Christmas Greetings

It is hard to believe that it really is that time of the year for Christmas storytimes and holiday activities. We have had a very busy few weeks leading up to out short break. All our library branches will be closed from today until Monday January 5 2009. After hours return chutes are available at all branches during this time. When we return we are launching right into a great range of Summer Read activities for children and adults. Most activities are free but do require booking in. Highlights over the summer holidays include hosting our Summer Read author Stephen Conte on January 15 at Radcliffes. We are also conducting art workshops with local artists so children from our Shire can send their artwork over to our sister city Shiroi. We currently have a range of artwork from Shiroi being displayed in our libraries. We also have special guest Darryl Bellingham all the way from Queensland to take us on digital storytelling journeys. There is also scrapbooking, games, twilight storytimes and lots of prizes to be won. This is a great time of the year so come along and join in. All details about the Summer Reading Club are on our website. We have a number of storytimes over the last few weeks so we have included a few photos. Look forward to posting some more blogs for you in 2009.

Regards, the Campaspe Regional Library team

Library Building Developments

Exciting times for Campaspe Regional Library Service. We have two building projects on the go at the moment and it is definitely time for an update. At Kyabram we are moving along nicely, fine tuning the plan, ordering shelving, choosing colour schemes and designing our new desk. It looks like the new Kyabram Library which will be located at Lake Road at the Shire of Campaspe Customer Service Centre will be opening early in 2009. We were very happy that the State Government has provided Living Libraries funding of $93,500 for this project to proceed. A plan of the new library is now available to be viewed at the current library in Allan Street. We will also make one available asap at the Lake Road site.

The Echuca Community Hub project has now moved into the detailed design phase after Council has confirmed it will go ahead with the preferred design, despite the higher than expected cost. Council officers will now seek extra funding from either federal or other potential sources. As part of this exciting project Council recently secured the adjacent laneway which will be incorporated into the design to provide the desired access and alfresco dining area for the proposed cafe. The preferred design is available for viewing at the Echuca Customer Service Centre, Heygarth St, Echuca, the Echuca Library on High St and the Anstruther St site where it is all going to happen within the next twelve months. We cant wait for both projects to be completed to provide our Kyabram and Echuca communities with improved library facilities.

Summer Reading Kicks off

The Campaspe Regional Library are excited about being involved in the State Library of Victoria's Summer Read Program. We are thrilled to announce that we have secured a very special author for a guest appearance on January 15th at Radcliffes. Steven Conte, who wrote the Zookeeper's War and won the inaugral Prime Minister's Literary Prize for doing so, will be visiting Echuca as part of the Summer Read program. As well as author visits across the state, people can vote for their favourite book from the Summer Read list and be in the running to win one of five vouchers for accommodation at a Best Western Hotel, or a pack of all 20 Summer Read books, a Sovereign Hill Ticket package, 12 mini libraries of five Victorian books and 15 $100 book vouchers. Prizes will be drawn at the State Library on March 20th 2009, voting closes on Feb 28, 2009. Last Friday three of our library staff attended the official launch of the Summer Read where we caught up with Alan Brough (actor and bookworm...and of Spicks and Specks fame). Alan is the ambassador for the Summer Read program. For more info about all the books and author visits please go to www.slv.vic.gov.au/goto/summer We will have more information about the author visit soon. We will have all the books on the Summer Read list so get reading and voting.

Spend a night with us at the movies

Next Thursday night at 7pm the Library service is hosting the Echuca premier of Nights in Rodanthe at the Echuca Paramount Theatre. The movie stars Richard Gere and Diane Lane and is based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks. Tickets are available at all of our branches, cost is $17 and includes a delicious supper after the movie. Please come along, relax and enjoy a great night out. Any proceeds of the night will go towards purchasing new items for the Campaspe Library Service.

The official movie website is http://nightsinrodanthe.warnerbros.com/ so if would like to know more about it please click on that link.

Please ring us on 1300 666 535 for more information

Family Play Day 2008

Next Friday 24th October from 10am - 1pm we are taking part in the Family Play Day at Rochester to celebrate Children's Week. This is a free event supported by the Campaspe Early Childhood Network. Our Library Children's Services Coordinator Linda will be having storytime sessions during the morning. There will be plenty of other free activities for 0-6 year olds including skittles, balls and balloons, play dough, sensory play, water play, collage. The setting at the Rotary Park lends itself to plenty of play space for the children. Come along, support this free event, have a picnic lunch. Have fun with your children. If you require further info about the Play Day please contact Bernadette on 5481 2239 or Michelle 5481 2260 at the Shire of Campaspe. Look forward to seeing you there!

Be Eye Wise Avoid Glaucoma Blindness

After a very successful school holiday program and visit from author and Model T expert John Duncan (it's been a great week in the Shire with all the beautiful Model T Fords here) we are now gearing up for the Victorian Seniors Festival. We have joined forces with the Glaucoma Australia who will be visiting each branch next week to conduct free talks about Glaucoma. Glaucoma is the name given to a group of eye diseases in which the optic nerve at the back of the eye is slowly and permanently destroyed. If you need to know more about the condition please come along to one of the sessions or go to http://www.glaucoma.org.au/ for more information.

The free sessions are as follows, please contact Karen on 5482 1997 if you require further information.

Tongala Library, Mangan Street, Thursday October 9, 10am

Kyabram Library, Allan St, Thursday October 9, 12pm

Rushworth Library, High St, Thursday October 9, 2.30pm

Echuca Library - will be held at the Shire Function Room, Heygarth St, Thursday October 9, 7 pm and Friday October 10, 10.30am

Rochester Library, Mackay Street, Friday October 10, 2.30pm

Each seminar will be conducted by Catia Sicari from Glaucoma Australia

Join us - Be Eye Wise Avoid Glaucoma Blindness

Model T Fords are on their way to Echuca

Just another reminder that we are having special guest author John Duncan visit us on Wednesday October 1st at 7pm at the Echuca Library. John has written a wonderful book called 'any colour...so long as it's black, designing the Model T Ford 1906-1908'. John's visit coincides with the Centenary Rally of the Model T Ford Club to be held in Echuca from Sunday 28/09/2008 to Saturday 04/10/2008. More information about the actual rally can be found at http://www.modeltfordclubvic.org.au/ We encourage all car enthusiasts to come along and view the cars during the week and also hear John speak on the Wednesday night. The Echuca library currently has a small display of Ford items, if you have any memorabilia to add we would be happy to display it for you. For the children we also have a colouring competition, entry forms are available at any of our branches. For more details about John's visit please contact Karen on 5482 1997.

We are getting arty these holidays

Please drop into the Kyabram Branch to view an art exhibition which is showcasing Lynne Hume's fantastic artwork until October 2nd.

Lynne is also conducting Jungle Collage holiday activities at Echuca Library on 25th September at 11am and 2pm and Kyabram on 2nd October at 11am. Bookings are essential for this and there is a small charge of $2 per child. Please contact Karen (54821997) or Anna (58523382) for more details.

We are also celebrating the Year of the Potato in the holidays at Kyabram (24th Sept 2.30pm), Rushworth (30th September 1pm) and Echuca (2nd October 10.30am). Kids are invited to come along to make a Mr Potato Head, just bring yourself and a potato. Contact these branches for more details.

The Monster Petition Project Banner makes its way to Echuca Branch next week, there are a large number of signatures already so please come along and add yours.

Also a reminder about our other upcoming events at the Echuca branch are

Reflexology Workshop, Thursday September 18th, 10.30am at the Shire Function Room, Heygarth St, Echuca

100 year of the Model T Ford, author John Duncan will be speaking at the library on Wednesday October 1st from 7-8pm

Father's Day is a day early at our library service

We would like to invite all dads and grand-dads and and their families to special Father's Day storytime sessions to be held at the Echuca, Kyabram and Rochester branches this Saturday 6th September. The sessions will start at 10.30, there will be stories, songs and craft activity. It is FREE and there is no need to book. For more details please contact Karen at Echuca, Anna at Kyabram or Marion at Rochester on 1300 666 535. We have special guests from our community reading the stories.

We certainly wish all the Dads out there a Happy Fathers Day for Sunday. And remember we have some great books, dvds and magazines that dads might like to borrow.

Upcoming events

Our participation in the Monster Petition Project is continuing. The banner is currently at our Rushworth Branch and will be moving to Rochester next week and then Echuca in middle of September. Many signatures have been added, is yours there yet?

In September we also have some other special events taking place. The first are special Father's Day storytimes at our Echuca and Kyabram Branches on Saturday 6th September at 10.30am. We welcome all kids to bring along their dads for a very special morning.

On Thursday 18th we have a guest presenter talking about Reflexology, this will take place at the Echuca Function Room at 10.30am.

At the end of September we are supporting the Model T Ford Centenary Rally which will be coming through Echuca. John Duncan, expert and author on Model Ts will be running a very informative session and display on Wednesday 1st October at the Echuca Library from 7pm. We look forward to hearing from John and there will be a large range of books on the subject to view as well.

Fuel your mind - celebrating Children's Book Week

It will soon be Children's Book Week but here at Campaspe we celebrate the annual Children's Book Council event all month. Each branch is conducting Children's Book Week sessions which acknowledge the wonderful Children's authors and illustrators and the fantastic stories that have been produced by them. The Branch Librarians and Children's Services Coordinator Linda have developed some great activities for the children and teachers to undertake when they visit the library. We thank our friends at Zart Art that are always inspirational when it comes to ideas for art and craft activities. Please visit one of our branches to view the nominated books, the winning authors and illustrators will be announced later in the month.

A reminder also that we have a large range of Premier's Reading Challenge books that have recently been purchased through additional funding from the State Government. The books in the challenge are easily identifiable with PRC stickers on them. We thank our Local Member Paul Weller for officially launching the collection recently when guest author Leigh Hobbs visited Echuca.

Winter Blues Festival

Well, it was cold, it was wet and it was definitely winter! Echuca Branch hosted the band Forever Autumn who played from lunchtime till about 3.3opm yesterday. Due to the weather conditions the guys decided to play in the back room and open the doors out into the street - well at least they were a bit warmer! Thanks to the band members Tom, James, Mark and Jess for performing in the challenging conditions (Echuca reached 9 degrees) and to the great (but cold) parents and friends who came along and supported them. Thanks also to Leon from our Shire Arts and Culture team for providing the PA for the day. We wish the band well as they compete in the Bendigo Battle of the Bands next month.

Open Day Success

Thanks to the community of Echuca and surrounds for coming along and visiting the new library site on July 12th. Over 200 people ventured in and toured through the building. The project working group were able to capture some very valuable feedback from you and this has assisted them to continue to develop an exciting plan. The schematic design phase is about to be completed and then the process moves on into detailed design. Once this stage has been completed I will be able to post some plans up on the blog. We also welcome your ideas about the future use of the existing library building, there are forms available in the Echuca branch or you can send your thoughts into us.

Echuca Community Hub and Library Open Day

On Saturday July 12th from 11am-2pm another milestone will be reached in the planning towards the new library for Echuca. All residents are invited to come along to the new library site (old supermarket) at cnr Anstruther Street and High Street, Echuca and look through the building to get an idea what is planned for the development. You will able to walk around the building, plans in hand and stand in the spaces that have been allocated for the library, family history resource centre, toy library, maternal and child health, shops, small and large community meeting rooms, function area, staff work areas, baby care/change room and toilets. The architects Suters Prior Cheney have been working hard to provide artist impression sketches to help you visualise what could be! There will be feedback forms available on the day. There will also be forms available asking you your thoughts about the current library's use once we move to the new site. There will also be a free BBQ at lunchtime. So come along, we value your input and ideas.

Special events

Over the next month or so we have a few special things happening at our library service. As it is school holidays soon we have author Rhonda Tallnash visiting Echuca and Kyabram on Thursday July 3rd. Rhonda is a local author/illustrator, please contact our libraries for details.

We also joining in the the Village Roadsshow get smart @ your library campaign, more information in my next post.

Author Leigh Hobbs is visiting Echuca on July 23rd, there will be a special book signing at 2.45 at the Campaspe Shire Function Room, Heygarth St, Echuca.

We are also participating in the 2008 Monster Petition Project which is celebrating 100 years of women's right to vote. The aim is to collect 30,000 signatures in acknowledgment of the achievement of the original Monster Petition and as a commitment to pursuing equality for women in all aspects of Victorian life. The banners will be sewn together at the end of the year and displayed at the November Finale and Parliament House Open Day. The banner will be at our Tongala branch for a few weeks and then will be moving onto Kyabram, Rushworth, Rochester and Echuca. Please call us on 1300 666 535 if you would like to know any more details about the events that I have just mentioned.

Flyaway Showcase

I would like to mention and thank Ellen and the Flyaway Street Team for organising music sessions at our Kyabram Library. The first one was held during Youth Week in April and last Tuesday night saw the first of the monthly events kick off. A range of artists from across the region entertained a small and engaged crowd at the Kyabram Library. It was great to see what talent we have in the area and that this type of thing is happening in our libraries. Well done to our staff and Ellen from Flyaway for getting this off the ground, hope there are many more enjoyable nights to come. For more information you can contact the Flyaway street team fly_away_streetteam@hotmail.com

Hey, it's Library and Information Week

We would love to see you this week at our libraries to celebrate Library and Information Week. We have a range of things happening including short and informal lessons about our new online catalogue "ibistro". There is a session at Tongala Library this evening at 7pm, tomorrow night at Rochester at 6.30 and Echuca at 7pm and Rushworth at 2.30pm. There are some great new features so please come along or if you cant make it at that time we have produced a brochure that explains how to make most of your new catalogue. We are also taking part in the National Simultaneous Storytime at Tongala Pre School tomorrow at 11.30 and Kyabram Library at 10.30am on Thursday. Kyabram Friends of the Library are also hosting Biggest Morning Tea on Friday from 10.30. We will also have the latest books to hit the shelves to have a look at. During this week we are also conducting a Book Amnesty so please return your overdue books and your fines will be waived. There are Mystery "Grab a bag" books at Tongala and Rochester Libraries. So there is heaps happening to celebrate that "Libraries are for all".

Memory Victoria Roadshow

This coming Wednesday night, 30th April at the Kyabram Library we have a special event taking place. We are one of the twelve libraries in Victoria to host the Memory Victoria Roadshow. It will be held at the Kyabram branch from 6pm-7.30pm, bookings preferred on 5852 3382. Come along and hear from an expert historian and panel who will share some stories about the travelling items which include a collection of Ash Wednesday Photographs, 1900 edition of Babes in the Bush, 'On the Beach' photo album, 'The Riverlander' periodicals and a selection of Carols by Candlelight programs from the 40s. The Memory Victoria Roadshow is presented for free by Victorian Public libraries and the State Library of Victoria to showcase the wealth of wonderful community stories that are housed in public library Local History collections.

Our new computer system is on its way!

The real countdown has begun, this time next week we will be going 'live' with our new Library Management system that I previously spoke about. On Thursday April 17th we will be changing over to the Unicorn system as part of the SWIFT consortium. What does this mean for you?

The first thing is that our libraries will be all closed until 2pm on the 17th. We need to make sure that all is running well and that the staff are feeling comfortable with the new system. If you have any items to return please do so via the after hours books chutes at all our branches. The other thing that we would like to mention is that we would love all our library members to bring their cards with them to borrow items, this will certainly help us with using the new system. If you think you have lost your card we are happy to replace it for a small fee.

Our online catalogue is called ibistro - this will also have a new look and added features. The catalogue will be linked from our current website www.campaspe.vic.gov.au/library .

Anyway, all the staff are really looking forward to becoming one of 14 library services across the state that are working in the same system - sharing our skills, knowledge and resources - way to go!

Free resources at your fingertips

Did you know that all Campaspe Regional Library members have access to a wide range of free online resources that can be accessed from our website www.campaspe.vic.gov.au/library If you would like to use them, either from home, work or school all you need is your library card and access to the internet. You can of course access them at all library branches. What sort of resources am I talking about? It would be an extremely long post to list everything that is available but I will highlight a few things that I think you and your family or workmates may find very useful. We have Encyclopedia Britannica which includes versions aimed at primary and secondary school students. There are two Health information resources, one of them features videos that explain medical problems and terms. A Science resource centre with a range of topics from anatomy to zoology. If you require magazine and journal articles for study/research there are two databases that contain 100s of national and international articles - these can be printed or emailed to yourself for later reference. You can also access an Australian based site which has newspapers including the Age, Herald Sun and magazines like Choice, House and Garden, Womens Weekly just to name a few.If you go to the website as listed above then click on useful links, this will take you to all the resources.

Also a very special resource that we are proud to offer to all library members is the Your Tutor facility which provides students from years 4-12 access to free online tutoring in a variety of subjects every day of the week from 4pm-8pm. Again, you just need a library card, if you don't have one, come in today and join the library - it's free!! If you would like to find our more about these resources please contact your nearest library branch or jump onto the website and check them out. Give us a call on 1300 666 535 if you have any questions.

Coming soon - New Library Management System

I guess by the title you might think I mean a new staffing arrangement. This is not the case. In fact we are about to launch our new Library Management System (software) that looks after our daily work on our computers. For many years in our library branches we have been using an excellent product from a company called Dynix. This system provides the software to check out, check in, reserve library material and provide an online catalogue. Of course it does alot of the workroom stuff like cataloguing and changing the location of stock as it moves from branch to branch. Well, it is now time to upgrade to a much improved system called Symphony which is a Sirsi Dynix product. We have chosen to go with this system because it allows us to be part of a Victorian Consortium of other Library Services called SWIFT. We will be joining 11 other library services in Victoria to provide you with a massive online catalogue of over 2,500,000 items (currently we have just under 100,000 items here at Campaspe) which is a huge increase of what will be available to you. We will be able to borrow items from the other library services in the SWIFT consortium. Our online catalogue will have a new look and will be called ibistro. I will provide some more information about the new system in the days to come, at the moment the library staff are very busy preparing for it's launch. It will be fantastic and we are all looking forward to implementing many new features - for us and for you.

Echuca Community Hub Library Update

We were thrilled to find out last week that we were recipients of a $500,000 grant through the Living Libraries Program (State Government). This money will go towards our multi-million dollar project at Anstruther Street, Echuca to develop our new Library and Community Hub facility.

The Minister for Local Government, Richard Wynne made the announcement on Tuesday March 18th in front of Mayor John Elborough, Council CEO Keith Baillie, Local Member for Rodney Paul Weller, Councillors Simpson, McDonald and Lawler, Library staff and invited guests.

The site will now begin to transform into a wonderful community facility. We are now up to the stage of choosing the architect for this project that will bring together a range of community groups,state of the art library facility and retail under one roof.

Over the next few months we will finalising the plans with the chosen architect, gathering the required permits and then tendering for a builder. Hopefully construction will commence by October or November. We are then aiming for mid to late 2009 opening. Keep your eye on this blog and other press releases with information about the project.

Welcome

Welcome to our Library Blog. I thought that I would post a blog to keep you informed about all the happenings in our library service. I aim to provide explanations about our various projects and will regularly update the progress on each one.
Please refer to our library website www.campaspe.vic.gov.au/library for details about the day to day activities, opening hours and other services at our branches.