Happy Holidays

We'd like to wish all of our customers and readers a very Happy Holiday. Take care if you are travelling, and we look forward to seeing you all in 2012.

Food for Fines Amnesty

During December we will be hold a fines amnesty.

If you have overdue books or existing fines, you can resolve them with the donation of long life food items that will be distributed through the Mayor's Christmas Appeal.

Food items must be in date and in good condition and the donation must equal the approximate value of the fine. To find out more contact you local branch library.

The amnesty will begin on December 1 and finish on December 31.

The Book/Work Project

We've been thinking about running a series on things people have been able to accomplish with the help of a library book as part of the National Year of Reading. Have you been able to complete a project? travel to interesting places? learn something new? change your life? as the result of a book you have borrowed from the Library? Why not share the story. We're looking for short descriptions of your project, the name of the book and a photo/s that sum it all up. Your story will go up on the blog and could be used in displays at our libraries and it's also a great opprotunity to show off your project.

If you are interested in taking part, email your story and photos to Library@campbelltown.nsw.gov.au

To give you an idea, here's some that we prepared earlier.


New Life in the old chair!

With the help of David James "Upholstery a Complete Course" and Dorothy Gates' "The Essential Guide to Upholstery" I got the inspiration and technical know how to re-upholster my 1920's era club lounge chair. While I had done some basic upholstery before, this was a big project, with lots of springs and a range of traditional upholstery techniques. I'm pretty happy with the results!

Before

After

Brewing My Own

Brewing beer has always fascinated me and the Library's collection of home brewing books has mean't I'm now able to brew excellent beer at home. I've even won a few awards! After getting less than satisfactory results from the kits available at the supermarket I found the home brewing section at the Library and I haven't looked back. My two favourite books are Jamil Zainasheff's Brewing Classic Styles and Randy Mosher's Radical Brewing. The beer in the photo is an English Bitter.



An English Bitter and the books that helped me to make it

New Website testing

Council is seeking the assistance of the Campbelltown community in the redevelopment of its website. In order to understand the needs of our website visitors, and to ensure that the new website is user-friendly, Council is conducting a testing program that will help us deliver an effective online information tool.

The activity will take around five minutes to complete, and your participation will help determine how Council's website content should be organised. To be part of the testing, please visit http://bit.ly/nEwQnf

Feast on History during History Week

History week this year will see a fascinating exhibtion of Kitchenalia and historical photographs at the HJ Daley Library.

The Local Information team have conjured an exhibition of antique and not so antique kitchen items that will make you wonder at how hard putting together a meal must have been.

Some of the highlights include a near mint box of Smiths Chips, an original bully beef can-opener and one of the earliest model pressure cookers available. Cooking was never so hard!

The exhibition will be on display until the 11th September.

You can find a sneak peak and more information about other history week events across the Macarthur here.

Customer Survey

Let us know what you think about Campbelltown Library's services and facilities on our online survey - http://bitly.com/dNTYYh .

Your opinions are important and will help us to improve our services and plan for the future.

System Maintenance

Due to power system maintenance this afternoon our Web Opac and other online services will not be accessible after 6pm. Normal service will be restored at 9am tomorrow morning.

As part of the outage, the HJ Daley Library will be closing today at 4.30pm.

We apologise for any inconvenience.

Wrap with Love

Once again we are participating in 702 ABC Sydney's "Knit In" supporting the excellent charity Wrap with Love.

Up until Friday 5 August we will be collecting knitted and squares and completed rugs that will help to keep people warm all over the World. Wrap With Love has been distributing blankets since 1992 and in that time has distributed over 255,000 wraps.

Last year Campbelltown knitters put together over 160 wraps and had a jolly good time at the Knit In at Ultimo. If you're interested in knitting, (or if you're not such a great knitter you can also donate wool) drop into the HJ Daley Library for all the information.

National Simultaneous Storytime is on today!

Don't miss out on a chance to join over 170,000 other people as part of national simultaneous story time.

At 11am, all Campbelltown Libraries will be hosting a story time and reading Rod Clement's Feather's for Phoebe.

You can find out more about Rod Clement and his work by visiting his page at Harper Collins Publishers.

Celebrate Library & Information Week with us!

It's Library and Information week across Australia, so why not came and join in the fun at a Campbelltown Branch Library!

A key part of the celebrations will be National Simultaneous Storytime on Wednesday May 25 at 11am. Every Library will be hosting a storytime for pre schoolers where they will experience "Feathers for Phoebe" by Rod Clement.

As part of LIW The Wiggles have launched the "Make Australia A Reading Nation" programme which is designed to encourage reading and literacy in the home. Its a great initiative and nice see international Superstars, like the Wiggles supported such a great programme. There's even a video.

Tim Ross at Ingleburn Library