Teddy Bear Sleepover for The Reading Hour

The Reading Hour was a special nation-wide event on Saturday 25 August 2012 for the National Year of Reading 2012.

The aim for the Reading Hour was to encourage families to share a book with their child for 10 minutes a day, one hour a week.

We encouraged parents to host their own Teddy Bear Sleepover at home and to enjoy sharing a book with their child (and their teddies!) for ten minutes between 6 and 7pm.

We hosted our own Teddy Bear Sleepover at the library on the day. Teddies and soft toys explored the library and took part in a special story time.

Here is their journey:

Arriving at the State Library of Western Australia for the Teddy Bear Sleepover!

Meeting some new friends at the library. It was so fun to meet a tiny robot and a baby manatee, but the dalek scared us a little!

Hanging out in the State Library Shop.

Checking out Better Beginning‘s “Baby Ways” board book.

Who is this here in the mirror!?

The staff at the State Library are so helpful!

Riding up the lift to explore the library. Wheeee!

Meeting the State Library’s “Books Moove Me Cow!“. She was painted by Western Australian children’s book illustrators!

Meeting another State Library staff member. What a funny man.

Accessing e-books from the State Library for free!

Checking out the view from the 2nd floor of the State Library.
Look, there’s the BankWest Tower! Can you spot any other Perth landmarks?

Enjoying afternoon tea in The Place. What’s your favourite afternoon treat?

Having fun at a very special Reading Hour story time!

All tucked in after our bed-time story. Goodnight everybody!

There are lots of fun and creative ways to share books with your children. If you can manage 10 minutes most nights, your child will have the best chance of becoming a good reader, with all the social and educational benefits that brings.

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.

Create your own Australian Census Data Tables with CDATA Online tool

Those clever people at the ABS have done it again…  As well as internet access to pre-formatted Australian Census Data through their Quick Stats, Census Tables, Map Stats and Community Profiles you can use the CDATA Online (as a registered or guest user):

to create your own tables of Census data on a range of different topics such as: age, education, housing, income, transport, religion, ethnicity, occupation and more

CDATA Online has now been nominated for two prestigious awards:

[CDATA Online is] one of 10 finalists for the eGovernment award, with the winner announced on 13 May 2009. The second nomination is for the ESRI GIS Challenge, an award that is decided by public votes, with voting open until the end of May 2009. If you have enjoyed the innovative and helpful elements that CDATA Online has brought to you and/or your business then please feel free to vote for us at the ESRI GIS Challenge website. 

 Congratulations to the ABS and thanks for the wonderful data!

Don’t get ripped off…

With the current turmoil in the financial markets it’s a good time to make sure you don’t lose more money to fraudsters and scamsters…

The ACCC are active in helping save us from fraudulent activity and have recently updated their Little Black Book of Scams, a handy consumer guide alerting us to the most common ploys used by scamsters.  As well as online and free print copies of the Little Black Book, their website provides a whole wealth of other consumer information .

More information can be found on our hot topic Identifying Scams Swindles Frauds and Hoaxes.

What’s up with the Financial Literacy Foundation

Have you heard of the Financial Literacy Foundation?  They exist to:

give all Australians the opportunity to increase their financial knowledge and better manage their money

Many of you will be aware of the Understanding Money website and publications – if you are not you should check them out!

The Foundation has now moved to ASIC – you can read more about the transfer and what the foundation is doing with financial literacy in schools in Paul Clitheroe’s article Financial literacy campaign rolls on.

ParlInfo Search – Wow!

Wow, this is a great updating of a great resource from the Australian Parliament:

ParlInfo Search enables everyone to search and obtain Australian Parliamentary information resources including Hansards, Bills, Senate Journals, Votes and Proceedings, Notice Papers, Committee reports, Parliamentary Handbook, newspaper clippings, media, publications and much more. It will also search for information located on the Australian Parliament website.

 

It is a major resource for Senators, Members and their staff, based in Parliament House or in electorate offices throughout Australia, parliamentary staff, and the general public.

You can find more infomation (including and introductory video) on the What is ParlInfo Search page, or just start searching!

Paul Clitheroe honoured!

Congratulations to Financial Literacy guru Paul Clitheroe - In the recent Queen’s Birthday Honours list he was awarded Membership of the Order of Australia

For service to the finance sector through the promotion of financial literacy, and to the community

Paul Clitheroe is one of our business heroes. As Chairman of the Financial Literacy Foundation Advisory Board he’s a key figure in the Understanding Money campaign

…to give all Australians the opportunity to increase their financial knowledge and better manage their money.

You may know of Paul from the Nine Network television programme Money, he still contributes to Money Magazine and to the Money website.  (My personal finances have improved considerably since I began reading Money Magazine!)

The State Library of WA is part of the Australia-wide network of financial literacy resource providers – if you want to find out more come and join us this Thursday (12 June) when the Business Subject Specialists present “Money: your bottom line” 11am-12 noon, 1st floor, Alexander Library Building, Perth Cultural Centre.  Ring 9427 3111 to book your place.  Can’t make this weeks session?  We are repeating the session on Thurday 17th July, 5:30-6:30pm.  Contact the Business Subject Specialists for more details.

You can read more about the honours list in news stories from Google News Australia, and more about the Australian system of honours at the It’s an Honour website.

Exciting Resources for Accountants…

No it’s not an oxymoron!  Following the trend of libraries to pull together the best resources no matter what the format (web, subscription databases and even good old print) the librarians at the Knowledge Centre of the Australian Institute of Chartered Accountants have published a great series of Quick Reference Guides  that

direct members and candidates to key print, journal and online resources on each topic

 Of course you have to be a member of the Institute to use its library services, however guides like this from reputable sources can be a great help when researching a topic.  You can search our catalogue, Libraries Australia, or the catalogue and websites of your University and see which items are available to you.

Australia in numbers – 100 years of Year Book Australia on the web…

Most of us will be aware of the work of the Australian Bureau of Statistics – all Australians will have come across the Census – and most of us will at some stage (at school or uni or in their local library come across that wonderful annual compilation Year Book Australia.  This year is the 100th anniversary of the publication of the first yearbook in 1908 – and you can access every edition free (along with the Census and many other statistics) online on the Australian Bureau of Statistics Website.  You can read more about the history and usefulness of the Australian Year Book in the 2008 edition on the ABS website.