Libraries Australia - connecting people with books!
I love the National Library of Australia for many reasons. This is one of them. They do many things right web-wise and deliver on their promise to reach out and engage with the community. The PictureAustralia-Flickr project is a case in hand.
Another case is the Libraries Australia service and the potential it allows for building networks of information and connecting people with books – always a good thing! Take, for example, the use we have been able to make of persistent identifiers in citing into this resource in the Australian Dictionary of Biography Online Edition. (My colleagues and I at the Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre at the University of Melbourne are the technical – but so much more than that – partners involved with getting the ADB online.) Rather than the user coming to a page of information about a publication giving only straight bibliographic information, they can now follow a link into Libraries Australia which lists all the libraries in Australia (one hopes one near you) where the publication can be found.
The National Library has also provided the code to add a Libraries Australia search box to your own website, something we will investigate for the Australian Dictionary of Biography Online Edition.
But I’m not really as excited about that as I sound. Just thought I’d give you some academic and community minded reason to care. What I did enjoy doing this morning was putting in the names of myself and three of my friends who have published books in the last two years and seeing whether any public libraries in Australia have our books – and they do!
Blue Mauritius has been out in Australia since 17 October (8 weeks) and in that time it has been procured by 12 public libraries in Australia (and one in America that I know about because they contacted me – the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill). I’m so pleased.
Angela Savage’s book Behind the Night Bazaar is currently available at 36 libraries (wow!) and Jill Koolmees’s book My Desert Kingdom is at 78 libraries (wow wow!). Russ Weakley’s book CSS in 10 Minutes is at two public libraries here in Australia (but that still excites me).
So go on and find some books to borrow! (I just wish someone could tell me why the code doesn’t display the box properly… Russ?)
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Search Libraries Australia
EDIT (29 December): Another excellent thing I’ve noticed, as a result of the persistent URL, is that when I search Google on Blue Mauritius Helen Morgan (as one does occasionally) the Libraries Australia reference comes up in the first page of results. Well done National Libary.
And for your own private library catalogue, have a play with Library Thing.
Liddy Nevile put me on to this, and it is great! Either labourously enter details of your books, or just find someone else with a library like yours and ‘grab’ books from thier shelves. Library Thing will give you catalogue details from Amazon, Library of Congress, Libraries Australia and a bunch more.
I love it, even though my library isn’t very big yet. (But that will change.)
URLs are:
Library Thing
My catalogue on Library Thing
I did try this, but was a bit lazy to do more than add Blue Mauritius, naturally!
Applying it to your own situation is always the fun part. I love seeing what we do at work in a more personal setting. Very enjoyable reading thanks Hélène.
Not only is it in our local library (Mornington - Rosebud branch) but am also pleased to report that it was on loan when I looked it up in their catalogue on my last visit. Hope the borrower liked it as much as I did.