Preschool Storytime in Auckland’s public libraries: A qualitative study of book selection practices

<p>Research problem: Anecdotal evidence suggested a lack of uniformity across Auckland Libraries, in that Preschool Storytime sessions were being delivered by a range of different people with varying levels of training and experience. The purpose of the research was to gain an understanding of their book selection practices and the nature of the books selected for reading aloud. Methodology: The researcher took a qualitative approach, using a purposive sampling technique to select 10 participants from nine different libraries across the Auckland region. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect the required data. Results: Seven main factors were found to influence the book selection process: length; illustrations; subjects, concepts and themes; use of language; the potential for audience participation; the potential for emotional engagement and personal preference. Participants employed various strategies to assist them in finding suitable books. These included physical browsing, online browsing, searching the library catalogue and seeking recommendations. Toy and movable books and picture storybooks were popular with participants. Implications: The findings from this study may be of interest to librarians working with children in public libraries elsewhere in New Zealand. The results could potentially be used as a tool to guide and inform their storytime practices, and as a basis for training and development. A subsequent study involving content analysis could be undertaken at a later date, with a view to describing in detail the books shared with children during Preschool Storytime sessions.</p>

Preschool Storytime in Auckland’s public libraries: A qualitative study of book selection practices

<p>Research problem: Anecdotal evidence suggested a lack of uniformity across Auckland Libraries, in that Preschool Storytime sessions were being delivered by a range of different people with varying levels of training and experience. The purpose of the research was to gain an understanding of their book selection practices and the nature of the books selected for reading aloud. Methodology: The researcher took a qualitative approach, using a purposive sampling technique to select 10 participants from nine different libraries across the Auckland region. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect the required data. Results: Seven main factors were found to influence the book selection process: length; illustrations; subjects, concepts and themes; use of language; the potential for audience participation; the potential for emotional engagement and personal preference. Participants employed various strategies to assist them in finding suitable books. These included physical browsing, online browsing, searching the library catalogue and seeking recommendations. Toy and movable books and picture storybooks were popular with participants. Implications: The findings from this study may be of interest to librarians working with children in public libraries elsewhere in New Zealand. The results could potentially be used as a tool to guide and inform their storytime practices, and as a basis for training and development. A subsequent study involving content analysis could be undertaken at a later date, with a view to describing in detail the books shared with children during Preschool Storytime sessions.</p>

Annotated bibliography of te reo material held in the Hocken Manuscript and Archives Collection

<p>The Hocken Collections, and in particular the Hocken Archives, have a large number of items, both published and unpublished, either written in te reo or relating to it. Many of these items would hold considerable interest for students of te reo, but are inadequately described in catalogues, making efficient access very difficult. Access to the published grammars and wordlists is facilitated through the University of Otago Library catalogue, but identifying the unpublished material written in, or concerning, te reo is more difficult. Manuscripts and archives are listed in a database, called Hakena, but being an archival database it does not often provide the sort of information people looking for te reo material might be seeking. The aim of this bibliography is to improve access to information on the te reo content of manuscripts held at the Hocken Collections.</p>

Annotated bibliography of te reo material held in the Hocken Manuscript and Archives Collection

<p>The Hocken Collections, and in particular the Hocken Archives, have a large number of items, both published and unpublished, either written in te reo or relating to it. Many of these items would hold considerable interest for students of te reo, but are inadequately described in catalogues, making efficient access very difficult. Access to the published grammars and wordlists is facilitated through the University of Otago Library catalogue, but identifying the unpublished material written in, or concerning, te reo is more difficult. Manuscripts and archives are listed in a database, called Hakena, but being an archival database it does not often provide the sort of information people looking for te reo material might be seeking. The aim of this bibliography is to improve access to information on the te reo content of manuscripts held at the Hocken Collections.</p>

From Manuscript to Print in South and Southeast Asia

The historical shift from manuscript to print is only one aspect of the relationship between the two media, yet it has attracted the most attention. Influential media historiographies have either stressed or downplayed the degrees to which this particular change impacted textual practice in Asia. Playing one medium against the other, however, hinders our understanding of how print and manuscript have been shaping each other since the emergence of Buddhism. A broadened understanding of print that comprises early dhāraṇī estampage and later Chinese and Tibetan block prints, as well as the European printing press, shows that technological innovations in the reproduction, preservation, and distribution of writing spread out of and moved back into parts of South and Southeast Asia, recurring in multiple waves and in diverse forms, with differing local solutions defying attempts at a comprehensive media-centric periodization. Clay as the earliest preserved medium for the printed reproduction of Buddhist texts was replaced by paper as South Asian Buddhism spread northwest into Central and East Asia, impacting script cultures in Vietnam and Tibet and facilitating a division of labor which ensured that prints resembled manuscripts and manuscript came to dominate entire genres and social niches in the economy of the book. In the southern Himalayas, Tibetan block print and South Asian manuscript culture intermingled freely, even after the introduction of the European printing press, with Western print in isolated but striking cases upholding the prestige and supporting the ongoing reproduction of manuscripts. Similarly, in Sri Lanka and Thailand it was the colonial impact of print that led to a retooling and reevaluation of manuscripts as the key commodity through which to justify publishing and archiving efforts at the service of the project to build the nation-state, leading to the emergence of a new genre in South Asia, the library catalogue. Burma and Cambodia, with their interrupted trajectories toward Buddhist nationhood, saw interplay between manuscript, print, and epigraphy, in one case, and the detachment from the larger Thai manuscript lineage by the creation of a new mixed manuscript and print tradition in the other. More recent Buddhist traditions never experienced any of the passages from manuscript to print, emerging in a textual environment entirely constituted by the European printing press. Yet, in this and in the general contemporary Buddhist environment too, the manuscript persists in novel forms, either as a preliminary stage in the ontogenesis of any published or unpublished material or in the myriad instances in which jotting down on slips of paper contributes to the organization of the Buddhist everyday.

WebCat: Library catalogue of the University of Southampton / Keyword: Vietnamese Social Sciences

WebCat: Library catalogue of the University of Southampton / Keyword: Vietnamese Social Sciences; https://www-lib.soton.ac.uk/uhtbin/cgisirsi/?ps=GfYc3A8gik/HARTLEY/X/9

Future of the OPAC: Integrating the OPAC with Emerging Discovery Tools

This presentation will explore how the library catalogue, a tool with a long and distinguished history, is changing with the advent of the Internet. We, as library practitioners, know the power of the catalog to find information sources in library collections. But our users, who have become used to having some results regardless of what search terms they enter into Web search engines, are becoming increasingly frustrated with the current OPAC technologies. What are some of limitations of online library catalogues and in what ways are members of the information community and library automation vendors discovering ways of making local resources more available to our users? Information will be presented about recent studies of user behaviour as well as some commercial solutions to the problem of user/catalog interface.

Use of library catalogue at Jamia Hamdard and Jamia Milia Islamia, Delhi: a comparative study

The present study describes the comparison on use of online public access catalogue at Jamia Hamdard and Jamia Milia Islamia, Delhi. In this study survey method was adopted to collect the data from the users. The data revealed that the maximum number of 36.6% users visited the library biweekly, 33.0% users spent their time more than one hour in the library for using library facilities in a day, 43.1% users searched their required information s the help of OPAC system, 38.5% users learnt the use of OPAC with the help of library staff, 36.0% users most of times obtained their searched documents on the shelves after searching of OPAC, 33.8% users faced problems of less awareness of OPAC system and 36.0% users were satisfied with the present OPAC searching facility in both the university libraries of Jamia Hamdard and Jamia Milia Islamia.

Istraživanje primjene korisničkih oznaka u predmetnom opisu građe: društveno označavanje

Polazeći od potrebe iznalaženja rješenja poboljšanog pristupa građi u predmetnom katalogu; kao i poboljšanja predmetnog opisa; sprovedeno je istraživanje ispitivanja primjene korisničkih oznaka društvenog označavanja u okviru predmetne obrade građe. Cilj rada je komparativnom analizom korpusa ključnih riječi i korisničkih oznaka članaka triju časopisa Vjesnika bibliotekara Hrvatske (2019); Glasnika Narodne biblioteke Srbije (2017; 2018) i Bosniace (2019) ispitati primjenu korisničkih oznaka društvenog označavanja u predmetnoj obradi građe. U radu se naglašavaju prednosti primjene korisničkih oznaka u predmetnom opisu građe te se iznosi zaključak da korisničke oznake mogu unaprijediti i poboljšati pristup sadržaju u katalogu kroz korisničko označavanje; tj. društveno označavanje. Pretpostavka je da dobiveni rezultati nakon analize mogu biti indikativni za osmišljavanje strategije unapređenja predmetnog opisa i prilagođavanja bibliotečkog kataloga savremenom korisniku; na osnovu korisničkih oznaka dodijeljenih jezikom korisničke zajednice.----------------------------------------------Researching of application of the user bookmarks in subject cataloguing: social bookmarkingThis research is done with the aim to find a solution on how to improve the accessibility of collections in catalogues and to improve subject cataloguing. The research is about questioning the application of user bookmarks of social marking within the subject cataloguing. The goal of this paper is to question the use of user tags in subject processing of the resources with comparative analysis of the bunch of keywords and user bookmarks of the articles in three journals including Vjesnik bibliotekara Hrvatske (2019); Glasnik Narodne biblioteke Srbije (2017; 2018) and Bosniaca (2019). This paper is highlighting the advantages of application user bookmarks in cataloguing and concluding that user bookmarks could improve and ameliorate access to a catalogue content through social bookmarking. The hypothesis is that the final result of analysis could be indicative of finding and designing a strategy that could improve subject cataloguing and adjustment of library catalogue to a modern user according to user tags which are assigned on common language.

The Mysterious Affair at Squire: Using Code-Breaking Games to Deliver Law Library Skills

The Squire Law Library has designed and run a series of popular escape room-style events, aimed at masters and undergraduate law students. Intended to prompt students to explore the full range of legal resources available to them, the games typically challenge participants to open a locked safe: relying on legal databases, the library catalogue and print materials to decipher a six-digit combination. This article, based on Lizz Edwards-Waller's presentation at the BIALL (virtual) conference 2020, reflects on the practicalities of running and promoting code-breaking events within the library and considers the benefits of this style of event in addition to, or instead of, more traditional law library orientation tours.