The National Library of China is celebrating its centennial.

Nga Upoko Tukutuku korero is a new blog for discussion on Maori Subject Headings – each week they post a new question for readers to answer/comment on.

Reference

• Promoting Library Reference Services to First-Year Undergraduate Students: What Works? (feature article in RUSQ this month) “describes a study that sought to answer three questions:
  1. What percentage of first-year undergraduate students are aware of reference services?
  2. What percentage of first-years seek information from reference librarians?
  3. Through which media are first-years comfortable communicating with reference librarians?”

  The summary on page 4 begins “At least in their first year of college, students respond most strongly to library reference service promotions given in person.”

• The Swiss Army Librarian posts a “Reference Question of the Week” describing the question and the way he found (or didn’t find) an answer. His recent post on “What’s in your ready ref?” is also fascinating.

Resources

• The British Library Sound Archive has made over 23,000 sound recordings available for listening online (where copyright permits) to anyone anywhere in the world. This includes music (classical, popular, traditional), oral history, nature, and linguistic recordings.
• The New Zealand Electronic Text Centre has released 1000 NZ classics in e-book format

Twitter
There seems to be a revival in posts about Twitter recently – in the last couple of weeks I’ve come across:

• The Twitter for Organizations tutorial
• How your library may not be using Twitter but should
• The Satisfaction of Already Being There
• Data showing that the 12-17 and 18-24 year-old demographics are Twitter’s fastest-growing audience segment

(And for those interested in New Zealand birds, Twitter accounts Kārearea (kakarapiti) and newzealandbirds.)