Janis Sheldrick and her book about George Goyder

A full-house enjoyed Dr Janis Sheldrick’s talk about George Goyder.  Nature’s Line is a book of  environmental history and biography, interesting elements of which Jan managed to balance in her excellent talk.  

With accompanying maps, photographs and illustrations on the big screen, Jan outlined the life and work of a remarkable man: explorer, Surveyor-General of South Australia, the person who selected and surveyed the site of Darwin. Goyder was a man of far-sightedness who battled the often shortsighted parliamentarians of his day.  A fascinating story has been brought to our attention in Nature’s Line and was enjoyed by the audience attending a very interesting talk at Hawthorn Library.

Living with anxiety and depression with Bev Aisbett

Bev Aisbett has written several books on anxiety and depression. Her most recent book is a memoir called All of it: a memoir of love, fear and art.  

On Monday night at Ashburton Library, Bev Aisbett talked passionately about her own experience with anxiety from being told by a doctor that she was the most afraid person she had ever met all the way to running workshops for people also suffering. Lots of people ask ‘why me’ when they are starting to deal with anxiety.  They tell themselves a lot of junk and a lot of it is negative self-talk.  Bev says that if you can change your thinking you can often change your anxiety levels.  Anxiety and panic attacks are often a warning sign that you are not being true to yourself.  She encouraged us to not get hooked on the misery of staring deeply into anxiety and negativity.

Bev created the ‘anxiety monster’ IT character in her books to portray the negative self talk and self-critic that is often present in anxious people.  Bev also runs workshops for anxiety sufferers and she is a artist who will soon open a gallery in Yarraville.

Check out her books in the library catalogue here

We were tweeting live from the event on Monday night - check out our twitter feed here.

Knit happened!!!

Knit happened at Boroondara Library Service over the last few weeks.  All branches held a public knitting event which encouraged people to bring in their knitting and knit with others, knit for charity or come and learn.  We knitted poppies for the 5000 poppies project and lots of other items for charity through KOGO (knit one give one)

At Ashburton: one lady spoke English as her second language and French is her first language.  She was having trouble understanding knitting instructions in English and so our staff member Anita who speaks French helped her translate.. Another borrower who was just in the library to get her reserves was convinced to get a crochet lesson from Joyce and she was very very excited about learning this new skill.

At Camberwell: Areta (our representative from KOGO Knit one, give one) was great for absolute beginners.

 

Quite a few bought their own projects but the poppies were very popular as well. One woman Glenys (she is in one of the photos wearing her poppy) made two in the session. She was such a sweetie, her husband bought her along and then he went off to do the shopping. When he returned he was so pleased to see Glenys so happy and so productive. He later told me that she hasn't been out of the house for quite a long time but read about the sessions this morning in the paper.

At Hawthorn: People sat in a circle with knitting and there was a lot of chat creating a relaxed atmosphere.  It was quite colourful with balls of wool and books, plus two of the members of the Surrey Hills Knitting Group brought rugs and scarves to show.  They were a very friendly bunch with strangers easily starting up conversations with their neighbour.  An enjoyable community activity sharing stories about knitting and life in general.

The library has a huge range of knitting books to help you get started to begin a new project.  check out some here.