Carnegie Medal & Kate Greenaway Medal winners announced

The winners of the 2009 Carnegie Medal (for an outstanding book for children) and the Kate Greenaway Medal (for distinguished illustration in a book for children) have been announced.

The winner of the Carnegie Medal is Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd (left).

The winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal is Harris Finds His Feet by Catherine Rayner (left).

Hazel Edwards at RMIT University Library, Bundoora

The Library and the School of Education have organised their annual children’s author visit for quite a few years now. It is generally organised to coordinate with one the School courses but is open to all RMIT staff and students who are interested. In past years we have had Doug MacLeod, Morris Gleitzman, Leigh Hobbs, Carole Wilkinson and Shaun Tan.  Last year we were enthralled by Shaun Tan’s unusual illustrative talents and the students were genuinely motivated and interested in hearing his writing story.

This year we welcome a very different, but no less acclaimed and accomplished author.  Hazel Edwards may be best known for ‘There’s a Hippopotamus on Our Roof Eating Cake’ (and a recent official Australian government gift to the Danish Princess), but she also writes for older children and adults. Her latest works about to be released is a picture book about 13, a platypus who is a part-time plumber with a tool kit for fixing grumpy people and she will be releasing a new Hippopotamus book in 2010 to celebrate the series 30th Anniversary.

In 2001 as the Australian Antarctic Division writer, Hazel Edwards was part of a resupply expedition to Casey Station, and researched her subsequent Antarctic writing. Since she writes for children and adults, her cross-media Antarctic stories have unique perspectives ranging from the e-mail links to keep expeditioner families in touch during remote winters, to vehicles, icebergs and wildlife. Her stories are animated, illustrated, photographed, in Braille and even Auslan signed DVDs for hearing impaired.

“Being an author means the opportunity to live more intensively by participant observation in places like Antarctic expeditions, but also by using imagination and asking ‘What if?’ as in the creation of the cake-eating hippo. Sometimes books travel even further than the author, into the minds and actions of readers”.

We are delighted to announce that Hazel Edwards will speak to students at:

RMIT University Library,  Bundoora 
 level one
on Friday 14th August
9.30 – 10.30am
Morning tea provided.  All welcome!
For more details contact June Frost on 99256576 or email: june.frost@rmit.edu.au

Catalogue display from staff offices

We’ve recently had reports from academic staff about problems with the catalogue from their staff office. When they open the catalogue the layout is clearly broken, and they also report that searches are very slow.

These reports all seem to come from on-campus and we suspect the staff affected are using the Internet Explorer version 6 web browser. This corresponds with our tests here in the Library.

The short term advice is that if staff have this problem they should use the F5 key (refresh) and the page should load and display the best that IE6 can do with our catalogue. There will always be some issues with IE 6. Staff may have to use F5 several times through their session to get the best results.

A better solution is for staff to upgrade their browser to Internet Explorer version 7. Staff can install the upgrade themselves by launching

Start -> Install Apps (RMIT) -> Microsoft -> Internet Explorer 7 Install.

Allow some time for the installation – it can take a few minutes. This installer for IE 7 is provided by ITS, so staff should feel comfortable about adding the software to their computers. If they have concerns they should speak to ITS Help Desk.

We are also following up the IE 7 roll out with ITS.

Readers for ESL programs at Carlton and Brunswick

We have just ordered some readers and CDs for the ESL courses at Carlton and Brunswick campuses. Teachers are always very welcome to send through any requests or orders for English language materials for the TAFE area.

We have also added a “Readers” page in the ESL subject guide.

Scopus expands arts and humanities coverage

Scopus is one of the key citation databases used to analyse citation information. It has been selected as a citation data supplier for the ERA.

Scopus now announces the launch of expanded Arts & Humanities (A&H) coverage as per mid-June. A&H coverage in Scopus has added nearly 1,450 new titles. Scopus users will now benefit from broader access to close to 3,500 international A&H journals dating back to 2002 in a variety of subject areas including-

• Education
• History
• Developmental & Educational and Social Psychology
• Literature and Literary Theory
• Architecture, Design

SAGE Reference Online

We have a trial currently of Sage Reference Online. It covers a range of discipline areas but the relevant works in education are listed below. Let us know what you think via the feedback form.

• Encyclopedia of Children, Adolescents, and the Media
• Encyclopedia of Distributed Learning
• Encyclopedia of Educational Leadership and Administration
• Encyclopedia of Human Development
• Encyclopedia of Religious and Spiritual Development

Library liaison with the Bachelor of Education at Bundoora

I just want to let you know that June Frost will now be the library liaison for the Bachelor of Education at Bundoora. June has been helping me at Bundoora for a while now especially in teaching classes, along with work around the subject guides and library collections. We are very lucky to have her as she is an experienced and able librarian and has an education degree.  I will be introducing her around but if you have any queries related to the B. Ed I’m sure she will be happy to assist in any way she can.

Just to remind you of some of the things we can help with:

• research skills classes
• acquisition and management of resources and collections
• links to readings and resources via your online course
• development of guides and tutorials
• advice in using and accessing resources

I will still be responsible for liaising with the School as a whole across the higher ed and TAFE sectors and across its four sites. For the next few months I will also be acting College Liaison Manager for DSC, essentially managing the team of librarians who liaise with the schools in the DSC college.

New serials requests

The Library considers new serial requests once a year around July/August and any that are approved will begin in the new year. If you have any requests please send them through now.

Because serials represent an ongoing cost for us, they require an extra level of justification in terms of how they will be used, what they contribute to the existing collection, their relative importance etc. If you send through a request I will be in touch about some of these issues.

Journals approved in 2008 are listed below, mainly relevant to teacher education courses at Bundoora. I’m happy to receive requests from all areas, including for the Carlton, Swanston and Brunswick sites.

• Lets Find Out
• Teaching Children Mathematics 
• Waikato Journal of Education 
• New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies 

ACER educational research repository

ACEReSearch is the online research repository of the Australian Council
for Educational Research, maintained by the Cunningham Library.

ACEReSearch contains in excess of 450 reports, working papers,
conference papers produced by ACER and available for access and download
free of charge.

Visitors to the repository can subscribe to an RSS feed or customize
their own email alert to parameters of their choosing if they want to be
informed of recent additions to the repository.

The repository provides full-text access to Research Development, ACER’s
newsletter, produced twice year.

The Australian Journal of Education is also hosted on ACEReSearch. It
provides access to the tables of contents and abstracts of recently
published issues of the journal.

UK University to make all research open access

Via Library Intelligencer and CILIP blog, and article from the Financial Times on University College London making all their research freely available online.

Paul Ayris, head of the UCL library and an architect of the plan to put all its research on a freely accessible UCL website, said he had backed open access because the existing system of having to visit a library or pay a subscription fee to see research in journals erected “barriers” to the use of research. “This is not good for society if you’re looking for a cure for cancer,” he said.

UPDATE: 10 University-Press Directors Back Free Access to Scholarly Articles