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

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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!

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.

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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

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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

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Online resources are ideal for our constantly changing world as they can be updated instantly as events happen. The Encyclopaedia Britannica has created an entry on the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan which provides verified information as events happen. The Oxford English Dictionary has also been updated to include the words muffin top, WAG and abbreviations LOL and FYI. There are some videos on You Tube of the editor and other OED  lexicographers explaining the latest additions to the dictionary. Visit the OED’s You Tube channel.

We’ve been dotting the City Library with Quick Response (QR) codes. These are boxy looking barcodes that can be read with mobile phones that have internet access. We are using the codes to direct customers to our 24 hour online services such as ebooks, reference sources and our blog. The codes are also being used to create a treasure trail for the Late Shows in May. Follow the Tyne God Trail.

You can now check in to all of our branches using Foursquare. Foursquare is a social networking application for mobile phones and members can check in to locations and earn badges. New York Public Libraries are offering a badge to celebrate their 150^th anniversary to all people who visit 5 or more branches. We are currently thinking about what badges we can offer.

New iTea and Biscuits groups have been set up at Gosforth and Kenton Libraries. The groups are aimed at over 55s who want to find out more about using computers with the added incentive of free tea and biscuits! One member of the Gosforth group enjoyed herself so much she has decided to buy herself a PC. Please contact Gosforth Library (0191 2771811) or Kenton Library (0191 2774310) if you would like to join a group.

Kerry Bossons
Service Manager
The Information and Digital Team

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Above: United States Patent 3962748 from 1976: “A TV control device for rotating a dial of a TV set, from an area distant from the set.”

If the last month seems to have flown by, it’s because we’ve had so much going on! As part of Evolving English we saw the Newcastle Scrabble Club keenly contesting members of the public at City Library and we hosted an interesting talk by colleagues from Newcastle University on dialect and its development in the North East.

We have seen our new ebooks and audiobooks in the Newcastle Libraries Digital Collection grow so that we now have nearly 1300 items for you browse and download and we have held our first internet taster classes to introduce customer to ebooks. We also launched our first iTea and biscuits groups in the community libraries – these are informal, friendly groups for older people interested in learning more about computers and the internet.

We held our first Work Clubs at City Library and in the branch libraries in partnership with Newcastle Futures. These group meetings offer free help and support on cv writing, online job searching and interview skills. The aim is to build up the confidence of group members and their ability in finding work. If you haven’t seen it yet, take a look at the jobcentre plus kiosk on level 1 at City Library for all the latest vacancies. We’ve been doing so much and I haven’t even mentoned the Science Fest’s beautifully designed Lung Dress or our new QR codes!

In March, the Information and Digital team have a couple of highlights relating to our Business and Intellectual Property Services. Firstly, there is an Entrepreneurs’ Question and Answer event at City Library and we are also supporting the ‘Wallace & Gromit World of Cracking Ideas’ exhibition at the Centre for Life. As part of the marketing for the exhibition we are looking for one or two local inventors to showcase in the press. Would any local inventors / entrepreneurs like to step forward with their success stories? If so, please just drop me an email to the address below outlining your invention or product and how it has taken flight.

Whether you are looking to put a great idea into practice (like the one in the picture above perhaps!), learn something new on the internet, or simply pick up a good book we look forward to welcoming you in a library this month.

Nick Stopforth
Information and Digital Team Service Manager
nick.stopforth@newcastle.gov.uk

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To celebrate the Evolving English campaign the Information and Digital Team have been working with Newcastle Scrabble Club who will be in residence at City Library  from Monday 21 to Saturday 26 February, to challenge the public to Scrabble matches. Club members canbe found on level 1 of the City Library. On level 2 there will be the chance to play Scrabble using a Wii (not the same because your opponent can see your tiles!) and you can use digital grafitti to record your favourite words. View a full  programme of the Evolving English events including an evening with Simon Donald (him off of the Viz).

We launched our new ebook service on 24 January and already one third of the ebooks have been borrowed. So far we have heard from a mother borrowing audiobooks to play to her children from an iPhone, and a reader with arthritis who finds ebooks easier to handle than heavy books. Let us know where you have been reading your ebooks and what you have been reading them on – to paraphrase the old adverts for Crème Eggs, how do you read yours!

Kerry Bossons
Information and Digital Team Service Manager

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The team is planning plenty for the New Year, including our support of a campaign called Go On: Get More Out of Life Online, which aims to help people get online and increase their confidence using computers and the internet during January and February. We will be running events at City Library – look out for more details soon. We hope that these sessions will help people meet some of their New Year’s resolutions, such as using the computer or digital camera that was bought as a Christmas present (last year!), or contacting that distant relative using email or social networks for the first time. Using computers or websites requires some knowledge of how they work, but often it is also simply a matter of gaining confidence and this is where we can help too.

I’m terrible at keeping New Year resolutions (I ate chocolate after one week of resolve last year) but if you’re thinking about keeping New Year’s resolutions more effectively than me, your library service can help you with this too. We have books to accommodate every area of self-improvement, and I’ve highlighted a few here; perhaps this will inspire you to read more about the activity you want to try, the achievement you want to reach, or the habit you want to break.

Resolving to save money in the New Year? – we can help:

Want to break a habit? – we have the books for you:

Want to be more active? – take a look at our books on health in the library, and visit our health and wellbeing page.

Thinking of learning to drive next year? – take a look at Theory Test Pro on the 24 Hour Library – a fantastic introduction to the hazard perception test and highway code.

Whatever you choose to do that’s new and exciting for 2011, we wish all our customers a peaceful New Year.

Nick Stopforth
Service Manager
Information and Digital Team

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Last week was Global Entrepreneurship Week – a worldwide call to action for inventors and people starting out in new ventures or businesses. Newcastle Libraries supported this with free 1-2-1 intellectual property sessions and a display of business and intellectual property books. The intellectual property sessions at City Library are held in a confidential environment with experienced staff who can direct you to resources, databases and information from the Intellectual Property Office. We can also help you understand the application process for a patent or trademark, and the costs involved. These sessions are well worth considering if you are at an early stage of your idea’s formulation, or if you are at the stage where you are ready to submit an application. Find out more about intellectual property sessions.

Library services that work to provide free intellectual property information form part of a network of libraries called PATLIB, and last week I attended the PATLIB’s yearly AGM and training day. This is a great opportunity to learn from other library services around the UK about the way they deliver services, consider issues currently affecting inventors and entrepreneurs, and meet with colleagues who are keen to spread the word about intellectual property. This year’s meeting took place at Plymouth, at the Lord Mayor’s official residence. The fantastic setting was the home of the Nancy Astor, MP for Plymouth Sutton and the first elected female MP to take her seat in the House of Commons.

The AGM and training day also included an opportunity to visit Plymouth Central Library – our hosts showed us the refurbishment, which reminded me very clearly of the work we’ve undertaken in Newcastle. Seeing wiring hanging from ceilings and old desks taken out brings memories flooding back of our own experiences here in Newcastle.

If you have an idea for a new product or invention (whether it involves electro-magnetics and wiring, or something less technical – perhaps a new cooking utensil you’d like to market!) call in for an IP appointment.

All the best,
Nick Stopforth
Information and Digital Service Manager

P.S I mentioned cooking utensils because it’s a tenuous link to something I mentioned in our last team blog post – new cookery books. I said that we’d happily publish a recipe and here is our winner. Thanks to Norina for this recipe – banana bread is a personal favourite of mine!

BANANA TEABREAD

200g self raising flour
Quarter level tsp. bicarbonate of soda
Half level tsp. salt
85g butter
170g castor sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1lb bananas, peeled and mashed
100g nuts, coarsely chopped

Method

1.    Preheat the oven to gas mark 4/180C/350F.
2.    Grease and line the base of a two and half pint loaf tin.
3.    Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt into a bowl.
4.    Rub in the butter till the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
5.    Stir in the sugar
6.    Beat the eggs and banana together, and then stir in to the mixture along with the nuts.
7.    Turn the mixture into the prepared tin and bake in the oven for 1hour until well risen and firm.
8.    Keep for 24 hours before serving.

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Perhaps it’s because there’s so much mention of food at this time of year that some of the glossy brand new books arriving on our shelves stand out. We’ve had some great titles arriving recently Nigella Lawson’s Kitchen which “brings us feel-good food for cooks and eaters, whether express-style and exotic-easy during the week, or leisurely and luxuriating at weekends or for occasions.”

For different tastes we have Feast in which Heston Blumenthal “is back with six new feasts inspired by history, literature and legend.’

We also have Jamie Oliver’s latest offering Jamie Does… This collection of recipes “celebrates the vibrant foods of six very different countries, in which Jamie Oliver explores both classic dishes and new recipes inspired by the things he learns on his travels”.

If none of these catch your eye, how about Grown in Britain: ‘be inspired to make the most of the amazing range of produce that is grown, reared and caught in Britain”.

Reserve any of the books using the title links above.

And we even have a few food books online for you to browse – simply visit Oxford Reference Online at the 24 Hour Library – free to access with your library card – where you can read An A-Z of Food and Drink and The Oxford Book of Health Foods. For those who like to eat out rather than cook, try The Good Food Guide available via our KnowUK subscription also on the 24 Hour Library.

For next month’s Information and Digital team blog, we would love to hear which books have inspired you, whether from latest releases, our cookery books or anything that catches your interest. Why not send us a recipe suggestion and we’ll share it here!

Whatever your culinary or surfing tastes, have a warm and wonderful October.

Nick Stopforth and Kerry Bossons
Information and Digital Service Team Managers
nick.stopforth@newcastle.gov.uk
kerry.bossons@newcastle.gov.uk

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We’ve also been working in partnership with local psychologists, who have been using City Library to deliver computerised cognitive behavioural therapy sessions for the treatment of depression. This means that instead of these sessions happening in a GP practice with a laptop, the patient uses one of our public computers to go through an 8 week programme. Feedback about the scheme has been really positive so far, with one of the benefits being the relaxed, non-clinical environment of the City Library.

Another project we’ve been working on is how we can support the national ‘Time to Get Moving’ week which is taking place between 9th-15th October 2010. We have offered up some of our libraries and community rooms to health providers in the area, so do keep your eyes peeled for our events programme nearer the time. So far we have oral health checks booked in, along with art exhibitions, cycling events, patient information providers, health internet taster classes, massage sessions and so much more. This is one week, not too miss!

Moving away from our thoughts on health-related events to another key area of our service – we are holding our first Business and Employment Show later this month. The team are busy with preparations: marketing is a constant process, so we’re sending our flyers out to as many small and medium enterprises as possible, and through our online presence with the website, Twitter and Facebook. The aim of the day is to help people setting up or developing their business by providing expert advice and guidance. We even have two speakers: Susan McKeown from Bsi will be talking about how British Standards can support your business, and Nick Stopforth from the Information and Digital Team will give a presentation on how to build brands online. We’re hoping for a busy and successful show. Watch the blog for photos!

In other news, the Intellectual Property Office has now introduced a green channel. If an invention has an environmental benefit, for example, a manufacturing process which uses less energy, or a wind turbine, or a recycling process, it can be requested that the application receives accelerated prosecution using this new green channel.
More information is available on the IPO website or you can make an appointment for Intellectual Property advice at City Library.

Whatever your information and digital needs are, we wish you healthy and prosperous September!

Nick Stopforth and Kerry Bossons
Information & Digital Team Service Managers

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