We need your help! Please take our WAPLDMC ebook survey

We’re looking for feedback on our WAPLDMC (Western Australia Public Libraries Digital Media Collection) ebooks service.  We’d love you to help by completing our 5 minute survey – please click the survey button on the WAPLDMC home page.

If you haven’t already checked out this collection please take a look at the service, check out an ebook or audio book, then come back and complete the survey!

If you are accessing WAPLDMC via an app on a tablet or smart phone, use this link to go directly to the survey.

Thanks for your help!

e-Books at the State Library – Safari Tech Books Online

Did you know our collection includes e-books? One of our e-book collections is Safari Tech Books Online – “A library of books on information technology, desktop applications and business, digitized and made available by Safari Books Online in conjunction with the original publishers. Safari books online is the e-reference library of Computer Science titles for programmers and IT professionals.”

You can browse the whole collection by clicking the link above, or searching for Safari Tech Books in the catalogue.  You’ll also find links from individual titles in the catalogue e.g. Beginning iPhone games development – BUT you can only access these books if you have State Library of WA membership or are accessing from within our building…

3 more new electronic resources at the State Library

Next time you’re visiting the State Library why not take the opportunity to view this latest batch of new electronic resources! All are available from the library catalogue terminals and from our public pcs (bookings required for public pcs). Click on the links for more information about each resource:

• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
• Oxford English Dictionary
• Grove Art Online

Remember you can only access these when using computers in the State Library building. Enjoy!

New e-books and databases at the State Library

If you’re visiting the State Library why not take the opportunity to view these new electronic resources!  All are available from the library catalogue terminals and from our public pcs (bookings required for public pcs).  Click on the links for more information about each resource:

• Australian local government guide
• Berg fashion library
• Directory of Australian associations
• Margaret Gee’s media guide
• National guide to government
• Oxford dictionaries online
• Oxford history of western music
• Who’s who in Australia
• Who’s who in business in Australia
• Who’s who of Australian women

Remember you can only access these when using computers in the State Library building.  Enjoy!

How times change – the view from 1962

How times change - sandwiched between UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA and  PUBLIC GOLF COURSE in Places to See (p.155) of the Official guide to the VIIth British Empire and Commonwealth Games Perth 1962  we find:

KWINANA FREEWAY: Perth’s pride and joy.  The Freeway is a 45-50 m.p.h.double-laned highway running from the Narrows Bridge over the Swan at the foot of King’s Park to Canning Bridge four miles to the south, and links the city with suburbs to the south of the river, and Fremantle.  It is part of a master plan which will ultimately give Perth the finest access road system in Australia.  The Freeway is barred to pedestrians, cycles, learner-drivers, agricultural or power machines, outsize vehicles and animals and you are requested not to drive on it unless you can maintain 45-50 m.p.h. in safety and confidence. 

It is fenced off throughout its length, with strikingly designed footbridges to give pedestrians crossing places from the roads of South Perth to the river beaches.  The roundabout system which controls traffic at each end of the Narrows Bridge — one of the most modern structures of its kind in the world — is on a semi-cloverleaf system wihch employs a give-way and weaving method to merge the traffic flows rather than the overway-underway method.  It is simple to follow if care is taken to read the signposting.

Lights of Kwinana Freeway, 4.5.60 - Battye Library 133458PD

(You can find more about the history of the freeway, including more photographs, by doing a subject search on Kwinana Freeway (W.A.) on the library catalogue.)

On a more poignant note under History (p. 145) we read:

In 1829 , 1003 people came to an empty land [my emphaisis] to establish a colony of the British Empire

We tell a very different story today – Katitjin [electronic resource] : a guide to indigenous records in the Battye Library.

 

Times have changed…

Small Business Benchmarks available from the ATO

Interested in finding business benchmarks?

Benchmarks provide a snapshot of how businesses in an industry are performing, on average, by providing a measure of various business costs in relation to turnover.

Small business benchmarks at www.ato.gov.au

You can now find Small business benchmarks on the ATO website:

Small business benchmarks are designed to help business meet their tax obligations by enabling them to track their performance against the rest of their industry

We have benchmarked the key business ratios for high medium and low turnover businesses for more than 100 industries. By comparing your business to the benchmarks for your industry you can assess your business’s performance.

We also use benchmarks to identify businesses that may be avoiding their tax obligations by not reporting some or all of their income.

Small business benchmarks Overview at www.ato.gov.au

You can find a  link to these benchmarks (and other useful resources for small businesses) on the Find Information for Small Business page on our website.

Australian Taxation Office

Alec Choate 1915 – 2010

 We were saddened this week to read of the death of West Australian poet Alec Choate.

Alec Choate at the Premier's Book Awards dinner on 26 February, 1998. Alec Choate was the winner of the Poetry category in the 1997 awards.

Alec Choate was born in England in 1915 and migrated to Western Australia in 1922.  He was educated at Gwelup Primary School and Hale School.  He served in the AIF in the Middle East and the Pacific in the Second World War.  After the war he worked as a surveyor with the Public Works Department.

He published seven collections of poetry and edited Summerland: A Western Australian Sesquicentenary Anthology of Poetry and Prose (1979).  He won numerous awards including the 1997 Premier’s Book Award for Poetry for his collected war poems, The Wheels of Hama.

You can find more about or by Alec Choate in the collections of the State Library.

You can read more about Alec Choate’s life in:

• UWA University News
• The West Australian Obituaries, Monday 9th August (p.39).  (also available in the library in the West Australian Archive Digital Editions)
• AustLit database (brief information only, full subscription database available in the library)

Wanted! 2010 election campaign material!

Are you being bombarded with campaign material for the upcoming federal election?  Most of us will quickly send this material to our recycling bins, but this ephemeral material is also the stuff of history. 

 The State Library is endeavouring to collect as much Western Australian – 2010 Federal Election ephemera materials as possible for its WA Heritage Collection.   

Polling Booths 1940

 

So, if you have received candidate or party leaflets/flyers, letters, campaign materials, how-to-vote cards, posters, etc for your local candidates or electorate– don’t throw them out— we would love to receive them. 

 Items can be forwarded to:- 

Collection Development Team

 State Library of Western Australia

25 Francis Street  

PERTH WA 6000

(one copy only of each item please!) 

And if you’ve got extra copies you can always send them to the National Library.

Four new databases available at the State Library

Hooray, we have four new databases available for your delectation! 

1. Literature Resource Center : Information on authors and their works in all genres and disciplines, from all time periods and from around the world using the world’s most current, comprehensive, and reliable online literature resource.
2. Biography Resource Center : An authoritative resource for biographies on notable figures in literature, science, history, government, business, art, religion, entertainment and sports
3. Science Resource Center : Millions of full-text articles on hundreds of topics from over 200 magazines and academic journals along with thousands of topic overviews, experiments, biographies, pictures, illustrations and links to quality web sites.
4. Health and Wellness Resource Center : Full-text authoritative information from journals and reference books covering health, fitness and nutrition.  (This database is also available as a Database from Home)

Click on the title links to go to the catalogue record with additional information for each resource.  To access the databases you will need to visit us at the State Library  as access is limited to those searching within the State Library building (except for the Health and Wellness Resource Center).   To book a PC you will  need to register for a free mylibrary card.  You can search for the databases in our catalogue or you can navigate to them from the Electronic Resources section of our website!

May Discard Book Sale

The SLWA Shop is having a massive May Discard Book Sale on Wednesday 26th Thursday 27^th Friday 28^th and Saturday 29^th May beginning each day at 10am and closing at 4pm. The sale will be held near the SLWA Shop, inside the SLWA main entrance on the ground floor. Prices range from 50 cents for children’s books, $1.50 for large print, $2 for fiction, $3.50 for non fiction, and some higher prices for ‘special’ books. New stock will be brought out each day.