Going digital: tracing the transition to digital terrestrial television in Australia

Rhonda Jolly from the Information and Research Service, Parliamentary Library discusses the transition from analogue to digital TV. This change is seen by many as long overdue in a broadcast industry which has often failed to keep pace with revolutionary changes in the telecommunications and information services industries. Text adapted from AustralianPolicyOnline. Read the full report here. Image: End of analogue TV, hugovk / flickr

Highlights of This Weeks New Titles

• The facebook effect -The inside story of the company that is connecting the world. Check Availability

• Escaping domestic abuse - How women get out and stay out. Check Availability

• Communication for the classroom teacher - Focuses on the rationale for using certain communication strategies and guidance on how to implement them. Check Availability

• Living dairy-free for dummies - Provides readers with the most up-to-date information on a dairy-free diet and lifestyle. Check Availability

• Oxford handbook of critical care nursing - A handy reference guide for nurses who are new to the critical care area. Check Availability

• James Halliday Australian wine companion - The bestselling and definitive guide to Australian wines. Check Availability

• Street gang - The complete history of Sesame Street. Check Availability

• First Australians : an illustrated history - The dramatic story of the collision of two worlds that created contemporary Australia. Check Availability

The complete list of new titles can be accessed here

Oxford University has welcomed its first aboriginal students

Oxford University has recently welcomed two aboriginal students to the university for the first time in its history. Paul Gray and Christian Thompson are recipients of the Charles Perkins scholarship; a scholarship that funds postgraduate study at Oxford for people of aboriginal descent. The scholarship is named in honour of the late Charles Perkins, a well-known political activist. Christian will be studying fine arts, whilst Paul will be studying psychology.

The scholarship has some critics, but the students faced the same processes as any other student; in first gaining admission and proving they had the tuition funds before being eligible for the scholarship. The scholarship is a good way to encourage aboriginal students to apply for Oxford, especially those who might not have considered Oxford otherwise. Read the full interview here

White Ribbon Day

Today is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. According to the White Ribbon Website "The White Ribbon Campaign is the only national violence prevention campaign, and it is unique in that it aims to raise awareness among Australian men and boys about the roles they can play to prevent violence against women". In Australia alone, one in three women will be abused, or experience some form of assault in their lifetime.

The White Ribbon campaign is about change - changing actions and current attitudes, changing the silence surrounding violence toward women, and creating a future where violence against women is no longer exists.

You can read more about White Ribbon Day here

Highlights of This Weeks New Titles

• No shelf required : e-books in libraries - This collection is a must-read for librarians who wish to understand how e-books fit into today’s library. Check Availability

• The party thieves : the real story of the 2010 election - A rip-roaring, incisive analysis of a tumultuous nine months in politics. Check Availability

• The Remlaw fire : our stories from Black Saturday - The Remlaw Fire ignited just after midday on Black Saturday, 7th February 2009. Fuelled by the most extreme conditions ever seen in the Wimmera, the fire sped south-east at an alarminmg pace. Check Availability

• Fifty key thinkers in criminology - Brings the history of criminological thought alive through a collection of fascinating life stories. Check Availability

• Medicinal plants in Australia - Designed to enhance our appreciation of the medicinal history of Australia’s flora, its unique contributions to everyday life, and its extraordinary future potential. Check Availability

• Essentials of strategic management - Offers a concise explanation of the most important concepts and techniques in strategic management. Check Availability

• Amelia - (DVD) A look at the life of legendary American pilot Amelia Earhart. Check Availability

• The memory of love - (Fiction) Transports us to an African city, where a dying man Elias Cole, reflects on a past obsession. Check Availability

• The bark cutters - (Fiction) An Australian family saga that centres around the family property. Check Availability

The complete list of new titles can be accessed here

Euthanasia in Australia: Raising a disability voice

Erik Leipoldt writes that the The Australian euthanasia debate is inviting us to conclude that lives lived with disability are often not worth living, while actual disability experience points to a contrary reality. Disability voices and perspective are seldom heard but are essential ingredients of a fully informed debate. Text adapted from AustralianPolicyOnline. Read the commentary here
Image: iStockphoto

Finding a voice for higher education

Glynne Davis comments that University study is more popular than ever before in Australia. More than 700,000 Australians are enrolled in higher education courses, Yet this personal enthusiasm for further education rarely translates into political enthusiasm. When governments save money, by cutting support for higher education, there is little public response. Years of funding decline have seen universities do more with less. Across Australia, staff-student ratios have moved from 15 students to one academic to over 20 to one. Text adapted from AustralianPolicyOnline. Read the full commentary here
Image: Bond University, Bond Sarah / flickr

afr.com unavailable at present

CSU Library has a subscription to the Fairfax online service afr.com, which gives online access to Fairfax Business Media publications including The Australian Financial Review, and Business Review Weekly, and to other Fairfax publications as well.

Unfortunately our access is down at present, but technical staff at afr.com are working on this.

We apologise for any inconvenience.

Australia in the digital economy: the shift to the online environment

The Australian Communications and Media Authority reported on the big increases in the volume of data downloaded, time spent online and activities undertaken online. Over the past five years, the frequency of internet use in Australia has steadily increased to the point where 28 per cent of people 14 years and over were estimated to be 'heavy' users (online more than 15 hours a week) in June 2010. A further 27 per cent were considered medium users (between 7 and 15 hours a week) and 23 per cent light users (up to 7 hours a week). Only 14 per cent were deemed to be heavy users during June 2005.
Online social networking continues to be a major driving force in the increasing intensity of online participation. During June 2010 alone, 8.7 million Australians accessed mainstream social networking sites such as Facebook and YouTube from home, spending in total more than 41.5 million hours on these sites.Text adapted from AustralianPolicyOnline. Read the full report here .
Image flickr: Neon lights blur,s2art

Highlights of This Weeks New Titles

• Australia : William Blandowski's illustrated encyclopaedia of Aboriginal life - Explores the potential of images to portray the lives of people engaged in everyday activities, as well as dramatic conflicts and rituals. Check Availability

• Towards a livable and sustainable urban environment : eco-cities in East Asia - Comprises of papers from a workshop organized by the East Asian Institute on Eco-cities in East Asia on 27 February 2009 in Singapore. Check Availability

• Complete criminal law : text, cases, and materials - Offers a student-centered approach to the criminal law syllabus. Check Availability

• Learning and instruction in the digital age - Instruction tailored to the individual student, learning and teaching outside the limits of time and space—ideas that were once considered science fiction are now educational reality. Check Availability

• Reef and rainforest - a photographic portrayal of marine and terrestrial life in one of the world's most biodiverse regions. Check Availability

1. Prehistoric mammals of Western Australia - In 1909 many thousands of bones were excavated from Mammoth Cave, evidence that in prehistoric times giant mammals had roamed the Australian bush. Check Availability

• Parrots of the world - This stunningly illustrated, easy-to-use field guide covers all 356 species and well-differentiated subspecies of parrots, and is the only guide organised by geographical distribution. Check Availability

• The deadly dinner party & other medical detective stories - Presents fifteen edge-of-your-seat, real-life medical detective stories written by a practicing physician. Check Availability

The complete list of new titles can be accessed here

That Library Smell

Stephen Abram recently posted Are Books Smelly?

"I keep hearing people talking about how they love the feel and the smell of books and that sometimes this trumps the allure of e-books for them. Should we be adding Real-Book-Smell to the next generation of e-readers? Smell or scent is a powerful memory aid so when people are telling us they like the smell of books and libraries are they actually recalling the sweet experiences of youth and visits to the library when life was fun and grand? Is this something we can tap? Perhaps we can hire a perfume manufacturer to create Old-Book-Smell cologne or air freshener for our libraries."

Well, a perfume, 'In The Library', has already been created. "A warm blend of English Novel, Russian & Moroccan Leather Bindings, Worn Cloth and a hint of Wood Polish."

Now you can enjoy that library smell anytime, anywhere!

David Lee King has a different view of That Library Smell

"I’ve been thinking about 'that old book smell' that some libraries have for awhile now. Here’s why – it seems to me that the smell some of us relish in a library is:

• the smell of books that haven’t moved off the shelves in a very long time
• which equals =
• the smell of a library NOT BEING USED
• which equals =
• the smell of death"

Have that lovely smell of rotting glue and mould in your library? It means that your stuff isn’t relevant, and it’s been sitting for too long.

Solution:

• get people using your stuff
• get rid of the stuff that’s no longer moving
• get better stuff

Read Stephen's article here and David Lee King's here

The Great 2010 Copyright Debate

In a great debate over copyright that has seen social networks like Twitter and Facebook going crazy with comments; blogger Monica Gaudio discovered that her work had been used in a magazine without her permission. The magazine Cooks Source simply lifted her article from the internet, crediting her with a acknowledgement but assuming that they could just use her work without her permission because it was available freely online.

Monica then confronted the magazine by email and phone, asking for an apology and compensation. In response she received a controversial reply from the Cooks Source magazine that can be read here. The response seems to imply that Monica should be thanking Cooks Source for the improvements made to her writing style, and furthermore that she should be grateful that the magazine gave her any kind of acknowledgement since her original article was freely available online. The magazine's response has seen the social networking sites respond dramatically with people from the general public taking sides in the argument. Information about the response from social networkers can be found here

With the controversy still strong, Cooks Source released a statement on the website; but the statement has raised further questions about the past practices of the magazine.

Wagga campus library: Automatic shutdown trial of all public access computers

The Library is working in collaboration with the Division of Information Technology and CSU Green to trial the automatic shutdown of the Wagga campus library's public access computers.

Each night the computers will be automatically switched off: this means that if you use the computers in Wagga campus library and you are the first person to use a computer for the day, you will need to turn the machine on.

The trial is looking at how we can reduce our energy usage in line with CSU's commitment to reduce energy use (compared with 2006) by 10% by 2011 and by 25% by 2015.

We would love to hear your feedback about this exciting trial - email your thoughts to klamont@csu.edu.au

The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet!!

"Two decades after its birth, the World Wide Web is in decline, as simpler, sleeker services — think apps — are less about the searching and more about the getting. Chris Anderson explains how this new paradigm reflects the inevitable course of capitalism. And Michael Wolff explains why the new breed of media titan is forsaking the Web for more promising (and profitable) pastures."

"The Web is dead. Long live the Internet" is an interesting report looking at how people are moving away from 'surfing the web' as we've come to know it, to instead using apps to access all the rich content available online.

You can read the full article on the Wired website.

What NOT to read

Every week we give you a list of new books and resources that are available from the CSU Library. Today I'd like to share a few books that have recently been "weeded" from the library's collection, and as you'll see, for good reason!

Weeding: The process of examining items in a library collection title by title to identify for permanent withdrawal those that meet pre-established weeding criteria, especially when space in the stacks is limited. (Source: Online Dictionary for Library and Information Science)

When Johnny & Judy Don't Read by Maurice Saxby (1978)

What happens when Johnny and Judy don't read? Do they spontaneously combust? Are they doomed to live in a cave for the rest of their days? Don't despair - this 1978 tome has them covered by explaining to their teachers exactly what they can do to avoid poor Johnny and Judy's descent into 'high illiteracy.'

Russian for Librarians by Gregory Walker (1983)

Need to brush up on your Russian library terms? This 1983 gem explains all those tricky Russian terms you've always wondered about but were too embarrassed to ask.




The Naked Children Daniel Fader (1971)

Problem 1. This book has quite an unfortunate title, one that prompts lifted eyebrows and suspicion that you don't actually want to know what this book is about!

Problem 2. The use of language is rather politically incorrect; so politically incorrect in fact, that if it were a new book, it would never make it to the shelf! I won't divulge too much, but it certainly dropped a few jaws around here.

We'll keep you posted as we find more examples of books you won't be seeing on our shelves any time soon. In the meantime, there's a fun website that collects examples of weeded books from libraries around the world you might like to check out: Awful Library Books

Books on CD at your CSU library

Did you know that Your CSU Library has a range of titles on CD. These include fiction, children's titles, biographies and much more.

Here are some titles to enjoy during those long car trips over the summer, or even just as background sound.

• Waiting Room by by Gabrielle Carey (biography) Library catalogue holdings details
• Day by A.L. Kennedy (fiction) Library catalogue holdings details
• Breath by Tim Winton (fiction) Library catalogue holdings details
• Torchwood: another life by Peter Anghelides Library catalogue holdings details
• The BFG by Roald Dahl (children's fiction) Library catalogue holdings details
• Romulus, my father by Raimond Gaita (biography) Library catalogue holdings details
• Bleak house by Charles Dickens (fiction) Library catalogue holdings details
• Alice’s adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (children's fiction) Library catalogue holdings details
• Country by Tim Flannery (historical) Library catalogue holdings details
• Miss Marple in A Pocket full of rye by Agatha Christie (fiction) Library catalogue holdings details
• Behind the scenes at the museum by Kate Atkinson (fiction) Library catalogue holdings details
• The brass verdict by Michael Connelly (fiction) Library catalogue holdings details
• Aristotle : an introduction by Hugh Griffith (political science) Library catalogue holdings details
  

There are also a number of free downloadable audio books online available to the public. Some examples include:

• Anne of Green Gables by L. M Montgomery (children's fiction)
• Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (children's fiction)
• Emma by Jane Austen (fiction)
• The Very Best of BBC Comedy published by BBC Audiobooks Ltd (comedy)
• Alibi Jones by Mike Luoma (science fiction)
• History of the Plague in London by Daniel Defoe (historical)
• War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (fiction)

2010 Prime Minister’s Literary Award winners

The winners of the 2010 Prime Minister's Literary Award have been announced!

Fiction winner: Dog Boy by Eva Hornung

"In a deserted Moscow apartment building four-year-old Romochka waits for Uncle to come home. Outside the snow is falling, but after a few days hunger drives Romachka outside, his mother’s voice ringing in his ears, Don’t talk to strangers. Overlooked by passers-by, he follows a street dog to her lair and there he joins her suckling puppies."

The Library has a copy of this book available from the Ontario campus library (available to Ontario campus Staff and Students) - Check Availability


Non-fiction winner: The Colony: The History of Early Sydney by Grace Karskens

"A groundbreaking history of the colony of Sydney in its early years, from the sparkling harbour to the Cumberland Plain, from convicts to the city’s political elite, from the impact of its geology to its economy."

The Library has a copy of this book available from the Wagga campus library - Check Availability


Young adult fiction winner: Confessions of a Liar, Thief and Failed Sex God by Bill Condon

"I have this annoying problem that gives me a lot of trouble: a conscience. Neil Bridges attends a Catholic boys' school in which teachers rule with iron fists and thick leather straps. Some crumble under the pressure but Neil toughs it out, just as his Vietnam-bound older brother has done before him. He has to be a man, after all. But at sixteen, how can he be sure of himself when he's not sure of anything else? He loses a friend and finds another, falls in love and unwittingly treads a path that leads to revenge and possibly murder."

The Library doesn't currently have a copy of this book, check out 'WorldCat' to see if it's available at a library near you - WorldCat: The World's Largest Library Catalogue


Children's fiction winner: Star Jumps by Lorraine Marwood

"A poignant verse novel depicting the joys and heartbreaks of a farming family as they struggle to cope with the devastating effects of long-term drought. Told through the eyes of Ruby, day to day farm life involves playing in grassy paddocks with siblings, doing jobs and helping out, and witnessing birth, death and sacrifice. The family is devastated when they have to sell-off some of their herd, but in the spirit of hope it is Ruby who tries in her own small way to help the family by making miniature bales of hay."

The Library has a copy of this book available from the Bathurst campus library - Check Availability

Highlights of This Weeks New Titles

DVD's:

• Avatar - Check Availability
• Babel - Check Availability
• Fight club - Check Availability
• Mao's last dancer - Check Availability
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail - Check Availability
• Up - Check Availability
• Four corners - Check Availability
• The making of modern Australia - Check Availability

Books:

• Facing extinction - The world's rarest birds and the race to save them. Check Availability
• Pleasure and pain : my life - Chrissy Amphlett (The Divinyls) is a legend in the world of Australian music - and now she tells her own story. Check Availability
• One man show : the stages of Barry Humphries - Satirist, comedian and burlesque entertainer, he enthrals audiences across the globe. Check Availability
• The well in the shadow - A writer's journey through Australian literature. Check Availability
• Houdini's flight - Sometimes you need to disappear to find yourself (fiction). Check Availability
• The graphic designer's digital toolkit - Provides comprehensive overview of Macintosh OS X Leopard and Windows 7 operating systems, design fundamentals, and the "Big 3" digital design programs used in the graphics industry today. Check Availability

The complete list of this weeks new titles can be accessed here

Teaching scientific inquiry skills

Kristine Elliott, and other researchers from the Australian Learning and Teaching Council comment on the growing concerns that Australia will be unable to meet future demand for suitably skilled scientists. A number of different factors are behind such concerns. First is the trend in developed countries towards decreasing number of students opting to study science at school and university. Secondly, the changing nature of contemporary scientific practice means that there is an increasing need for science graduates to possess skills, which in the past may not have been considered valuable to a scientific career. Text adapted from AustralianPolicyOnline. Read the full report here

Disruption to ScienceDirect and Scopus Databases

Library staff would like to advise that there will be a disruption to the ScienceDirect and Scopus Service on Sunday 7th November and these databases will be unavailable for four hours between 6pm and 10pm. ScienceDirect and Scopus will also be unavailable for 6 hours during Saturday 13th November between 12am and 6am. During this time, upgrades will be implemented and maintenance performed.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Networked authoritarianism in China and beyond: implications for global Internet freedom

Rebecca MacKinnon from Stanford University asks if we can assume that Chinese authoritarianism will crumble as easily and rapidly as the Iron Curtain crumbled two decades ago. This paper examines why it is unwise to make such an assumption about the Internet in China or in other repressive regimes, and discusses some of the difficult issues of government policy and corporate responsibility that must be tackled in order to ensure that the Internet and mobile technologies can fulfill their potential for liberation and empowerment. Read the full report here. (Text adapted from AustralianPolicyOnline). Photo: Flickr

A few suggestions for books and movies to relax with over the break

BOOKS:

• House Rules - Jodi Picoult
• Not in the Flesh - Ruth Rendell
• The Dangerous Days of Daniel X - James Patterson
• Life in Seven Mistakes - Australian fiction
• The Italian Romance - Joanne Carroll
• The New Angel - Ali Alizadeh
• Deception - Jonathan Kellerman
• Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence- New Ed
• The Falls - Ian Rankin
• Looking for Alibrandi - Also on DVD

DVD's:

• A Murder is Announced - Agatha Christie
• The Wire - Complete fifth season
• Little Miss Sunshine - Comedy
• New Moon - Twighlight saga
• Ashes to Ashes - Complete series one
• M*A*S*H - Complete first season
• Knocked Up - Comedy
• Slumdog millionaire - Dev Patel
• The Ring - Horror
• Enough Rope with Andrew Denton - TV program

Click on the title to Check Availability

New Database Trial - SAGE Research Methods Online

CSU Library is currently trialling SAGE Research Methods Online (SRMO); an online research tool designed for researchers and aimed at the social sciences. SRMO includes qualitative and quantitative resources. The resource uses sophisticated searching to assist researchers in navigating through the content; aiding in the understanding of research methods, and in linking content and methods terms. The collection contains over 500 books, dictionaries, encyclopaedias, and handbooks as well as the collation of a selection of journal articles.

More information about SRMO is available from here

This resource is available as a free trial until December 31, 2010. SRMO can be accessed by the Trial Journal Databases page or by clicking here

CSU Library is seeking feedback on this database.