An ambitious project from the National Library of Australia and State Libraries of Australia, brings us the Australian Newspaper Digitisation Project. From the website:

“The Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program will initially be digitising approximately 3 million pages over 4 years, starting in July 2007. These pages will cover a range of titles from every state and territory, from the earliest newspaper published in Australia in 1803 through to the mid 1950’s. A further million pages from the Sydney Morning Herald 1831-1954 will also be digitised.”

So far they have digitised over a million pages.

From Victoria, the project is digitising the Argus and Melbourne Argus - the great Melbourne newspaper which closed down in the 1950’s. So far they have digitised 1915 to 1945. You can search all of the papers digitised thus far on the Australian Newspapers Beta website.

As the digitisation is being done using optical character recognition (OCR), viewers are invited to correct errors on the website as you go.

I did a quick search and found a car struck a wagonette in Narre Warren in October 1924, Airdrie won the Cranbourne Cup in 1923 and a cool store was planned for Pakenham in 1915.

Why not take some time and find out some interesting facts from our local history for yourself!

Michelle

We apologise to those library members who have emailed us, or filled in one of the forms on our website or catalogue, over the weekend or today (Monday) for our lack of response.

We currently do not have access to email or the contents of these forms, due to a scheduled upgrade by our ISP. We expect to be able to respond to you by Wednesday 30th July.

In the meantime, if your request is more urgent, please contact one of our libraries.

Michelle

To quote Split Enz - “that was my mistake!”

Library members who have their email address registered with the library will have received an email with information about items that were coming due. This was a test gone wrong.

The email should have only been sent internally, but mistakenly went out to library users. It used old information from a test database, so none of the information sent was correct.

We sincerely apologise for this.

Users should also have received a follow-up email stating:

“Due to a system error, you may have received a pre-overdue reminder. Casey-Cardinia Library Corporation apologises for this. Please disregard.”

We are working towards getting email notifications working, as this mistake shows. So if you don’t have your email address registered with the library and would like to receive notices by email when we do start to offer it, please tell us your email address on your next visit to the library.

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

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

Your library is always interested in your feedback on library services, events etc. We ask visitors to fill out feedback forms after library seminars or guest speakers, we have public suggestion forms at all our branches, as well as a feedback link on our website.

However, it can be difficult to give feedback unless you have something particular in mind at the time. So to help us to hear you and to help you give focussed responses, we will now be running a regular web poll on the library homepage. Each poll will run for a few weeks and will have a different focus. If you are reading this post through an RSS feed reader, I encourage you to visit the library website and fill out the poll, which is on the bottom right of the page.

Our first poll is on how you use the library website. You can choose as many options as you like, just click in the circle next to the appropriate response(s). Once you have finished, click Vote at the bottom and you will see a summary of results thus far. Click on the Return to poll link to get back to the questions.

If you are interested, you can check the results of the survey as it continues, by clicking on the View Results link.

We have created the poll using Poll Daddy - an online service which allows you to create a poll or survey and embed it in your website.

So please take a few minutes and visit our new web poll - we would love to hear what you have to say, now and in the future.

Casey Cardinia Library Corporation is pleased to announce a new service for library users, just in time for school - Your Tutor.

As of today - Monday 21st January, students in Years 4 to 12 will be able to access a live online tutor at the Your Tutor website, using just your library card number. Your Tutor provides one on one chat help, from 4pm to 8pm Monday to Friday, a service provided by Casey Cardinia Library Corporation - FREE for our users.

Students can get assistance with maths, science, english, research and study skills, from tutors who are experts in their field. No special software is needed, just an internet connection. Get help with questions from class, extra tuition, editing essays, research reference, topics refreshers, revision for exams, exam preparation, extension questions and study strategies.

You communicate with live chat software and can draw diagrams, share files and more - all whilst online with a live tutor.

To access the service, click on the Your Tutor link anytime between 4pm and 8pm, Monday to Friday. Select the year level and subject you need help with, click connect and as soon as a tutor is available, they will start a chat. Please be patient, as at peak times this may take a few minutes.

So why not try it out before the school year begins and the rush begins to get all that work done. It is all free! You can access Your Tutor here, or look for the Your Tutor logo (pictured above) on our website.

Let us know what you think of the service - your feedback is always sought and welcome. Leave a comment here or on our feedback page.