Library News
LIBRARY NEWS ITEMS
JUNE 2023
World Environment Day (June 5) has been held annually since 1973 making this its 50th anniversary. This year, the focus is on solutions to plastic pollution with a reminder that people’s actions make a difference: simple actions such as avoiding single-use plastics, using our own bags for shopping, avoiding buying over-packaged products, and reusing or repurposing plastic items that we already have. Millie Ross, in her book The Thrifty Gardener (in our Gardening Collection), has some interesting ideas on repurposing plastics for use in the garden as furniture or pots. For a good overview of the problems with plastic, and advice on how to avoid it, try The Australian Green Consumer Guide by Tanya Ha, which you’ll find in our Environment & Sustainability Collection. Although published 15 years ago, it remains relevant today and packed with useful information about, as the subtitle tells us, ‘choosing products for a healthier planet, home and bank balance’.
As for new books, we have recently added three that were requested by members: Saga Land by Richard Fidler and Kari Gislason − a memoir/travel tale/collection of sagas that takes readers on a journey across Iceland and through time; Keith Payne’s memoir No One Left Behind about his military service, for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross, and his ‘life beyond the battlefield’; and Matt Haig’s novel The Midnight Library, described as a ‘celebration of life’s possibilities’. If you are a member and have a request or suggestion for a book, come into the library and let us know.
MAY 2023
This week is National Reconciliation Week so what better time to browse our Indigenous and Reconciliation Collection? Newly established this year in the main room near the borrowing desk, this eclectic collection has books ranging from histories and biographies to art and culture. One of the most frequently borrowed is The Good Country: The Djadja Wurung, the Settlers and their Protectors by Bain Attwood. Because it deals with the local people and history of our specific region, it hardly has time to settle back on the shelf before it is borrowed again. Also popular is They Rescued Us: Aboriginal Heroes on Country by Fred Cahir, which tells of historical instances of, for example, Aboriginal people rescuing shipwreck victims, rescuing people by managing fire, and rescuing people by guiding them safely through Country. Or perhaps you’d be interested in two new additions to this collection − Bush Food: Aboriginal Food and Herbal Medicine by Jennifer Isaacs with its sumptuous photographs, and Duane Hamacher’s The First Astronomers: How Indigenous Elders Read the Stars, written in collaboration with Elders and traditional knowledge holders.
Talking of new acquisitions, lovers of crime fiction will be pleased that we have also recently added Alexander McCall Smith’s latest novel The Private Lives of Spies, Chris Hammer’s The Tilt, Garry Disher’s Day’s End, and four Anthony Horowitz detective novels: A line to kill; The twist of a knife; The Word is Murder; and The sentence is Death. You could put these, or any other books, on reserve by going to our website at maldonlibrary.org.au.
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To celebrate World Baking Day (May 21), we have ordered The Sourdough Loaf by John Downes. John, originally from Adelaide, via Melbourne and various other parts of the country, now lives locally. He is regarded by many as the guru of sourdough baking and the father of the Australian sourdough bread movement. He named the ‘casalinga’, now found in most sourdough bakeries. Many of us have on our shelves his Natural Tucker Bread Book, first published in 1983 and still in print. Having set up several iconic artisanal bakeries, John helped get the newly reopened Maldon Bakery started before handing over to a younger cohort of bakers. Remember his scrumptious Irish barmbrack fruit loaf? You’ll find the recipe in the The Sourdough Loaf along with over 40 other recipes for both beginners and experienced bakers. It’ll be in our Cooking Collection very soon. Fittingly, World Bee Day is also celebrated this week. ‘Fittingly’, because without bees there would be no flour and without flour, no bread. The day is held to remind us that we all depend on the survival of bees. The United Nations website (www.un.org) suggests that individuals can help by such things as planting a diverse set of native plants, which flower at different times of the year; avoiding pesticides, fungicides and herbicides in our gardens; by simply leaving a water bowl outside in dry times; and by helping to sustain forest ecosystems. You’ll find ideas to help your endeavours in our Gardening Collection. You might also look in Sustainability & Environment or Australian Flora & Fauna.
————————–
This week four of our volunteers share their thoughts on books and borrowing. Of all the books in the library, Judy’s favourite is Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, which she came across when reshelving books last year. She says, ‘I was unaware of the writer, an American novelist who won a Pulitzer Prize for Gilead. I have now read all her books and believe her to be one of the finest and important writers of our era’. Eirwen borrows biographies and novels, especially detective fiction and books by Australian women. Her favourite recently-borrowed book is La’s orchestra saves the world by Alexander McCall Smith, a historical novel set in WW2. Desiree, who mainly borrows detective novels but also biographies, history and travel tales, found it difficult to name a favourite as she has many. But she loved Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel, a story about the aftermath of a devastating pandemic. She assures us it isn’t as horrifying or depressing as she had feared it might be, in fact, she couldn’t put it down. Science fiction is Brenda’s preferred genre but if she had to choose a favourite book, it would have to be the non-fiction Diary of a Welsh Swagman, recording an itinerant worker’s time in this region. In May 1883 he noted that, ‘Nearly one third of the population of Maldon is affected by typhoid fever’. But, more happily in May 1886, ‘The Beehive Reefs … retrieved one piece of quartz which contained gold worth over £300’. How times change!
—————————–
Our Gardening Collection has been pruned! Gone is the dead wood of damaged, duplicate and redundant books. The collection is now grouped into categories to make it easier to find what you’re looking for. If you want something on gardening with native plants, go straight to the shelf labelled ‘Australian Natives’. If it’s a book about roses you’re after, you no longer need to trawl all the shelves, you’ll find it in ‘Roses and Specialty’ along with other ‘specialty’ books devoted to fuchsias or succulents, or hellebores. In ‘Sustainable Gardening’ you’ll find books on organic gardening, permaculture, soil biodiversity and companion planting. Joining that category this week is a new book, Sustainable garden (2022) by Marian Boswall which has ‘projects, insights and advice for the eco-conscious gardener’. Garden pests, diseases & good bugs (2015) by Denis Crawford joins the Pests & Diseases category. Pruning and Training (2017) by Bricknell and Joyce joins Pruning and Propagating. With a dozen different categories, including Garden Design and Gardening Memoirs, there’s something for every garden-lover. Come and check out the new look.
APRIL 2023
Recent purchases
The Bookbinder of Jericho (2023), Pip Walker’s second novel, is now available for borrowing. Readers who loved The Dictionary of Lost words will be delighted.
The Good Life: How to grow a better world (2021) by Hannah Moloney, a regular presenter on Gardening Australia, makes a terrific addition to our Environment and Sustainability section.
Recent donations
Our thanks go to some generous members who recently donated a number of high quality books. Here’s a small selection to whet your appetite:
The Ink Black Heart (2022) by Robert Galbraith (AKA J.K. Rowling); for lovers of crime fiction.
How to Kill Your Husband (2012) by Kathy Lette; a caustic and hilarious novel of marriage, murder and plot twists.
The Secrets of the Fire King (2007) by Kim Edwards; a collection of short stories by the author of the #1 New York Times Bestseller, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, also available in the library.
When all is Said and Done (2020) by Neale Daniher; the inspiring memoir of a football great and his courage in the face of Motor Neurone Disease.
Fifteen Young Men: Australia’s untold football tragedy (2016) by Paul Kennedy tells the true story of a maritime tragedy off the Mornington Peninsula in 1892.
Killer Caldwell (2006) by Jeffrey Watson; the biography of a man acknowledged to be Australia’s greatest fighter pilot will appeal to those interested in military history.
Recent work at the library coincides with two significant days commemorated this week: ANZAC Day and Earth Day. We began with a review of the Military Collection, which was put together many years ago for a particular borrowing audience. We selected the books most relevant to our current members and moved them into separate locations where they will be more accessible. Novels from the old collection are now rehoused with other works of fiction, and browsers in the Biography Section will now find gems such as The White Mouse, the autobiography of Australian nurse and journalist Nancy Wake who joined the French Resistance in WW2. Browsers of the non-fiction Animal Tales Section will come across the intriguingly named Bill the Bastard, Roland Perry’s true story of a war horse hero. A new Military History Section has been established alongside Australian History in the hall, where borrowers will also find a selection of military memoirs. This leads us to Earth Day because the shelves vacated by the old Military Collection now house the new Environment and Sustainability Collection with its range of books addressing one of the most pressing concerns of our time. Two new titles in this collection − Safer Gardens: Plant flammability and planning for fire by Lesley Corbett; and Futureproof Your Garden: Environmentally sustainable ways to grow more with less by Angus Stewart and Emma Stewart are reviewed this week.
Scrabble Club
Well, well, would you believe it, there’s actually a National Scrabble Day in April each year? We asked some of our Saturday Morning Scrabble Club players what they like about it. Woody (11 years old) and his dad Paul are regulars. Woody says that the first time they played together Paul won so they kept coming back because he wanted beat to him (and serendipitously, the day we spoke to them, he did!). They like playing here because playing amongst others creates a nice atmosphere. Paul says that Scrabble is expanding Woody’s vocabulary, and avid-reader Woody likes it that every week, after a game or two, he borrows a book from the Young Adult section. Jill and her friend Cheryll-Lee are also regulars. For them, the game is fun, good exercise for the brain and also a good way to meet people. Jill says that when she first came she didn’t know how to play but others taught her and now she regularly gets high scores. Oh, and there’s snacks and tea or coffee available too.
Athenaeum Library
Newsletter
Dear Library Members,
The Maldon Athenaeum, your local community library, thanks you for your membership support throughout the last couple of years. We are slowly emerging and recovering from the impact of 2 years of COVID, which saw a sad 50% decline in library membership. However, we are gradually seeing the return of previous members and an increase of new members which is very heartening.
As an independent not-for-profit community library, membership subscriptions are our only primary source of income, unlike public libraries we do not receive any State or Federal Government funding or support. We must raise all our own income via membership subscriptions, fundraising, book sales, donations, and occasional grants. We are proud to say that we are self-sustaining and self-sufficient due to many years of good governance by past and present volunteer committees.
ANNUAL 2023 MEMBERSHIP SUBSCRIPTIONS ARE DUE NOW
To help us maintain this independent tradition we need our members to pay their 2023 annual subscriptions now, (they are due each January). The library has approximately 200-230 members of which only around 100 have paid their 2023 membership subscription for this year. If you are one of those who have paid, we thank you, if you have not yet paid, we humbly ask that you do so at your earliest convenience. You can now pay by EFT online via Bendigo Bank:
Acc. Name: Maldon Athenaeum Library
Acc. Number: BSB:633 000 Acc: 109 829 333
Please use your name to identify your deposit.
The annual membership fee is $30.
You can of course still pay in person at the library during opening hours.
The Athenaeum is a Registered Charity and Incorporated Association, all donations over $2 can be receipted for tax purposes.
As you may know the library has been operating in Maldon for 160 years. It has always been run and managed by local dedicated volunteers who between them give 30+ hours each week to support and maintain the library, without them Maldon would not have this unique and valuable service.
Thanks to the generous donations of books from locals, friends and members, the library has a collection of approximately 18,000 books including fiction, non-fiction, and a children’s section. The collection is under constant review by our cataloguing team, who assess, classify and review the collection ensuring it meets and reflects the diverse interests of our membership. New books are regularly purchased, and the entire collection can be viewed online via our website: www.maldonlibrary.org.au . Here you will see recently acquired titles, reviews and library news, books may also be reserved online.
The library loans an average of three thousand books a year, it has around 1200-1500 visits each year and a team of 25 wonderful volunteers who keep everything running ship-shape.
Maldon is very fortunate to have one of only 6 remaining independent community libraries in Victoria originally founded by the Mechanics Institute.
The Athenaeum library is an integral part of the living history of Maldon and its community, its collection is a part of our past, present, and future heritage. Some people say that they are not necessarily readers, or they already have a lot of their own books, and therefore do not need to become members, to these people we suggest that they might consider joining the library as a sponsor/friend, thereby supporting the continuity of a valued community service that would not otherwise be able to exist.
So, please renew your membership and encourage your friends and neighbours to join and support our Maldon Athenaeum library.
‘Books give a soul to the universe, wings to the mind,
flight to the imagination, and life to everything.’
Attributed to Plato
With kind regards from the volunteers and management committee of the Maldon Athenaeum community library.
Tina Fratta, President
April 2023.
Dja Dja Wurrung Country
Easter Book Sale: Saturday & Monday mornings
Several stalls will be groaning under the weight of good quality, reasonably priced books outside the library on Saturday morning and again on Monday morning. This year, as well as novels and some children’s books, we have a large selection of gardening books, biographies and other non-fiction books. Our Easter Book Sale is always a popular event so don’t miss out, there’s sure to be a book or two that will appeal to you.
The library is closed on Good Friday but will be open for borrowing and browsing on both Saturday and Monday mornings at the same time as the book sales. Scrabble Club is on Saturday as usual.
MARCH 2023
Friday 31 March
We’re excited to announce that we’ve received a grant from the Mount Alexander Shire Council to enhance our Children’s Library and our facilities for babies, toddlers, younger people and carers. The children’s book collection is housed in a light-filled room with a carpeted floor and a large stain-glass window that has entranced many a child. Committee member Fiona, who took the lead on the grant application, says that with the funding we’ll add some snuggly places for small ones to sit while they read or listen to a story, and a comfy chair for an adult reading the story. There’ll be a toy box to keep the very small entertained while an older child chooses a book, and a change table in the library’s toilet for those times of need. Of course, we’ll also be building the book collection, particularly books aimed at 0−4 year olds, but across the whole age range too.
Library membership is free for children under 16 years, but a parent or other carer must be a member. So parents, grandparents, aunties, carers why not encourage a love of books and reading from an early age and bring your little one in to see what we’ve got? Read in or take away!
Friday 24 March
Did you know we have an interesting range of DVDs available for borrowing? You can select from world movies both in English and subtitled, TV shows, documentaries and filmed versions of live theatre, musicals and operas. The original collection was first donated to the Maldon Golden Movies film group and was stored for a while at the house of MGM President Graham Pitts. Then he decided that the library was a better location for sharing the collection with the wider community and so it came to us. Over time more DVDs have been added but the original generous donation remains the core. Ross, who probably knows the collection better than anyone, recommends Fellini’s Intervisa about the magic of film making. Or you may be interested in the little-known film Till Human Voices Wake Us made in Maldon starring Guy Pearce and Helena Bonham Carter. Why not borrow one for World Theatre Day this week?
Wednesday 22 March
Did you know you can look for books in the library by checking our online catalogue at maldonlibrary.org.au? You can search by title, keyword, subject or author. Our library team did a keyword search recently to find books for World Water Day on March 22 and, in particular, to find books related to its theme of the sustainable management of fresh water resources. Our search revealed 65 books, most of them novels, with water as part of their title or content.
But the search also showed that we would find what we were looking for in our Environment and Sustainability Section and the Gardening Section. Talking Water: An Australian Guidebook for the 21st Century, commissioned by the Farmhand Foundation, looks at ‘the management of water, its source, its availability, its harvesting and the infrastructure needed to respond to the demands of both society and the environment’. The Gardening Section has four possibilities, including Correas: Australian Plants for Waterwise Gardens by Maria Hitchcock, a popular book that has been borrowed numerous times in the last few years. It takes the reader through the discovery of the genus by Joseph Banks, how to propagate correas, how to grow them and which birds they will attract to your garden (with illustrations by John Gould). Its largest section is devoted to the different types of correas, each one accompanied by a photograph, cultivation notes and a distribution map − including ‘Coliban River’ and ‘Inglewood Gold’ from our region.
Coincidently, while we were doing our search, a donation came in that fitted perfectly: The Waterwise Australian Native Garden by Angus Stewart and A.B. Bishop. With stunning photos, it focusses on garden design and plant selection for a more ‘reliable’ garden that is both practical and aesthetic. It’s a terrific new addition to the Gardening Section.
Monday 13 March
The library is closed on Monday 13 for the Labour Day Public Holiday which is now synonymous with Moomba, but was set up to celebrate the momentous achievement in 1856 of Victorian stonemasons who brought about the introduction of the eight-hour working day as part of the international union-led ‘eight-hour day’ movement ‘eight hours labour, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest’ was the slogan. Here at the library, we have been labouring away (but not for eight-hours a day) to get books ready for our garage sale stall, which was a great success. We’ve also made some headway in revamping the Hallway where we have set up a History and Geography section with Australian, World and Local subsections. The Cooking and Sport sections have had makeovers with displays to catch the eye as you come in the door. True Crimes, which was hiding on a bottom shelf in the Hallway, has moved into the Main Room where there are also three new sections: Indigenous and Reconciliation; Travel Tales and Animal Tales – all non-fictions. Ross is continuing to catalogue our rather impressive DVD collection, housed at the end of the Hallway, and Fiona is doing wonders with the children’s book collection and the Children’s Library Room itself. We’ll keep you posted. Talking of posting, our news and book reviews are now also being posted weekly on the website –http://maldonlibray.org.au – check it out!
BARGAIN BOOK SALE
Saturday 4 March: We’re participating in the Maldon Town-wide Garage Sale with several stalls outside the library. We’ll have some bric-a-brac but mostly we’ll have a range of good-quality fiction and non-fiction books for adults and children to appeal to a wide range of reading tastes. Be sure to come and check us out.
Wednesday 8 March: We’re celebrating International Women’s Day with a display of books all written by or about women. To mark the occasion, we’re also reviewing two new books about remarkable Australian women, one who made her mark on this region in the last century and one who made her mark on the world very recently.
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MAY 2023
To celebrate World Baking Day (May 21), we have ordered The Sourdough Loaf by John Downes. John, originally from Adelaide, via Melbourne and various other parts of the country, now lives locally. He is regarded by many as the guru of sourdough baking and the father of the Australian sourdough bread movement. He named the ‘casalinga’, now found in most sourdough bakeries. Many of us have on our shelves his Natural Tucker Bread Book, first published in 1983 and still in print. Having set up several iconic artisanal bakeries, John helped get the newly reopened Maldon Bakery started before handing over to a younger cohort of bakers. Remember his scrumptious Irish barmbrack fruit loaf? You’ll find the recipe in the The Sourdough Loaf along with over 40 other recipes for both beginners and experienced bakers. It’ll be in our Cooking Collection very soon. Fittingly, World Bee Day is also celebrated this week. ‘Fittingly’, because without bees there would be no flour and without flour, no bread. The day is held to remind us that we all depend on the survival of bees. The United Nations website (www.un.org) suggests that individuals can help by such things as planting a diverse set of native plants, which flower at different times of the year; avoiding pesticides, fungicides and herbicides in our gardens; by simply leaving a water bowl outside in dry times; and by helping to sustain forest ecosystems. You’ll find ideas to help your endeavours in our Gardening Collection. You might also look in Sustainability & Environment or Australian Flora & Fauna.
————————–
This week four of our volunteers share their thoughts on books and borrowing. Of all the books in the library, Judy’s favourite is Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, which she came across when reshelving books last year. She says, ‘I was unaware of the writer, an American novelist who won a Pulitzer Prize for Gilead. I have now read all her books and believe her to be one of the finest and important writers of our era’. Eirwen borrows biographies and novels, especially detective fiction and books by Australian women. Her favourite recently-borrowed book is La’s orchestra saves the world by Alexander McCall Smith, a historical novel set in WW2. Desiree, who mainly borrows detective novels but also biographies, history and travel tales, found it difficult to name a favourite as she has many. But she loved Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel, a story about the aftermath of a devastating pandemic. She assures us it isn’t as horrifying or depressing as she had feared it might be, in fact, she couldn’t put it down. Science fiction is Brenda’s preferred genre but if she had to choose a favourite book, it would have to be the non-fiction Diary of a Welsh Swagman, recording an itinerant worker’s time in this region. In May 1883 he noted that, ‘Nearly one third of the population of Maldon is affected by typhoid fever’. But, more happily in May 1886, ‘The Beehive Reefs … retrieved one piece of quartz which contained gold worth over £300’. How times change!
—————————–
Our Gardening Collection has been pruned! Gone is the dead wood of damaged, duplicate and redundant books. The collection is now grouped into categories to make it easier to find what you’re looking for. If you want something on gardening with native plants, go straight to the shelf labelled ‘Australian Natives’. If it’s a book about roses you’re after, you no longer need to trawl all the shelves, you’ll find it in ‘Roses and Specialty’ along with other ‘specialty’ books devoted to fuchsias or succulents, or hellebores. In ‘Sustainable Gardening’ you’ll find books on organic gardening, permaculture, soil biodiversity and companion planting. Joining that category this week is a new book, Sustainable garden (2022) by Marian Boswall which has ‘projects, insights and advice for the eco-conscious gardener’. Garden pests, diseases & good bugs (2015) by Denis Crawford joins the Pests & Diseases category. Pruning and Training (2017) by Bricknell and Joyce joins Pruning and Propagating. With a dozen different categories, including Garden Design and Gardening Memoirs, there’s something for every garden-lover. Come and check out the new look.
APRIL 2023
Recent purchases
The Bookbinder of Jericho (2023), Pip Walker’s second novel, is now available for borrowing. Readers who loved The Dictionary of Lost words will be delighted.
The Good Life: How to grow a better world (2021) by Hannah Moloney, a regular presenter on Gardening Australia, makes a terrific addition to our Environment and Sustainability section.
Recent donations
Our thanks go to some generous members who recently donated a number of high quality books. Here’s a small selection to whet your appetite:
The Ink Black Heart (2022) by Robert Galbraith (AKA J.K. Rowling); for lovers of crime fiction.
How to Kill Your Husband (2012) by Kathy Lette; a caustic and hilarious novel of marriage, murder and plot twists.
The Secrets of the Fire King (2007) by Kim Edwards; a collection of short stories by the author of the #1 New York Times Bestseller, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, also available in the library.
When all is Said and Done (2020) by Neale Daniher; the inspiring memoir of a football great and his courage in the face of Motor Neurone Disease.
Fifteen Young Men: Australia’s untold football tragedy (2016) by Paul Kennedy tells the true story of a maritime tragedy off the Mornington Peninsula in 1892.
Killer Caldwell (2006) by Jeffrey Watson; the biography of a man acknowledged to be Australia’s greatest fighter pilot will appeal to those interested in military history.
Recent work at the library coincides with two significant days commemorated this week: ANZAC Day and Earth Day. We began with a review of the Military Collection, which was put together many years ago for a particular borrowing audience. We selected the books most relevant to our current members and moved them into separate locations where they will be more accessible. Novels from the old collection are now rehoused with other works of fiction, and browsers in the Biography Section will now find gems such as The White Mouse, the autobiography of Australian nurse and journalist Nancy Wake who joined the French Resistance in WW2. Browsers of the non-fiction Animal Tales Section will come across the intriguingly named Bill the Bastard, Roland Perry’s true story of a war horse hero. A new Military History Section has been established alongside Australian History in the hall, where borrowers will also find a selection of military memoirs. This leads us to Earth Day because the shelves vacated by the old Military Collection now house the new Environment and Sustainability Collection with its range of books addressing one of the most pressing concerns of our time. Two new titles in this collection − Safer Gardens: Plant flammability and planning for fire by Lesley Corbett; and Futureproof Your Garden: Environmentally sustainable ways to grow more with less by Angus Stewart and Emma Stewart are reviewed this week.
Scrabble Club
Well, well, would you believe it, there’s actually a National Scrabble Day in April each year? We asked some of our Saturday Morning Scrabble Club players what they like about it. Woody (11 years old) and his dad Paul are regulars. Woody says that the first time they played together Paul won so they kept coming back because he wanted beat to him (and serendipitously, the day we spoke to them, he did!). They like playing here because playing amongst others creates a nice atmosphere. Paul says that Scrabble is expanding Woody’s vocabulary, and avid-reader Woody likes it that every week, after a game or two, he borrows a book from the Young Adult section. Jill and her friend Cheryll-Lee are also regulars. For them, the game is fun, good exercise for the brain and also a good way to meet people. Jill says that when she first came she didn’t know how to play but others taught her and now she regularly gets high scores. Oh, and there’s snacks and tea or coffee available too.
Athenaeum Library
Newsletter
Dear Library Members,
The Maldon Athenaeum, your local community library, thanks you for your membership support throughout the last couple of years. We are slowly emerging and recovering from the impact of 2 years of COVID, which saw a sad 50% decline in library membership. However, we are gradually seeing the return of previous members and an increase of new members which is very heartening.
As an independent not-for-profit community library, membership subscriptions are our only primary source of income, unlike public libraries we do not receive any State or Federal Government funding or support. We must raise all our own income via membership subscriptions, fundraising, book sales, donations, and occasional grants. We are proud to say that we are self-sustaining and self-sufficient due to many years of good governance by past and present volunteer committees.
ANNUAL 2023 MEMBERSHIP SUBSCRIPTIONS ARE DUE NOW
To help us maintain this independent tradition we need our members to pay their 2023 annual subscriptions now, (they are due each January). The library has approximately 200-230 members of which only around 100 have paid their 2023 membership subscription for this year. If you are one of those who have paid, we thank you, if you have not yet paid, we humbly ask that you do so at your earliest convenience. You can now pay by EFT online via Bendigo Bank:
Acc. Name: Maldon Athenaeum Library
Acc. Number: BSB:633 000 Acc: 109 829 333
Please use your name to identify your deposit.
The annual membership fee is $30.
You can of course still pay in person at the library during opening hours.
The Athenaeum is a Registered Charity and Incorporated Association, all donations over $2 can be receipted for tax purposes.
As you may know the library has been operating in Maldon for 160 years. It has always been run and managed by local dedicated volunteers who between them give 30+ hours each week to support and maintain the library, without them Maldon would not have this unique and valuable service.
Thanks to the generous donations of books from locals, friends and members, the library has a collection of approximately 18,000 books including fiction, non-fiction, and a children’s section. The collection is under constant review by our cataloguing team, who assess, classify and review the collection ensuring it meets and reflects the diverse interests of our membership. New books are regularly purchased, and the entire collection can be viewed online via our website: www.maldonlibrary.org.au . Here you will see recently acquired titles, reviews and library news, books may also be reserved online.
The library loans an average of three thousand books a year, it has around 1200-1500 visits each year and a team of 25 wonderful volunteers who keep everything running ship-shape.
Maldon is very fortunate to have one of only 6 remaining independent community libraries in Victoria originally founded by the Mechanics Institute.
The Athenaeum library is an integral part of the living history of Maldon and its community, its collection is a part of our past, present, and future heritage. Some people say that they are not necessarily readers, or they already have a lot of their own books, and therefore do not need to become members, to these people we suggest that they might consider joining the library as a sponsor/friend, thereby supporting the continuity of a valued community service that would not otherwise be able to exist.
So, please renew your membership and encourage your friends and neighbours to join and support our Maldon Athenaeum library.
‘Books give a soul to the universe, wings to the mind,
flight to the imagination, and life to everything.’
Attributed to Plato
With kind regards from the volunteers and management committee of the Maldon Athenaeum community library.
Tina Fratta, President
April 2023.
Dja Dja Wurrung Country
Easter Book Sale: Saturday & Monday mornings
Several stalls will be groaning under the weight of good quality, reasonably priced books outside the library on Saturday morning and again on Monday morning. This year, as well as novels and some children’s books, we have a large selection of gardening books, biographies and other non-fiction books. Our Easter Book Sale is always a popular event so don’t miss out, there’s sure to be a book or two that will appeal to you.
The library is closed on Good Friday but will be open for borrowing and browsing on both Saturday and Monday mornings at the same time as the book sales. Scrabble Club is on Saturday as usual.
MARCH 2023
Friday 31 March
We’re excited to announce that we’ve received a grant from the Mount Alexander Shire Council to enhance our Children’s Library and our facilities for babies, toddlers, younger people and carers. The children’s book collection is housed in a light-filled room with a carpeted floor and a large stain-glass window that has entranced many a child. Committee member Fiona, who took the lead on the grant application, says that with the funding we’ll add some snuggly places for small ones to sit while they read or listen to a story, and a comfy chair for an adult reading the story. There’ll be a toy box to keep the very small entertained while an older child chooses a book, and a change table in the library’s toilet for those times of need. Of course, we’ll also be building the book collection, particularly books aimed at 0−4 year olds, but across the whole age range too.
Library membership is free for children under 16 years, but a parent or other carer must be a member. So parents, grandparents, aunties, carers why not encourage a love of books and reading from an early age and bring your little one in to see what we’ve got? Read in or take away!
Friday 24 March
Did you know we have an interesting range of DVDs available for borrowing? You can select from world movies both in English and subtitled, TV shows, documentaries and filmed versions of live theatre, musicals and operas. The original collection was first donated to the Maldon Golden Movies film group and was stored for a while at the house of MGM President Graham Pitts. Then he decided that the library was a better location for sharing the collection with the wider community and so it came to us. Over time more DVDs have been added but the original generous donation remains the core. Ross, who probably knows the collection better than anyone, recommends Fellini’s Intervisa about the magic of film making. Or you may be interested in the little-known film Till Human Voices Wake Us made in Maldon starring Guy Pearce and Helena Bonham Carter. Why not borrow one for World Theatre Day this week?
Wednesday 22 March
Did you know you can look for books in the library by checking our online catalogue at maldonlibrary.org.au? You can search by title, keyword, subject or author. Our library team did a keyword search recently to find books for World Water Day on March 22 and, in particular, to find books related to its theme of the sustainable management of fresh water resources. Our search revealed 65 books, most of them novels, with water as part of their title or content.
But the search also showed that we would find what we were looking for in our Environment and Sustainability Section and the Gardening Section. Talking Water: An Australian Guidebook for the 21st Century, commissioned by the Farmhand Foundation, looks at ‘the management of water, its source, its availability, its harvesting and the infrastructure needed to respond to the demands of both society and the environment’. The Gardening Section has four possibilities, including Correas: Australian Plants for Waterwise Gardens by Maria Hitchcock, a popular book that has been borrowed numerous times in the last few years. It takes the reader through the discovery of the genus by Joseph Banks, how to propagate correas, how to grow them and which birds they will attract to your garden (with illustrations by John Gould). Its largest section is devoted to the different types of correas, each one accompanied by a photograph, cultivation notes and a distribution map − including ‘Coliban River’ and ‘Inglewood Gold’ from our region.
Coincidently, while we were doing our search, a donation came in that fitted perfectly: The Waterwise Australian Native Garden by Angus Stewart and A.B. Bishop. With stunning photos, it focusses on garden design and plant selection for a more ‘reliable’ garden that is both practical and aesthetic. It’s a terrific new addition to the Gardening Section.
Monday 13 March
The library is closed on Monday 13 for the Labour Day Public Holiday which is now synonymous with Moomba, but was set up to celebrate the momentous achievement in 1856 of Victorian stonemasons who brought about the introduction of the eight-hour working day as part of the international union-led ‘eight-hour day’ movement ‘eight hours labour, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest’ was the slogan. Here at the library, we have been labouring away (but not for eight-hours a day) to get books ready for our garage sale stall, which was a great success. We’ve also made some headway in revamping the Hallway where we have set up a History and Geography section with Australian, World and Local subsections. The Cooking and Sport sections have had makeovers with displays to catch the eye as you come in the door. True Crimes, which was hiding on a bottom shelf in the Hallway, has moved into the Main Room where there are also three new sections: Indigenous and Reconciliation; Travel Tales and Animal Tales – all non-fictions. Ross is continuing to catalogue our rather impressive DVD collection, housed at the end of the Hallway, and Fiona is doing wonders with the children’s book collection and the Children’s Library Room itself. We’ll keep you posted. Talking of posting, our news and book reviews are now also being posted weekly on the website –http://maldonlibray.org.au – check it out!
BARGAIN BOOK SALE
Saturday 4 March: We’re participating in the Maldon Town-wide Garage Sale with several stalls outside the library. We’ll have some bric-a-brac but mostly we’ll have a range of good-quality fiction and non-fiction books for adults and children to appeal to a wide range of reading tastes. Be sure to come and check us out.
Wednesday 8 March: We’re celebrating International Women’s Day with a display of books all written by or about women. To mark the occasion, we’re also reviewing two new books about remarkable Australian women, one who made her mark on this region in the last century and one who made her mark on the world very recently.
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FEBRUARY NEWS 2023
BARGAIN BOOK SALE
THIS SATURDAY MARCH 4TH
MALDON ATHENAEUM LIBRARY
9AM TO 2PM
A HUGE RANGE OF GREAT BOOKS FOR SALE
FICTION, NON-FICTION, AND KID’S BOOKS
ALL BOOKS $3 OR 2 FOR $5
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Our new non-fiction section ‘Indigenous and Reconciliation’ is now set up in the Main Room for browsing and borrowing.
The Reconciliation Australia website, www.reconciliation.org.au, describes reconciliation as a involving all Australians, both indigenous and non-indigenous, in understanding and valuing each other’s cultures, rights and experiences and accepting our nation’s history. Our collection aims to contribute to this process through a diverse range of non-fiction genres by both indigenous and non-indigenous authors. For example, historian Henry Reynold’s book Truth Telling: History, Sovereignty and the Uluru Statement examines the legal and historical assumptions underpinning white settlement and sovereignty. Indigenous politician and Yawuru elder, Pat Dodson, described it as allowing ‘Australians to build a better more truthful Australia’. Closer to home, historian Bain Attwood’s The Good Country looks specifically at encounters between the Djadja Wurrung and white settlers, administrators and miners in our region. Memoirs such as Riding the Black Cockatoo by John Danalis and Wandering Girl by Glenyse Ward shine a light, in very different ways and from very different perspectives, on both history and culture. Browsers will also find books about Aboriginal myth, story and art as well as biographies of prominent indigenous people from Truganini, survivor of the Tasmanian massacres, to the recently departed Uncle Jack Charles. This diverse collection is in its fledgling stages. We welcome suggestions or donations of books to enhance it.
AUGUST NEWS 2022
August 22nd to 27th is Children’s Book Week and the library is celebrating with a bumper BOOK SALE of children’s books. Come in and have a browse, lots to choose from.
SCRABBLE CLUB at the library starting Saturday September 2nd from 11am – 2pm. All welcome, tea, coffee and nibbles, gold coin donation.
Welcome to our news section. Over time we will be adding events and activities that we hope will be of interest to our library members and to the local community.
Today, July 10 2022 is the launch of our updated website where, for the first time you will be able to view the entire library collection online and make a book reservation via the internet. This will allow members to view our collection at their leisure from home and choose from around 20,000 books covering many topicsi