US popular culture blog Lifehacker conducted an informal poll of their readers, asking for the “Books that changed your lives“.

Their top ten responses were:

1. The Bible - 25 votes
2. The Works of Ayn Rand - 23 votes
3. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - 15 votes
4. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - 9 votes
5. The Stranger - 8 votes
6. The Works of George Orwell - 8 votes
7. The Works of Richard Dawkins - 8 votes
8. The Hobbit and Lord of The Rings Trilogy - 7 votes
9. Ender’s Game - 7 votes
10. Dune - 7 votes

Of course its a totally subjective list, but that’s half the fun.

Click on the links to find out more about these titles and to place a free hold if you wish.

The book that changed my life was All quiet on the Western Front, but many other titles have changed my direction slightly over the years. Would love to hear what you book you would list - feel free to leave it in a comment on this blog post.

Michelle

The Miles Franklin Literary Award has been announced with the winner for 2008 being The time we have taken by Steven Carroll. “The Miles Franklin Literary Award celebrates Australian character and creativity and nurtures the continuing life of literature about Australia. It is awarded for the novel of the year which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases.”

There have been many award winning novels over many decades, so there is never a lack of finding a good book to read, especially one that is worthy of an award. But how do you find them?

A feature of our iBistro catalogue, which has fixed during a recent upgrade is the hot links under the search box on the catalogue main page. The two we are interested in for good reading ideas are Recommended Reading and Best Sellers.

Five links are offered in each category on our catalogue homepage, but the more link takes you to a longer list, which includes the Dymocks Top Ten, New York Times Fiction and winners of the Age Book of the Year, Children’s Book Council awards, Hugo and Nebula Science Fiction awards Man Booker Prize and Pulitzer Prize. Click on any of these links and it will give you the list of the titles we hold, that have won that award and where appropriate, what other awards it has won.

To find out where that book is, click on the details link to see the full catalogue record. If its not available, feel free to place a hold (which is also free) and enjoy some of the quality titles that have received international recognition.

You can also find award winning reading in our What do I read next database, which you can access from any computer with your library card number. This is a great tool to find other books like…. whether it be like a particular author, a specific genre or style and many other options. Take the time to explore, you never know, you might just find your next great read there!

Michelle

After a successful launch in May, the State Library of Victoria will be holding their second Bedside Book Club on Tuesday 8th July at 6.00pm in the State Library’s Mr Tulk Cafe.

Guest readers this month include El Dorado author Dorothy Porter, Andrew Webster from Victoria University and Mary Dalmau from Reader’s Feast Bookstore.

“The Bedside Books Club invites your discussion on these and other important bedside reading matters at its quarterly get-togethers. Bring a book you would like to share with fellow readers and join us for good wine, company and reads.”

Michelle

CCLC subscribes to over 350 different magazines on a huge range of subjects. From trash to deadly serious, there’s something for everyone. My current favourite is Psychology Today (great articles; strange ads). A tip for searching the catalogue: use the words and magazine after your search term - Eg. fitness and magazine or travel and magazine. All the issues that we have will be listed and you can place holds for all but the current edition.

A few facts… With some exceptions, we keep copies of magazines for two years before sending them off to booksale. They have a 2 week loan period and we review our subscriptions annually.

Have you wondered what the [CC] means on some magazine records? It stands for Casey-Cardinia. We found it was too confusing to share magazine records with our other library partners, as we do with books. Too many libraries, titles, editions and copies, so now we have own catalogue records. Eventually, all of our magazine records will show [CC].

If youre happy to read online, we offer an even bigger selection of magazines through our database subscriptions (these collections include general/popular magazines as well as Trade and Academic journals and often include a large backfile). Some examples include:

Choice

Australian Nursing Journal

Architecture Australia

Journal of Educational Research

You can set up an email alert that lets you know when a new edition is available. For help with this or searching for particular titles email us at information@cclc.vic.gov.aunospam (remove nospam from the address)

- Linda

Are you the parent of a 12 - 18 year old?

Do they like to write or are they thinking of entering the City of Casey’s Fresh Words competition?

Archie Fusillo, the author of best selling novels for young adults will be leading two Creative Writing Seminars at the Casey Cardinia Library Corporation Branches at Narre Warren and Cranbourne. Archie will set them up on the path to finding inspiration for their story, and give practical tips on writing. These workshops are for 12 - 18 year olds and are FREE!

Cranbourne Library
Cranbourne Indoor Leisure Complex Berwick-Cranbourne Rd, Cranbourne
Tuesday 1 July 2008
10.00am – 11.30am
Phone 5990 0150 to register

or

Narre Warren Library
Overland Drive, Fountain Gate
Tuesday, 1 July 2008
1.30pm – 3.00pm
Phone 9704 7696 to register

Thanks for your patience and understanding as our system was offline yesterday - Sunday 22nd June for a major system upgrade.

We have upgraded from the Unicorn Library Management System (LMS) to the new Symphony LMS, a job which took us offline from 5pm Saturday until completion late yesterday. This meant that our online catalogue was unavailable for the day and that limited service was available during Narre Warren Library’s Sunday opening hours.

However, the upgrade has been completed smoothly. This will not affect direct service to our users at this time, however in coming months we will be upgrading our new online catalogue also to the new eLibrary. So watch this space for more developments.

Michelle

The builders have made a great start on the new extension at Doveton. The old returns chute and verandah at the library entrance took about what seemed to be 15 minutes to demolish. After being there for so long it seems so different already.

Everyone is curious as to what is going on, and they are excited as what is to come. The new I.T area will enhance access to the internet and community meeting room will allow the community to have access to a new meeting room facility.

The fire exit in the children’s area is acting as the temporary entry to the library, with a temporary chute next to it, so you still access the library from the same side of the building. Check out other photos of the building works at Flickr.

Doveton library will continue to be open during the extension including storytimes and the school holidays so feel free to come down and have a look!

Makaila - Doveton

Do you need to expand your knowledge of computer applications? Are you stuck because you don’t know one vital step in a process? CCLC is introducing The Computer School - a series of self-paced learning tutorials on a range of “How-do-I?” topics. Each tutorial has step-by-step instructions complete with images. Library members can access The Computer School from home. Check out the multiple tutorials on the following topics:

Computer Basics, Dreamweaver CS3, eCommerce, Frontpage, Internet, Internet Safety, Internet Research, Keyboard Shortcuts, Microsoft Access, Microsoft Excel 2003, Microsoft Powerpoint 2003, Microsoft Publisher 2007, Microsoft Word 2003, Microsoft Word 2007, Movie Maker (for Windows Vista), Photoshop CS3, Web design, Windows Vista

- Linda

There was much debate over the short series comedy The Librarians which was shown on ABC-TV at the end of 2007.  The six part series had both its fans and its critics, amongst both library staff and the general public alike.

News has come from ABC that a second series is planned, going into production later this year. The Librarians was also nominated for a prestigous 2008 Rose D’Or award for entertainment television programming, in the category for best sitcom.  The Chaser’s War on Everything was also nominated in the comedy category.  Unfortunately, neither show won.

So if you enjoyed The Librarians first time around, or missed it and want to see why it was nominated for such a prestigous award, why not borrow it from the real librarians at your local library.  The Librarians Series 1 is now available to borrow on DVD, as is the first series of The Chaser’s War on Everything.

Michelle

Apologies to our virtual users who were unable to gain access to our website or our catalogue on Tuesday. Our internet service provider (ISP) had server problems, which meant that our website was inaccessible for most of Tuesday and we think possibly at other times over the Queen’s Birthday long weekend.

If you were unable to renew your items online during this time, please contact your local library.