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The library’s booksale is here again! Select from a large collection of used books and magazines, written in Singapore’s 4 official languages! Our prices range from $1 to $5.  Payment can be made by cash NETS or Cashcard.

• English and Chinese books will cost $2 a copy
• Malay and Tamil books are $1 a copy
• English and Chinese magazines will cost $5 for a pack of 10 issues, and
• Malay and Tamil magazines will cost $5 for a pack of 20 issues

Event details:

Date: Saturday 23 July 2011 to Sunday 24 July 2011

Time: 9.30 am – 8.00 pm

Venue: Singapore Expo Hall 4A

Admission is Free

For more details, please call NLB Helpdest at 6332 3255 or email helpdesk@nlb.gov.sg

See you there!

Lynnette

Ever wonder what the correct term for the punctuation mark ‘…’ is or how you should use it? With books peppered with ‘…’, do we know what it is for?

The correct term for it is ‘Ellipsis’. According to the Dictionary of Linguistic and Phonetics, one will be able to use it when you would like to omit part of a sentence or to indicate some form of a pause or hesitation.  It is useful to use ellipses when you need to reduce a quote? However, there is a need to “avoid deletions that would distort the meaning”. Thus, careful consideration is needed not to omit and in the process distort the meaning.

It is interesting to note that according to ‘The Chicago Manual of Style’,  there is a “Three-Dot Method” and a “Four-Dot Method”. The Three-Dot Method is used mostly for general works and also many scholarly works. The “Four-Dot Method” is used to mark the omission of one or more sentences. It is also mentioned that when an ellipsis ends a sentence, four dots are also used where it consists of a set of ellipsis and a period.

References:

The Chicago Manual of Style (2003). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

According to Philip Ardagh’s book of absolutely useless lists for absolutely every day of the year:
1. The Titanic                 

On her first voyage on 14 April 1912, the White Star liner hit an iceberg which ripped a 75 m hole in her hull. 1503 people died as there weren’t enough lifeboats. The wreck of it was only discovered on 1 September 1985, 2.5 miles below the surface, 323 nautical miles off Newfoundland.

2. The Lusitania

The finest ship in the Cunard fleet, it sunk when sailing from New York to Liverpool on 7 May 1915 when a torpedo hit it. The torpedo was fired from a U-boat, a German submarine off Ireland. The ship sank in just 18 minutes, leaving 1201 dead. The site of the wreck was discovered in 1935 and one of it’s huge quadruple screws can be seen on the quayside at the Merseyside Maritime Museum today.

3. The Bismarck

The German navy and Britain’s wartime prime minister Winston Churchill, had admired the Bismarck greatly. However on the warship’s first voyage on May 1941, she sank. It was chased across the Atlantic in battle and the torpedo fires caused it to sink, leaving 2085 people dead and 115 survivors. The wreckage was found 380 miles south of Cork in Ireland. The site wreck has been officially transformed to a German war grave today.

4. The Belgrano

This Argentinian warship suffered two torpedos on 2 May 1982, fired from a British nuclear submarine during the Falklands War. 323 men were killed while the rescue operation saved 770 crew members. Despite a joint expedition done in 2003 by the Argentinian navy and the National Geographic Society to locate the wreck of Belgrano, the wreck is yet to be found.

5. The Mary Rose

Built between 1509 and 1511, Henry VIII described the Mary Rose’s unique design as ‘the fairest flower of all the ships that ever sailed’. On 19 July 1545, the Mary Rose set sail at Southsea in the king’s presence. The overladen ship capsized, its lower gun ports which are the open portholes that canons fire through, had taken in too much water. 660 men are thought to have drowned, with less than 40 survivors. The wreck was investigatd closely in 1960 and raised in 1882. The raising was broadcasted on televsion, with an estimated 60 million people watching live. Today the wreck is displayed behind glass screens at Portsmouth’s Historic Dockyard, where it is constantly kept moist using a  special preservative spray.

Reference:
1. Ardagh, P. (2008). Philip ardagh’s book of absolutely useless lists for absolutely every day of the year. . London : Macmillan Children’s:

If you want to read more on the topic, here are books that you can check out at our library.

 All Rights Reserved,Random House, 2002.

Titanic : a nonfiction companion to Tonight on the Titanic  by Will Osborne and Mary Pope Osborne       
Publisher: New York : Random House, 2002..
Call No.: J 910 OSB  
Click here to check for item availability

All Rights Reserved,Minn. : Capstone Press, c2010.

Exploring Titanic : an Isabel Soto history adventure by Agnieszka Biskup 
Publisher: Mankato, Minn. : Capstone Press, c2010.
Call No.: J 910.91 BIS
Click here to check for item availability

All Rights Reserved,Scholastic, c2010.

The sinking of the Titanic, 1912 by Lauren Tarshis 
Publisher: New York : Scholastic, c2010.
Call No.: JS TAR
Click here to check for item availability

All websites are last accessed on June 2011. Please refer to the terms and conditions on the homepages for use.
For the availability of the above book titles, please check the library catalogue.

Originally Answered by Ms Judy Kong Siew Choo
Children’s Librarian
Children’s Services

Image taken from: http://www.coolstuffexpress.com/store/p/156-Giant-Microbes-E-Coli-Stuffed-Plush-Animal.html

If you have been following the news, you will surely have heard of the E.Coli outbreak that has thrown Germany and the rest of the world into panic. According to sources it has caused at least 31 deaths and has infected countless others.What is this much-feared microbe that has left so much destruction in its wake?

E. Coli is the abbreviated name of Escherichia coli, a bacterium that lives in the digestive tract of warm-blooded animals.

Despite  recent bad press, the majority of strains of E Coli are not deadly and in fact, all of us have millions of E Coli in our intestines that cause us no problems at all. Some strains generate vitamin K, an important nutrient to humans. Another strain known as Nissle 1917 is used in the treatment of several gastroentererological diseases.

However, a few strains can cause serious food poisoning in humans. They produce potentially lethal toxins: for instance, the virulent O104:H4 strain produces deadly Shiga toxins. This strain is responsible for the recent outbreak in Germany. It cannot be effectively treated with antibiotics, making it even more dangerous

The Family Doctor website states that that symptoms of E. coli infection include abdominal cramps, bloody diarrhoea, nausea, vomiting and mild fever. in the most serious cases the infection can cause a life-threatening condition called haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS), which can lead to kidney failure.

E. Coli is typically found in cows/beef and infection usually results when undercooked meat is eaten. Other foods, such as vegetables can be contaminated when they come into contact with fecal material. For this reason, organic farms have come under scrutiny – they do not use chemical fertilizers and therefore, risk contamination from bacteria in manure.

According to news reports, organically grown sprouts have been identified as the source of contamination in Germany. “Lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers should be eaten again – it is all healthy produce,” says Andreas Hensel, the head of Germany’s risk assessment agency..

Want to find out more? I’d recommend this website, run by UK newspaper The Guardian.

Other references:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article6832844.ece

http://www.cdc.gov/ecoli/