Learning Resource Centre: Home

May 2021 | LRC Newsletter #001

Here is the very first Learning Resource Centre (LRC) newsletter. The LRC newsletter will be a visual guide to what's new in the library's physical and digital collections and will showcase the best of the new books and databases available in the LRC.

The first edition is for Autumn, with two more reading guides to come later this year for Winter and Spring.

Have a browse and swing by the LRC if any of these books take your fancy.

May 2021 | Women's Prize Shortlist

The Women's Prize shortlist is in, and we have all of the books available for loan in the LRC. So pop by and read some of the best books written by women in the last year. 
May 2021 | Tyson Yunkaporta Author Talk

Our first author talk for 2021 will be Tyson Yunkaporta, author of Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save The World. 

April 2021 | New Books

We've got some great new books by Rupi Kaur, Michelle Obama, Lynette Noni, Ellie Marney, Lady Gaga, Adam Silvera, as well as beautiful new editions of the Frank Herbert classic Dune.
April 2021 | Stella Prize Longlist

The Stella Prize is an award for outstanding fiction or non-fiction written by an Australian woman. We have all 12 Stella Prize longlisted books on display at the moment, so pop by and have a browse! 

March 2021 | PRC Captains 2021

Last week we had a meeting with the new PRC captains to discuss the launch of the Premiers Reading Challenge for 2021. The captains were awarded their badges and given some advice on how to get their classmates set up for the competition. Last year 9J took the honours. Which class will triumph in 2021? The attached photo shows the Year 9 PRC captains. The captains from left to right in the back row are Jess Purnama (9H), Siyun Gu (9K), Meg Abburi (9E), Jana Smith (9J), Muyu Li (9C), Setereh Samadi (9B). In the front row, there is Caitlin Arcena (9A), Shakkthy Thayaparan (9G), Ellawen Griffin (9F), Sanika Trivedi (9L) and Narmatha Abarajitha (9D). Absent from the photo is Babette Dao (9I).
March 2021 | Book to Film/TV Display

There's lots of great book to movie/TV adaptations coming out at the moment. We've got the original book versions of recent Movie/TV series such as Good Omens, Normal People, The Dry, Dune & the Queen's Gambit. Pop in to borrow one today. 
March 2021 | New Books
  
Lots of new books flowing into the LRC at the moment. We have award winners, new fantasy series, and some groundbreaking non-fiction books. Keep an eye on our New Books displays over the next few weeks as more new releases come in! 

February 2021 | New Checkpoints

The new Cambridge Checkpoints have been processed and are ready to borrow from the LRC.  Thanks to Ms. Cain for her awesome job cataloguing and processing the books and to Mr. Gurciullo for sourcing them. 
February 2021 | Information Literacy Classes

Mr. Gurciullo has been very busy over the last two weeks inducting the new Year 9s to the LRC and introducing them to the concepts of information literacy and effective research. It's been great to meet the new Year 9s and we hope this sets them up to effectively use the library over the four years of their time here. 

February 2021 | Back To School

Welcome back Mac.Rob! The books are flying through the Returns chute and it look's like we've got a lot of shelving to do. All students (new year 9s included) will be able to start borrowing from tomorrow. If you've still got loans out from the holidays, please return them in the next few days.

November 2020 | Literary Wonderlands

Novelists have created some amazing imaginary worlds over the years, which we've paid tribute to in our new Literary Wonderlands display. These books all take us somewhere extraordinary, to fantastical realms, mythic kingdoms, dystopian futures, and sci-fi metropolis'. So pop by and go on a literary adventure this summer! 
November 2020 | Premier's Reading Challenge 2020

Earlier this week we announced the winner of the 2020 LRC Premier's Reading Challenge Competition. Our year 9 students were able to produce highly creative responses to their reading, and engaging peer to peer book reviews. Normally, we would share these responses in the form of a 'Literary Wall' in the LRC foyer, however due to being in lockdown we achieved this digitally via a Google site. The winners this year were 9J, who produced an excellent array of reviews and creative responses. Each member of 9J has received a book voucher as a prize and we have also awarded 15 book vouchers to the best individual efforts across the whole of year 9.  Congratulations to all year 9 students!
November 2020 | Stella Sparks - Writing For Self Care

In September this year 38 Mac.Rob students took part in the Stella Sparks 'Writing For Self Care' workshop hosted by Evelyn Araluen. Pakhi Adtani (10J) and Prabavi Ranchagoda (9L) summarised their experiences in a Mac.Rob newsletter article, saying "It made me so happy to just grab a notepad and physically write (not 'clickety-clack' on my computer), not just for a school assesment but simply for myself. Being someone who doesn't call herself a frequent writer, we're so glad we attended this program as it was very valuable, especially mid-isolation".  We're glad to have been able to provide this program for students, and look out for more Stella Schools workshops next year!

October 2020 | Non Fiction Renewal

This year we have been working hard renovating our Non-Fiction section. More of our books are front-facing, there is less clutter and it's easier to find things. If you haven't had a look yet, swing by and check out the new look Non-Fiction section. It's still a work in progress but we've definitely come a long way with it!

October 2020 | Rebecca Lim

Look out for an upcoming author talk by Rebecca Lim!

September 2020 | Melissa Keil

This week we were lucky enough to have Melissa Keil drop in to give the students a virtual author talk. Melissa’s talk was thoroughly engaging and covered areas such as channelling creativity, getting published and dealing with editorial criticism.
    Her advice included taking part in challenges like NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) as a way of blocking out negative self-talk and simply getting words on the page. She said that her first novel Life In Outer Space started this way, and that part of her journey has been learning that not every sentence has to be perfect.
    There can be a kernel of a good idea surrounded by terrible stuff, she said, and if we stick with our ideas whilst they are still in a rough form we will eventually get them to the point where the are of publishable quality. Melissa’s honest advice to students was refreshing and her message of perseverance was one that we can all relate to. We have one last author talk planned for the year, Rebecca Lim, who will record a talk for us in Term 4.    

September 2020 | Mark Smith  
On the 25^th of September Mark Smith gave a virtual author talk to secondary schools around Victoria. Mark is the author of The Winter Trilogy, a post-apocalyptic survival series set in coastal Australia. His talk was very engaging and he gave a lot of good advice for those wishing to become writers themselves. The most interesting part of Mark’s talk was learning that as a secondary school student he had no interest in reading or writing, being a lover of the outdoors, but following a freak horse riding accident he had when he was 15 he found himself bedridden for months with nothing much else to do except read. This led to a love of literature, and he eventually became an English teacher and then a novelist. If you missed Mark’s talk, you can catch it on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS0UwwCoKdw&feature=youtu.be   

September 2020 | Lili Wilkinson
In August we had the pleasure of a virtual visit from young adult author Lili Wilkinson. Lili is one of our school’s most successful alumni, having published 14 books and established the Inside A Dog website and the INKY awards. Her newest book The Erasure Initiative is a psychological thriller in the style of the TV show Black Mirror. 
In the talk, which was hosted via Google meet and recorded for students to watch afterwards, Lili talked about how she got started as a writer. The first books she wrote were historical novels that were commissioned by the publisher Black Dog Books. From there she started writing high school romance books, including the very popular novel Pink, which was loosely based on her time at Mac.Rob where she was involved in theatre productions with Melbourne High School. More recently she has been writing psychological thrillers and one day would like to try her hand at writing a Fantasy novel. The virtual author talk was fantastic and it was great to be able to connect students with someone as creative and inspiring as Lili. 

August 2020 | Books are portals 
This quote, by Margarite Engle, feels super relevant now. We may not be able to travel more than 5km away from home, but we still have books and books are portals that can take us into all manner of different worlds and are full of loveable characters we can spend time with and learn from. 
August 2020 | Lili Wilkinson Virtual Author Talk

Join our Google chat next Tuesday lunchtime with Lili Wilkinson!