Scheduled Outage – Public PCs

On Friday 18 November the public PCs in the Library will be temporarily unavailable due to a scheduled outage to update some hardware.
We expect everything to be up and running by 11am so disruption should be minimal.
We apologise if this causes any inconvenience.

Video may have killed the radiostar…

But it could help sell books to the NOW genereation.

Something is afoot on the Internet… books (or at least the people producing the books) are using a new tactic to get our attention and convince us to buy them – The Book Trailer!
Now, according to http://www.squidoo.com/booktrailers: Book trailers are …similar to movie trailers, in that they are designed to build interest in an upcoming or current novel… just like the trailer for a new movie. However, where the maker of a movie trailer has all the clips from the film to pick from to create their trailer. With a book trailer, the maker … has to convert written words into visual images…. and the challenge they face is that they need to convey a sense of what the book is about without giving anything away – and without really clearly defining what the characters look like, as most readers prefer to visualize what they are reading about as they imagine it themselves. Most book trailers run from one to three minutes. They can be anything from the author reading a passage from the book, to an elaborate mini-movie.

 
(Hush, Hush is available to borrow from both our Adult and Teen Fiction collections.)

Think you have what it takes to make a trailer for your favourite book? Know a creative teen who needs a new challege? Random House Publishing has the competition for you!

So come and borrow your favourite book, brush up on the details and get your creative juices flowing! And if you’re not sure where to start or what to do, why not have a look in the catalogue for some books to help you along?

Safer Internet Day 2011

Today is Safer Internet Day 2011.

To get some great tips about being safe,smart and responsible online go to Google and click the link to Read Tips and resources to keep your family safe online.

This  takes you to Google Family Safety Centre where you can learn about Google’s safety tools and view safety videos on Google’s YouTube channel.

More information can also be found at the Australian Government Cybersmart site.

Tea Tree Teens LOUD lock-in these school holidays

It’s time for teenagers to take over the Library…well, for one night at least. This Thursday night (20 Jan) from 6pm to 9pm there will be music and games and run of the Library for 13-18 year olds. Choose a CD from the collection to play on the stereo, then challenge your friends to a game on Wii Sports or Playstation.

Have some laughs with Twister or Celebrity Head, check out your favourite sites or do some random net surfing. It’s up to you! To book in, give us a call (8397 7333) and have your Library card handy. I promise no one will ‘Shhhh!’

The Internet in numbers

For those of you with more than a passing interest in statistics, ‘Royal Pingdom’ has released it’s statistics of the Internet for 2010. All the stats you wanted and never needed to know are here. Here’s a taste of some of them:

Email
107 trillion – The number of emails sent on the Internet in 2010.
294 billion – Average number of email messages per day.
1.88 billion – The number of email users worldwide.
89.1% – The share of emails that were spam

Websites and users
255 million – The number of websites as of December 2010. (That’s sites, not webpages, there are billions of webpages).
1.97 billion – Internet users worldwide (June 2010).
21.3 million – Internet users in Oceania / Australia. Given the total population of Oceania is only around 33million, that’s a tremendous percentage!

Social media
600 million – People on Facebook at the end of 2010.
30 billion – Pieces of content (links, notes, photos, etc.) shared on Facebook per month
152 million – The number of blogs on the Internet (as tracked by BlogPulse).
25 billion – Number of sent tweets on Twitter in 2010

There’s a massive amount of communication going on online.

There’s also a lot of spam! (about 95 Billion being sent a year)

Online resources @ your Library

Have you checked out our online resources?
Whether you want to work on your computer skills, start your family tree, identify antiques, catch up on the latest news or discover your next great read, there’s sure to be something for you.

The Library holds regular sessions showing you how to use these great resources.
Visit the Internet Training page to find out about upcoming sessions, or go to the Online Resources page and enter your barcode  to start using Good Reading Online, PressDisplay, TumbleReadables, Price it!, Britannica Online and more!

Wireless Internet outage

Wireless Internet access will be unavailable  on Monday 26 July, between 8am and 9pm for scheduled maintenance.
We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

Wireless Internet Outage

Just to let you know that access to Wireless Internet will be unavailable on Tuesday, 25th of May 2010 between 9:00am and 9:00pm for scheduled maintenance.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

Bookworms connect online

For those of us who love reading books, then talking about them with others, (and let’s face it, that’s most of us, isn’t it?) …

Check out this list of cool social networking sites for book lovers. It includes Library Thing and Book Crossing.

bookcrossing:n. the practice of leaving a book in a public place to be picked up and read by others, who then do likewise.

Fast fact: 70 book crossing books were released around Australia last week.

The City of Tea Tree Gully released several books last year, perhaps it’s time for us to do it again?

Change to Wireless download limits

If you access wireless internet at the Library, you will need to be aware of the pending changes to the wireless access limits.  

The aim of the Public Library Services Wireless Network is to provide the best experience in terms of speed and availability to the largest number of users.
An analysis of data taken shows the majority of wireless users accessing the internet for email, research and web browsing are suffering due to the minority of users downloading/uploading large volumes of suspect content.
To ensure that wireless internet access is fair and equitable to all, from 30 June, there will be a change to the default wireless access limits.

New Default Wireless Access Limits:
Default Download/Upload Limit: 30mb per day
Daily Total Download/Upload Time Limit – No Longer Available