Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Chinese Rock/Pop: Free Music Downloads









Our free online music collection Freegal has a wide variety of genres to choose from, including Chinese Rock/Pop. Below are just some of the many artists and bands available.

Female artists/band - Joanna Wang, Karen Mok, Iris Lin, Jia Jia, RainieYang, Penny Tai, Jolin Tsai, Fish, Princess Ai Tai, and  2 Girls.

Male artist/band - Jay Chou, EvanYo, Yen-j, Carlson Cheng, Kai Ko, Leehom Wang, May Day, Alan Kuo, Ye Wang, KaiLin Zhang and  Tianxiao Xie.

To find more of your favourite Chinese music or artists take a look at Freegal.  Freegal is very easy to use.  If you are already a member of Hurstville City Library go to the library website and click on eLibrary Catalogue.  This will take you to all of our online sites.  Under the Freegal logo click on Library members enter here and type in your membership number and pin number.  Click on genre and scroll down to find your favourite genre. You are entitled to three free downloads per week.

If you aren't a library member and wish to become one just bring along two forms of identification and remember that one of the forms of identification must have your current address on it.  All you need to do now is to go to the service desk where one of our friendly staff will gladly assist you in completing your membership.
 



Monday, August 26, 2013

What's popular in One Click digital audiobooks?


What's popular in One Click digital audiobooks at the moment? A surprisingly diverse range of audiobooks are being downloaded from Hurstville City Library's new audiobook collection. Popular fiction choices include titles written by JoJo Moyes, Harlan Coben, Marian Keyes, Stieg Larsson, Freya North and John Sandford. Charlaine Harris' fans of the Sookie Stackhouse series (The Southern Vampire Mysteries),which HBO based its hit television series True Blood on, may like to download Grave Surprise (Harper Connelly series), and listen to the story of a college class that gets more than it bargains for when Harper gives a demonstration of her uncanny talent.

Popular non-fiction choices at the moment include the landmark biography of Apple co-founder, Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson, who paints a definitive portrait of a truly remarkable man. For those who would like to understand the real meaning behind Einstein's most famous equation, there is Why does E =mc(2)? which explores the principles of physics through everyday life.

As a Hurstville Library customer, you can download an unlimited number of One Click digital audiobooks, for up to three weeks. Titles may be downloaded to your computer or burnt to a CD, or transferred to a wide range range of portable devices (MP3 and iDevices).

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Free Music Video Downloads



Now available as part of our Freegal music collection are free music video downloads. These video downloads are MP4 format with no DRM. A video counts for two of your weekly downloads but just like the music they are yours to keep!

Examples of artists available include Pink; Beyonce; Miley Cyrus, Carrie Underwood, Sara Bareilles, Kelly Clarkson; Alicia Keys, Avril Lavigne, Britney Spears, Michael Jackson, Justin Timberlake, Pit Bull, Ricky Martin; Bruce Springsteen, One Direction, Train, Pearl Jam, Aerosmith, Santana, Dixie Chicks, AC/DC
Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Elvis, Annie Lennox, Billy Joel, The Clash, Heart, Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin and The Jimi Hendrix Experience.

Classic clips include Thriller, Bad, Uptown Girl, You Can Call Me Al, Knockin' On Heavens Door, I Will Always Love You, Born In The U.S.A. and Drops Of Jupiter.

Some recent clips available are Try, Perfect, Take Back the Night, Mirrors, Shut It Down, We Can't Stop, Best Ever Song, One Way Or Another and Oh La La.

If you are a member of  Hurstville City Library take a look at what our free music online collection has to offer. Go to the library website and click on eLibrary Catalogue to get to our online collections. The best part is that it is all free for your enjoyment.

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Are Australians being ripped-off with IT goods?

Photograph: Choice Online. Retrieved 7th August, 2013.
According to a recent Choice article, Australians are paying 50% more for computers, software, games and music. Choice's in-depth analysis reveals that Australians are paying on average 50% more for PC games, 34% more for software, 51% more for iTunes music, 88% more for Wii games and 41% more for computer hardware than our US counterparts.
One software package in particular, the Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate (with MSDN), was $8, 665.29 more expensive in Australia. Choice notes that 'for this amount, it would be cheaper to employ someone for 46 hours at the price of $21.30 an hour and fly them to the US and back at your expense. Twice'.
Federal Labor politicians are seeking an enquiry into why Australian consumers are paying so much more than overseas consumers, for identical products.To read more about this and to discover ways in which you can try to circumvent these outrageous price differences, ask staff at Hurstville City Library to log you in to Choice Online for the full free article.

Thursday, August 01, 2013

National History Month - August 2013

Celebrate National Family History Month with Hurstville City Library's free family history resources. Explore Ancestry.com, the world's largest genealogy database, with over 10 billion historical records from the UK, Australia/NZ, North America and some European countries or browse numerous birth/death/marriage indexes, parish records, military records, migration records, electoral rolls and more, from the Find my Past collection (UK/Ireland/Australia), just by logging in with your library card on Hurstville City Library's computers. If you're particularly interested in records from NSW, try the Internet History Resources database, which contains over 30,000 pages of online records related to family history in NSW.

Hurstville City Library is also pleased to announce that the latest edition of the eMagazine Inside History, can be downloaded free from our new Zinio eMagazine collection. Inside History is a great resource for the family history enthusiast, with advice, articles and expert tips on genealogy.Look out for The [online]Sydney Morning Herald Archives 1955-1995 and The [online]Sydney Morning Herald 1996 onwards databases, which are coming soon to Hurstville Library.