Archive for the ‘Staff blogs’ Category

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13
Dec
2012

Family history at your fingertips

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Family history can become addictive and at Newcastle Libraries it’s also free!

You don’t need to sign up for expensive online websites. Visit any of our libraries and you can get immediate access to Ancestry and Find my Past. Both websites have access to a huge range of genealogical collections including births, marriages and deaths, census records, passenger lists and military records. Records are available from all over the world and they’re constantly being expanded. If you’ve never tried it before and would like some advice book a free internet taster session with one of our staff by phoning 0191 2774100.

You can also visit our heritage centre at the City Library to find more local and family history records. As well as being one of only seven regional centres for the GRO births deaths and marriages, we also hold other records including the adoption index and full indexes of overseas life events dating back to 1761.

You can also search the largest newspaper collection in the region, with 69 titles dating from 1710 to the present day. Or you might want to access newspapers online, including gems like the Police Gazette.

We also hold regional parish registers, census records and voters lists, maps, over 100,000 photographs and a huge collection of material about the history of the region.

Visit your local library and start searching!

Kath Cassidy
Heritage Service Manager

Posted in Heritage, Local and family history, News | Comments Off

6
Aug
2012

Our #digitalhour at Newcastle Monument

On a beautiful sunny day 30 volunteers from across Newcastle gave up an hour of their time to help people in the city centre find out more about taking their first steps online.  The gang of volunteers arrived at Monument at 1pm (armed with laptops, flip cameras, digital cameras, iPads and smartphones!) ready to speak to members of the public.

Thanks to the Tyneside Cinema, the big screen was fired up with information about getting online and how to pledge for superfast connectivity. Jonathan Miles from BBC Newcastle introduced the event in great style and really got the crowd interested.  Jonathan also introduced Cllr Ann Schofield, the council’s Digital Champion, who spoke about the importance of getting online in Newcastle.

The volunteers then went into the crowds gathered at Monument to spread the word!

What we achieved:

• 193 pledges for superfast broadband
• 25,958 Twitter accounts reached on the day via the hashtag #digitalhour
• 17 people signed up to be Digital Champions

Thanks to everyone involved who made this happen!

One of our volunteers commented:

“It was good to see such a positive response to signing the pledge for Newcastle to be able to access faster broadband use. That will facilitate more new users”

Special thanks to Jackie Delaney and Simon Clydesdale from the Department of Work and Pensions who rallied 16 volunteers to the cause. A great time was had by all…roll on the next event!

Find out more about the BBC Give an Hour campaign.

Sarah Graham
UK Online Project Officer

Posted in Information and Digital, News, Staff blogs | Comments Off

5
Jul
2012

Something a bit different for fantasy fans

We recently had the pleasure of an evening with local author Rachael H. Dixon at City Library. She was promoting her new first novel ‘Slippery Souls’ – an urban fantasy set at the seaside in Sunray Bay, featuring a talking dog, werewolves and a vampire with OCD! Rachael read some extracts from her book then answered a number of questions from the audience. It was fascinating to hear how Rachael developed the concept and story line for her book. Some of her ideas evolve from the vivid dreams that she has! She is hoping to write another two books to complete the Sunray Bay trilogy. We hope to welcome Rachael back in the future. Reserve a copy of Slippery Souls online.

Chris
Library and Information Officer

Posted in Adult Reading and Learning, Author Events, Events, News | Comments Off

10
May
2012

What we did for World Book Night 2012

On 23 April, Newcastle Libraries celebrated World Book Night in style. This was a chance for us to share the joy of reading, both inside and outside of the library. Over one hundred staff and customers applied to be book givers, and we distributed a staggering 2400 FREE books across the city, double what we did last year.

As it was the date of Shakespeare’s birth (and death) we decided to kick start the programme with a book swap at the Theatre Royal while the unveiling of their statue ‘Mercutio’ took place. A total of one hundredbooks were given out within an hour!

Library staff, teenage ‘My Voice’ volunteers, members of our children’s reading group and our local councillor distributed books across the city centre, in coffee shops, bars and the Tyneside Cinema.

The celebration continued with a performance from Silver Linings which got the audience to dancing and singing in the atrium. The atmosphere was already buzzing when we welcomed our fabulous visiting author Adele Parks, who was excited to be involved with World Book Night, and did a fantastic ‘meet the author’ session. The audience were gripped with tales of Adele’s life and the inspiration behind her novels which included her latest title ‘About Last Night’. Our ‘My Voice’ volunteers excitedly interviewed Adele without any hesitation. Listen to this interview below.

 Standard Podcast [7:14m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

We also involved talented local actors ‘Spectrum Arts’ who spent their Sunday mornings rehearsing intensely for ‘Shakespeare’s Greatest Hits’. Customers followed the group around the building enthralled in the scenes and costumes.

We were fortunate to be one of several satellite venues to live stream a World Book Night event from Queen Elizabeth Hall on London’s Southbank where top authors helped spread the message of how empowering reading can be.

If you would like to be part of World Book Night 2013 register your details. From personal experience, this is a chance not to be missed!

Sharon Reeve
Reading and Learning Service Manager

Posted in Adult Reading and Learning, Events, News, Podcasts, Staff blogs | Comments Off

16
Nov
2011

Staff blog: when the past meets the future

Luke Burton blogs about the recent work he has been involved in below. We recently followed him for the day on Twitter too. If you missed out view the tweets here. Over to Luke…

It’s been nine months since we launched our ebooks service, offering fiction and non-fiction titles to download for free. So far we’ve had over 6000 downloads by nearly 1000 people. As well as buying titles from our supplier we added titles from our in-house publishers, Tyne Bridge Publishing.

Recently I was at a conference in Manchester where staff from Derby Libraries said they had been adding titles from their local history collection to their ebooks site so that people could borrow titles that would normally be too rare or valuable to lend. Immediately I thought this was an idea we could steal, I mean, that people in Newcastle would find interesting… so we set up a team to look at what titles we could add to our website and how we would go about digitising them.

As a result of our first meeting we decided to add some titles from our heritage collection about the early history of Newcastle as well as some titles from our in-house publishers which are out of print and cannot be bought anymore. In order to give this new digital collection a big launch (as well as giving us plenty of time to work on them!) we have decided to time its release to begin with Local History Month in May 2012.

Over the next couple of months we will be making a small number of titles available to download so people can get an idea of what we will be adding and so we can see how popular they are. At the moment there are three Tyne Bridge Publishing titles available for customers to download:

‘Beneath This Green and Pleasant Land’ by John Graham, a warm and often hard-hitting account of life as a North East miner and one of our most popular titles.

‘Bygone Walker’ and ‘Bygone Byker’ both pictorial histories, using old photographs to portray that past which has given each area such a distinctive character.

The more difficult part is going to be adding rare, valuable or old items from our heritage collection which we are looking to do soon. To begin with these will probably include early pamphlets on the history of Newcastle dating from the seventeenth century. We will also be adding some more Tyne Bridge titles soon.

Why not visit our eBooks site, download some of the titles and tell us what you think! Visit the Digital Collection.

Luke Burton
Information and Digital Team

Posted in Information and Digital, News, Staff blogs | Comments Off

21
Oct
2011

Welcome international students!

Chris Rutherford of the Reading and Learning team blogs about International Community Day at the Civic Centre….

Chris Rutherford

Last week I was involved in the student event at the Civic Centre. The event took place in the Banqueting Suite where 36 tables were set up to accommodate exhibitors from a wide range of services from council offices, arts, health, careers and accommodation. The aim of the day was to welcome newly arrived international students. The event provides them with an opportunity to find out more about the fantastic leisure and community resources available across Newcastle.

Each year Newcastle and Northumbria Universities receive over 4,300 international students. Judith, Barbara and I set up our table with promotional material showcasing all that the libraries had to offer from author events to computer sessions. We handed out dozens of application forms and many students wanted to sign up immediately. We were kept busy for the whole afternoon signing them up. We ran out of forms and just had enough tickets!! All together between the three of us we joined 87 students to the library. It was pretty hectic but certainly a productive afternoon. We were all so busy that we missed the refreshments that were being served! My thanks go to Barbara and Judith who worked so hard and with great enthusiasm. The event was a huge success and well worth the effort.

Posted in Adult Reading and Learning, News, Staff blogs | Comments Off

6
Oct
2011

Staff update from the Info and Digi team

The past month has been a particularly busy one for the Information and Digital team as we’ve all been hard at work establishing a new Business and Intellectual Property Centre on level 1 of the City Library. The centre is designed to offer support and advice to the North East’s entrepreneurial and business talent. It was officially launched on 5 September with an event headlined by successful Dragon’s Den contestant Solvej Biddle (photo below). Since then, the area has been buzzing with people eager to take advantage of the business advice we have on offer.

Throughout September the team has been in a frenzy of activity, including getting up at the crack of dawn to attend business networking breakfast sessions! We are pleased to be able to offer 1-2-1 sessions which include business coaching, intellectual property and business finance, as well as legal advice from a patents attorney and solicitor in residence. You can even book an appointment with a local entrepreneur to get the low-down on what it’s really like to go it alone – and all of this is free!

Solvej Biddle

Visitors to the Business and Intellectual Property Centre can access business information databases such as Corporate Researcher, Cobra and British Standards. In partnership with the British Library, Newcastle and Northumbria Universities and Newcastle Science City, we are proud to be leading the way in supporting the local business community by providing resources and advice to guide entrepreneurs and businesses on their journey to success. With new sessions and events being organised all the time, and an exciting new programme planned for early 2012, we don’t expect our hectic schedules to let up any time soon!

For more information on any of the above please contact the team on 0191 2774100, email newcastlebipc@newcastle.gov.uk. Visit the BIPC website.

Posted in Events, Information and Digital, Staff blogs | Comments Off

25
Aug
2011

A famous face explores his heritage at City Library

An update from the Heritage Service Manager, Kath Cassidy.

A couple of months ago I mentioned that we’d had camera crews in the library and a visit from a mystery celebrity. I can now reveal that the celebrity was none other than comedian Alan Carr. Alan was in the region filming for a forthcoming episode of the BBC programme ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ He spent an entire day in the heritage section and as you can imagine his visit caused great excitement. Alan was lovely, very friendly and extremely funny, exactly as he appears on television. We were a little disappointed to find out that the library sequence will not be screened when the programme is broadcast, but having said that, it was still a very enjoyable and rewarding experience.

City Libraries Manager, David Fay, with library staff and chatty man himself, Alan Carr.

We’ve also been busy putting together a packed programme of autumn events. These include a range of free events to celebrate Heritage Open Days. Find out more about Heritage Open Days.

We are also organising a number of activities including an archive film show, guided walks around the suburbs, a look at our Newcastle United archive, talks about our industrial heritage and an exhibition featuring the work of Thomas Bewick. View the Newcastle Libraries events calendar.

Kath Cassidy
Heritage Service Manager

Posted in Heritage, News, Staff blogs | Comments Off

11
Aug
2011

Staff blog – Information and Digital team update

We’re continuing to refresh stock displays on level 1 of City Library. For those heading off for a bit of sunshine why not have a look at the Road Trip Reads or Comedy displays? There is also a Road Trip Reads ebook collection which is available to download.

If you have been into City Library over the past week you may have noticed the development of the Agencies Space as staff are working hard to create a business area.  This area will host relevant business and intellectual property information as well as other ‘start up’ materials, relevant magazines and newspapers.  There will be a skills swap board for customers, an events programme as well as details of one to one advice sessions. Access to business databases such as Corporate Researcher, Cobra and British Standards will be available via designated computers. Staff have been down to the British Library to learn more about workshops, newsletters and business advice delivery.  There will be a business launch in partnership with Science City on 5 September to promote our events which includes a visit from a well known contestant on The Apprentice. Find out more details about the launch event.

For those who have just left school and are wondering what to do next, join our work club which supports CV writing, interview techniques, job searching and application forms.  A number of participating customers have been successful with either finding jobs or gaining an interview.  There are various sessions throughout our community libraries and City Library. Just ask a member of staff for more details, phone 0191 2774100 or email information@newcastle.gov.uk.

Sharon Reeve
Information and Digital Service Manager

Posted in Information and Digital, News, Staff blogs | Comments Off

10
Aug
2011

City Libraries Manager goes back to the floor

David Fay, City Libraries Manager, shares his thoughts below after working a shift at Denton Burn Library…

As part of a series of ‘back to the floor days’ for senior staff, I was nominated to work at Denton Burn Library for an afternoon and evening. When I arrived, my colleague Gloria and I couldn’t decide who was the most nervous, but I was promptly given a tour of the building, shown where the fire exits were, and was told what sort of events were taking place that afternoon.

Apart from serving customers, there was plenty to do including accessioning new stock, replacing date labels and of course lots of shelving (I got a sneaky feeling they’d been saving a few things up for me!). Gloria was very patient as I tentatively issued and reserved books to some very nice customers.

A regular craft session was booked for the afternoon but we weren’t sure how many children would come. Having spent 6 years as a children’s librarian I felt on surer ground with this. Sure enough I soon got back into the swing of making things out of not very much! The children were aged from about 8 to 10 and were suitably energetic and cheeky. I was quickly told I had ears ‘like an elf’ and that they were going to make me an emergency wig! It was interesting to see Gloria running the group whilst keeping an eye on the counter – very impressive.

The evening was much quieter and gave me chance to do all the jobs I’d been left as well as finish the shelving and put books on display – it was very satisfying to do something with a tangible end result.

The day went by in a blur and gave me a tantalising reminder of why I started to work in libraries almost 30 years ago!

David Fay
City Libraries Manager

Posted in David Fay - City Libraries Manager, News, Staff blogs | Comments Off

6
Aug
2011

Staff blog – plus choose your favorite books

An update from Kerry Bossons, Reading and Learning Service Manager

The Man Booker Prize longlist has just been announced for this year. We are working with Waterstones on a project called the Toon Man Booker which aims to get people in the North East talking about the national Man Booker Prize nominations and deciding on their favourite. There will be voting boxes around the City as well as the chance to vote online. Each Man Booker nominee will be championed by local library staff, booksellers and reading groups leading to a gala evening on the 18 October where we will reveal our winner on the same night as the national prize. Look out for more information in the September e-newsletter.

Subscribe to the Newcastle Libraries e-newsletter.

View the Man Booker longlist.

The second World Book Night will take place in April next year but readers are already being invited to submit their top ten nominations via the World Book Night website. The first World Book Night this year saw 20,000 volunteers give away 1 million specially printed books.

Nominate your top 10 titles. But hurry, as you only have until the end of August.

I made my own list and found it hard to limit myself to ten so in the end chose the ones that were ‘unputdownable’ and stayed with me after I’d finished the book. My top ten (in no particular order are):

‘My Family and Other Animals’ – Gerald Durrell
Pure escapism, I love the way he describes growing up on Corfu, the wildlife he encounter and his eccentric family.

‘The Sacred Art of Stealing’ – Christopher Brookmyre
Christopher Brookmyre id one of my favourite authors and I chose this one for the brilliant heist at the centre of the book.

‘Far from the Madding Crowd’ – Thomas Hardy
Any novel with exploding sheep gets my nomination; this is also a favourite as it shows that quiet determination wins in the end.

‘World War Z’ – Max Brooks
A novel which tells the story of a zombie apocalypse from many different viewpoints, this was so I engrossing I managed to read it in the middle of a play park in the school holidays.

‘Alice in Sunderland’ – Bryan Thomas
This graphic novel veers off on different tangents and manages to cover the history of Sunderland (yes I know, get over it!), Lewis Carroll and Alice in Wonderland as well as featuring Sid James and Tintin (not together).

‘The Name of the Rose’ – Umberto Eco
*spoiler alert* This is a cautionary tale all those who lick their fingers before turning pages, you know who you are…

‘The Tent, the Bucket and Me’ – Emma Kennedy
This book made me laugh and cry as it reminded me so much of my childhood holiday experiences, the title says it all.

‘The Assassin’s Apprentice’ – Robin Hobb
This is the first in a series featuring Fitz who is trained as an assassin; it is fantasy and is strong on ‘Games of Thrones’ style skulduggery and intrigue rather than runes and ale quaffing.

‘Little Brother’ – Cory Doctorow
Although written for teenagers, this novel tells a tale of teenagers caught in the aftermath of a terrorist attack and how technology is used to watch us all.

‘Angela Carter’s Book of Fairy Tales’ – Angela Carter
These are fairy tales as you’ve never seen them before, wilder and more disturbing than the ones you are familiar with.

Kerry Bossons
Reading and Learning Service Manager

Posted in Adult Reading and Learning, News, Staff blogs | Comments Off

4
Aug
2011

Latest staff blog – news from the Heritage team

1951 FA Cup Final
Image Courtesy of Newcastle United Archive: Paul Joannou official historian to Newcastle United.

As part of our regional Played in Tyne and Wear partnership, we’ve just opened a major sporting exhibition on level 6 of City Library.

Download the exhibition catalogue. (PDF, 1.17MB)

The exhibition uses archive material to illustrate the history of sport in the region and includes pigeon racing, rowing, golf, and cricket. Of course an exhibition about regional sport wouldn’t be complete without reference to the beautiful game so we’ve worked closely with  Mick Edmondson from the Back Page who has generously loaned us a great deal of fascinating material that charts the history of Newcastle United. The exhibition runs until 30 October 2011 and is a must see destination for sports fans of all ages.

In my last blog I mentioned that the History Club had been selected as one of three finalists in the prestigious CILIP Libraries Change Lives award. Earlier in the month, along with colleagues who run the club on a weekly basis, I attended the CILIP conference at De Havilland University in Hatfield to collect our certificate and a cheque for £1,500. The prize money will be a great help in adding value to the programme of club activities and we now plan to take members on a number of short excursions to places of historic significance in and around the City, something that we know they really enjoy.

We are currently planning our autumn events programme – so look out for details of forthcoming heritage events in the next edition of the Page Turner newsletter.

Kath Cassidy
Heritage Service Manager

Posted in Heritage, News, Staff blogs | Comments Off

13
Jul
2011

The latest library staff blog…

Written by Janice Hall, Libraries Development Manager (Communities)

It is great to report that our library service has been awarded full compliance in the Customer Service Excellence Award. The assessor said he was ‘very impressed with the standards throughout the whole service from the impressive buildings, knowledgeable and courteous staff, through to the accessible information provided about the service.’

It was very good for all the library staff to hear about this accolade which was a tribute to all their hard work. Another of the feature of the service which impressed the assessor was the variety of work we do with other agencies to enhance the service. A good example of this was a project which has just been completed called The National Young Readers Programme. Coordinated by the National Literacy Trust and supported by the Universal Bank of Switzerland, we delivered this project which linked Children’s Centres and libraries. Over 1000 books were given to children who also took part in lots of literacy based activities. All children who weren’t already members joined the library and received their first library card.


I have chosen a children’s book to mention this time – Sky Hawk by a new author Gill Lewis. It’s a beautifully written wildlife adventure intertwining the lives of two children with that of an osprey. I just couldn’t put this book down and will be recommending this to as many children as possible taking part in our Summer Reading Challenge! I have nominated this title as one of the books promoted on the next World Book Night in April 2012. Send in your book recommendations for World Book Night.

Janice Hall
Libraries Development Manager (Communities)

Posted in Community Libraries Manager, News, Staff blogs | Comments Off

29
Jun
2011

The latest staff blog from the Info and Digi team

An update from the new Information and Digital Service Manager:

Staff within our teams at City Library have had a bit of a change over but it’s still business as usual.

13-19 June was National Carer’s Week and we celebrated with a marketplace event at City Library. It was great to see the Bewick Hall buzzing with approximately 90 people (and 1 dog!!) who came to find out how they could be supported as carers. They got the chance to learn how to play the ukulele as well! In addition, the Information and Digital team hosted an introduction to online shopping session where we looked at how to buy things from Amazon and how to save money on food shopping through My Supermarket – if you haven’t been on this website before do check it out. We hope this will become an annual event in the City Library during National Carer’s Week.

We’ve also had a host of other agencies in using the City Library this past month including the Housing Advice Centre, the community police, Connexions, Your Homes Newcastle advice and support team and Duke of Edinburgh representatives to name but a few! These agencies use our space on level 1 which can be booked for FREE (yes you did here that correctly – free!!)  by any information and guidance (IAG) provider. Agencies have access to prime drop-in space in the stunning library atrium, high visitor numbers, a bookable interview room for confidential appointments, information display facilities, free wi-fi and much more. If you fit into this category and would like to promote your service to a new audience contact the Information and Digital team on 0191 2774100 or email room.bookings@newcastle.gov.uk.

Alongside many other training sessions, Nick, Luke and Anne delivered ebook taster sessions to visually impaired users at MEA Housein Newcastle as part of Make a Noise in Libraries Week. This was a learning curve for all of us as we did not have experience of the screen reader software called ‘Guide’ which Newcastle Society of the Blind use on their PCs. This software not only enlarges the text, but also guides users around the page without having to use a mouse and can speak the text out loud. During the session, we showed the participants what an e-reader looks like and how it can enlarge the text so it can be more easily read. In two of the sessions we had a Sony e-reader as well as an Amazon Kindle and opinion was divided between which the group preferred! The Kindle was liked for the largeness of the text and for the contrast between the letters and the back of the page, but the Sony reader was liked for its touch screen and its navigation….so the group concluded that a combination of both of them would be just perfect. There’s a proposition for you Sony and Amazon!

In June we hosted our first business workshop in partnership with Newcastle Science City. This exciting new partnership will bring a range of workshops and public lectures on wide range of topics designed to help businesses grow including subjects from PR to market research, sales and marketing to recruitment and HR. Our first workshop, delivered by Fred Pernet from proAgile and Simon Green from Newcastle Science City, was on the subject of digital innovation and was very well received by audience members. Our next event is called Law for Business and is on Wednesday 29 June from 8:30am – 10am at City Library. This session is aimed at individuals with new product or service ideas that could be turned into businesses but need an introduction to legal issues. We look forward to seeing you there!

Sharon Reeve
Information and Digital Service Manager

Posted in Business information, Events, Information and Digital, News, Staff blogs | Comments Off

27
Jun
2011

Staff blog – news from the Heritage team

Well it’s been a whirlwind couple of months for the Heritage team. We hosted a full and fast paced programme of events during Local History Month in May. Events ranged from talks about the WW2 bunker RAF Blakelaw, a cartoon workshop with the creator of Viz, Simon Donald, and guided walks around Jesmond and High Heaton.

Forthcoming events include an exhibition about the interwar artist, Byron Dawson, a talk about the history of one of Newcastle’s best known picture houses, the Tyneside Cinema, and a new major exhibition exploring the region’s sporting history. Find out more in the latest Page Turner newsletter.

008561:Shield's Road Newcastle upon Tyne C. 1900

Shields Road, circa 1900

We’ve also had our fair share of television crews visiting the section. We took part in an item that was broadcast on the local news on the eve of the Royal Wedding. You may have heard that the Duchess of Cambridge has Geordie roots and we’ve got the paperwork to prove it! Using parish registers and census records we were able to show that the Duchess had ancestors who originated from an area at the top of Shields Road – known then as Byker Hills. They were a mining family who moved from Newcastle to County Durham.

There was also a visit from the BBC’s ‘Who Do you Think You Are’ production team complete with a famous face who has local connections.  Filming in the heritage section took a full day and the celebrity was a great hit with the public and staff. We’ve been sworn to secrecy for the moment- but watch this space…

We are delighted that the History Club has been nominated as a finalist for the prestigious CILIP Libraries Change Lives Award alongside Newcastle Libraries’ NEALIS project. View videos and more information about the projects here. The winner will be announced at the CILIP Umbrella conference on 13 July 2011.

Newcastle City Libraries now subscribe to the Find My Past geneaology website. Members of the library can access both the Find My Past and Ancestry websites free of charge in any Newcastle Library. (Please note you must be accessing these links in one of our libraries to have full access to the searches.)

Kath Cassidy
Heritage Service Manager

Posted in Events, Heritage, Local and family history, News, Staff blogs | Comments Off

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