Christmas Has Begun Early in the Library

“It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas”

To be fair, we like to call it being proactive and also, if we wait until 1 December, the display would only be up for a day or two before the students left for the holidays!

The display does also coincide with one of our Christmas gifts too!  As of this week, students may borrow as many books as they want AND they get to keep them until the beginning of next year. This makes it a great time to borrow whole series of Manga and fiction so that you won’t run out over the break.

A heads up to our VCE students for 2023 – the last week of the year is also a good time to borrow Study Guides from the VCE collection.  You can keep those books over the holidays too!

First Nation’s Collection

This is one of our least-used collections. We have 250 non-fiction books in this collection which covers all aspects of culture, history and experiences of First Nation’s people. I remember being taught about Settlement/Invasion of NSW when I was at school and have read most of the First Fleet journals as an adult. However, I never really had a schooling in the history of the founding of Melbourne and Victoria.  Another area where I was ignorant was on who were/are the Elders in Melbourne to whom we give acknowledgement at the beginning of our Assemblies. To fill in these gaps I recently read several books from the First Nation’s collection among which were; ‘1835 the founding of Melbourne and the conquest of Australia’ by James Boyce and ‘Aunty Pat Ockwell Tells Her Story’. 

We have also just updated the collection to include the second edition of the ‘Macquarie Atlas of Indigenous Australia’, which is a collaboration between the Australian National University, the Australian Bureau of Statistics and Macquarie Dictionary. I extend an invitation to any parent who feels like I did, to ask your daughter to borrow a couple of books.  This collection is small, but it can upend assumptions, misinformation and unknowing prejudice.  Highly recommended.

The Library plans to work more closely with the student FIRE Carriers in 2023 and involve them in advertising this important collection. There are some very inspiring stories of resilience and achievement as well as the very gritty and horrific historical records of abuse.

We also have a large number of fiction books which are shelved with the other fiction books, and a guide to these can be found below.

Sustainability Collection 2023

The Library has recently placed orders to enlarge our existing small collection of books on Sustainability.

The College has a strong commitment to sustainability measures and many students are involved in this at all year levels. Some of the books in this collection are quite advanced. However, that is because the envisioned readership includes teaching staff, committed young adults and even interested parents!

Some of the books are now classics which should be read by anyone interested in the history of the environmental movement such as (Carson’s ‘Silent Spring’ from 1965) and even Al Gore’s (now) quite old book ‘An Inconvenient Truth : the Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It’ from 2006! Others are firmly placed in the ’what can I do to fix things’ camp and will be useful resources for the College’s Sustainability team in 2023.

Audio Books for Car Trips

Over the break many of you will be going on car trips with your family. One good way to pass the time is to listen to audio books via Bluetooth. If you have not ever used the Library’s audio book collection then go to these Kilbreda Libguides and follow the instructions. 

Two Guides to Accessing the ePlatform eBooks and eAudio Books

and

The Kilbreda eBook and audio book collection (Wheeler’s consortium)

With best wishes from the Library Team

Angus Pearson
Library Coordinator