The Children’s Book Council of Australia have announced this year’s winners. See: http://cbca.org.au/winners.htm

Books are chosen in the following categories:

Older Readers
Younger readers
Early Childhood
Picture book of the year
The Eve Pownall Award for Information Books

Huxley and Ourimbah Libraries have put up some great displays with all the winning books available to view.

Come in and have a look and …

Display at Huxley Library	Display at Ourimbah Library

… enter the Trivia contest!

Both libraries are also running a trivia contest about children’s literature from past and current winners. All are welcome to participate, both staff and students, with great book voucher prizes from The United Campus and Co-Op Bookshops.

To enter, just fill out the entry forms available at Huxley and Ourimbah Libraries, as well as at The United Campus Bookshop, Callaghan and The Co-Op Bookshop at Ourimbah.

Trial available until 31st August 2008.

China Yearbook is the most comprehensive Yearbok database in China. It collects 1582 titles of world, national, and provincial-level yearbooks, industry yearbooks, subject yearbooks, school yearbooks, enterprise yearbooks and statistical yearbooks, totaling at 8,000 volumes by the end of 2007.  All artucles can be retreived by CAJ or PDF downloading, and the search on chart or image are supported.

China Reference works are the most fundamental and indispensable resources for knowledge service. China Reference Works Online (CRWO) collects more than 1,500 volumes, including dictionaries, thesauruses, cyclopedias, atlases, illustrated handbooks, chronicles, and so on by the end of 2007. It doesnot need any additional Reader installing, ad users can use this database by simply online browsing.

Go to: China Yearbook and Reference Works trial. Password required.

Tell us what you think of this database via the evalution form, or use the Comments link on this post.

Trial available until 12th September 2008.

On Examination provides medical professionals with current and relevant online revision courses. The question library includes thousands of internationally relevant questions in two resources: Basic, for students in the early part of their training, and Advanced, for students preparing for final exams.

It includes:

• High quality questions with explanatory answers based on typical exam themes.
• Detailed score analysis so that you can gauge your performance against your peers, and also recognise your strengths and weaknesses.
• Adapted learning which personalises the site to your educational needs.

Go to: On Examination trial
Enter Institutional Access code and follow the steps to register.

Tell us what you think of this database via the evalution form, or use the Comments link on this post.

Due to system maintenance, Proquest databases will be unavailabe for approximately 12 hours starting at 12 noon on Sunday 17th August 2008.

This year’s Library Client Survey will kick off next Monday 18th August and will continue until Sunday 31st August.  We value your honest feedback, so please tell us what you think is important and how we are doing.

The online survey will be available from the Library home page, or, if preferred, paper copies will be available in all the Libraries.

Everyone who completes the survey is entitled to get a voucher for a free coffee at one of the listed campus cafes.

Fill out your name and address on the back of the coffee voucher to go in the draw to win one of several Coles/Myer gift cards. There will be a prize draw on each campus with prizes totalling $500.

More information

For a week in September 2008 we are running a living library. The living library will give staff and students of the university the opportunity to share their life experiences and interests by being a living book for 30 minutes.

If you are interested in volunteering to be a living book please email the following address: LivingLibrary@newcastle.edu.au

For an example of a Living Library click on the following web address:
http://www.ncgrl.vic.gov.au/Home/GoldfieldsLivingLibrary/tabid/93/language/en-US/Default.aspx

We apologise for the extreme system slowness which we are currently experiencing.  A team of IT people are currently working on resolving the issue, but at this stage we are unsure what is causing the problem.

ScienceDirect and Scopus will be unavailable from 7:30pm Saturday 2nd August until 3:30pm Sunday 3rd August 2008, due to a system upgrade.

There have been a series of thefts of wallets, purses and other personal belongings in areas around the University in recent days.   The thieves have been particularly targeting general access and staff areas of schools and the Newcastle TAFE campus.

Please keep an eye on your belongings at all times and don’t leave them unattended when in the Library or elsewhere on campus.

Trial available until 29th August 2008

The Library currently has a subscription to this database from a different provider, and we are now trialling GeoRef on the Engineering Village platform.

Note: To search only GeoRef, uncheck the boxes at the top of the screen for the other databases.

The GeoRef database, established by the American Geological Institute in 1966, provides access to the geoscience literature of the world. GeoRef is the most comprehensive database in the geosciences and continues to grow by more than 90,000 references a year. The database contains over 2.9 million references to geoscience journal articles, books, maps, conference papers, reports and theses.

Go to: GeoRef trial

Tell us what you think of these databases via the evalution form, or use the Comments link on this post.