Christmas library hours

Library opening hours over the Christmas period are as follows:

CENTRAL LIBRARY—DEE STREET

December

Friday 24 9.00am-5.00pm

Saturday 25 CLOSED

Sunday 26 CLOSED

Monday 27 CLOSED

Tuesday 28 CLOSED

Wednesday 29 9.00am-5.00pm

Thursday 30 9.00am-5.00pm

Friday 31 9.00am-5.00pm

January

Saturday 1 CLOSED

Sunday 2 CLOSED

Monday 3 CLOSED

Tuesday 4 CLOSED

Wednesday 5 Normal hours resume

BLUFF LIBRARY

Fri 24 Dec Closes 4.00pm

25 Dec - 4 Jan CLOSED

Wed 5 Jan Normal hours resume

Extended issue period available:

If you are going away on holiday over December/January and need your books for longer than the usual issue period, please let the staff member on the Issues desk know before they start issuing your books and they will be happy to oblige.

Burt Munro Challenge

As you may or may not know every year at about this time hordes of motorbike enthusiasts flock to Invercargill for the Burt Munro Challenge. For the last several years the outside of the library has become a parking place for bikes of all types and sizes. This year I couldn't resist taking a few photos of some of the bikes parked outside.

New Teen books for the school holidays

Win an iPad and other Apple products by simply reading a few books

Here at the library we have had a summer reading progam for children for quite a few years now.
“But what about those of us too old for the children's summer reading program?” we hear you say....
Well this year the Invercargill City Libraries is providing a fun and interactive summer reading challenge for young adults aged 15 – 18 years.
We did our homework and found something we think will encourage you to read more over the summer holidays. We're going to give away an Apple iPad and some other apple products.
We've set it up as a reading challenge. The more you read the better the prizes you could win.
If you want to know more visit our website or follow the link on the logo below.

Somewhere inside:

One sister’s captivity in North Korea and the other’s fight to bring her home

by Laura Ling and Lisa Ling

You may (or may not) recall last year when former US President, Bill Clinton, went on a rescue mission to North Korea and brought home two journalists who had been captured by North Korean soldiers. There hadn’t been a lot of coverage by the media of the capture of the two women because, at that time US relations with North Korea were particularly sensitive. Somewhere inside tells what happened to the girls, how they were violently apprehended, charged with trespassing and other “hostile acts”, and imprisoned (separately) for nearly five months. Author Laura Ling recounts her experiences, enduring months of daily interrogations, having little contact with the outside world, and all the while not knowing where her fellow journalist, Euna Lee, was being held (or even if she was ok). From another perspective, Laura Ling’s sister, Lisa describes in alternating chapters, what was happening back in America – how the families were coping, the unrelenting efforts to secure the girl’s release using the media and social networks such as Facebook, as well as the drama involving people at the highest levels of government.

“Somewhere inside” is not just a gripping read, it is also an insight into the political game-playing of the North Korean government and, more than that, it is the inspiring story of the bond between two sisters. Awesome.

Reviewed by Jill

We've got some new toys

There is a great new toy on the market for people who listen to audio books. It's called the Playaway and it is essentially a stylised MP3 player with a book pre-loaded onto it.

We all know how annoying it is to have to change CDs during an audio book. Lets face it some books are huge. I was looking through a catalogue for audio books the other day and found you can buy War and peace as an audio book. It's two volumes long totaling 51 CDs and retails for around $300 NZ. Unfortunately as much as I like Tolstoy I just couldn't splash out on that for the collection.

Well with a Playaway they can often put the whole book on one wee machine. It's simple to use as well. There are only 8 buttons; A power button, play/pause, volume up, volume down, reverse, forward, a graphic equalizer and narrator speed. The graphic equalizer button cycles through 6 different settings while the narrator speed has three voice settings. So if you have trouble following the story just slow the narrator down.

At the moment we are just trialling Playaways in the library. We have a small selection of children's titles already and I have just ordered 10 adult's titles. 

We will be treating them just like spoken word items. This means you can borrow them for four weeks free of charge. They come with 2 batteries (to be returned with the item) and you can either use your own ear phones or buy a pair off us for $2.

So next time you're in the library check out our new toys. You might just find a book you'll love.

Library Press Display: Read all about it!

So what is “Library Press Display” you ask? Well, it is an online database that provides you with access to a range of newspapers. To access this database there is a link to choose for either “in the library” use or home use. If you are in the Library you will be connected to the database main page.
From the home use link you will b e prompted to enter your library card number . This is the eight -digit number located on the reverse of your library card (under the barcode), beginning with the numbers 200. After you enter the number you will then be given access to the database main page. From the main page you can then choose from the extensive range of newspaper titles available. There are daily national and international titles to choose from as well as weekly newspapers and tabloids. You can choose a paper by country, language or alphabetically. Navigation aids are on the top, bottom and right hand side of the screen within the database. The first page of the newspaper shows as a single page and then the second and third show as a doublespread as with the hard copy paper. If you are searching within the New Zealand newspaper titles you will see
that papers that start with the word “the” such as The Southland Times are all listed together alphabetically after the word “the” in the “T’s”. Please remember that as comprehensive as the database is, not all newspapers are included, for example, the Otago Daily Times is not included. From within the operational features of the database you can email or print off pages or articles. You have the ability to use the magnification tool to decrease or increase
For those people who wish to print off a family notice, for example, you can use the selection tool that puts a red line border around the exact notice that you require and print off just that small piece of text. The newspapers are on a 60-day cycle, so there are approximately two months worth of issues for a particular title to choose from in the issue archive. There is a calendar navigation option that you can use to select a specific issue. A point to note is that the international newspapers all depend on the various time zones for their respective publication times. So bear this in mind when
searching those titles. So go forth and seek out the news to your hearts content. Solve all your current events information needs in one hit and keep informed!

By Vanessa