Purana's top cop talks

Jim O'Brien visit
Former Detective Jim O'Brien was the Officer in Charge of the Purana Task Force, was the was the man behind bringing Tony Mokbel back to Australia and it was his team's work that forms the basis of the first Underbelly series. (You still can't legally see all of that in Victoria, but you can borrow the book!)
.
Jim's presentations explore the depth and complexity of police operations, firmly establishing police activity as a skillful, goal-orientated and complex process. His work is full of the sorts of management and leadership processes that are so necessary for success in any endeavour.
.
You can hear Jim talk about what he learnt from 26 years at the coalface of police work at the Frankston Library Lounge, Wednesday, 22 April between 6.00pm - 7.30pm. Booking required: phone 9784 1020.

harps

Round 1 roundup

The pressure is on
Some people take their footy seriously. After just one round of the AFL home and away season there are already feral fans calling for coaches to be sacked.

The heat is also on for the 14 tipsters in our Blogalogue footy comp, which includes a mix of Frankston Library Service team members and members of our public.

Both bluesgal and Scott_Info almost got the holy grail of a perfect round.

harps

School Holiday Program April 2009

All the fun of the holidays!
Join us with these great kids activities during the April school holidays. All sessions are free.

Week one
Easter Craft
Join in and make Easter baskets and cards and listen to a story or two.

Children 4-8 years

Tuesday 7 April, 1:30pm - 2:30pm
Carrum Downs Library
Bookings Required on Ph: 9784 1020

Children's Day Out at George Pentland Gardens
The library will be down in the gardens, participating in this special day! Look out for our marquee and join in the activities and entertainment. Come along and join in the fun!

Children All Ages

Wednesday 8 April, 10:00am – 12:30pm
George Pentland Botanic Gardens

Easter Storytime
Come along and enjoy Easter stories. Easter Bunny might even hop in for a visit!

Children 2-6 years

Thursday 9 April, 11:00am - 11:45am
Frankston Library

Week two
Blast off to outer space with Carp Productions
Meet the Milky Way Kid, a visitor from outer space who has come to take us on a tour of the planets. It’s the ultimate space adventure. Learn about aliens, planets and galaxies.

Children 3-10 years

Lyrebird Community Centre
Kingfisher Hall
Wednesday 15 April, 10:30am - 11:15am
Bookings required on Ph: 9784 1020

Tiny Tots Storytime
Songs and rhymes.

.

Children 0-2 years

.

Tuesday 14 April, 11.00am - 11.30am
Frankston Library

.

Thursday 16 April, 1.30pm - 2.00pm
Carrum Downs Library

Autumn Days and Harvest Storytime
After enjoying stores about autumn we will decorate our Children’s Library with Autumn leaves, flowers and vegetables.

Children 3-8 years

Thursday 16 April, 11:00am - 11:45am
Frankston Library

Friday 17 April, 11.15am - 12.00pm
Carrum Downs Library

harps

Judd vs Cousins and Library vs You

Footy fever is high

You have just a hours left to join
the Library's footy tipping competition.

.

harps

Easter at the Library

Easter books

Children's Easter books are now out and available for loan in the children's area at both Frankston and Carrum Downs libraries.
We do not have a lot so there's a limit of 2 per family.

.

Easter hours

The libraries will be closed on the following days:

.
Good Friday 10 April
Saturday 11 April
Sunday 12 April
Monday 13 April

.

The returns chutes at Frankston will close at
9pm on Thursday, 9 April and re-open at 9am on Tuesday, 14 April.
.

Returns at Carrum Downs will cease on Thursday, 9 April when the library closes at 8pm and will resume at 11am, Tuesday, 14 April..
.
The Langwarrin and Seaford Shops
will also be closed on these days.
.
harps

Law Handbook Online

Practical legal information

You can now access one of our most popular Reference books, the Fitzroy Legal Service's Law Handbook, without laying hand to print. The Law Handbook Online brings together all the current Victorian legal information that people expect from the paper edition, including dealing with noisy neighbours, wills and estates, planning and criminal matters.

To access, you need to enter the username 20099881 and password 9hh9ro to login.

harps

Artist's Lounge

This is Ev
We can't show you her face, because she's an illustrator. Ev is sketching and painting for a book she's working on with an author, who'll be doing the writing.

Ev's studios for this project include the Library Lounge at the Frankston Library. She sometimes works there because, she says, libraries are inspirational places.

People do interesting things in libraries.

harps

McMaths vs yourtutor

Do you want a tutor with that?
You may have heard about McMaths, whereby a popular international chain of fast food outlets has announced that it will sponsor a free online maths helper for Australian secondary school students. It's caused a bit of outrage in some quarters.

While this company can bring big bucks and big publicity to this website, does that mean it's the best way to serve students online? What Maths Online does is to provide canned tutorials - it's a program.

Compare this with yourtutor, which provides a more personalised service. Students can chat one-to-one with a real live tutor, asking questions and clarifying their understanding along the way. Also, yourtutor provides file sharing and interactive on-screen whiteboards and it covers not just maths, but also English, the sciences and other subjects, from years 4 to 12.

All Frankston Library Service members can access yourtutor (for free) between 4-8pm weekdays.

harps

Search from here

Now with search box
The Blogalogue now has a catalogue search box in the top (green) sidebar, just over there -->.

Cool, innit?

harps

Local news archive

Leader newspaper articles online
The Library's ANZ Reference Centre database now features articles from the Leader group of newspapers. This means that stories from over 30 local newspapers from throughout Melbourne (including the Frankston Standard-Hastings Leader) are available online.

You can read, email, save and print articles from these and other papers, magazines and specialist journals using both the ANZ Reference Centre and General OneFile. More databases, including reference and health and wellness resources, are available from the Library's Online Information page.

harps

New Coffee Cart hours

Caffeine junkies rejoice!
Frankston's Coffee Cart (also serving tea and hot chocolate) will now be open Monday to Friday, 9am – 4pm.

harps

Footy tipping: 22 rounds of fun

Library vs Public
Consider yourself an AFL footy tipping ace? Reckon you know more about Aussie Rules than a bunch of mamby pamby librarians? Or maybe it's time to grow and learn and become enmeshed with Victoria's favourite sporting pastime.

.

We've got a team of Frankston Library Service staff who are ready to pit their tipping skills against each other and you in an open footy tipping comp. As we know our readers are here and there, this exclusive offer is open to all Blogalogue readers - you don't need to be a Library member. You can even work at another library.

The prizes

There are two prizes. The winner at the end of the home and away season gets a double movie ticket prize. All experience the thrills, the highs and lows, of a keenly contested weekly competition (and yes, the results will be posted here).

But how?

We've set up a competition on footytips.com.au. All you have to do is select to join the Blogalogue competition and sign up (for free) . If you have any troubles with this, please email me and we'll sort it out. After that, just enter your tips each week!

.

Go on, join the emotional mayhem of competitive footy tipping.

harps

In defence of fiction

A polly speaks
Well, actually, writes. Chris Bowen, federal Assistant Treasurer, has written an opinion piece for the Sydney Morning Herald that's a little bit of a surprise. Like the former NSW Premier Bob Carr, Bowen believes in the value of a good book and found it "a bit disconcerting" when a "prominent federal politician recently boasted he hadn't read a fiction book since he left school."

Bowen goes on to note how novels can "can open the mind" and even play important roles in political and social struggles. He concludes this 807 word essay with the observation that the inscription over the door of a library in ancient Thebes that said "Medicine for the soul" is as relevant today as it was back then.

It's certainly true that there's more healing to be found in a library than just in the medical and self-help collections.

harps

The Trolley Mystery

By RFID
Why are people at the Frankston and Carrum Downs libraries fiddling with books and stuff at this trolley and its' Doppelganger?

What is on the little sticky itty-bitties that the printer spits out?

What difference will it make to our library experience?
.
Answers soon.

harps

Digital photography class

Digital camera basics
Computer Explorers will help you make sense of photography without film.

No waiting to get the pictures back to see if you had your thumb over the lens. See how good (or how silly) people looked right away... and if you don’t like it, delete the picture and try again! This course will teach you to use your camera, then enhance the photos by cropping and shading.

.

Frankston Library
Thursday 12 March and Thursday 19 March 2009
10am – 12pm
Cost: $20.00 to be paid on booking at Frankston
.

harps

January 09 feedback

The notes you leave
Library users express their experiences, annoyances and suggestions in brief comments and Library management reply in this January 2009 feedback poster. (Acrobat PDF file) (Download the Adobe reader)

harps

April Amnesty

Return overdue items for nix!
Waive goodbye to unpaid fines during our April Amnesty.

Return your overdue library books, CDs, DVDs etc this April as part of our amnesty and we'll wipe the slate clean for the cost of a gold coin donation.

Simply bring your overdue items to one of our helpful team members at the desk, drop your gold coin donation in the donations box and presto, your overdue fines will be automatically waived.

Items can be returned (and fines waived) during April at the Frankston or Carrum Downs Libraries and at the Seaford and Langwarrin Shops.

harps

What's new for loan

One click new item lists

Finding what's new at the Library has never been easier.

.

Just follow the links to your favourite collection or format and you'll see what's been added to the catalogue in the last month or so (current and previous month). Feeds can be followed via an RSS reader or via the Library's Twitter stream.

• Adult fiction - RSS feed
  
• Adult non-fiction - RSS feed
.
• Biography collection - RSS feed
.
• Documentary DVDs - RSS feed
.
• Film collection - RSS feed
.
• Graphic novels - RSS feed
.
• Kids collections - RSS feed
.
• Large print - RSS feed
.
• Music CDs - RSS feed
.
• Talking books - RSS feed
.
• Teen fiction - RSS feed
.
• Young children's collections - RSS feed

Also, if you've got email, you can create your own Read Alert to find out what's new in the areas that specifically interest you.

harps

Libraries closed Monday 9 March

Labour Day closure
In celebration of the 8 hour working day, the Frankston Library Service will observe the Labour Day public holiday, Monday 9 March, 2009.

The returns chutes at Frankston will close at 4pm on Sunday, 8 March and re-open at 9am on Tuesday, 10 March.

Returns at Carrum Downs will cease on Sunday, 8 March when the library closes at 4pm and will resume at 11am, Tuesday, 10 March.

harps the library worker

Under construction

Klank, bang!
Those black plastic curtained windows at the Frankston Library aren't another White Street Project art installation.

They actually shield a construction site, now officially signed. Behind there, workers are sometimes busy transforming a little used "light court" into a new multipurpose room for community groups to hire. You might hear them from time to time.

This is the latest phase of Frankston's refurbishment.

More later, when the wraps come off.

harps