Swinburne Library Blog
Free and open textbooks
A meta list of free textbooks and where to find them.
Free scholarly textbooks are becoming more widely available online.
Check out this great list of 150 free textbooks:
150 Free Textbooks: A Meta List
This list brings together free textbooks from sources like:
Bookboon
business, economics, engineering, natural sciences and IT
Flatworld Knowledge
business, economics, science, humanities, social sciences and maths
College Open Textbooks
a collaborative project covering all subject areas
Wikibooks
the open textbook collection anyone can edit
Don't forget you can search our collection of ebooks by selecting ebooks from your library search results!
Typing symbols with just one click
This simple website makes hard to type characters easy and quick to do.
No Tengo Enie is a single web page that, with one click, puts a special character on your clipboard for easy typing. No more searching for obscure key codes, click on the character you want, go back to your document, press Ctrl + V and keep typing!
Alternatives to PowerPoint
Giving a presentation for your next assignment? Here are a few alternatives to PowerPoint:
Google Docs
A good, fast and collaborative tool to create good looking slideshows on any system.
Prezi
Totally different to PowerPoint, Prezi uses a single zoomable canvas and focuses on images, graphics and motion to get your attention.
Zoho Show
Online presentation application that allows you to collaborate, present remotely and embed your presentation in blogs and websites.
Sliderocket
A slick flash-based webapp that lets you produce media rich collaborations online.
New climate report out today
The CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology today released the State of the Climate 2012 report, an updated summary of Australia's long term climate trends.
The major finding of the report is that generally we're getting warmer. In Australia, both the land mass and oceans have continued to warm in response to rising carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels. Since Australia contributes about 1.3% of the world's CO2 emissions, what does that mean for the rest of the world?
The report shows that we've been warming up---both nationally and globally---for a long time. Despite 2010 and 2011 being the coolest years recorded in Australia since 2001, each decade has in fact grown steadily warmer than the last, all the way back to the 1950s. 2011 was the world's 11th warmest year and the warmest year on record during a La Niña event. Significantly, the world's 13 warmest years on record have all occurred in the past 15 years.
Sea-surface temperatures have increased in the oceans around Australia faster than the global average. Swinburne's own Centre for Ocean Engineering, Science and Technology has been looking at global trends in wind speed and wave height over the past two decades, and found that there has been a consistent trend toward increasing wind speeds at the same time that the oceans are warming.
So what can we expect from the weather in the future? CSIRO and Bureau experts predict an increase in the number of hot days and warm nights. Climate models suggest long-term drying over southern areas during winter and over southern and eastern areas during spring. And Melbourne's infamously changeable weather patterns look to continue: droughts are expected to become more frequent in southern Australia but periods of heavy rainfall are still likely to occur. So even though it has been raining enough to flood in many parts of eastern Australia, we're still looking at more drought in the future.
Rob Vertessy from the Bureau of Meteorology and Megan Clark from CSIRO discuss the report in an article in The Conversation. They were also interviewed on ABC News Breakfast this morning. CSIRO provides a list of the peer-reviewed references underpinning the report on their website---the findings are bound to be controversial.
Image credit: flickr/nasa goddard photo and videoRead a book by a woman writer on International Women's Day
Every year since the early 1900s, 08 March has been widely celebrated as International Women's Day. Thousands of events occur on this day and throughout March to mark the economic, political and social achievements of women in all walks of life. We have already mentioned on this blog that 2012 is the National Year of Reading, which aims to remind us of the joy of reading. This year, prominent literary women around Australia are also inviting us to join the Australian Women Writers 2012 Reading and Reviewing Challenge, a movement to counteract the perceived gender bias in critical reviews, literary awards and social media. This is an opportunity to ensure that great writing by Australian women is recognised and promoted by everyone.
The mission, should you choose to accept it, is to read books written by Australian women writers throughout 2012 (the National Year of Reading) and then review them through your chosen social media channels.
Don't know where to start? The Australian Women Writers blog has compiled lists of some award-winning books in all genres to get you started. The literary and classics list includes works by Melina Marchetta, Sonya Hartnett and Kate Grenville and many more. You might also feel inspired to read some of Kerry Greenwood's Phryne Fisher series if you're enjoying Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, currently screening on ABC1.
You can find books by all of these authors and more in Swinburne Library.
Image credit: flickr/donkeyhotey
Today is World Read Aloud day!
When was the last time you curled up with a good book?
Today is World Read Aloud day, which is all about celebrating the power of words, especially those words that are shared from one person to another. Humans have a long and rich history of storytelling that dates back to well before we discovered written communication.
All through 2012, we're celebrating the National Year of Reading, which aims to inspire Australians to rediscover (or discover for the first time) the joy of reading. You may have heard that 2012 also marks 200 years since the birth of Charles Dickens, who is considered one of the greatest English-language novelists of all time.
We have recreational reading available for you at each campus library, and we encourage you to search the Library and find something to suit you. And it doesn't have to be Dickens---we have everything from Twilight to Truman Capote.
Join the celebrations!
Image credit: flickr/pandora_6666Drop in for some library training
New to Swinburne or just want a refresher on referencing? Drop in for one of our classes at Hawthorn campus library: more information here: www.swinburne.edu.au/lib/trainingworkshops/schedule-hawthorn.html
No need to book: just drop on in!