Author Archives: Emma Nelms

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Go wild for World Environment Day, June 5th

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Harnessing nature

Harnessing Nature by Tommy Clark (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Thursday, 5th of June 2014 is World Environment Day (WED) as designated by the United Nations to encourage awareness and action. The focus this year is on Small Islands which bear much of the brunt of climate change impact.

Here are 5 ways on the 5th to get engaged:

  1. Take on one of the WED challenges – purge plastics, cut food waste, reduce power and connect communities.
  2. The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Report is now available freely online. If you don’t have time to read the whole thing, the Climate Council website has a neat summary of the findings, particularly for Australia.

    Renewable Power of Destruction

    Renewable Power of Destruction by Stéfan (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

  3. Celebrate with The Wilderness Society at a pub party in Brisbane –  Networking for Nature.
  4. Find out why QUT’s Science and Engineering Centre (Gardens Point – P Block) has a 5 star rating: Sustainable technologies and outdoor spaces.
  5. Cli-Fi (Climate Change Fiction) is a thing. Check out some of the greats at QUT Library:

• Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood, and MaddAddam – The award-winning trilogy by Margaret Atwood
• Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver
• The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
• Solar by Ian McEwan
• Back to the Garden by Clara Hume

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Chill out over the summer with some Scandinavian crime fiction and film

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Ever since Stieg Larsson’s (Girl with a Dragon Tattoo) Millennium trilogy hit the bestseller list, Scandinavian crime fiction and television – also called Nordic Noir (to encompass Iceland and Finland) – has had a huge impact internationally.  It is characterised as realism coupled with a dark and morally complex tone, clean and crisply written, stripped of gothic flourish but not mood. So send some welcome icy shivers down your spine with our range of books and DVDs.

Books

Jo Nesbø is Norway’s most famous writer of crime fiction and features his hard boiled, alcoholic detective Harry Hole. However a close contender is Anne Holt  whose writing is based on her exeprience as a lawyer for the Oslo police force. Gunnar Staalesen’s novels are typified by a certain amount of humour and set in the medieval city of Bergen

Midwinter Sacrifice by Mons Kallentoft is a Swedish crime novel, which poetically uses different voices including that of the murdered man. Camilla Läckberg too has a slightly gothic take on the crime genre.

Television Series

The iconic Danish television series The Killing is a procedural investigation headed by the sensitive yet determined Sarah Lund in her famous sweaters. We hold the complete sets of Season One, Two and Three.

The Eagle: A Crime Odyssey is another Danish police series but more international in scope, with scenes set in Berlin and Iceland.

Anna Pihl set in Copenhagen follows the adventures of a new police officer and single mother. QUT Library holds seasons one,  two and three .

Her Swedish equivalent Irene Huss fights violent crime in Gothenberg, QUT library holds season one, parts one and two

If you’d prefer your detectives without style or flash techniques but middle aged and methodical then Beck is a Swedish detective series worth catching.

Wallander has been remade in English with Kenneth Branagh but the original Swedish series with Krister Henriksson as the melancholic detective set in rural Ystad is haunting. Season one, two, three and four are available on DVD or read one of the originals books Before the Frost, by Henning Mankell

If you’re wondering where all these places are, then Van Veeteren is set in a fictional  blended of Northern European cities called Maaterdam or wonder further afield – if you like heart attack inducing suspense Jar City is an Icelandic detective thriller.

So there enough chills and frozen landscapes at QUT Library to keep you shivering through a Brisbane summer.

For more information about Scandi Noir check out:

Photograph by @abrunvoll

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Summertime and the Reading is Easy

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Award Winners

For some inspiration, these are some of the award winning reads that rocked (at least some corners) of the world in 2013.

The Queensland Literary Awards winners including Mullumbimby by Melissa Lucashenko – an intelligent comedy about indigenous land rights and the modern woman

The winner of Man Booker Prize of 2013 is so long that it’s probably wiser to put it on the Christmas wish list than hope to obtain a library copy in the near future. However the contenders are worth reading too: Harvest by Jim Crace is an atmospheric historical novel set in the English countryside awash with mysteries and change while The Marrying of Chani Kaufman by Eve Harris describes an ultra-orthodox Jewish girl set to marry a man she has never met before.

Australia’s leading award the Miles Franklin was won by Michelle de Kretser for Questions of Travel for story about two characters dreaming of world travel – one in Sri Lanka and one in Sydney.  On the shortlist was The Mountain by Drusilla Modjeska set in Papua New Guinea where a European couple arrive to study a remote village but are confronted by the upheaval of the new local university.

Most Talked About

Meanwhile if you’re seen the TV series, try reading the books of the Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R.Martin , these are  (in order):

How to Find

If you know the title, the easiest way to locate it is through a title search in the library catalogue  and if it’s out or you’d like it brought to your favourite campus – try the orange “place a hold or intercampus request” button.

 Overdrive, a database of popular fiction ebooks including children’s, science fiction and fantasy as mysteries that can be accessed from your smartphone or tablet.

Photograph by Silvia Sala

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National Simultaneous Storytime at Kelvin Grove Library this Wednesday

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Join QUT Library’s special storytime and you will be part of a national event, the reading of Nick Bland’s The Wrong Book.

National Simultaneous Storytime is an important annual campaign that aims to encourage more young Australians to read and enjoy books. Now in its 13th successful year it is a colourful, vibrant and fun event that aims to promote the value of reading and literacy using an Australian childrens book that explores age appropriate themes and addresses key learning areas of the National Curriculum for Grades 1 to 6. Find out more here.

When: 10:00am – 11:00am, Wednesday 22 May 2013 (yes 10 am at Kelvin Grove)
Where: Curriculum Collection, Kelvin Grove Library,
D block, level 4
Reading: Adele Amorsen, Faculty of Education, School of Early Childhood

We welcome staff and students from the Faculty of Education and School of Early Childhood, children, parents, grandparents and carers.

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Making sustainable choices with electronics

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(by Insa) Do you have a mobile phone, e-book reader, computer or television? How often do you replace them? And what do you do with them when it’s time to upgrade?
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A literature review in this article reported that the environmental impact of a single e-reader (including the use of minerals, water and fossil fuels) is about the same as 50 books. The article also found that at present the average e-reader is used less than two years before it is replaced.

So get reading – and make your e-reader break even – by reading some of the 500,00+ e-books currently available through the library!

When it is time to upgrade your e-reader/computer/printer/mobile phone make sure that it doesn’t end up in landfill and leach harmful toxins like mercury and lead into the soil and water supply – recycle it! You can drop e-waste off for free at a number of drop-off points. You can recycle old mobile phones (all makes and models) – and thereby help save gorilla habitat – by taking them to a mobile muster drop-off point or downloading a reply paid label and posting them in.

Want more info about e-waste? Watch The Story of Electronics

Image: Old mobile phones at a market. (Matthijs /Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

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National funders mandate open access

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As of 1st January 2013, two of Australia’s major research funding bodies —the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and the Australian Research Council (ARC)—have both implemented open access policies which are now in effect.

The NHMRC’s policy was announced in 2012 and requires that journal articles, accepted after 1st July 2012 and arising from an NHMRC supported research project, are to be deposited into an open access institutional repository within a 12 month period from the date of publication.

This means articles accepted anytime after 1st July 2012 are subject to the NHMRC’s policy, regardless of when funding was granted.
The NHMRC understands that some researchers may not be able to meet the new requirements initially, because of current legal or contractual obligations.
The ARC’s policy, which has taken effect from 1st January 2013, requires that any publication arising from an ARC supported research project must be deposited into an open access institutional repository within 12 months from the date of publication.

It is important to note that the ARC’s policy:
• Applies to all publications (not just journal articles)
• Will take effect on publications arising from 2013 funding grants

QUT’s institutional repository, QUT ePrints, can assist authors in complying with these new policies by storing open access copies of their publications and ensuring they are discoverable. For more information about QUT ePrints and open access, contact your Liaison Librarian.

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Be informed, be part of The Conversation

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The Conversation is an independent website of Australian news, reportage, analysis and critique written from the academic and research sector.

Originally founded by a collaboration of CSIRO, Monash, University of Melbourne, UTS and UWA, with an endorsement from Nobel Laureate Peter Doherty; The Conversation provides Australians with a free source of localised intelligent commentary and critique – more newsy than an academic journal but with more depth than a newspaper. Free online content from Salon, Slate, The Guardian, the New York Times, London Review of Books and The New Yorker (amongst many others) have brought good journalism and essay writing to a broader audience but a focus on more localised Australian issues is useful and pertinent.
The Conversation has sections on Business and the Economy, Health and Medicine, Environment and Energy, Politics and Society, Science and Technology and a Jobs Board. Recent topics and articles look to the future of the public service and who should pay for undergraduate education.
Researchers (and only those affiliated to an academic or research institute) can become authors by filling out a brief submission form. Newsletter, Twitter and Facebook interfaces are all available.

Enter The Conversation here: http://libcat.library.qut.edu.au/record=b3617763~S7

Image by Styven Magnes

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Get your Summer Reading On

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Image by B.Riordan

No more recommend readings and dreary research, read for pleasure and leisure and exploit the QUT Library collection to  keep up to date with some essential good reads over the long summer.

Available in both print and ebook format (perfect for downloading to your smart phone or tablet), there are many good books at QUT Library for you to enjoy and take some time out.

If you have a particular title in mind, the easiest way to locate it is via a title search in the library catalogue  and if it’s out or you’d like it brought to your favourite campus – try the orange “place a hold or intercampus request” button.

If  you’re looking for some inspiration …

Keep up with the latest and greatest in literary fiction by  looking at award shortlists:

There are some interesting selections of what to read too.

If you’re not into fiction why not take a look at:

If QUT Library doesn’t hold it and you think we should, contact us.

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Gruen Transfer goes Global: international market research reports

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If you’re researching Asia parenting styles,  city living in China, the impact of technology on Children, Indian real estate trends or the clothing industry in Brazil then Passport GMID has the report for you.

Passport GMID is a fascinating database of international market research on consumer trends. It includes a country pulse section, should you want to know what’s the latest consumer trends in the United States or Vietnam.

It’s also a good way to get a grip on what’s happening in finance & economics but written and presented in a clear and accessible way. Not only essential for assignments but an excellent way to keep informed with the real data and facts behind the news.

An important user tip is to check out the excellent video tutorials to be found from the “Help” menu on the black bar.

Passport GMID can be accessed from here: http://libguides.library.qut.edu.au/databases/passportgmid

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Getting Set!

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It’s Week 3. It’s time to think about starting your assessment.

Lectures and tutorials are happening.  You are taking notes and doing your readings.  Things are rolling along.  Great!

Now is the time to think about starting your assignments.  No, it’s not too early!  For many units, assignment due dates will start around Week 6 of the semester.  That’s only a couple of weeks away.

Things you could do to get started:

  • Mark down all your assessment for each unit on a planner so that you have all the dates in one place.  A Planner for Semester 2 is available online.
  • Use the Assignment Calculator to work out how to get started on your assignments and to track their progress.
  • Set aside some specific time during this week to get going on an assignment.

Not sure how to start?  Here are some suggestions:

  • Talk to your tutor or lecturer about what is required.
  • Ask someone at the Library Learning and Research desk to show you our online learning resources and help you find information.
  • Book a Study Solutions appointment for a 25 minute one-on-one appointment to talk about your assignment and how to do it.
  • Check out your faculty’s peer assistance program to talk to another student about your study.

Don’t put off starting on your assessment.  Time can slip away quickly.  For best results with less stress, start early and work consistently.