Exercise 9 Community Profiles

Ultimo Library:

Ultimo Library is located on 30 William Henry Street on top of the local community centre. The library offers a range of books, CDs, DVDs and magazines for loan. Daily newspapers in English and Chinese are also available. Because of its close location to Chinatown there is a large Chinese population Ultimo library caters to. Being part of the City of Sydney link, members of Ultimo library are able to have books inter-loaned meaning access to a wider collection. They also provide public computer access and free Wi-fi. 

More details on membership and borrowing can be found here.

Other libraries in the Ultimo Area include: Jessie Street National Women's library, the Powerhouse Musuem library, UTS library, TAFE - Ultimo library and the Pyrmont link.

Exercise 8 - CURRENT AWARENESS POST

For this exercise I watched 'Automated Book Delivery System and Virtual Browse'. I think it is a great idea and books will last longer if they aren't stored on traditional shelves. However, implementing them will cost a lot of money. It also means jobs would be lost within the library system.

Exercise 7 Podcasts

Studio Stories 2 is a podcast from the State Library of New South Wales where artists Wendy Sharpe and Angus Nivison talk about their studios and daily life.

Exercise 6 Social Bookmarking

Book reviews should not be limited to those who are trying to sell and/or purchase books. Libraries should begin including reviews within their library catalogues as they will promote borrowing, especially if they are small libraries dealing with a decline in visitors. A client will be less likely to borrow a book if they don't know about its content. Choosing who writes the review or where it comes from will be important because it would have to be written well.

The University of Sydney Library does not include book reviews in their catalogue, but because it is an academic library they do not suffer so much with the issue of loosing clientele.

Investigative Exercise 5 Social Networking

It is important for libraries to begin using social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter as they are easily becoming the best way for people to communicate. Social networking used to promote business is successful because it removes the gap between a client and a worker making establishments more relatable and easier to approach. It is also a great way to keep those interested with news and events as it happens rather than waiting on a newsletter. And because threads are included with every post, it allows discussion. This discussion can really clue a library into what it is their clientele are enjoying or not.

Investigative Exercise 4 Youtube

This video explains what a library is used for and generally promotes library use to children.

Investigative Exercise 3 Photo sharing and Flickr

This image of an ICT lab comes from Newcastle Library's (England) flickr set titled 'Meeting Rooms', they include many more photos of facilities they have available for bookings.