Over 700 new eBooks on Overdrive

Pan Macmillan have finally entered the Overdrive fold here in Australia. This means that you now have access to the following popular authors in the eBook library:

Matthew Reilly
Di Morrissey
Andy Griffiths
Jeffrey Archer
John Marsden
Wilbur Smith
Lisa Scottoline

and so many more...... 710 new titles added to the eLibrary today! Login to Overdrive eLibrary.

Happy eReading, Paul

lynda.com now available from ERL. Turn on. Log in. Get Smart.

lynda.com, one of the world's leading online learning companies, is now available for you to use from home or in the library. You can access any of the 3000 courses at any time of the day or night - just login with your library card number and your PIN at the ERL login page. Once you have done this create an account and you can keep track of your progress through the course.

The courses are made up of over 150,000 video tutorials created by industry experts which you can stream to your PC or portable device. You can learn across a wide range of disciplines - business, design, photography, IT, marketing, web design, film making and all of the major software products such as Photoshop, Excel and WordPress.

Basically your tutor is ready and waiting to help you achieve your business or personal goals 24/7. Take a look at this short video to see all that you can achieve using lynda.com.

Happy learning, Paul.

The gifts of books: our recommendations

Books are easy to wrap and many of us have a little more time to read over Summer, which makes them a fantastic gift this Christmas. Choosing the perfect book can be tricky so we asked our staff for some suggestions:

For older children

An excellent picture book came in this week for primary school aged kids and parents with a sense of humour.

The cat, the dog, little red, the exploding eggs, the wolf and Grandma's wardrobe by Diane and Christyan Fox

Cat is trying to read Red Riding Hood to Dog. But Dog keeps interrupting with questions and taking the story off on his own tangents. A great one to read to an older group.


 Another one for older kids is

The book with no pictures by BJ Novak

It's hard to describe but a book made to make everyone laugh with lots of words that most adults wouldn't say (clean ones!) but will make a group of kids or adults laugh out loud when you read them from a book.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cREyQJO9EPs

- Carolyn, Knox

For younger children

Stick Man by Julia Donaldson

We just brought two of our friends the picture book, Stick Man by Julia Donaldson, because Arch loves it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swKDQR9fFs4

- Chantell, Belgrave

 

For the creative person in your life... or one who wants to be

The Creative License: Giving Yourself Permission to Be the Artist You Truly Are by Danny Gregory

When Danny Gregory's life was turned upside down by tragedy, he learned to cope by teaching himself to draw. The result was a complete transformation of his life, his priorities, his career, and the way he saw the world.

- Karla, Admin

For teenagers

Any titles by John Green - The Fault In Our Stars, An Abundance of Katherines, Will Grayson, Will Grayson

- Kristen, a teenage member


New Guinness Book of Records for an early teen or someone who just likes facts.

- Heidi, Lilydale

Fiction fans

The new Matthew Reilly (The Great Zoo of China) is awesome for anyone who like an adventure/thriller.

- Heidi, Lilydale

For the tricky to buy for male

Gallipoli by Peter Fitzsimons. His Ned Kelly is great as well.

- Linda, Montrose

Literacy for Life : Eastern Regional Libraries

The ERL Literacy For Life Forum was held on Tuesday 9 of September at Quest Wantirna. The event showcased work being done by community groups to address literacy, and provided a platform for the Eastern Regional Libraries to launch its Literacy Strategy.

Over 100 people attended the day to hear informative presentations, learn about the literacy challenges facing our communities, and to discuss innovative ways this challenge is being addressed.

If you were able to attend Literacy For Life, we'd like to thank you for helping make the event a fantastic success! The entire team hopes you were both engaged and informed by the event's speakers, and perhaps have taken some great literacy-promoting ideas home.

Presenters from the day included: Robin Black, Brendan Fitzgerald, Guy Masters, Ronni Kahn, Dean Groom, Michael Taylor, Liz Grigg, Judith MacPherson and special guest Ramona Koval. Literacy for Life was expertly facilitated by radio broadcaster and author Derek Guille.

Click to view more on Facebook

If you missed the day or perhaps would like to find out more, seven PDF presentations from the event are downloadable at the links below. Most include contact details if you'd like to get in touch with the presenter. As always, you can contact your nearest Eastern Regional Library branch on 1300 737 277.

1. Literacy for Life - Main Show
2. Robin Black - 26TEN Call to Action
3. Michael Taylor - Literacy for Life
4. Dean Groom - The Negotiations of Play
5. Guy Masters - Yarra Ranges Early Literacy Project
6. Brendan Fitzgerald - Go Digi & Infoxchange
7. Judith MacPherson - Outer Eastern Literacy Program

Brendan Fitzgerald discusses the valuable work Infoxchange is doing with Australia Post as part of the Go Digi program.

The attendees finding their seats.

Researcher Dean Groom, educates and entertains regarding the value of games in our society, especially as a learning tool.

Derek Guille introduces the event's next speaker.

Dusty checks tickets and distributes bags at the door!

Guy Masters discusses his experiences managing the Yarra Ranges Early Literacy Project.

The crowd gathers to hear ERL CEO Joseph Cullen.

Michael Taylor talks about literacy and numeracy in the workforce.

The libraries' dynamic Community Outreach trio present a special storytime to close the event.

From left to right: Felicity, Rusty Arnold and Ajne in action at the event!

Ronni Kahn discusses the amazing work Oz Harvest is doing to nourish our community.

The Eastern Regional Libraries would like to thank the speakers for their valuable contribution, as well as the wonderful audience for the enthusiastic engagement. It was a pleasure to present and we look forward to improving literacy in the future!

Exciting New eMagazines added to Library's Zinio account

We have just added the following eMagazines to our Zinio account - these are all available now and ready for you to download and read on your PC, laptop, tablet or mobile device.


Australian House & Garden
Australian Knitting
Australian Women's Weekly
Belle
Clean Eating Magazine – Australian Edition
Complete Wedding Melbourne
Cosmopolitan Australia
Craft from Woman's Weekly
Dumbo Feather - interview magazine
Earth Garden
Good Health
Gourmet Traveller
Instyle UK
KRASH
Money Australia
Prima UK
Real Living - Australia
recipes+
T3
Wallpaper
Wheels

You can download as many as you want and keep them for as long as you like!

Happy eReading!

Checkout history has arrived!

We are trialling the option to view a history of checkouts within the My Account section of Enterprise.

When you login to your account you can enable this feature through the Personal Information tab - Select Preferences. Make sure both Show My Checkout History and Record My Checkout History are ticked.


The history feature will not show up for previous checkouts only NEW checkouts that have been returned, from the date the history option was enabled.

Members may also view Digital Checkouts from Overdrive eLibrary by selecting Digital Checkouts from the Checkouts tab.

Catalogue searches now include variant titles

The catalogue was updated today to allow for easier searching for items with variant titles, for example House & Garden as well as House and Garden.

With this addition we won't be able to add ERL to the title search for magazines anymore. However you can easily search for the ERL titles by selecting Eastern Regional Libraries from the first drop-down menu. If you are searching from the website, type the title in the search box and once you reach the results make sure Eastern Regional Libraries is selected in the first drop down menu and click search again.

UPDATE 5th September: Changes have been made to allow members to add erl to searches for magazine titles to retrieve the records belonging to our libraries.

Overdrive adds maturity & cover image filters

Those members who wish to filter out junior or erotic titles when searching Overdrive eLibrary will love the new enhancement Overdrive have added.

Login to Overdrive and view Settings. Maturity levels include Juvenile, Young Adult, General Adult & Mature Adult.

Overdrive settings

You can also choose if you want mature adult covers displayed. If you select 'No', mature adult cover images will be replaced with a plain cover.

If you're a speedy reader you can adjust the default loan period to 7 or 14 days instead of the usual 21 days.

The maturity level and cover image settings will only apply when you are logged into the Overdrive eLibrary.