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Showing posts from April, 2019

Reading Challenge Reviews: Life and Death

Let's see out April's theme in the 2019 Reading Challenge with a matter of life and death. We have our favourite guest reviewer, Theresa Petray, with a novel that looks at the life of a book and the lives it touched along the way. Meanwhile, Ruth tackled the big question: what song do you want played at your funeral?

May starts in a few days, and brings a new challenge with it. We hope you enjoyed this romp through things deep and meaningful.

Theresa Petray read People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks.

In People of the Book, Geraldine Brooks flips through the history of a famous Jewish book, and the many stages in its life. About half the book is told from the perspective of Hanna, a book conservation expert. She is an Australian who is brought to Sarajevo in 1996 to inspect an illuminated Haggadah. Historically noteworthy because it was the earliest illuminated Jewish manuscript, the book had been in hiding for several years as protection against the war in Bosnia. Hanna’s job…

Labour Day Opening Hours

Labour Day (also known as May Day) falls on Monday, 6 May this year.

The Saturday and Sunday before Labour day will be open as per the Library's normal weekend opening hours (please consult our website for more information), but we will be operating on reduced hours for the public holiday.

The Eddie Koiki Mabo Library in Townsville will be open from 1pm-5pm on Labour Day. Our 24hr spaces will be available as per usual.

The Cairns library building's study spaces will be open from 10am-12am, but library services will be closed.

If you need to contact a librarian, you can use the Chat service or call us on 07 4781 5500 during the Mabo Library's opening hours.

What is IBISWorld, you ask?

Have you looked at IBISWorld recently? The company environment is constantly changing, and one place to find out the latest trends for Australian and New Zealand companies is here as the database is regularly updated.

There are a number of ways to find information about particular companies or industry groups.
In Australia Company Reports, it is possible to find distinct companies by industry group and by name, but also by State or company type.

The Australia Business Environment Profiles section explores consumer and social aspects which can form background research into a particular industry for viability, economics and coverage. Drawing on a number of sources, including market research and from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, each profile neatly summarizes the topic or sector. Experts provide forecasts, drawing on the trends in private and government investment.

Each profile has a button to transform the document to PDF format, related or affected industries, and tutorial. It…

Rose Popham's anthology of friendship

Hands up if you know what an autograph album is (or was)! Both hands up if you ever owned one. For those waving two hands I’ll take a guess that you are: a) female and b) over 40 years old.
In the second half of the 20th century, these little books, full of differently coloured blank pages, were especially in demand by girls coming to the end of their primary or secondary schooldays who would eagerly collect signatures from their friends and teachers. The signatures were usually accompanied by little rhymes, expressions of friendship or words of wisdom for the future. These inscriptions could range from sentimental - Roses are red/ violets are blue/ sugar is sweet/ and so are you – to philosophical, and from witty to risqué.
The writer had a fair degree of freedom not only in what was written, but on where it was written. Some would take delight in being able to write “By hook or by crook I’ll be first (or last) in this book” on the appropriate page.

A particularly delightful example …

ANZAC Day: Remembering Indigenous Australians in the Australian Defence Force

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are warned that photographs in this article contain images of people who have died.

2019 is the International year of Indigenous Languages and, in honour of this, the Eddie Koiki Mabo Library has created an ANZAC day display that focuses on Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the Australian Defence Force.

Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have served in every conflict and commitment involving Australian defence contingents since before Federation.  Little is known about how many Indigenous Australian people have served in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) and the Royal Australian Navy (RAN).  A small number of Indigenous Australian men are now known to have served during the Boer War in South Africa.

Over 1000 Indigenous Australian people fought in the First World War. The Australian War Memorial has identified some 50 Australian Aboriginal men believed to have served on Gallipoli.

In propor…

Reading Challenge Reviews: Jesus, Buddha and Davidians

April's Reading Challenge for 2019 is to read as many books as you can which fit in with the theme "Religion and Philosophy". Exactly how these books fit the theme is up to you, as long as you squeeze in a work of fiction, a work of non-fiction, a book by an Australian author and a book by an author you haven't read before (yes, the same book can count for multiple categories).

As promised, this week we're following up Easter by looking at Jesus - but probably not in the way you expected. Sharon read a book that explored the parallels between Jesus' teachings and those of the Buddha. New reviewer Mikki read about the rights of people to interpret Jesus' teachings in different ways (and what happens when it all goes pear-shaped).

Sharon Bryan read Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings, edited by Marcus Borg and Ray Reigert.

It’s a strange and eerie thing, but when you compare a lot of the things Jesus said (according to the Bible) to some of the things Bud…

Reading Challenge Reviews: Things Lost, Found and Rediscovered

We managed to squeeze one Easter themed book into the mix for our Reading Challenge this week (given that this month's theme is "Religion and Philosophy", and Easter is coming up at the end of the week, it seemed timely). Ironically, it's not actually about Christianity. We'll have to see what we can rustle up for next week. Mind you, it could be argued that Easter was originally a pagan holiday, in which case we've got just the right book for this week.

Brenda found a book about a Lost Thing, which invited readers to come to their own philosophical conclusions regarding the story. Samantha read a book about finding a more Australian symbol for Easter (to replace rabbits). Sharon took up the bonus challenge and read a book about pagan faiths, which touched on the idea of finding and rebuilding lost faiths. You could say we "found" a lot of interesting things this week.

Have you "found" anything interesting to read?

Brenda read The Lost Thin…

Easter Long Weekend and Anzac Day Opening Hours

In the coming two weeks there will be some changes to the JCU Library opening hours due to public holidays for the Easter long weekend and ANZAC Day. We wish you a safe and happy break during this time. 


Easter Long Weekend

The opening hours over the Easter period are as follows:

Cairns:
The Cairns Library building will be open for staff and students via swipe card access only:

Good Friday to Easter Monday 10.00am – 12.00am

There will be no access to the print collections on these days. Library staff will be available for assistance via phone 4871 5500 or Chat during the Townsville Eddie Koiki Mabo Library opening hours.

Townsville:
Easter Friday      19 April    Closed
Easter Saturday  20 April    1.00pm - 5.00pm
Easter Sunday    21 April    Closed
Easter Monday   22 April    1.00pm - 5.00pm

The Townsville Eddie Koiki Mabo Library 24 Hour InfoCommons will be open for the entire long weekend.


ANZAC Day
The ANZAC Day public holiday falls on Thursday, 25 April this year.

The opening ho…

Reading Challenge Reviews: Songs, Stories and Consolations

April's theme of "Religion and Philosophy" is certainly giving us some scope to play with, for our 2019 Reading Challenge.

This week, Tasch brought along a book by Alain de Botton, who is well known for making philosophy accessable to the average person.

Sammy and Sharon both looked close to home for their exploration of the "Religion" side of the coin, with both looking at books that use art to explore the Dreaming of Australian Aboriginal Peoples (although the target audience for each book is quite different).

Natascha Kucurs read The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain de Botton
Feeling unpopular, broke, frustrated, inadequate, broken-hearted, or life is just flat out difficult? Then this is the book for you. What’s not to love about philosophy? Who would’ve thought that it could be used to reflect upon and help sort the every-day concerns of every-day people.
Contemporary thinker (and arguably philosopher in his own right), Alain de Botton considers this gam…

Database overview - Liebert Online Journal Collection

Do you need to find information at the cutting edge of ecological psychology? Or wanting to know more about vector borne diseases? Liebert Online Journal Collection can help. This resource is internationally renowned for publishing cutting edge medical research.
With content in ninety peer-reviewed journals covering medical, biomedical technology, public health, and much more, you may be surprised at what you find. Their latest addition is The CRISPR journal, which is one of several journals they publish covering gene technologies. Astrobiology has a special feature this month on the recent ExoMars Rover expedition. The latest issue of Cyberpsychology, behavior and social networking looks at trolling. The Journal of medicinal food explores the effects of the changing weather on gut bacteria. For a touch of history, "1818, 1918, 2018: two centuries of pandemics" discusses the history of major influenza pandemics, and the measures the United Nations and World Health Organizat…

Reading Challenge Reviews: Mindfulness and Mind Bending

Let's kick off April's theme of "Religion and Philosophy" in our 2019 Reading Challenge with two very different books. One is a non-fiction reflection looking at the monastic life, the other is a beloved children's novel looking at a decidedly different kind of inner life.


Brenda Carter read Meditations: On the Monk Who Dwells in Daily Life, by Thomas Moore.
Have you ever considered entering monastic life or wondered what it might be like? Thomas Moore left home to enter a seminary at thirteen and spent the next twelve years in the Servite Order, a life characterised by dedication to community and contemplation. After leaving the order, he has spent the rest of his life as an academic, musician, psychotherapist, husband and family man.
Meditations is a beautiful, small hardcover book filled with single page reflections on Moore’s monastic experiences. Moore writes, I believe we all, men and women, have much to gain by reflecting on religious community life as a spi…

Reading Challenge - April: “Religion and Philosophy”

We're four months into the 2019 Reading Challenge, and it's time to get deep and philosophical.

The theme for April is "Religion and Philosophy", which gives you a good reason to raid the 100s (Philosophy & Psychology) and 200s (Religion). If you've never been down that end of the library, you're in for a treat - it's fascinating territory.

But let's not forget that, for our Reading Challenge, you also have to fit in a work of fiction. So you just may have to track down some novels with religious themes, or perhaps some philosophical fiction - or maybe even some books written by philosophers?

I've you've been looking for a good excuse to read Atlas Shruggedor Utopia, now's your chance! Or you could just take the opportunity to re-read the Chronicles of Narnia (fun fact: we have the Chronicles of Narnia in French, German and Italian - and, of course, in English).

In case you've forgotten, the challenge is to read as many books as y…

Following the trail...

A recent query to the library through our Document Supply Services led us to look further into the topical subject of pitcher plants, or Nepenthes. We may not have many books on this topic, but using our databases pages revealed that we have numerous resources, including ebooks, for these intriguing plants, which are named after the cup of potion given to Helen of Troy.
From the fields of mythology, botany, chemistry and in image databases we found glimpses of the story everywhere.


Why not hunt through our databases, ebooks and journals for your favourite topic?
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