September 2024

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PLS eNews

Welcome to the monthly newsletter from the Public Library Services team at the State Library of NSW — bringing you the latest news about upcoming events, promotions and professional development opportunities.

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2024–25 Public library funding

The Minister for the Arts the Hon John Graham MLC has approved the Library Council of NSW’s recommendations for the 2024–25 public library funding. The total is $41.326 million this year, up from $40.892 million last year.

You can find out more, including about subsidy payments per council, here.

We will invite councils to apply for 2024–25 Subsidies and Local Priority Grants shortly, and we are expecting the Infrastructure Grants program to open in mid-September.

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Wollongong promotes multicultural services!

Wollongong City Libraries recently approached the State Library about collaborating on a project to promote the multicultural bulk loan service to their community. We gladly jumped on board and the result is this fantastic promotional video for their social media channels.

You can watch the reel here on Instagram or Facebook.

Value and impact of the State Library and NSW public libraries

The State Library of NSW is embarking on research into the value and impact that libraries have for the community, including onsite and digital services, and services that are available through the network of NSW local council public libraries.

It is envisaged that the results will be used to:

promote an understanding of library impact for communities, government and councils
demonstrate the value of continued investment in library infrastructure and services
assist the with the promotion of library services to new audiences and under-served communities.

We are pleased to advise that SGS Economics and Planning has been appointed as the research partner for the project.

The Strategic Network Committee and the PLCC will be the reference groups for the public library aspects of the project.

New publishers available on indyreads

You can now read titles from publishers Ultimo Press, Hardie Grant (including imprints Hardie Grant London and Hardie Grant Children’s) and Quadrille on indyreads.

Ultimo Press is an Australian independent publisher based in Sydney, focused on publishing general and literary fiction capturing the latest trends and newest voices. Ultimo titles are available with unlimited use licences, providing a range of great options for library book clubs.

Books published by the Hardie Grant and Quadrille imprints include contemporary children’s titles, a broad range of cookbooks and lifestyle titles and other non-fiction titles.

Keep an eye out as we continue to add more titles from these publishers as they become available.

Statewide databases 2024–25

The 2024–25 statewide databases suite provides public libraries with free access to 17 online databases from Gale.

Gale has delivered webinars to introduce two new databases: The Smithsonian Collection and Gale in Context: Literature. You can catch up on these on the Gale Support Hub here.

If you have not received the product URLs for the new databases from Gale, please contact Lynette and Alison. You also have the option to change the five PowerPacks, please discuss this with Lynette and Alison.

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Gale webinar: Integration of Gale products into library LMS

Gale’s latest webinar in the Tech Talks with Lynette series is about how to integrate Gale products into your library management system.

Wednesday 4 September, 1–1.30 pm.

Register here.

Gale’s NSW public libraries newsletter provides details of other upcoming webinars, professional development opportunities and information about Gale databases and other resources. Contact Gale at anz.gale@cengage.com to sign up.

Webinar: Representing your community in local studies collections

Catch up on the the recent webinar presented by Ellen Forsyth, where she spoke about how a social justice approach to local studies can ensure public libraries collect a representative record of their community. You can watch it here.

State Library assistance for public library members

If you can’t find what your patrons need from your own collections, the State Library may be able to help. It has an extensive collection of eresources, including local and international newspapers, full-text journals, databases, digital images from the collection, and more. Over 80 per cent of these are available from anywhere, anytime for NSW residents.  

Public library members can access State Library eresources in two ways: 

sign up for a State Library card
register to become a State Library member using a NSW public library card (from participating libraries)

Useful databases include Informit, Proquest, Factiva, PressReader and Newsbank.

You can explore the full collection here. The State Library catalogue also allows for cross-searching across many of these eresources. 

For more in-depth help, your patrons can also submit an Ask A Librarian request and a librarian will get back to them.

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Working with your local CLC

Community legal centres give free and confidential legal help to people in need. There are 41 CLCs across NSW.

These include specialist centres such as the Financial Rights Legal Centre, the Seniors Rights Service and the Women’s Legal Service, as well as centres serving a specific geographic area such as the Marrickville Legal Centre or the Shoalcoast CLC.

Find your local CLC.

As well as providing legal assistance to thousands of people every day, CLCs are happy to provide offer community legal education talks on a wide range of topics at public libraries at any time of the year.

You can contact your local CLC directly, or contact us and we will approach them for you.

Drug info partnerships

There are many benefits of establishing partnerships between your library and relevant external organisations. These include extending a library’s reach in the community, sharing resources and drawing on the expertise of people and organisations with specialised interests and knowledge. You can read more about the benefits of partnerships on the PLS website.

Partnering with Community Drug Action Teams (CDATs) and other relevant community groups on Drug Info events and activities is a great way of promoting the information about alcohol and other drugs available to your community through Drug Info. The new Drug Info training course on the PL Portal includes a section on library partnerships and how to work with your local CDAT on Drug Info programming at your library. Go to the PL Portal page for more information.

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New exhibition Dunera: Stories of Internment

The State Library’s latest exhibition Dunera: Stories of Internment opened on Saturday 17 August, and runs until 4 May 2025.

In 1940, refugees from Nazi persecution who had fled to Britain were suddenly classified as enemy aliens, transported to Australia on the ship Dunera, and held in camps in Hay, Orange and Tatura.

In their attempts to recreate traces of their former lives, internees ran a remarkable range of activities inside the camps, from art classes to university-style lectures and theatrical performances. As a result, they produced an extraordinary array of personal art and artefacts, from beautiful portraits and landscapes to pop-up paper models and even an unofficial camp currency.

The State Library has spent many years compiling collections that piece together this little-known chapter in Australian history and now holds one of the largest Dunera collections in the world. Drawn from this vast archive comes a new exhibition of almost 200 artworks along with diaries, sketchbooks and other items from inside the internment camps.