Christchurch City Libraries Blog

Are you studying NCEA Māori this year? Ka rawe!

Learn te reo Māori

We have a bunch of great Māori language courses in our collection, which you can borrow from one of our community libraries now open.

• Reo Maori o Naianei is a beginners’ course with workbook and CD, featuring songs and exercises;
• Practice your pronunciation and master basic sentences with Q’s Course in Māori;
• Pronounce Māori with confidence is another winner;
• Pictures That Talk caters to different of learning styles, using audio, visual and interactive tools to teach te reo Māori;
• Work through levels one to four of Te Whanake using the multimedia set or by going online;
• We also have more courses, dictionaries and other resources for te reo Māori on our website.

Other helpful websites

• Educate yourself on Māori history, art and culture, and more by visiting our website;
• Read local Māori history;
• Access information on all matters Māori, from biographies to health to beliefs and legends;
• Find out what you need to know and do to achieve in NCEA from NZQA;
• Learn about New Zealand’s Māori people on Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand.

So where did we find these great resources? On The Pulse, the library’s website for teens.

It was a lovely sunny morning but I was in the dark finding Redwood Library. The route to it was perfectly clear but picking up the location and the car park entrance as I rattled along the Main North Road in busy traffic was a bit stressful. I turned into the car park (and out again – it was full) and managed to find a car park along the road a bit.

Parking angst over I found myself in a small but light and airy library. With octagonal design, high roof and high windows all round, Redwood feels spacious. Set back from the street, traffic noise doesn’t intrude. There is bright artwork on the walls and suspended from the ceiling.That morning there was good music playing and comfortable chairs in corners. The place had a pleasant hum of business and I could have happily settled down with a book or magazine. It is a comfortable community place with thoughtful touches like the adult height door release button to activate the sliding zig-zag front doors – stops the littlies running out on to a busy street.

Visiting Redwood would make a good combined shopping and library trip as it is not far from Northlands Mall and Northwood shopping centre. There is a cafe across the road as well. It is easily accessible via major roads but note there is a bus lane outside from 3pm to 6pm.

Find out which libraries are open and learn more about Redwood Library.

Next stop on the library tour is Spreydon, which feels a bit like a tree house with its beautiful park outlook, so keep following the Displaced Reader on her travels.

Or any other compass direction for that matter, just get out of Christchurch for a bit. I went to Auckland last week, where the full impact of how our earthquake  lives have changed hit home. It was the footwear that got to me in the end. High strappy sandals in bright sunny colours for the women and polished Italian shoes for the men.

Will I ever again see shoes like that pounding the streets of Christchurch? To cheer myself up I actually bought a book  and repaired to the nearest coffee shop – which had collected $181.60 for my home town. This kindness made me feel as if I came from a far away galaxy where the citizens are very old and wise  and wear ugly shoes.

As for the book – this is the first time that Annie Proulx (she of The Shipping News fame) has let me down. In her memoir Bird Cloud she manages to  both welcome her readers in and simultaneously lock us out. Apparently, even the very rich and famous (who clearly have not watched enough episodes of  Grand Designs) can also make disastrous property decisions.

In Proulx’s effort-filled building project, the house sounds dire, the landscape forbidding and the endless pondering over minute archaeological scraps left me stone cold. But it was only when I found myself having uncharitable thoughts about migratory birds that I  got out the killer heels.

Back home, I’ve been so relentlessly positive lately that I found it quite hard to stick the stiletto into this book. Now it’s done, I feel so much better. As Lionel Shriver said: It’s OK to hate a book.

So, join me and cross over to your dark side. Which books do you love to hate?

I’d heard that Bishopdale Library and the mall it is part of had been very busy since it reopened. I wondered how I would get on for parking but found no problems as I used the Farrington Avenue car park which has two entrances. I was immediately struck by how many enormous and beautiful trees there were in the vicinity. Many were going through their autumn colours and they definitely soften the otherwise ugly mall. (Is there a beautiful mall anywhere?)

The library shares its digs with a community centre. You go in through a shared foyer and then suddenly you are in a very busy space. The library was humming when I arrived with people using computers and poring intently over their book choices. The colour scheme features orange and blue and this distinctive carving on the wall. The librarians were kept pretty busy but I noticed that they still had time for a chat with customers. There was plenty to choose from and a spacious children’s area.

After my visit I had a quick cruise around the shops in the mall which include a real butcher, fish shop and fruit and vege shop as well as a supermarket. Best buys – lamb shanks and the winning lotto ticket (Tui moment). I’m told there is good coffee in the area – just ask the librarians.

I found getting to Bishopdale via Harewood Road pretty straightforward. Traffic was brisk but the roads were ok. The whole mall is surrounded by a number of carparks so it would be easy to come from another direction too.

Find out which libraries are open and learn more about Bishopdale Library.

Next stop on the library tour is Redwood, a bright little octagonal building on the north side of the city. Keep following the Displaced Reader on her travels.

Over a pile of books that included two mosaic titles, a make-your-own-jewellery manual and the idiots guide to felt animals or some such thing, a customer  asked if I had any hobbies. This is a question I dread – reading so does not count and meeting friends in coffee shops only works if I’m writing my next novel there – thanks J.K.Rowling. Then it came to me in a nanosecond:

I blog.

It’s a terrific little hobby, it really is. You can do it anywhere and anytime – post earthquake it  turns out that 3am is quite good. There’s no law against doing it, and it involves no outlay on expensive equipment that then lies around gathering dust; i-Pads way off to one side here if you will! If you blog for the library it even comes with its own built- in buddy so you are guaranteed an audience of at least one. My buddy is large and lovely and lives in Lyttelton. I wish his name was Lionel – that would make a really bloggy sentence.

In fact the only thing I don’t like about blogging is the word: blog. Why didn’t we get bling – an altogether better word. Whereas “I blog” falls out of the mouth like a dead pachyderm, “I bling” takes wing and flies. Right now is the point at which my buddy will be anxiously scanning for links – aka computer witchcraft.  So here they are:

• Blogging for bliss
• The Rough Guide to blogging
• Essential blogging
• Blogging heroes

So how do you get started? Dead easy, scroll up to the top of this blog post. Click on ‘Leave a comment’. Write something. Click ‘Post comment’ and voila – you have taken your first step in the blog world. Well done!

If your children love rugby and reading then they should join the 2011 Reading Crusade.  It’s a fun reading competition run by Christchurch City Libraries and the Crusaders rugby team.

Any children in Christchurch between 5-13 years can join in.  All they have to do is read six books, fill out a reading log and get a parent, teacher  or librarian to register their reading. Full details are available on the library website.

There are heaps of prizes, including weekly Reading Crusade Challenges on the library’s Christchurch Kids blog. Join in today!

Librarians have a term for helping people find something good to read – “reader’s advisory”. We also have a bunch of fantastic resources we use to find things. Now we’re going to share these not-so-secret tools of the trade with you. So if you’re the kind of person who likes to be left to your own devices when you use the library, then check out this treasure trove of great places to go for book suggestions:

• Discover an author you haven’t read before but who writes like one of your favourites;
• Find out what the best reads on the menu are;
• Be the first to get your hands on one of our new titles so you enjoy the crisp white pages and fresh-off-the-printer book smell;
• Hunt down that book you loved when you were younger (but have forgotten the title and author’s name) at NoveListPlus by searching the few keywords you can remember about the plot;
• Learn more about authors you’ve enjoyed and read reviews from people in the know at Books and Authors;
• Get recommendations (or admonitions) from librarians and other library users right here on our blog or go to our facebook page.

Sisters Atka and Hana and their family were sponsored by a Christchurch family to move to Christchurch from war-torn Bosnia 18 years ago. They’ve written a book about their story, Goodbye Sarajevo, which will be published in early May by Bloomsbury UK. They sent these Words for Christchurch:

Christchurch has been home to our family.

When we first moved there from Bosnia it was the generosity and kindness of several Christchurch families that helped us through the tough times. We will always be grateful for that and Christchurch has a special place in our hearts.

We wrote Goodbye Sarajevo at the Christchurch Central Library. The book launch was scheduled to be in Christchurch next month, at Scorpio book shop, but due to the earthquake that’s been moved to Auckland. We do hope that once Scorpio is up and running again we will be able to celebrate the occasion with our Christchurch family and friends.

Our thoughts are with the people of Christchurch where most of our family still live. Our hearts go out to many people who have lost their loved ones, their homes and livelihoods and we hope that our story can give them a glimpse of hope and some comfort in these times of hardship. To quote one of the reviews:

Goodbye Sarajevo is a beautiful story that turns from sorrow to happiness, redemption, restoration. Goodbye Sarajevo shows that sometimes out of dire circumstances, new lives, new beginnings are possible.

Best wishes,
Atka and Hana
www.goodbyesarajevo.com

Are you doing NCEA Media Studies this year? We can help!

• Find books about mass media, journalism, reporters and reporting at our community libraries now open;
• Compare reports by different news sources on the same event;
• Don’t believe everything the media tells you – learn how to dissect what you see, hear and read;
• Take a look at New Zealand’s Mediascape;
• Find out how news media has represented te Tiriti and Māori issues;
• The Pacific Media Centre has great content about contemporary Māori, Pasifika and ethnic diversity media and culture production;
• Explore the New Zealand Film Archive;
• The Office of Film and Literature Classification can teach you about censorship;
• Be one step ahead of your teacher thanks to the Te Kete Ipurangi Media Studies website;
• Prepare for NCEA with help from NZQA.

So where did we find these great resources? On The Pulse, the library’s website for teens.

On 12 April 1961, Yuri Gagarin, aged 27, became the first man in space – orbiting Earth aboard the spaceship Vostok 1. Gagarin’s time in space lasted 89 minutes, reaching a maximum altitude of 327 kilometres, and a maximum speed of 28 260 kilometres per hour. That’s 7.85km per second. His first words in space were: “I see Earth! It’s so beautiful!”. After his historic flight, he wrote:

Orbiting Earth in the spaceship, I saw how beautiful our planet is. People, let us preserve and increase this beauty, not destroy it!

12 April 2011 is the 50th anniversary of Gagarin’s historic flight, the world community is celebrating Yuri’s Day to commemorate the event.  A free film to download and share, first orbit, will also premiere on YouTube.

Some interesting facts about this space pioneer:

• Gagarin wasn’t a tall man – 1.57 metres. This was an advantage as there was limited space available in Vostok 1;
• His wife didn’t know he went on the first man-into-space mission until she heard it on the radio the following morning;
• Gagarin was apparently selected from  candidates because of a distinctive part of his character – his lovely sunny smile. The flight supervisor said that he would succeed because of it;
• A smile of God: according to ancient Sanskrit Ga =  go,  Ra = Sun, the family name Gagarin is translated as: Go, go up to the Sun.

Everyone is very welcome to give himself a taste of real space exploration mission.

• Kids space explorer and space resources
• More space and astronomy resources on the library website
• More books about astronauts and cosmonauts
• Space exploration