ACT Public Library Blog

Millennium Trilogy

2009-11-09T08:28:00.003+11:00

Four years ago, an unknown Swedish journalist delivered three manuscripts to his publishers in Stockholm. These supremely exciting, page-turning thrillers featuring crusading liberal journalist Mikael Blomkvist and disturbing punk heroine Lisbeth Salander came to be known as the Millennium Trilogy.

The Millennium Trilogy, written by journalist Stieg Larsson has sold millions of copies around the world. However its author did not live to see the success. Larsson died just months before the publication of the first volume.

That first novel, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, "combines murder mystery, family saga, love story, and financial intrigue into one satisfyingly complex and entertainingly atmospheric novel."

First published in Sweden, it was translated into English in early 2008. Book two in the trilogy is The Girl Who Played With Fire, and book three is The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest.

Click here to visit the official web site for Larsson's The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, and here for the Australian publisher's web site.

Click here to search the library catalogue for books by Stieg Larsson.

Keats on the big screen

2009-11-06T08:36:00.002+11:00

Jane Campion's movie Bright Star will be released in Australia soon. Inspired by Andrew Motion's biography of the poet John Keats who died at the age of 26, it stars Ben Whishaw as John Keats and Australian Abbie Cornish as Fanny Brawne.

Motion says that "Keats's story is amazingly charged: poverty, doomed love, extraordinary natural talent, lingering illness and early death."

Click here to visit the official movie web site or here to visit Keats web site where you can read his poems and letters, or participate in a Keats forum.

2009-11-05T09:00:00.005+11:00

You can now follow us on Twitter.

If you have a Twitter account, or would like to sign up for one, make sure you follow us to be alerted to library programs and events, services, and book news.

Click here to view the library Twitter account, listed as LibrariesACT.

Five Greatest Warriors

2009-11-05T08:16:00.004+11:00

Matthew Reilly's latest release, The Five Greatest Warriors, is out now.

Click here to visit Matthew's web site and discover more about his books.

Click here to search the library catalogue for more books by Matthew Reilly.

IT BEGAN WITH SIX STONES

Jack West Jr and his loyal team are indesperate disarray: they've been separated,their mission is in tatters, and Jack was last seen plummeting down a fathomless abyss.

IT FINISHES HERE

After surviving his deadly fall, Jack must now raceagainst his many enemies to locate and set in place the remaining pieces of The Machine beforethe coming Armageddon.

WHO ARE THE FIVE WARRIORS?

As the world teeters on the brink of destruction, he will learn of the Five Warriors, the individuals who throughout history have been most intimatelyconnected to his quest.

OCEANS WILL RISE, CITIES WILL FALL

Scores will be settled, fathers will fight sons,brothers will battle brothers, and Jack and his friends will soon find out exactly what theend of the world looks like...

2009 PM's Literary Award winners

2009-11-04T10:20:00.005+11:00

The winners of the 2009 Prime Minister's Literary Awards were announced this week.

Fiction Winner

The Boat by Nam Le

In 1979, Nam Le's family left Vietnam for Australia, an experience that inspires the first and last stories in The Boat. In between, however, Le's imagination lays claim to the world. The Boat takes us from a tourist in Tehran to a teenage hit man in Columbia; from an aging New York artist to a boy coming of age in a small Victorian fishing town; from the city of Hiroshima just before the bomb is dropped to the haunting waste of the South China Sea in the wake of another war.

Each story uncovers a raw human truth. Each story is absorbing and fully realised as a novel. Together, the make up a collection of astonishing diversity and achievement.

Joint Non Fiction Winners

House of Exile: The Life and Times of Heinrich Mann and Nelly Kroeger-Mann by Evelyn Juers

Drawing the Global Colour Line by Marilyn Lake and Harry Reynolds

In 1933, the author and activist Heinrich Mann and his partner Nelly Kroeger fled Nazi Germany, finding refuge first in France and later, in great despair, in Los Angeles. Born into a wealthy middle class family in Lübeck, Heinrich was one of the leading representatives of Weimar culture; Nelly was twenty-seven years younger and a hostess in a Berlin bar.

Their story is crossed by others from their circle, including Heinrich’s brother Thomas Mann, their friends Bertolt Brecht, Alfred Döblin, and Joseph Roth, as well as the writers Egon Kisch, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Virginia Woolf and Nettie Palmer. In train compartments, ships’ cabins and rented rooms, they called upon what was left to them — their bodies, their minds, their books — and amidst the debris of an era of self-destruction, built their own annexes to the House of Exile.

At last a history of Australia in its dynamic global context. In the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in response to the mobilisation and mobility of colonial and coloured peoples around the world, self-styled ‘white men’s countries’ in South Africa, North America and Australasia worked in solidarity to exclude those peoples they defined as not-white—including Africans, Chinese, Indians, Japanese and Pacific Islanders. Their policies provoked in turn a long international struggle for racial equality.

Through a rich cast of characters that includes Alfred Deakin, WEB Du Bois, Mahatma Gandhi, Lowe Kong Meng, Tokutomi Soho, Jan Smuts and Theodore Roosevelt, leading Australian historians Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds tell a gripping story about the circulation of emotions and ideas, books and people in which Australia emerged as a pace-setter in the modern global politics of whiteness. The legacy of the White Australia policy still casts a shadow over relations with the peoples of Africa and Asia, but campaigns for racial equality have created new possibilities for a more just future.

Remarkable for the breadth of its research and its engaging narrative, Drawing the Global Colour Line offers a new perspective on the history of human rights and provides compelling and original insight into the international political movements that shaped the twentieth century.

First for Australian poet

2009-11-04T08:08:00.000+11:00

Did you know that Emma Jones is the first Australian to win an award in Britain's Forward Prize? Emma's collection The Striped World won the 2009 award for best first collection of poetry.

Click here to read more about the Forward Prize which was created to bring contemporary poetry to a wider audience.

Life Boat

2009-11-02T08:33:00.000+11:00

Have you visited Civic Library recently and seen the boat suspended dramatically from the ceiling?

This sculpture, Life Boat, by Australian artist Nerine Martini, was installed in the Library in September, and uses the internal frame of a Vietnamese fishing boat complete with oars. It can be viewed from the foyer of the Canberra Theatre Centre, the mezzanine level of the Library and from the Library foyer below.

The work was created by Martini as the result of an artist residency in Vietnam in 2006. The idea for Life Boat was developed from a traditional Vietnamese vessel called a ‘ghe bau' or pregnant boat.

Life Boat is built from a stripped down boat which came from Hoi An, on the central coast of Vietnam. Eyes have been painted on the prow and the oars have become arms carved from recycled timber and coated with lacquer using traditional Vietnamese techniques.

Meet the author: A Woman's War

2009-10-30T08:29:00.001+11:00

Join author Jacqueline Dinan on Remembrance Day to hear about the novel she wrote with her husband - discover what life was like for women in Australia during World War I, and how conscription became a great source of debate.

A Woman's War takes us into the life of a mother during the Great War. It provides a unique and intimate perspective of how she and other women of her inner-city, working class community endured an incredibly difﬁcult period of Australiafs history and exempliﬁed to future generations how to face hardship. This poignant and insightful story reveals tribulations and tragedies not talked about by the generations of women who followed them.

Wednesday 11 November 2009
11.00am - 11.45am
Civic Library

Click here to book online or phone 6205 9000.

"A remarkable story ... I heartily endorse the book as a means of raising awareness of the chronological events of WWI." ~ Dame Elisabeth Murdoch

"A story that touches every woman's heart and encapsulates the ANZAC spirit portrayed by the women of WWI, qualities we all reflect on in facing today's hardships." ~ Andrea Coote, MP

"As there are so few books written about war from the point of view of women, this timely and wide ranging record is going to contribute greatly to the long neglected female perspective on wars, invariably started by men." ~ Dr Jonathon King, Military Historian

Love and loss in books and at the movies

2009-10-29T08:50:00.000+11:00

The movie of Audrey Niffenegger's book The Time Traveller's Wife opens in Australia in early November. It stars Australia's Eric Bana as the time traveller (whose occupation happens to be librarian).

Clare (Rachel McAdams) has been in love with Henry (Eric Bana) her entire life. She believes they are destined to be together, even though she never knows when they will be separated: Henry is a time traveller—cursed with a rare genetic anomaly that causes him to live his life on a shifting timeline, skipping back and forth through his lifespan with no control. Despite the fact that Henry's travels force them apart with no warning, Clare desperately tries to build a life with her one true love.

Coinciding with the movie, is Niffenegger's latest book Her Fearful Symmetry.

Julia and Valentina Poole are normal American teenagers - normal, at least, for identical 'mirror' twins who have no interest in college or jobs or possibly anything outside their cozy suburban home. But everything changes when they receive notice that an aunt whom they didn't know existed has died and left them her flat in an apartment block overlooking Highgate Cemetery in London. They feel that at last their own lives can begin ... but have no idea that they've been summoned into a tangle of fraying lives, from the obsessive-compulsive crossword setter who lives above them to their aunt's mysterious and elusive lover who lives below them, and even to their aunt herself, who never got over her estrangement from the twins' mother and who can't even seem to quite leave her flat.
With Highgate Cemetery itself a character and echoes of Henry James and Charles Dickens, HER FEARFUL SYMMETRY is a delicious and deadly twenty-first-century ghost story about Niffenegger's familiar themes of love, loss and identity. It is certain to cement her standing as one of the most singular and remarkable novelists of our time.

Suitcase History: Life on the Limestone Plains

2009-10-27T08:25:00.001+11:00

Come along to a library based workshop exploring how to tell the stories of early rural Canberra, where to find information, handling items from that time, and examining attitudes to life in the Victorian Age relating to this region.

Storyteller/teacher Elizabeth Burness will share her collection of books, artefacts, including antique clothing, and, of course, stories. She will answer questions in a lively, interesting and sometimes unusual way!

Monday 2 November 2009
10.00am - 11.00am
Woden Library

Click here to book online or phone 6205 9000.

Get cooking with Jamie, Kylie and Nigella

2009-10-26T16:00:00.000+11:00

Get into the swing of spring, and cook up a storm with some cooking books from these popular authors:

Jamie Oliver, Kylie Kwong, Nigella Lawson, Donna Hay, and Gordon Ramsay.

Click here for other food and cooking resources from the ACT Public Library.

Register your baby as a library member

2009-10-22T10:00:00.000+11:00

Your baby can join the library at any age. The ACT Public Library provides a range of resources suitable for very young children including board books, picture books, nursery rhymes and music as well as resources for parents.

Some of our favourite stories for babies:

Boo to a goose by Mem Fox
Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see? by Bill Martin Jr
How do I put it on? by Shigeo Watanabe
Polar bear, polar bear, what do you hear? by Bill Martin Jr
Where is the green sheep? By Mem Fox
The very hungry caterpillar by Eric Carle

You're invited: Technology @ your library

2009-10-21T08:09:00.000+11:00

Join us on Tuesday 27 October for a day of technology related activities at Belconnen Library.

10.30am - 11.00am Preschool story time
Half an hour of technology-themed stories, rhymes and songs for children aged 3-5 years.

11.00am - 11.30am Official RFID Launch
You are invited to join special guests and library staff for morning tea to celebrate the launch of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology in the ACT Public Lbrary.

11.30am - 12.30pm In a nutshell
A snapshot presentation about Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube. Discover what these tools are all about and ask questions.

1.00pm - 2.00pm eBooks and eAudio books @ your library
Find out what an eBook is, and what eBooks the ACT Public Library has for you to use.

4.00pm - 5.00pm Free electronic resources @ your library
Drop in for a hands-on demonstration of some free library resources. Learn how to use Your Tutor free online tutoring for students, and access full text magazines, newspapers and encyclopedias.

Bookings:
Click here to book online for any of these activities, or phone 6205 9000.

Speech Pathology Australia Book of the Year Awards

2009-10-20T12:57:00.007+11:00

The winners of the 2009 Speeth Pathology Australia Book of the Year Awards were announced at Civic Library this morning. Congratulations to all the winners!

Best Book for Language Development: Young Children (2-5 years)

The Terrible Plop by Ursula Dubosarsky

Based on a Tibetan myth, a sound in the forest sets all the animals running for their lives from the Terrible Plop.

The language used is wonderfully repetitive and playfully rhythmic, with a wide variety of interesting words used – from striking ‘describing’ and ‘action’ words, to a plethora of animal names.

The story lends itself to great character voices and different tones. The repetition of “the terrible plop!” allows children to participate and chorus along with an adult reader, which assists engagement.

The lexical choices support vocabulary development, rhyme and sight-word recognition.

The ‘hero’ of the story being the youngest, smallest, most frightened creature helps young children realise the potential of themselves as brave, clever characters in their own lives.

Best Book for Language Development: Lower Primary (5-8 years)

The Gobbling Tree by Mark Carthew

The Gobbling Tree fires the imagination of children as they search for
numerous items and problem solve with innovative solutions.

The elements of suspense throughout the book, keep the reader hooked and wondering what the tree could possibly gobble up next!

The Gobbling Tree provides some great examples of the “magic” of words. Witty rhyme, repetition and onomatopoeia (eg swish which imitates the sound associated) are used in such a way that the story is bound to engage readers and expand their vocabulary.

Higher-order thinking is promoted through mystery, ridiculous concepts and
prediction, while bright colourful illustrations engage children in this great read-aloud book.There is a strong narrative format, and the circular ending lends itself to oral language extension and text innovation tasks. The characters are readily identifiable and from a range of ages and genders.

Best Book for Language Development: Upper Primary (8-12 years)

Noodle Pie by Ruth Starke

‘Andy’ is trying to maintain his Aussie identity in an unfamiliar place.

This humorous perspective on differing ways of life lifts Noodle Pie above other more sombre stories tackling the big issues of refugees, cultural differences, poverty and familial obligations.

Pages turn faster with a smile as the everyday language used conjures up comical images.The author has captured the essence of Vietnam using vivid language to describe the people, their communication styles, and their lives.

…at home he talked to his parents in ‘Vietlish’ – although it was more English than Vietnamese. He was suddenly nervous…you might think you were asking someone to pass the salt, but what you were actually saying was “pass me the nose”, or “pass me ten”, or “pass me the smell.” The same word meant all four things.

The content aligns to the upper primary curriculum promoting educational conversations to explore new ideas and concepts resulting in expanded personal and cultural knowledge. It is gripping and engaging with its problem-solving themes, while also embracing a sense of the ridiculous by the language used.

Take home some free DVDs

2009-10-20T09:30:00.000+11:00

Did you know you can borrow DVDs for free from your local ACT Public Library?

Check out what's on offer:

Films by genre
Adventure l Animated films l Children's films l Comedy l Fantasy l Historical l Horror l Mystery/Crime l Musicals Science Fiction l Spy l War l Westerns l Australian films l Comedy television programs Mystery/crime television programs l Science Fiction television programs l Australian television programs

Music
Jazz l Orchestral Music l Popular Music on DVD l Rock Music on DVD l Operas on DVD

Sport
Australian Football on DVD l Cricket DVD l Olympic games l Physical Fitness

Other subjects
Biography l Drama l History

Jessica Watson's Journey

2009-10-20T09:00:00.003+11:00

16 year old Jessica Watson has started her journey in an attempt to become the youngest ever to sail non-stop unassisted around the world.

Follow Jessica on her travels via her blog: www.jessicawatson.com.au.

Read Jesse Martin's book, that was the inspiration for this voyage.

World sci fi, fantasy and horror convention heads to Australia

2009-10-19T08:14:00.001+11:00

The 68th World Science Fiction Convention, Worldcon, will be held in Melbourne from 2-6 September next year. Aussiecon 4 will be at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.

The Worldcon annual convention brings together people, both professionals and fans, from all over the world who have an interest in the science fiction and fantasy genres. Although the emphasis of the convention is on the literary side, all other forms, such as film, television, and comics, are included. Programming includes panel discussions, lectures, science demonstrations, films, readings, and autographings.
Aussiecon 4 is so named because it is the fourth Worldcon to be held in Australia and all have been held in Melbourne. Previous conventions (1975, 1985, 1999) were widely acclaimed.

The program is still in the planning stages, but guests of honour will include Kim Stanley Robinson, Robin Johnson, and Shaun Tan.

Click here to visit the official web site for the convention.

Websites that nourish

2009-10-15T09:43:00.002+11:00

This week is nutrition week. Take a look at some of the websites recommended by Dieticians for tips and information for good health.

www.gofor2and5.com.au
www.healthykids.nsw.gov.au
www.freshforkids.com.au
www.raisingchildren.net.au
www.sgmkidszone.com.au

Kids - vote now for your favourite book

2009-10-14T14:59:00.002+11:00

The COOL Awards are the children's choice book awards voted by the young people of the Canberra region (Canberra's Own Outstanding List). Students have the opportunity to vote for their favourite books in term 4 each year.

Children who live in Canberra are invited to vote for their favourite book in the following categories:
1. Picture Book
2. Fiction for Younger Readers,
3. Fiction for Older Readers, and
4. Fiction for grades 7 – 9.

Children can vote online via http://www.library.act.gov.au/ anytime between Monday 12 October and Wednesday 28 October.

Click here to vote now

Exams, Study, Homework, Help! Free Online Tutoring

2009-10-13T14:00:00.000+11:00

yourtutor is a unique, free learning service offered by the ACT Public Library that connects students to qualified tutors for individual conversations about homework, assignments, exam preparation and study questions.

yourtutor’s Online Classroom allows expert, real-life tutors to review specific homework and assignment questions with students using controlled chat, an interactive whiteboard, a file sharing tool and web browsing.

Available for school students from Years 4 through to 12.
Available Monday to Friday from 4.00pm-8.00pm.
Subject areas covered include: Maths, English, Science, Research and study skills

connect now by entering your library card number and PIN.

Man Booker Prize for Hilary Mantel

2009-10-12T09:07:00.004+11:00

Hilary Mantel has won the 2009 Man Booker Prize for her novel Wolf Hall. Click here to read more about the award, and here to search the library catalogue for Wolf Hall and other books by Hilary Mantel.

Set in England in the 1520s, Henry VIII is on the throne, but has no heir. Cardinal Wolsey is his chief advisor, charged with securing the divorce the pope refuses to grant. Into this atmosphere of distrust and need comes Thomas Cromwell, first as Wolsey’s clerk, and later his successor.

Cromwell is a wholly original man: the son of a brutal blacksmith, a political genius, a briber, a charmer, a bully, a man with a delicate and deadly expertise in manipulating people and events. Ruthless in pursuit of his own interests, he is as ambitious in his wider politics as he is for himself. His reforming agenda is carried out in the grip of a self-interested parliament and a king who fluctuates between romantic passions and murderous rages.

From one of our finest living writers, Wolf Hall is that very rare thing: a truly great English novel, one that explores the intersection of individual psychology and wider politics. With a vast array of characters, and richly overflowing with incident, it peels back history to show us Tudor England as a half-made society, moulding itself with great passion and suffering and courage.

Nobel Prize for literature

2009-10-12T08:55:00.003+11:00

The winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Literature is Herta Muller "who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed".

Her first book Nadirs (Niederungen, 1982, first published with full, uncensored text in 1984) describes life in a small village from a child's point of view and, like all her work, is brutally frank about corruption and cruelty, whether shown by Romanians, or by the German minority. She expands details of ordinary life into fantastic images, words are used unconventionally and horror and absurdity are mixed with extreme poeticism. German is Müller's mother tongue, but she uses German from another time and place, and in her essays Der König verneigt sich und tötet (2003) she discusses the importance of language as identity and exemplifies ways that language is used by the majority to brand immigrants and outsiders.

Click here to read more about Herta on the Nobel Prize web site.

Closed for 3 Nov public holiday

2009-10-12T08:18:00.000+11:00

All public library branches and the mobile library will be closed for the Family and Community Day public holiday on Tuesday 3 November 2009.

The Cooperation Game

2009-10-09T14:48:00.015+11:00

The National Libary of Australia has asked to borrow for microfilming our only copy of The Canberra Weekly : the Pictoral magazine from the National Capital , a weekly journal published Nov 30, 1962-Feb 5, 1964 .

The library at National Museum of Australia also had a single issue not held by the National Library or the ACT Heritage Library. After discussion and evaluation we decided the Museum library's copy would be better held by the ACT Heritage Library. It arrived today and next week will join the copies held by the National Library of Australia for microfilming.

The ACT Heritage Library often cooperates with national and state institutions in developing collections and making them more widely available. As part of the Australian Newspapers Plan (ANPLAN), the National, State and Territory libraries cooperate to preserve our historical newspapers on microfilm.

We are delighted to assist in bringing together the extant copies of this journal. We'd also like to complete the holdings, as none of us have a full set.

Currently, the missing issues are :
July 5 1963
July 12 1963
July 19 1963
July 26 1963
Aug 2 1963
Aug 16 1963
Aug 30 1963
Sept 20 1963
Sept 27 1963
Oct 4 1963
Oct 11 1963
Oct 18 1963
Nov 8 1963
Nov 22 1963
Nov 29 1963
Dec 6 1963

If you have these or any other copies of The Canberra Weekly : the Pictoral magazine from the National Capital you'd like to see preserved in the ACT Heritage Library, please contact us.

What's in a name?

2009-10-08T08:22:00.000+11:00

Access to ACTPLA's information about Canberra's suburb and street names and their history can be found online at the official web site: http://www.actpla.act.gov.au/.

It's simple to use:

Click on the Survey, place names, data & maps link from the navigation menu on the left, under the Tools and Resources heading
Scroll down and click on Place name search under the Place name heading
Simply enter the suburb or street name into the Keyword box, and click on Find.