Wild Weather

Fun fact: Jupiter's Great Red Spot, is actually a storm that has been raging for 300 years
Source: wikipedia.com

 

The weather affects us all, a sunny day could mean a picnic or a visit to the beach and a rainy day could mean cuddling up with a good book from your local library. Then there are times where we get severe weather which can cause natural disasters such as tornadoes, hurricanes, typhoons, icestorms. Severe weather has great impact on the human race; it can ruin crops, destroy homes, cause floods and fires and even take lives.

There is so much information on severe weather available; the trick is finding the specific information you need.

In the Library

Searching the catalogue using the keyword “weather” will get you a lot of good results.

Being more specific in your search is also important; if you particularly want information on tornadoes then type in the keyword “tornado”.  

You could also try:

·         Hurricane

·         Typhoon

·         Natural disasters

·         Climate change

 

Library Website

If you go to the Information desk online webpage on the Library website you will see that you have access to encyclopaedias like Britannica and World Book, both of these resources have much information on severe weather. Try using the keywords mentioned above to get some great results. You might also want to try names of specific disasters, such as “Hurricane Katrina”.

“Tornado alley” is a common name for the area of the United States where tornadoes are most frequent, this search term will also find you some great results. You could also try the term “climate change”

If you then go to the Reference Databases webpage try using the keyword suggestions we have discussed above to search in the Greenfile and the Science Reference Centre databases which will give you some great information. 

 

Online

If you decide Google is the way to go, do be careful because there is a lot of information available on the web for this topic. Make sure that the source of the website is reliable.  You could try any of the keywords above in your search, I would recommend being as specific as possible as more general keywords such as “weather” will bring too many results. You could however try “severe weather” . Again, the more specific you are the better.

You could also try:

·         Australia’s hurricanes

·         Australian natural disasters

·         Cyclone Yasi

·         Tropical cyclones

 

Other websites that you might find useful

AustralianGovernment – Bureau of Meteorlogy

The Bureau of Meteorology is Australia's national weather, climate and water agency. It contains a wealth of information about the history of Australia’s climate and weather as well as up to date information and weather warnings. It is a very valuable online resource.

ExtremeStorms

This website has been put together by two quite knowledgeable and well known Australian storm chasers. It contains some great information, videos and pictures of a variety of storms in Australia.

Australianweather and seasons – a variety of climates

This site is created by the Australian Government and contains information about the Australian climate, weather patterns, severe weather as well as some great reliable links you can check out for more information.

Climate change in Australia

The CSIRO created this website and it has some great information on it, including its very own publications library. This is definitely a site worth checking out.

 

Amazing Australians: Patrick White

Source: abc.net.au/arts/white

Patrick White was an Australian writer who is widely considered to be one of the most influential English-language novelists of the 20th century. White wrote a number of novels, plays and three short-story compilations. In 1973 he became the first Australian to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He is still considered a very prominent writer and some of White’s pieces are still studied in the HSC today.

Information on Patrick White is relatively easy to find, but be sure that the information you are gathering is from reputable sources.

In the Library

Searching the catalogue using the keywords “Patrick White” will get you some good results.
If you are looking for a particular title such as, “Happy Valley”, you can type in the full title.

 

Library Website

If you go to the Information desk online webpage on the Library website you will see that you have access to encyclopaedias like Britannica and World Book which both have entries for Patrick White.  

If you then go to the Reference Databases webpage try using the name “Patrick White” to search in Biography in Context, Literary Reference Center Plus and Novelist which will give you some great information. 

Online

If you decide to Google once again you can use the name Patrick White, other terms you could try include;

·         Patrick White Australian Author

·         Patrick White Nobel Prize Literature

If you are interested in specific works then I would recommend searching by the title as well as or instead of the author as this makes it a more specific search, i.e.

·         “Happy Valley” Patrick White

·         “The Aunt’s Story” Patrick White

·         Voss Patrick White

Other websites that you might find useful

Nobelprize.org

This website contains biographical information about Patrick White as well as facts and even his banquet speech which was presented by Sidney Nolan.

ABC 

This website has information on White’s life, pictures, audio clips, war diary and information about his works including excerpts.

Australian Dictionary of Biography

This site has a complete and quite thorough biography on Patrick White with relevant links.

Australian Rainforests



Image source: clipart

 

When looking for information on Australia’s rainforests there are a few different places you can search.

In the Library

Searching the catalogue with the following keywords will get you some good results:

·         Rainforest

·         Australia Rainforest

If you are looking for information about a specific rainforest you could enter the name e.g. Daintree

 

Library Website

If you go to the Information desk online webpage on the Library website you will see that you have access to encyclopaedias like Britannica and World Book. World Book in particular has some good results using keywords like “Australian rainforest”.

Online

You might also choose to Google in order to find some websites with more information, if you need to use Google I would recommend being as specific as possible in the keywords you use. Here are some suggestions for keywords:

·         Australian rainforests

·         Daintree rainforest

·         Gondwana rainforests

·         Tarkine Tasmania

·         Littoral rainforest

Other websites that you might find useful

World Heritage Places - Gondwana Rainforests of Australia -New South Wales and Queensland
This website has been written by the Australian Government Department of the Environment. It contains extensive information about the Gondwana Rainforests including where they are located, information on the Heritage database records, images, links to maps, fact sheets and other important material as well as relevant contact information.

Australian Rainforest Foundation
This website has information about rainforests in each of the different states and contains important information such as the threatened species in each state and links to other relevant sites or groups.

The Royal Botanic Gardens & Domain Trust – AustralianRainforests
This site has a lot of information about all types of Australian rainforests, including, history, habitats and environment, soil fertility and how rainforests are categorised. This is a very useful site.