Annual Reports

I’m in the process of rationalising the Library’s Annual Report collection at the moment and thought it a good opportunity to talk about finding annual reports on the internet. Government departments have legal obligations to provide an assortment of publications about their activities. To find annual reports, simply go to Queensland Government or Australian Government and follow the Departments links to the department you are interested in. Once on the relevant page, look for links to Publications or Corporate Publications and you should find the Annual Report listed there.

For other organisations and businesses, simply Google them. Quite often you’ll find the link to the annual report under ‘About Us’.

Free stuff on the web

Believe it or not, there are hundreds of organisations on the internet that just want to give stuff away for free! You can download any number of publications and sign up for thousands of newsletters without it costing you a cent.

Government departments are a good place to start. Have a look at the website of the departments that interest you and see what’s available for you to download or subscribe to. The DPI  is a good example. Follow the ‘Newsletters’ link under ‘Services’ and you’ll find about 15 newsletters you can sign up for.

AHURI puts all of its publications online. You can download its Research and Policy Papers or any of its Discussion Papers and Reports. It’s a great resource for housing research.

Want to know what the Centre for Independent Studies is thinking? Put your name down for their e-newsletter.

I could write forever about all the newsletters available out there, but I won’t. Instead, why not go to LGAQ’s del.icio.us page (the link is over there on the right of the screen) and click on the ‘newsletter’ tag to discover the sites I’ve found so far that offer free newsletters. I’ll add more as I find them.

Save time with RSS

Do you have a lot of websites you frequently visit to read the latest updates. It can be time-consuming visiting each site in turn and looking for new content. Instead of you doing all the work, why not set up some RSS feeds and have all the new content from all your favourite sites delivered to you.

RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication (one of its meanings) and it allows you to receive constantly updated information from many sources such as websites, blogs, news sites, podcasts and other services. All the new content is collected into one place (a reader), making it quick and easy for you to access the latest offerings from your favourite sites.

To get started, you need to get a reader. There are a number of free readers out there and I can recommend either Bloglines or Google Reader. Once you have signed up for an account, you’re ready to start subscribing to your favourite websites RSS feeds.

Look for the little orange button (like the one in the sidebar to this blog) on the site you want to subscribe to and right-click it. Select ‘Open Link in New Window’ and a window will open filled with what looks like nonsense. Ignore all that. All you need is the URL in the address bar. Copy that.

Now go to your reader and look for “Add”, “Add Subscription” or words to that effect. Click on the link and paste the URL you copied earlier into the box and hit “Subscribe” or similar button.

You’ve now subscribed to your first RSS feed and it should begin to show up in the lefthand panel of your reader. Click on it to see all the new content added to the site since you last visited it. You can simply browse the headlines, or click on them to go to the site and read the full article.

I love RSS and have set up all sorts of feeds. Sites like the ABC  have feeds for all its sections – News, TV, Movies, Radio… go mad picking and choosing the feeds you’d like to receive!

Can’t find feeds to subscribe to? Try using feed directories such as Feedster or Feed Directory. Looking for blogs? Then use blog directories like Technorati, Blog Catalog or Bloggernity. Of course, you could always start off by subscribing to this blog and then you’ll always be up to date with its new content!

Want to know more? Come and see me any Tuesday or Wednesday and I’ll give you a one-on-one tutorial in getting started with RSS.

New in the Library

A number of new publications have been added to the Library’s collections. They are:

• Snapshot 2007: children and young people in Queensland
• Report on the review of the Department of Communities, Disabilities Queensland and the former Department of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Policy
• Legal, Constitutional and Administrative Committee Report no. 59: meeting with the Queensland Information Commissioner
• Local Government National Report 2005-06
• Our Town Our Future: a revitalisation strategy for Ingham

All of these publications are on display at the front of the library. Please feel free to come in and have a look at them and borrow them.