Amongst a world of posts, tweets and status updates the CPIT Library have gone retro and produced a good old fashioned newsletter called Library Link.
However we won’t be printing it , it’s available as a PDF, call it an e-newsletter if you will.
You can read it online or if you insist on printing it then please remember to double side, share it with your colleagues and recycle.
We have recently given our library collection a new injection of ebooks by adding about 15,000 to the library catalogue. You can identify an ebook by the [ electronic resource ] at the end of the title, there is a web link at the bottom of the catalogue record (to the right of the words “Online version”) and their location is “eResource. Our ebooks are available 24/7 and cover a range of subjects including business, computing and science.
There is a also a rapidly growing collection of ebooks available for free on the web including New Zealand titles provided by the New Zealand Electronic Text Center. Since 2002 the NZETC have been working at digitizing historical New Zealand publications including Maori and Pacific Island, biographies and science texts. Most recently they have added to their already extensive collection of writing by Katherine Mansfield.
In addition to to this local effort there are many many projects worldwide to make ebooks available for free over the World Wide Web, the project of the longest standing is Project Gutenberg which started in 1971 and have made 30,000 documents available. By far the largest but also most controversial is Google Books project which has been challenging existing copyright laws.
While some reference books cover a broad range of topics, such as the World Book or the McGraw Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology, others are very specific.
The Encyclopedia of mobile computing and commmerce provides a range of information from a general overview of mobile learning environments through to specific articles on security architectures of mobile computing, and mobile medical image viewing using 3G wireless network.
The International encyclopedia of dance in 6 vols, covers biographical information on individual dancers and choreographers, introductions to genres such as Maori dance and ballet , and in-depth articles on the history and study of dance.
Other titles, such as the Encyclopedia of Food and Culture are also available electronically. Find out about a particular cultural tradition such as Inuit meal customs, or look into the origins of the bagel as an icon food, or read an overview and history of dairy products. The electronic version, available through Gale Virtual Reference also allows you to listen to the content being read.
While the print based reference collection is not able to be borrowed, relevant articles can be photocopied. Online reference material can be accessed at any time. Check out other online reference resources including the Encyclopedia Britannica – with 120,000 articles, a world atlas, a dictionary and Thesaurus and an extensive video collection.
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