Sutherland Shire Libraries Staff News

And quotes from the staff at Cronulla
Cronulla's new library opened with a "Bang" on October 19th. A large line of people could be seen prior to opening with a couple even chanting...."open the doors".

Response from the public has been overwhelmingly positive. The customers are adapting well to the new self check out system, while still being able to interact with staff.

The acoustic design with ceiling baffles works really well - adapting to large HSC student numbers and children's activities whilst leaving quiet areas for the gereral customers.

Our extended Public Internet access is constantly ustilised and the 2 new Play Stations are very popular.

Thousand of dollars have been spent on the overall collection which now includes graphic novels, CDs, DVDs, Playaways and Audiobooks. The customers appreciate the new collections.

Storytimes are proving very popular with record numbers attending on Tuesdays.

Some passing comments "This is just like a University Library" You must love working here"
Oooooooooh....it's lovely"

The front page Leader article on October 15th was a great catalyst in promoting our exciting new branch. It is great working in our modern library with State of the Art technology and it has been well received by our regular customers as well as many new customers.

Science: the definitive visual guide
R500SCI
Available at: Sutherland, Miranda, Engadine and Sylvania Reference

This DK book gives a detailed and easy-to-read account of the history of science from pre-history to the present. It would be great for both primary and high school students as it gives a summary of scientific events and people. It is divided into five parts with a Reference section at the back. Each part covers a particular scientific period. Each of these sections starts with a timeline of relevant events and discoveries. The chapter then goes on to give a more detailed account of major themes. The entries give general information and details about discoveries and are complemented by lots of explanatory, eye-catching pictures. There are also information boxes on each page that give details on related topics such as major breakthroughs, discoveries in practice and inventions. For example, the entry on 'Predicting the Weather' provided an information box about weather balloons as a 'discovery in practice'. Another feature I thought was particularly good is the before and after boxes on each page. They give a brief overview of life before and after a particular event or discovery. For example, in the first entry about 'fire power' the before box talks about early appreciation of naturally occurring fires, while the after box talks about the way fire power changed everyday life eg. we learnt how to cook. This puts the importance of the discovery into perspective and allows the reader to relate it to the natural world. The book also gives 19 detailed biographies of all our favourite scientists such as Newton, Einstein and Curie. The Reference part of the book contains three sections. The first section provides lists of facts about areas of science e.g. the chemistry entry contains the periodic table of elements. The 'Who's Who' section gives brief details of a wide range of scientists and inventors. The glossary contains short definitions of some of the complex terminology used in the book such as commensalism and crystallogram. There is also an index at the back which is particularly useful for people looking for a discovery that developed over several time periods, as it gives a reference to all the pages that you will find information. My only major issue with this book is that the entries are not all that comprehensive. It is best suited to a primary school student or someone with a general interest of all things scientific. It would be good if there were references to further reading as well. We can't however, have everything our own way and this is an excellent and clear book overall.

The Ancient world, prehistory -476 C.E. Vol. 1 and 2
Great Lives from History series
RQ 920.00901GRE
Available at: Sutherland, Engadine and Caringbah Reference

These volumes are part of the 'Great Lives in History' series - an extensive series of books that cover famous historical figures through different time periods and subjects. This particular set covers ancient history - 476 C.E. (but you probably already got that from the title). Other sets include the 20th century and notorious people. The books are constructed like a year book or encyclopedia. They contain alphabetical contents, structured entries and an index. They are designed to be written with very little bias (though I think the entry on Cassius is a little one-sided - I'm sure he was a delightful political assassin). The entries cover a wide range of people from a number of places around the world - particularly from Greece and Rome. However, they covers such a wide time period that they could not possibly cover all or even most people. The volumes opt to provide more detailed accounts of the important people contained within, rather than covering a lot of people in minute detail only. Each entry has the same structure. They list some basic facts about the person: their name (as best known in the western world), their nationality, dates in which they reigned (if they were a ruler), a one sentence summary of their contribution to society (in the case of Cassius it was killing Caesar), their birth and death dates and places, other names that the person used and his/her areas of achievement. The body of the entry contains information on their early life, their life's work and significance. There is also a list of 'further reading' at the end of each entry. I particularly like further reading lists as they provide a stepping stone for more research. Volume II contains 4 different indexes: a category index, a geographical index, a persona index and a subject index. The Category and geographical index are particularly helpful for students that are told to write a biography about a person from a particular place or subject (such as philosophers or religious figures). The index is also preceded by a chronological list of entries, which helps to keep the events and personalities in perspective. Overall, these are handy reference resources for the tortured student, or history lover.


 

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Baker & Taylor has developed a new product called Title Source 3. (TS3)
It has a much more powerful filtering capability to the other version, (which is only evident after the first search!)
Have a look at it: -

http://publiclibrary.btol.com
Username: SUTHLIB13
Password; ROUTE66
Only one person can be logged in at a time.

If you get the message...
You are currently logged in on another computer, do you wish to log in on this one?
This means some else is currently using it (or has forgotten to log out!)

If this happens then give it a few minutes and try again. If you need it for a customer request answer YES, and do what you need to do and log out again. If you kicked someone else off, it is probably ref staff verifiying customer requests before passing them on to Collection Development.

Collection Development have their own passwords so do not worry that you are interrupting them in their ordering processes.

You would have seen in the email Anne sent that catalogue records are being downloaded directly from Libraries Australia now, with no changes. This changes how we search for fiction series.

I just thought I'd put the main points here, and the location of Anne's full explanation, so that when you are looking you can search for 'series' and find what you need quickly.

Use "NoveList" from our online databases check series volumes Another excellent online tool is "Fantastic fiction".

Author browse.
Nora Robert’s trilogy with each volume listed as per old practice. New series entries will not appear in Author browse.

Title browse.
Both new and old series entries are retrieved. New format does not include volume.

Keyword
Use general keyword to retrieve both old and new format series.

Series browse.
The new format is retrieved when searching by author, but not by title.

To find the full detail of this change go to DMS

• Corporate Management
• Procedures
• Unit Procedures Community and Recreation Library and Information Services Unit
• Cataloguing
• Fiction Cataloguing Libraries Australia Records and Series Tags