With school holidays fast approaching, its worth highlighting the recent winners of the 2008 Children’s Book Council of Australia Awards.

Awards are given to the best Australian book in the categories of:

with Honor Book also awarded to 2 other titles in each category.

This year’s winners include Ghost’s child by Sonya Hartnett, Dragon Moon by Carole Wilkinson and
Requiem for a beast by Matt Ottley.

All the nominated and Honour Books are well worth checking out, so why not place a hold on them now so you can enjoy them with your children during the holidays.

Michelle

It’s the Literary awards season in Australia, so that’s our excuse for somehow missing this one. The Victorian Premier’s Literary Award nominees were announced on the 8th August and the winners will be announced at a special event on Monday 1st September.

The 2008 nominees are:

Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction

Diary of a bad year by J M Coetzee

The lost dog by Michelle de Kretser

The spare room by Helen Garner

The Nettie Palmer Prize for Non-Fiction

Van Diemen’s Land by James Boyce

Napoleon by Philip Dwyer

Ferocious summer by Meredith Hooper

Detainee 002 by Leigh Sales

Muck by Craig Sherborne

Prize for Young Adult Fiction

Solo by Alyssa Brugman

Pool by Justin D’Ath

Tomorrow all will be beautiful by Brigid Lowry

Prize for a first book on History

Van Diemen’s Land by James Boyce

The Lamb enters the Dreaming by Robert Kenny

Pistols! Treason! Murder! by Jonathan Walker

There are also quite a number of other literary prizes in the categories of:

• Poetry
• Unpublished manuscripts
• Drama
• Indigenous writing
• Essay advancing public debate
• Journalism
• Music theatre script

Each prize has 3 judges with interest and experience in that literary style, who have winnowed down the nominations into these shortlists and who will decide the winners who will be announced at the dinner next week.

Regular readers of Invisible Ink will recognise a few of these titles which have also been nominated in one of other literary awards in process at present.

So check out what the fuss is all about and place a free hold on one (or more) of these books. Its the best way to find out if you agree with the judges on the worthiness of these titles.

Michelle

From the Mental Floss blog comes a post on the 23 album covers that changed everything. In this case, the emphasis is on the artwork of the album, although the titles on the list also made an impact on their release.

The everything is summed up - “Long before MTV, performers expressed the visual dimension of their art through their album covers. Every music fan has his/her favorites, but several covers stand out for their brilliance, their impact and their ability to make as much of a statement as the music they represent. Every art form has its giants, and album cover art is no exception. The work of the designers featured here spans over 40 years of music.”

Your library has a number of the albums listed here, including

• Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band - Beatles
• Whipped cream & other delights - Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass
• Sticky fingers - Rolling Stones
• Dark side of the moon - Pink Floyd
• Never mind the bollocks - Sex Pistols
• London calling - The Class
• Odelay - Beck
• Wish you were here - Pink Floyd

So why not place a free hold on one of these classic albums and enjoy not only the outstanding covers, but also the outstanding music it covers.

And if there’s an album that you think should have made the list, leave a comment telling us about it.

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

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

The Telegraph newspaper in the UK has compiled a list of the 50 best cult books. They range from baby care to science-fiction and all are considered classics.

We have reformatted their list as a web based booklist and have added links to our catalogue where we hold the title. We don’t hold them all, with quite a few being very old, very obscure or both.

Check out the list, feel free to reserve the titles you have always meant to get around to read and then let us know which books should have made the top 50.

Here’s a few from me: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, War of the Worlds by HG Wells and my all time favourite classic - All quiet on the Western front by Erich Remarque.

Please leave a comment and tell us your cult classic book - fiction or non-fiction.

Michelle

2008 is a bumper year for books being released as movies. Below I have listed a sample of just some of the many titles which are making the leap from small print to big screen. These movies are either in our cinemas at now or will be before the end of the year.

Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis is the third title in the Chronicles of Narnia, but only the 2nd movie, following up on the highly successful Lion, the Witch and the wardrobe. The first and third books - “Magician’s nephew‘ and “Horse and his boy” respectively, have not been made into films in this series.

The actors who played the Pevensey children in the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie reprise their roles, as does Liam Neeson as the voice of Aslan. I’ll definitely be going to see this one with my family during the forthcoming school holidays.

Love in time of cholera by Nobel prize winning Gabriel Garcia Marquezand, a Colombian author, screenwriter and journalist. He won the 1982 Nobel Prize for Literature “for his novels and short stories, in which the fantastic and the realistic are combined in a richly composed world of imagination, reflecting a continent’s life and conflicts.” The movie, which is screening in cinemas now, stars Benjamin Bratt from Law and Order and Academy Awarding winning actor Javier Bardem.

Sex and the city was originally based on the novel by Candace Bushnell. The popular, long-running TV series which finished its 6 season run in 2004, has now moved to the big screen, with original cast members reprising their much-loved roles. Candace’s book of the same name was comprised of her columns for the New York Observer, which explored the adventures she and her friends experienced in the Big Apple. Sex and the city: the movie will be out in cinemas in early June. One to see for Sex in the City fans.

Journey to the center of the earth by Jules Verne is enjoying another remake. This time the classic novel from Jules Verne stars Brendan Fraser as a bumbling professor searching for his brother, who with his nephew and a guide, discover the lost world inside the earth. The movie will be released in Australia in September. Looks like it will be an amusing take on an old classic.

Choke by Chuch Palahniuk is one I had not heard of before. Published in 2001, its about a medical-school dropout and con artist, who comes up with a scam to help pay the bills for his mother’s care. Starring Sam Rockwell as the main character Vincent and with Anjelica Houston, the movie will be Australian cinemas in October.

Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince - the 6th and second last in the series by J.K. Rowling is coming out in December. With the books now finished with the publication last year of the last book, I suspect that the movie will be drawing even more attention. All the regular cast will be there, participating in the penultimate battle with Voldemort. If you haven’t started reading the Harry Potter series, its never too late to start. We have it on audio as well as in print and of course the earlier movies are available on DVD.

The Other Boleyn Girl by Phillipa Gregory stars our own Eric Bana, with equally famous co-stars Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman. Phillipa Gregory is a prolific historical fiction author, who has written over 20 novels for adults and children. Two of her titles have been adapted for television, but this is the first to be made into a movie. It is out in cinemas now.

The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffennegger has been a popular book and is a highly anticipated movie, again starring our own Eric Bana. It co-stars Rachel McAdams and the rights to the movie were originally bought by Brad Pitt, who is also one of the producers. The book is Niffenegger’s first title, however she has since written “Three incestuous sisters”.

There some great reads, regardless of whether you see the movie or not. But as Hollywood is spending those millions making the movie, it seems that there is something there worth checking out. Remember that you can place holds for free and you can do it online - just click on the title you are interested in and it will take you straight to the catalogue.

So I’ll see you at the movies AND at the library!

Michelle

Great news for those time poor people or those who like to do things themselves! At Endeavour Hills and Cranbourne libraries you can now pick up your own holds. Imagine the flexibility of being able to sit at home or work, look up the books you have heard about at your local book chat, book discussion group or even on Oprah that afternoon and place a hold for free on the item to pick up at your nearest library.

There are many ways to check to see if your hold is in. Login to the library catalogue and see if it is available for you to collect, wait for the letter to be sent to you or rock up at your library, go straight to the self serve holds shelf and collect your item.

You then have the choice to take the held item with your other selections to the circulation desk and “talk to a person” OR you can take it to the self checkout machine and do it yourself*.

Now you can make your experience to the library as personal or as quick as you want it to be.

Only books, videos and talking books are able to be used at the self serve checkout machines. You will also need to bring in the library card you used to place the hold.

Monique

We have worked with our catalogue vendor and the provider of our Next Reads email newsletter content to make placing holds even easier. Now when you click on one of our booklist links or receive a Next Reads newsletter with suggested titles, click on the link and it will take you directly through to the blue Casey Cardinia Library Corporation catalogue.

Then all you have to do is go into the details of the title you want (if you haven’t already been taken directly there), click on Place Hold at the left hand side of the screen, enter your User ID and PIN, confirm your pickup branch and you’re done!

When the title arrives for you at your chosen library, you will be mailed a notice to let you know it is ready for collection. You have approximately 10 days to do so, but that can be extended upon request.

In the not too distant future, we will also be offering other means of notification, potentially by email or SMS. We will also be adding more subject based booklists, to help you find what to read next, so watch this space for more details as they come to hand!

Our new catalogue has brought lots of new features, including access to the holdings of 8 other library services, book covers, blurbs, reviews and in some instances, the first chapter available to read online.

However it has also brought a lot of change, especially for those who were used to using our old catalogue.  To help you out, Paul our Information Services Manager has created a series of helpsheets which are available online.  They tell you what is possible on our catalogue: iBistro and show you how to:

• find your ID and Pin so that you can login
• check your card - what items you have on loan and on hold
• renew your items
• place a hold

These helpsheets are all available in pdf format on our catalogue webpage, where we will add further helpsheets as they are created.  If you have any requests for further instructions or information about using the iBistro catalogue, please leave them as a comment on this blog post or use our online feedback form.