully conveys our northern summer mood. it was still autumn.

today i started kay donovan's bush oranges. kay writes the monsoon so beautifully.

For the first two months in Tully it rained every day, sheets of rain. Heavy, drenching rain you couldn't walk through.... The rainforest shaded the house and kept the inside cool and moist, even when the clouds cleared enough to let the tropical sun shine through. (Donovan, 2001, pp 38-39).

Set in the brooding, tempestuous climate of North Queensland from the 1920s to the 1990s... (from jacket blurb)

I love that NQ's climate is tempestuous and the landscape evocative. Not for us the ordinary adjectives like 'liveable' and 'friendly'.

Bush Oranges has multiple female narrators with many local landmarks making the cut: The Strand, Belgian Gardens, the Criterion Hotel, Magnetic Island and Tully. One of my grandmothers was born in Tully, and NQ remains her favourite place. She dreams about it from Brisbane.

With my cataloguing colleague, Anne, I plan to create a local authors/local stories page on the library website where we highlight some evocative Townsville literature from our collection. Although I have not yet read Thea Astley's The Multiple Effects of Rainshadow, I expect we will include that. Thea Astley taught school here and visited the city library here (not in its present location). And of course Janette Turner Hospital, who I understand taught at JCU some time ago.

This is going to be such fun.

novel writing software

I started exploring novel writing software today, after seeing a review of Scrivener on Justine Larbalestier's site.
So Scrivener is for Macs, but on their site they list alternatives for Windows. I tried a couple that were freeware, others were 30 day downloads and others you have to buy.

• RoughDraft - no longer being developed
• WriteWayPro - 30 day demo
• Liquid Story Binder - looks incredible, and again available on 30 day demo
• PageFour - at first this looked too simplistic to me, but I may need to persevere with it

And then I found I had OneNote on my pc. Has some good features.
The software should really be called 'novel organisation software'.
I'm trialling my character profiles on OneNote and PageFour.

some people will love it

I've been reviewing for various publications for a few years now - mostly young people's literature. I worked in that area of libraries so had open access to the latest. Most of it good. I sought out reviewing opportunities and tried to choose something that I might not usually have chosen to read.
Thus Ben Julien's Runes saga trilogy. I would say that I don't usually read fantasy, but there are always exceptions. I reviewed two and went out and bought the third.
And Suzy Zail's The Tattooed Flower - Zail's memoir of her father, his life shaped by his Holocaust experiences.
I've enjoyed the challenges of writing to various house styles, especially with API which had a strict academic style which included use of footnotes.
Usually I read fiction. Those who never read may dismiss fiction as frivolous, but I find it inherently representational of cultural practices with a strong dose of inquisitiveness and confrontation. You can learn a lot about a culture, and cultural attitudes, by reading the fiction.
In my latest stories to read I have learned a little more about depression, media intrusion (see Loathing Lola for more on this), disability attitudes, bullying and resilience.
I chose Australia Dances from M/C because it is completely outside my comfort zone. Nonfiction, and about dancing. I respect the form, it's not as if I'm reviewing a rugby league biography! I danced as a child - ballet and jazz ballet - but I hardly think doing the 'scarecrow dance' will have prepared me for this book. So I will read it with a fresh perspective.
Librarians, teachers and parents, and readers in general are the people who read reviews to find out what's worth buying. It's important to me to write a real review and not some gushing adjectival dump of praise. If the reviewer doesn't like the book they ought to say so, but constructively. Similarly, if the book's good, articulate why and how. It may be the tipping point in the customer's decision.
I was disappointed with Steven Herrick's Slice, so I'm going to have to justify that opinion. Because some people will love it. Was expectation a factor? Yes. I think his verse novels are beyond brilliant. This was his first YA prose novel, second prose novel overall. But it was more than it not being a verse novel. I'll explore all the issues in my review for CMISFF*

* update 3/6 - in writing the review I realised the strength of Slice is the strong father-son dynamic. The title and blurb do the book no favours.

Read Rob Rimmer's balanced review of Slice on M/C.
 
I chose Shark Girl because it's a verse novel from an author I hadn't read before, and The Worst Thing She Ever Did because I knew nothing about the plot and was incredibly curious. What did she do?? Both great books, and I'm very pleased I've read them.

There are some common desirables in a review which I use to best illuminate the quality of the story - mentions of viewpoint, intended audience, character and plot development, setting, stylistic devices, authenticity, comparisions to other similar tales (if these exist), points of difference, and presentation (particulary for picture storybooks and nonfiction).

But, inject your own personality into the review too. Just don't let it overshadow the review - like this grandfather about Lewis' The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe:

“I bought these books to have something nice to read to my grandkids. I had to stop, however, because the books are nothing more than advertisements for “Turkish Delight,” a candy popular in the U.K."

Is there a particular reviewer you follow? Or a brilliant review you've read? Share it here.

the benjamin andrew footpath library now in brisbane

http://footpathlibrary.org/index.html

I first heard about the Footpath Library earlier this year so was excited to hear that it had now branched out to Brisbane. Immediately after I sent an email to colleagues about it two came up to me to say what a wonderful idea and if it ever branches out to Townsville they'll be there to help. I had mentioned the TBAFL to another colleague a while ago when she had discussed her idea of setting up a bookclub for homeless people. We have very caring library staff.

So the TBAFL is in Brisbane now, as well as Melbourne and Sydney, with Bernadette Franzoni on the management team. Bernadette has been a young people's librarian and worked on the Summer Reading Club project, so many would know her.

Fiona Crawford, TBAFL Communications Manager, has let me know that in Brisbane TBAFL installs and stocks bookshelves in hostels and community organisations. They have enough volunteers at the moment but Fiona said that they would always appreciate if people wanted to run book drives. Book donation guidelines are on the website.
Knitters alert - The TBAFL will also happily accept knitted scarves and beanies.

Can you support the TBAFL's work with donations of books or knits?
Check here for a simple knitted beanie pattern: http://www.knitting-and.com/knitting/patterns/hats/footyhat.htm


And, stay warm. It's cold outside.

M/C

I've signed on as a reviewer at M/C through QUT Creative Industries - Sue Bond is the words editor. Sue reviews for The Courier Mail, among many other publications, and it was she who put me onto API  years ago. My review links will be posted on this entry: Reviews.
Still writing for CMIS Fiction Focus too, because Alison and Jean are awesome!

writing real lives

can historians write literary narrative? can writers write history if they're not historians? do you have to know your real subject to write about them? what methods are used to capture the real life on the page?


three queensland writers opened up to their audience last night at thuringowa library to reveal the essence of creative nonfiction and their work within the genre.

Bob James spoke about his oral history project for his masters' at James Cook University on the Gugu Badhun people. Over a three year period he conducted many interviews, attended many camps, and took many photographs to produce a historical work with the voices of the people involved faithfully recorded.

Deborah Carlyon spoke about her journey to realisation of her book Mama Kuma: One woman, two cultures - an exploration of her Papua New Guinean grandmother's tribal life. This book was awarded the Queensland Premiers Literary Awards (2001) for an Emerging Queensland Author. Deborah interviewed her grandmother while she was still living, and then interviewed family members from their PNG village, as well as researching in libraries and archives to establish facts and dates to satisfy a western audience's demand.
She noted that the PNG villagers were not so concerned with pinpointing dates and ages.
She had asked 'how old was Mama Kuma when that happened?' and received the response, 'she didn't have breasts then, she was still a girl'.

Dr Lindsay Simpson spoke about her path to nonfiction writing. She has written about famous and infamous people, some she has met, others she has not. Coming from a journalistic background and working as a court reporter, Dr Simpson developed a love for finding out more. she said that a newspaper feature was not big enough - she needed to move into books.
she has interviewed prisoners in jail, researched, learned to dive when she was writing about a diver, and has co-written with other authors. Dr Simpson is currently Head of Journalism at James Cook University.

An inspiring evening, organised by the fabulous Lifelong Learning Team at CityLibraries Townsville.

the sorted books project

http://tiny.cc/qsmwm

and from the black books i'm reading this month - place these titles beside each other:

one foot wrong / rebel

and i've always shelved two particular autobiographies together on my shelf:

paula yates / is that it?  

your sorted book titles?

writers in townsville

this month in townsville - Alex Miller (Journey to the Stone Country) and Narelle Oliver (Fox and Fine Feathers).

Townsville recently joined a small Australian list of cities running the One Book One City concept with Alex Miller's JTTSC for One Book One Townsville. Alex hosted a book discussion at Riverway and a writers' workshop in Flinders Street library - both well attended.Salisbury  runs OBOC. Brisbane used to until the great Malouf v. Sparrow debate and it split into a writing competition called One Book Many Brisbanes where the resulting book has short stories featuring Brisbane.
So now Townsville joins this list. Where else in Australia is this done? The US has a website to list all the OBOC sites/books. In May One Book One Twitter is on.
What will Townsville read next?

And Narelle Oliver is in town this week for the Books North literature festival. Narelle grew up in and around Toowoomba a little before me. Her most recent book Fox and Fine Feathers is on the shortlist for the CBC Awards. This is a wonderful opportunity for Townsvillians to meet this incredibly talented Australian writer/illustrator, and to learn from her work.
I met her in Mackay some years ago at a SLAQ conference where she talked to us about the process of her work being used as design in the children's area at Brisbane Square Library.
My favourite: The Best Beak in Boonaroo Bay - because it's set at the beach, and it's fun.

black is the new black

two black books arrived in the mail for me from Jean and Alison at CMIS - and I love them both. The Black Book of Colours, proclaimed as innovative and groundbreaking across the world, incorporates Braille text with white typeset text against completely black pages. the right side of each double spread has raised black line drawings depicting the imagery of the text. i like that thomas finds red 'as sweet as watermelon'.

Rebel is the second in a quadrilogy by R.J. Anderson, and I'm finding faeries quite intriguing. they're edgy, they've got attitude, and they're living among us. look out! a wonderful antidote to those syrupy daisy meadows creatures.

i couldn't find a black enough image of The Black Book. the image above is from a review by Leanne Hall here.


have you read these books? what do you think of them? tell me.

librarything thing

LibraryThing for Libraries is compatible with Spydus, so it's on my wish list, and now they have Library Anywhere which looks delicious.

Dreaming of future times with an upgrade, I've set up an LT staff site, and a top reads site which lists our most popular borrowed titles each week. We already submit to the the local newspaper's Saturday books page and have listed the titles on our website.
The LT thing is to encourage more interactivity, discussion and wide reading, and to promote use of LT by customers. There's RSS and events/venue listings, reviews, librarysharing, discussions and challenges...

In January's Booklist, Joyce Saricks* is imploring librarians to 'make a list (of titles you read last year), put the titles on a display, add them to your blog... and don't forget to start keeping your list for next year'. Hm. Do it in LibraryThing! It's so much more amazing.


I thought I had our top reads site all swish, especially after excellent coding advice from Jean at CMIS and Neal. I linked the books to the record on our catalogue like Jean does for reviewers. Tested at home and at work - all pretty. Until a very helpful email from Jean who uses Firefox and wasn't getting the link. Hm. I do remember that advice now from Setting up a website 101.

More helpful coding advice from Jean which I will test tomorrow (or later in the week because I'm a bit over coding right now) should see the links working with both Explorer and Firefox. Hope.
Harps, do you have FF (you couldn't access the link on: http://bit.ly/dkn5Ra )?
And probably the links on our top5 webpage don't work in FF either. Hm.

Here's my LT with no trickyschmicky catalogue links: librarianalison on LT (note to self - you're a bit behind in adding titles!)

Ancient memory: A blip in time before I started to get into creating sites on my miniscule scale, I did some training with Melanie Hassell at UQG who told us of having to learn html to write the whole page/s. Thank you technical people behind the scenes who do all the hard work now so we just have to understand code and maybe just write a little. you're awesome!**


* Saricks, J. January 1 & 15, 2010. At Leisure. Booklist. 106 (9-10) p. 41.
** tried to be clever here and put in junk code around 'you're awesome': couldn't 'cause blogger turns it into links. clever blogger.

and I guest blog @ Sally Murphy's about children's poetry

Shout about it! Sally Murphy has a new book out - Toppling;  a verse novel. To celebrate its release Sally asked authors, readers, teachers and librarians to participate in a blog tour on her blog during March.
We were asked to respond to the topic, What I like about children's poetry.
Here's my post from over there (reposted below) - check Sally's blog during March for others' musings on children's poetry. And read Toppling!


summer watermelon moments

What fun to be guest blogging on Sally’s site on what I like about children’s poetry!
I like the zing of verse novels; their raw emotional intensity. They look just like other novels sitting on the shelf, but open them and you find words, carefully chosen words strung together in free verse with the power to crumple your heart and open your mind.


I discovered YA verse novels while working in a school library, first Steven Herrick’s, then Margaret Wild and Catherine Bateson’s titles. I was amazed how these authors could tell such compelling tales using so few words and so much white space. On the first page the reader is introduced to the characters, the narrator and the situation and then quickly flung into the action. The reader feels a part of this wild ride. It can be a quick read because of the economy of words, but intense.


Children love poetry written for them because it speaks of their experiences, their lives. Think of Laura Purdie Salas’ Stampede!: Poems to celebrate the wild side of school. And to have these poems read aloud or performed! Audiences quickly make the connection that poetry is life captured on the page (or stage). Congratulations to Sally, who’s adding to the genre with Toppling.


My challenge: add a poetry wall to your home, your school, your place of work. Encourage people to write their poems in ink, on postcards or post-its, or project poems onto the surface. Use magnetic poetry. Poetry forces you to clarify your thoughts.
Just like that pure moment when you bite into your first summer watermelon!

check out a verse novel - and feel yourself falling into the story

Best wishes Sally!

best how-to books ever

a kick in the head and a a poke in the eye - dangerous stuff!

And there's also:
The Mentor Kit for young poets at Dorothea Mackellar Poetry Awards
The Australian Poetry Centre
Poem in your Pocket Day
the fridge

which poems do you enjoy (writing or reading)? tell me do.

fail

Rhett Butler fails as a reference librarian!

Customer: "Where do I find "Gone with the Wind?"

Rhett: "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn."
 
via 'Fat' in comments at Faith and Theology.

librarything is so much prettier

the tower of books on my bedside table is growing...  

librarything is my new thing

just started Estelle Pinney's House on the Hill - set in Townsville. Fabulous characters so far, and check this from page 27: In the early 1920s Townsville was a melange of graceful stone architecture, wandering suburbs, jerry-built stores, balconied hotels and a sweeping waterfront called the Strand. The town was a mosaic of colours and creeds and down the long main street the torrid air was rich with a cacaphony of different tongues.

Also has luscious descriptions of frangipanis and the monsoon.
I shall have to add a new collection to my librarything, maybe 'Townsville literature' ?

Warren mentioned David Williamson's play/screenplay Travelling North as another story featuring the wet season. I remember seeing the film some years ago.
Which books have you read featuring Townsville or NQ, and particularly with rich visual descriptions? Tell me!

And yes, I will be incorporating librarything into reading promotion for our staff. Looking forward to the day we upgrade to the Spydus version that can incorporate LT.

librarydayinthelife 1

I'm no. 61 on the list of librarians from various countries participating in round 4 of Librarydayinthelife - where a collection of librarians shout out about their day/week in the library.

I'm Alison and I'm an Information Services Librarian at a public library service in north Queensland. I graduated from Charles Sturt University in April '09 and started my professional job search.

I started out as an assistant in a primary school library in central Queensland, created wordbox4writers, while on the Fraser Coast, and am now in my element as ISL in NQ.

If Librarydayinthelife had been on last week I would have written about the mammoth job of weeding stack NF and stack REF. The week ahead promises a lot of information service with our fabulous public. Welcome to a week in the life of a librarian. Check out the wiki for links to other librarians' days and weeks.

reviews

CMIS Fiction Focus (print and online)
Slice: Juicy Moments from my Impossible Life by Steven Herrick, 2010 at CMIS Resource Bank
Shark Girl by Kelly Bingham, 2010 at CMIS Resource Bank
The Worst Thing She Ever Did by Alice Kuipers, 2010 at CMIS Resource Bank
Rebel by R.J. Anderson, 2010 at CMIS Resource Bank
The Black Book of Colours by Menena Cottin, 2010 at CMIS Resource Bank
After by Sue Lawson, 2010, available online at CMIS Resource Bank
End of the Alphabet by Fleur Beale, 2010, available online at CMIS Resource Bank

M/C Reviews: Words 
Australia Dances: Creating Australian Dance 1945-1965 by Allan Brissenden and Keith Glennon, 2010, available online at M/C Reviews

Allen and Unwin Teachers Reviews
The Winds of Heaven by Judith Clarke, 2009, available online
Mouse Noses on Toast by Daren King, 2007, available online

Writing Queensland, QWC
The Runes of Odin by Ben Julien, issue 164, July 2007, p20.

VATE Newsletter
The Peach Season by Debra Oswald, no. 4, September 2007.
The Tattooed Flower: A Memoir by Suzy Zail, no. 4, September 2007.
The Secrets of Eromanga by Sheryl Gwyther, no. 3, June 2007.
The Legacy of Odin by Ben Julien, no. 3, June 2007.

API Review of Books, Curtin University of Technology, W.A.
No Place Like Home: Australian stories by young writers aged 8-21 years, edited by Sonja Dechian, Jenni Devereaux, Heather Millar and Eva Sallis, issue 44, July 2006.
Available online

Aussie Reviews
Platypus Deep by Jill Morris, June 2006. Available online
Bertie and the Bear by Pamela Allen, April 2006. Available online

tropical summer mood

the strand on sunday 27 december

north queensland's wet season began on christmas night and it's been quite unlike anything i've experienced. almost immediately, and certainly after a week of night rain, i felt that the weather was actually a character in this story we live. it has substance enough to be a character, more correctly i should say it provides an incredible sense of atmosphere or setting - it is full with passion and outbursts of frangipani blossoms.

frangipanis blooming at the strand

my attention has particularly been on rainfall as i have been pool-sitting for friends and have been careful to keep the level just so. the record-breaking torrential rain of Wednesday night/Thursday morning (206.8mm - Townsville's wettest December day) was described as a deluge, and yes, it filled that pool up well. required a few bomb dives to get it down a little for the next deluge.

it's been a while since i've lived in a place with weather. weather so pervading that it can be described in innumerable ways and can provide direction for people's lives. toowoomba had the fog that descended and made people huddle close. no such thing as central heating, we had a kerosene heater that we would huddle around, first to roast our backs and then our fronts.
dalby just had 'hot weather' - nothing atmospheric about it. maryborough's weather was so mild that we forgot all about seasons. winter was a few days of wearing an extra layer (it was really nothing after having experienced toowoomba's weather). both myall creek and mary river flooded while i was in those towns, and those were certainly events, but not annual.

now to townsville where the wet season is something anticipated, discussed, warned about, but must be experienced. the vibrancy and deluge of this tropical atmosphere immediately led me to question who has written about this season, this atmosphere, this northern summer mood?
i remembered thea astley and had heard of ian townsend. i have borrowed affection from our library and am seeking out astley's hunting the wild pineapple, it's raining in mango, girl with a monkey for their north queensland settings. i want to feel how they convey this incredible atmosphere. affection has a tag line: 'there is no cure'. that could be said for becoming a north queenslander, and certainly a townsvillian. there is no cure. i love it here.

can anyone recommend other stories with NQ, particularly Townsville as a setting, particularly with the atmosphere used to effect?

happy christmas!

just wanted to share my secret santa story. it can be difficult to find a special gift for a colleague (or classmate if you're at school) for under $10. the person who got the gift i bought liked it (i was eavesdropping) *whew*. and then i received these little figurines - the largest is only about 5 centimetres high - wrapped in a beautiful little red recycled paper bag. i immediately set the little nativity scene up for others to enjoy. i think i know who gifted it, but i haven't been able to catch up with her yet to say thanks - but i could be wrong of course!

thank you secret santa!

it's very sweet.

and starting this saturday down at the strand, townsville has http://www.stableonthestrand.com.au/ - an interactive nativity scene transporting you back to the day. i haven't seen it yet, but there was a similar production in maryborough - get in amongst it.

before our christmas morning tea and secret santa we had our last full staff meeting for the year. our ceo and director attended and listened to us all talk up our service. harps, i mentioned you in my spun conference report - with your library launching IM use. were your ears burning?

If I don't get this book for Christmas I'll be very surprised:

It's probably under the tree already. I'm a very bad gift buyer. I always get given much better gifts than i receive. i just don't shop. or i think - i'll come back later and get that. don't be like me!

Happy Christmas everyone, and if you're travelling - have a splash of fun for me!

spread the joy at christmas