Library and Learning Resources / Information Technology and Systems Survey 2015

It’s that time of year again when we are running our Library and Learning Resources Satisfaction Survey. We value your opinions and would be very grateful if you could complete the survey. It will only take about 5 minutes to complete and we’ll use the results to inform our future service delivery and development. This year we've also included a section on Information Technology and Systems.

The survey runs from today, Tuesday 5^th May until Friday 12^th June. You’ll find the survey on our website, on Moodle or on MyDay. If you complete the survey, you’ll be entered into a prize draw to win one of two  Amazon vouchers, worth £25 and £50. So, go ahead and have your say and you might win a prize!

 (Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

And the Man Booker prize winner of 2012 is...

Bring up the bodies by Hilary Mantel! This is something of an historic victory for Mantel as she becomes only the third person to win the prize twice (J. M. Coetzee and Peter Carey are the other two) and the first person to win with a sequel. Following on from Mantel’s Wolf Hall, Bring up the bodies continues the story of Thomas Cromwell, tracing the fall of Anne Boleyn from his perspective.

The winner and shortlisted titles are all now available in Townhill Library where they are part of our Man Booker display. You’ll find nominees from this year and selected titles from previous years on the ground floor of the library near the stairs. If you spot anything that takes your fancy, do feel free to pick it up off the table and borrow it!

Man Booker shortlist announced

Yes, it’s that time again! The 2012 Man Booker shortlist has been announced. The judges have chosen the following titles:-

Tan Twan Eng, The Garden of Evening Mists (Myrmidon Books)
Deborah Levy, Swimming Home (And Other Stories/Faber & Faber)
Hilary Mantel, Bring up the Bodies (Fourth Estate)
Alison Moore, The Lighthouse (Salt)
Will Self, Umbrella (Bloomsbury)
Jeet Thayil, Narcopolis (Faber & Faber)

As usual, to promote reading amongst our students and staff, Swansea Met Library will be ordering these titles and they will be available to borrow from Townhill Library once they’ve arrived. Check our catalogue for details.

The overall prize winner will be announced on the 16^th October. We’ll keep you posted, of course, but in the meantime, find out more on the official Man Booker website.

Orange Prize for Fiction 2012 – Winner Announced

Last night, Madeline Miller was awarded the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction for her debut novel, The Song of Achilles, her interpretation of some of the legends from Ancient Greece. Here at SMU libraries, we think that the award of any literary prize is a good excuse to delve into shortlists and discover new authors and books that we might not have picked up before. With vacation approaching and the exams nearly over (hang in there!), you might be looking for a good novel to read over the summer. Why not take a look at the Orange Prize website for inspiration? You’ll find books by two of this year’s shortlisted authors, Esi Edugyan and Anne Enright, at Townhill Library, as well as novels by previous years’ nominees such as Emma Donoghue, Margaret Atwood, Zadie Smith and Rose Tremain. Just the antidote you need to all those textbooks you’ve been immersed in for the last few weeks!

Carnegie and Kate Greenaway award 2012 shortlists announced!

It’s that time of year again! The shortlists have been compiled for the Carnegie Medal, awarded to an outstanding book for children and young people, and the Kate Greenaway Medal, awarded to outstanding illustration in a book for children and young people. The winners are due to be announced on the 14th June. We’ll keep you posted!

These prizes are awarded annually by CILIP (the Chartered Institute of Librarians and Information Professionals, an organisation which some of us at SMU belong to) and shortlists and winners are chosen by children’s librarians. These awards are highly respected and represent the best in children’s literature.

Find out more about the 2012 awards here.Some of our favourites are up for the prize this year – past winners Emily Gravette and Catherine Rayner are up for the Greenaway award, whilst David Almond is amongst those competing for the Carnegie Medal. Let us know if any of your favourites have been nominated!

Our Teaching Practice section is well worth a browse over the next few weeks as we’ve put some orders through for quite a few new children’s books. They’re not necessarily prize winners, but they are all jolly good! We’ve also got lots of the past Carnegie and Greenaway winners here, so pop in and have a look at those too.

Librarian wins folk music awards!

Singer June Tabor, who once worked as a librarian in London, last evening won four prizes at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards at The Lowry theatre in Salford - congratulations June!

For more on this story, see the link to the BBC news website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-16954049

And the winner is...

The Sense of an Ending! Yes, the 2011 Man Booker prize has been awarded to Julian Barnes for his story of a man coming to terms with his past. Barnes has previously been shortlisted for Arthur and George (2005), England, England (1998) and Flaubert's Parrot (1984), but this is the first time he has won the prize. Find out more about these titles and keep up with the latest Man Booker news on the website: http://www.themanbookerprize.com.

We blogged about the 2011 shortlist back in September. The winner and runners up are now available to borrow from Townhill Library (except for Pigeon English, which we're still waiting for at the time of writing!). You'll also find the Julian Barnes titles mentioned above and winners and shortlisted books from previous years. With those autumn nights drawing in, now's the perfect time to get stuck into a good book!

2011 Man Booker shortlist

Back in July, we told you about the books that had made it on to the Man Booker longlist for 2011. The list has been whittled down even further and the shortlist of six titles has now been announced! They are:-

Julian Barnes The sense of an ending (Jonathan Cape - Random House)
Carol Birch Jamrach's menagerie (Canongate Books)
Patrick deWitt The Sisters brothers (Granta)
Esi Edugyan Half blood blues (Serpent's Tail)
Stephen Kelman Pigeon English (Bloomsbury)
A. D. Miller Snowdrops (Atlantic)

The winner will be announced on Tuesday 18th October! Find out more on the Man Booker website: http://www.themanbookerprize.com. Have you any favourites from the shortlist? Or any others you think should have got through but didn't? Let us know!

Children's literature prize winners announced

The 2011 Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals were awarded last week. Patrick Ness has won the Carnegie Medal for his book, Monsters of Men, which is the finale to the Chaos Walking trilogy. Grahame Baker-Smith is the Greenaway winner for the picture book FArTHER.

These prizes are awarded annually by CILIP: the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals and are highly respected in the publishing industry, as well as by us librarians! The Carnegie Medal, awarded to the writer of an outstanding book for children, was established in 1936 in memory of Andrew Carnegie, a wealthy philanthropist who used his fortune to establish over 2800 libraries all over the world. Kate Greenaway was a popular children's illustrator in the nineteenth century. The medal that bears her name was established in 1955 and recognises distinguished illustration in a children's book.

You can find out more about the Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals on the website: http://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/. You'll also find lists of past winners, many of which are available to borrow from the Teaching Practice collection in Townhill Library. You'll find lots of popular authors amongst the prize winners. Many of these books are classics which are well worth a read or a re-visit, even if you're all grown up! Don't forget, books borrowed during this summer vacation won't need to be returned until the 6th October 2011.

Winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction 2011

The winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction 2011 has been announced as Tea Obreht, first time novelist and the youngest author to win the award in its sixteen year history!

Her debut novel, The Tiger's Wife, saw off competition from five other shortlisted writers including Emma Donoghue, with her outstanding novel Room. Obreht's book is set amid the horrors and aftermath of Balkan civil war; Obreht herself was Belgrade-born but is now living in the USA.

We will be purchasing a copy of The Tiger's Wife for the fiction section of our Townhill Library, but in the meantime, if you'd like to get your hands on the novel, Swansea public library service has several copies available - check their online catalogue for details!

What do you love about your SMU Library?

Celebrate St. Valentine's Day, by telling us via our library blog what you love about your SMU Library, between 14th - 20th February! It could be one of our resources, or services, or even a helpful member of staff.

By doing so you could win a box of chocolates and a gift card worth £10 (see photo) so please remember to leave your full name with your comment!

On Monday 21st February we'll be choosing someone at random to receive the goodies, so have a think, and let us know!!

(Please note, due to the nature of the promotion it is only open to SMU students & staff)

Music to their ears!

It was great to welcome so many new students to all three SMU libraries at the start of this academic year and it was encouraging to see lots of freshers completing our library quizzes at the end of their induction tours! This year, for the first time, we were pleased to be able to enter all correctly answered student quizzes from each campus into a free prize draw for the chance to win a £15 i-Tunes voucher. The winning entries were drawn earlier this month and we would like to congratulate our three winners: Video student Sally Stapleton (pictured), Performing Arts student Daniel Jones and Accountancy student Rubin Phan. Well done!