Checking new titles via the catalogue

The catalogue has reinstated the new titles list for a while now. You are able to check all the books arriving at a particular campus and filter by subject term, author name and so on. The example above filters brunswick titles for the last 4 weeks by call no area 370s (education). I’ve entered “37″ so that it picks up from 370-379.

Recent education books arriving at Brunswick include:

• Teachers as cultural workers : letters to those who dare teach / Paulo Freire
• Teaching to transgress : education as the practice of freedom / Bell Hooks
• Educating for human rights and global citizenship / edited by Ali A. Abdi and Lynette Shultz.
• Learning to teach : new times, new practices / Gloria Latham … [et al.] .
• Counternarratives : studies of teacher education and becoming and being a teacher / Robert V. Bullough, Jr
• Teaching as a subversive activity / Neil Postman [and] Charles Weingartner
• The courage to teach guide for reflection and renewal / Parker J. Palmer with Megan Scribner

AustLit: The Australian Literature Resource

The latest AustLit newsletter came out recently and I thought it a good opportunity to promote this resource. AustLit contains information on writing by and about Australian authors and includes a subset specifically on children’s literature. We have links from our Children’s literature guide to this resource, and I have just added it to the VCE guide. Students can use AustLit to identify works, reviews, biographical information and so on.

The latest newsletter includes information on the launching of the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature, recent awards and shortlists, coverage of the parallel importation report.

Palgrave e-book Collection database on trial

On trial until 9 October 2009

Palgrave Connect is an ebook collection in the Humanities, the Social Sciences and Business. Over 4000 Palgrave Macmillan ebooks are available in collections organized by year of publication and by discipline. Categories for education include

• Aims & Objectives
• Curricula
• Educational Reform
• General
• Higher Education
• History
• Multicultural Education
• Non-Formal Education
• Organizations & Institutions
• Parent Participation
• Teaching

The trial won’t give you access to the full range of books but will let you see what is available.
Should we add this database to our collections? Please test this database and use our evaluation form to let us know soon.

New National Education Certificate proposed

A recent article in the Sunday Herald Sun draws on a paper created by the newly formed Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority, which reveals the transition to new national subjects and standards.

ACARA chairman Prof Barry McGaw said details of the year 11 and 12 national curriculum in the four core areas were being drafted and were due to come on stream in 2012.

He said a fully fledged “Australian School Certificate” could come after that.

“We have looked at the best curricula around the world. We believe we will be able to deliver a world-class system,” he said.

ACARA has been created as an education super-body.

It is a statutory authority of the Federal Parliament with powers to oversee curricula, assessment and the recently announced reporting on schools.

Under the plan, initially the year 11 and 12 national curriculum will apply to English, Maths, Science and History, but plans are in progress to extend it to other subjects.

It is possible to configure Google news to feed items on the national curriculum. We also have newspaper databases such as Factiva and ANZ Newsstand  or even TVNews (for video content) that will allow you to keep up to date on the news reports.

School of Education items in the Research Repository

The RMIT University Research Repository has been operating for a little while now and items are starting to flow through from the School of Education. Items are being identified from HERDC but there is also information on how you can contribute research items to the Repository in the FAQs. This is a great way to raise your research profile as well as allowing you to easily point colleagues to published research .

To search on particular author names you will need to use the Advanced search option. You will be able to see the number of times each publication has been viewed. There is also the option to set up an RSS feed so that you are alerted when new publications by an author are added. Here are some of the publications currently included:

• Michael Crowhurst
• Heather Fehring
• Annette Gough
• Berenice Nyland

Library Survey 2009: Tell us what you think

The Library is surveying users – we only do this once a year, and it is the best way to let us know what you need.  Could you please give us 10 minutes to tell us how we could improve the service?  The survey link is available from the Library website.