The longest day

Richard Ussher wins the 2011 Speights Coast to Coast race

On Saturday the 12th of February, over 450 athletes arrived at Sumner having completed a mammoth 243km journey from Kumara Beach  on the West Coast. The Speights Coast to Coast competition involves a gruelling 140km bike ride, 36km mountain run and 67km kayak. And some competitors choose to do this in a day! This year’s winner Richard Ussher completed the event in just 10hrs 41mins.  No mean feat.

It got me wondering how people prepare for this kind of madness (erm…I mean multisport event). How much training does it actually involve? What do they eat? Why don’t they just fall over after 243km? It turns out we have the answers right here in the Library.

Just try searching Primo to find books and more relating to the Coast to Coast race, multisport races and endurance training. I found Coast to Coast: celebrating 25 years of New Zealand’s greatest race, and also Conquering the Coast to Coast which describes Kelly Barber’s experience of what could well be the toughest race in the world…

We also subscribe to several magazines including New Zealand Multisport and Athlete, New Zealand Endurance and Wilderness. These magazines often provide listings of upcoming multisport events if you fancy getting prepared for next year’s Coast to Coast.

Try the new PRIMO library search

The library has introduced a new system for searching the catalogue and databases.

The Primo search box on the Library, Learning and Infomation Services homepage contains two search tabs.  The “Books & more” tab searches across the library catalogue and the CPIT Research Repository. Journal articles can be searched using the “Journal Articles” tab. Primo is designed as a “one stop shop” providing simpler access to journal articles by searching all our journal databases in one search.

Primo does not replace individual databases , they are still available through the subject pages.  Searching the specialist databases (such as CINAHL, Science Direct and ABI Inform) is still the recommended approach for  those who are working on research papers or in-depth literature reviews.

Any queries in using Primo please contact the library.

New Primo library search

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cathy – Liaison Librarian

COWs in the Library

There are ten COW’s (Computers on Wheels) available for use in the Library. Each laptop has a CD/DVD drive and the complete Microsoft Office 2010 installed.They are issued for 3 hours at a time and automatically detect CPIT  Wifi.

Library laptop

When the CPIT Library opened within the Rakaia Centre over 10 years ago, access to computers was seen as critical, and the building included computer suites and teaching labs. In the past 5 years personal laptops have become increasingly popular, and now what is needed in a teaching and learning space is access to a powerpoint, and comfortable, versatile furniture.

To avoid having to compete for a power source the Library laptops are issued fully charged and can be used anywhere in the Learning Resource Centre.

Laptop friendly furniture is starting to appear around the Library, and on Level 2, the Laptop Lounge, overlooking the Atrium, is a comfortable, quiet space to work.

Laptops in the Library

The Waimakariri River Room, by the lift on Level 2, is going to be converted into a Quiet Study Zone, with individual study carrels. Wifi is also available in this room.

The laptops don’t connect to the network so there is no access to the student network (your H Drive) so work must be saved to a pen-drive. Anything saved to the laptop hard-drive will be deleted.

If you prefer to use a mouse with your laptop please ask at the desk and a mouse can be issued. Unfortunately there is no printing currently available via wifi. Library staff will print out assignments if you have them saved to a pen-drive (10c per page) or you will have to log-in in one of the computer suites to print.