Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Red hearts at the NLA

A  friend's wedding in Canberra is giving me an opportunity to spend a couple of extra days to undertake some research in our nation's capital.

When I was preparing for my research days prior to Congress last month I didn't give myself enough time to order items from the National Archives of Australia. Why they need five days notice to collect files from their storage facility that is less than thirty minutes drive away I don't know. Surely they do at least a daily run between the Reading Room and the storage facility at Mitchell. The good news is that this time I have ordered the files I wish to see withe plenty of notice.

This morning I am on the National Library of Australia website and being thankful for the Add to Favourites red heart. This helpful tool ensures that my time at the library  is most productive.

See the Red Heart
I hadn't used this facility until my last trip to the library, this time as I read/examined books
 I added them to my favourites. What is even better is that when one adds a favourite a little text box appears into which one can put a text note.

Add to Favourites Text Box
So this morning as I search the NLA Catalogue for resources little red hearts are showing up in the catalogue for items I have already favourited. How nifty is that! I won't be ordering in books I have already read.

I do add the books I read to Librarything but it's so much better to be able to see the little red hearts on the catalogue.

If you want a few little red hearts in your life you will need a library card from the NLA and to be logged in to the library site while you search the catalogue.

Postscript After spending some time on the site and pulling up a list of my favourites I discovered that I had used this facility back in 2011 but had quite forgotten. I hadn't used it on my visits between 2011 and 2015. Hopefully I will remember to use it in future.

5 comments:

Anne Young said...

I agree 5 days is too long a lead time to order NAA records - I can understand up to 24 hours as records are off-site and they have limited courier runs. One needs to be organised. If I have requested them in advance and I said I was coming in on a particular day - they usually seem to meet my timing.

Cassmob (Pauleen) said...

Thanks for the heart tip Jill. I'm usually lazy and not log in unless using the restricted access databases ...this is another incentive.

GeniAus said...

They should be ready then, Anne. I wish they had a reading room at Mitchell, perhaps they might have one in their new facility.

GeniAus said...

Lazy is not a word I associate with you Pauleen.

Janelle Collins said...

Thanks for the tip, Jill. More incentive to login to use their website, the same as with Trove. Gives us more functionality.

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