Library Design at Broadgreen

I was really inspired by a school visit in New Zealand. Broadgreen Intermediate in Nelson, hosted an evening cocktail party for the attendees at the recent SLANZA/LIANZA workshop in NewZealand.

The library is inspired by New Zealand art work, on loan from various museums. The Principal, Roger Brodie, has been behind the re-creation of a the new library for the school. The students came up with much of the interior design, and that first year of students is represented by a large photo mural near the circulation desk.

All the books are shelved in 'bins' facing outwards - and the Principal, who has a strong focus on literacy and getting the kids to read - says that circulation of books increased threefold with the new design.

There were lots of interesting design features - but the one that particularly caught my eye were the chairs. There is a Nelson company that takes old furniture and remakes it in the checkered and coloured designs that you see on the library furniture. That's the best part really, and the easiest for anyone to replicate!

Enjoy the photos, and think of what you might do!

Digital (book) Listening! and more...

So you want to introduce or add to the audio-books in your school?
Wondering where to find digital books for use on electronic devices?

Here are locations where you can purchase podcasts and audio-book materials online.

Audible.com is the dominant audiobook and commercial-podcast-content vendor on the WWW. Audible's principal role is to supply audiobooks in MP3 format for users to listen to on their favourite MP3 players, iPods, or desktop media players.

Audio Book Club is an online book club that specializes in audiobooks of all kinds, including downloadable podcast-type books.

Audiobooks Online sells MP3 of classic books - but they are shipped on CD!

Blackstone Audiobooks is unique in that it is an actual producer of audiobook content. Fair amount of crossover with Audible.com. Available for immediate download to your digital media player.

iTunes Music Store - of course!

AudioBooksForFree.com is a place where you can grab audiobooks in MP3 format for absolutely no cost. All books that have expired copyright - but the quality is variable as it is a community operation - bit like Wikipedia.

LibriVox provides free audiobooks from the public domain. There are several options for listening. Another voluntary operation.

Soundbooks : Audiobooks Australia - an Australian resource!

Gutenberg: The Audio Books Project has audio eBooks available for some of the same great literature available in plain text. Listings are divided into two categories: Human-read and computer-generated audio books.

Free Classic Audiobooks in either mp3 format or m4b audio book format for iTunes and the iPod. Some of our audio books are human narrated Librivox recordings and others are narrated using the latest high quality text to speech voices.

There are many more - perhaps you can share your favourite resource!

Wondering about e-Books? Grab this excellent document in pdf format from Educause:
"7 things you should know about E-Books".

Mosman Library ideas

Good blogging! - check these out!