Just over two years ago the Searchlight column made its debut on these pages. With a bunch of ideas about internet searching, a lot of support from the staff at the Townsville Bulletin, and some great search questions from readers, librarians from Thuringowa Library Services have managed to keep up a steady stream of columns and today we celebrate our 100th Searchlight with a look to the past and future.
In our very first Searchlight column, we made the claim that “searching for information on the internet is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Sometimes it's like looking for a needle in a pile of needles! Fortunately librarians have been finding and organising information for thousands of years. The internet is an information tool that we use on a daily basis, and we enjoy helping others find the information they require. The best part about the service public libraries provide is it's free!”
Not much has changed there, except that now the internet seems to play an even bigger part of our working and personal lives.
We have received positive feedback from far and wide about how useful Searchlight is to people. Some people cut out each article and keep it by their computer for future reference, and others pass articles on to family and friends. We have helped many people with tricky internet search questions, and have even won a national award for this innovative service.
Today we take great pride in launching Searchlight by email. If you would like to receive Searchlight by email every Wednesday (after publication in the Townsville Bulletin on Mondays), send an email to join-searchlight@lists.slq.qld.gov.au leaving the subject line and message fields blank. You will receive an email message asking you to reply to authenticate your subscription. Then you will receive a welcoming email, giving you a brief description of the email list and information on how to unsubscribe from the Searchlight email list.
As much as the internet and online information continues to evolve and change, we are still convinced that libraries can offer a free, unique service in helping people to find, evaluate and use information. We will continue to share our hints, tips and tools-of-the-trade via this column, to help make your internet searching more efficient, effective and fun!
Need some help searching the Web? Contact us and we'll do our best to help. Anything useful or interesting will be included in future articles (Confidentiality and your privacy are assured).
Thuringowa Library Services - Information Desk
Ph: 4773 8601
Email: infodesk@thuringowa.qld.gov.au
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Searchlight is a weekly column written by CityLibraries Townsville. It is published in the Townsville Bulletin newspaper and on this 'blog every Monday. Searchlight aims to make your internet searching more effective, efficient and fun by reviewing search tools, providing searching hints and tips, and helping with tricky search topics.
