Staff Focus-Customer Service Co-ordinator

This month we focus on......

This month's Bennett Blurb newsletter focuses on customer service. Whether you are a public, academic, specialist or government library, James Bennett is renowned for our superb customer service in the library supply chain. We have the service - and the experience - you need to provide your own patrons, colleagues and staff with a successful and popular library service.

This month we're introducing you to Claire McManaway. She answered some general questions in the Bennett Blurb but she also allowed us to do our own profile of her, here in The Bennett Blog. How did she get to where she is now? What makes her tick? Read on and discover for yourself.

Name: Claire McManaway
Position: Customer Co-ordinator (Academic)

When did you start at James Bennett? A few years ago...about 11-12 years!
What were your previous roles (here or elsewhere)? Inbooks Customer Service, Data entry (Order Services), Operations, Binner in the Warehouse. I was about 15kg lighter - all that walking helped!
Describe your job: Answering to the needs of all our wonderful customers. We are here to help!
What do you enjoy most about your job?Completing that email. Finishing things off and getting a result. It’s great when you get a reply back thanking you for your efforts. We are stars and angels with a couple of awesomes in between .
Describe James Bennett in five words? OMG, we are the best!
What would you like customers to know about the work you do? That we are reliable as individuals and as a team. Finding those hard titles that you know are out there somewhere - it’s just putting your finger on it and hopefully being able to purchase it on behalf of the customer. We do source far and wide and are always looking for the best possible price. Getting results is always great. And things do take time…
What are the challenges you are facing? Keeping up with Claims!
What gets you excited about your day? Coming to work at James Bennett is great, we have a great location, friendly staff. We do have lovely customers from all walks of life, most of them I have never meet, but when we speak to them on the phone or via email it like I have known them for years. Most of my customers are listed on my phone so I know when you ring…
What books do you like to read? Suspense and action.
Do you have a favourite author? Robert Ludlum.
Last book you read? The Help.
Currently reading? The Most Wanted Man.
On the wishlist? (Keeping in mind this was a book question.....) That the All Blacks win the Rugby World Cup 2011

(Well, Claire, they did - by a point!)

We hope you enjoyed reading about Claire and what it's like to work behind the scenes in Customer Service. What staff member would you like to see a Focus On here on the Bennett Blog or in our newsletter service? Contact Marketing and we'll see what we can do!

JAMES BENNETT

Your Library Vendor of Choice in the Australasian marketplace 

BOOK REVIEW: ANZACS on the Western Front: The War Memorial Battlefield Guide

BOOK REVIEW


This month's guest reviewer is Chris Epple, our Customer Co-ordinator, Academic. Chris recently joined our Customer Service department and we are delighted he was so interested in this forthcoming Australian book from Wiley.  Here is his review of ANZACs on the Western Front: The War Memorial Battlefield Guide written by Peter Pedersen with Chris Roberts:


A quick search for Western Front battlefield guidebooks produces a very short list of mostly out of date titles. In a time when battlefields tourism is on an increase and more and more people are becoming interested in visiting the Australian and New Zealand battlefields of Gallipoli and France this book is a well timed introduction to the travel guide market. Even more so when you realise the 100th anniversary of the Great War is less than three years away!

Peter Pedersen has produced a thoroughly well researched guide to the battlefields of the Western Front from the ANZACS 1916 baptism of fire at Bois Grenier/ Fleurbaix to the final campaigns of 1918 and all the battles in between. The guide covers the battles of Fromelles, the Somme, Pozieres, Mouquet Farm, Bullecourt, Ypres, Messines, Menin Road, Polygon Wood, Passchendaele, Villers-Bretonneux, and many many more.

Pedersen describes each battlefield in intricate detail using pictures taken at the time of each battle, maps, present day photographs, and by pointing out current landmarks in the landscape. These are all used to good effect so that you can orientate yourself on the battlefield to get a glimpse of how each battle unfolded. You can really get a sense of how the battlefields must have looked like to the ANZACS.

He introduces each battlefield by chapter, outlines the conflicts with a narrative of the events of that particular confrontation to place the battle within the wider strategic theatre of operation in the war. Then goes on to describe the key moments of the battle, who won or lost ground, and the Australian and New Zealand units involved at each point as the battle ebbed and flowed. The reader is then instructed on how best to drive and walk each battlefield. The reader is taken through the battlefield and explains the layout of the battle on the present day landscape, pointing out where opposing lines and trenches were and the objectives of the attacks. You then follow the attacks and counterattacks as each battle progresses over the countryside.

The number of cemeteries located at each battlefield makes the brutality and horror of war clear. The guidebook includes every ANZAC cemetery and memorial on the Western Front, which should not be overlooked, as they are the lasting testament to so many lives lost.

As Pederson notes in the introduction “this guide cannot fully bring their words alive. You have to breathe life into them by putting your imagination to work. You will then gain some understanding of what it must have been like to be there and to appreciate the battlefields as places where ordinary men achieved great things.”

ANZACS on the Western Front is not just a guidebook, but a rare mix of a history book and travel guide that documents the battles of the ANZAC soldiers and given the reader a blow by blow account of how each encounter unfolded. For anyone wanting to visit the Western Front this is a must have. Touring the battlefields with Peter Pedersen’s assistance will allow you to gain a greater appreciation of the shocking events of WW1, as if you had your own personal guide travelling with you.

ISBN 9781742169811 | November 2011 | Paperback | 600 pages | AU$49.95
Competitive library discounts apply

Alex Miller and how he came to write Autumn Laing

My first encounter with the work of Sidney Nolan was when I was a boy working on an Exmoor farm. An Australian gave me a book on the outback. The book was illustrated with black and white photographs of a vast silent land that was mysterious to me and which compelled my imagination. Although I didn’t know it at the time the haunting photographs in the book were the work of the Australian artist Sidney Nolan. I came to Australia on my own at the age of 16 in search of Sidney Nolan’s outback. It was the most important decision I have ever made. I still revisit Central and North Queensland and have many friends there. That strange and beautiful country photographed with the imagination of Nolan has been a deep and lasting influence on my life as a writer.

My second (recorded) encounter with the work of Nolan was in 1961 when Thames and Hudson published in London the first major monograph on the Australian artist’s work. Though I had very little money at the time – I was earning a living in Melbourne cleaning cars while studying at night for my university entrance exams – I thought this expensive book so important that I bought a copy and sent it to my father as a Christmas present. Nolan’s art, it seemed to me, would reveal to my father more about Australia than my letters ever could. It was through my father’s encouragement that I had first developed what proved to be a lifelong interest in art. He wanted me to be an artist. I did the next best thing and became a writer.

When my first novel, The Tivington Nott (Robert Hale 1989) was distributed in Australia Sidney Nolan’s old friend the poet Barrett Reid wrote to tell me he thought highly of the book and that he wished to meet me. Barrie, as his friends knew him, lived at Heide, the home of the Reeds, where Nolan’s art had found its first and most important champion in Sunday Reed. When I told Barrie about the inspiration of the book given me by the Australian in Somerset all those years ago it was he who told me it was Nolan’s photos I’d been looking at. On more than one occasion during the years of our friendship Barrie suggested to me that I write a novel based on Nolan’s life. Barrie revealed Nolan’s art to me in a way I could not have done for myself and he educated me about its sources and the life of art Nolan had lived at Heide. Barrie remained a dedicated friend and champion of Sunday Reed to the end of his life.

In Autumn Laing, the resident poet laureate of the group of artists whose work is favoured at Old Farm is Barnaby. Like Barrie, Barnaby was born and raised on a cattle station in the Central Highlands of Queensland. Barnaby is my private homage to a dear friend who is no longer with us. The connection of Nolan and the Queensland cattle station that I made through my friendship with Barrett Reid was a compelling one that was rich in those emotions that make us feel as if we not only belong to a certain place but that we are in some sense fated to belong to it. Sooner or later I knew I would attempt to write about Nolan. What I wrote was not, however, what I expected to write. Novels are a kind of dream for the novelist. Although they are based on reality the writer is not in control and must follow the compelling prompts of imagination. For me it has never been possible to plot or plan a novel beyond a few very basic elements. The story reveals itself to me as I proceed with a book and is nearly always a surprise. This book, Autumn Laing, was no exception.

I first wrote what is now chapter two, Autumn’s portrait of the artist’s first wife, Edith. After writing this chapter I had to leave it while I spent a month on tour in the UK with my previous novel Lovesong. At the end of the tour (the end of September 2010) I was sitting on a bench in Holland Park watching squirrels and remembering my boyhood in London’s parks when the idea for the present form of the book suddenly occurred to me. I hadn’t given the book a thought for a month. As I was sitting there that lovely September afternoon watching the squirrels diving about the place I suddenly heard the voice of Autumn Laing, ‘They are all dead,’ she said, ‘and I am old and skeleton-gaunt . . .’ It was a realisation. The realisation that the character I had originally based on Sunday Reed, Nolan’s muse and lover and his greatest supporter during his early years, might have lived on until the age of 86, alone, deserted, betrayed. This woman was no longer the Sunday Reed of history but was my own fiction, a fiction of how such a person might have become had she lived another ten years and had she decided to tell her story, telling it at a time of her life when she had nothing left to lose.

When I got home to Castlemaine from London in early October I wrote for ten hours a day six days a week for five months in the voice that I had heard in Holland Park – the voice of Autumn Laing. It is the longest novel I’ve ever written and the quickest. I loved every minute of it and was sorry when she finally left me. I don’t think I will ever find anyone like her again. She is confident, well informed, passionate, cultivated and very down to earth. She is, in some ways, the personification of a cultivated Australian woman. She couldn’t possibly be English or French. Her commitment was always to Australia and to our art. She was never tempted to live in England or Europe. In her person my own early life as a stockman in North Queensland is connected to my life as a writer in Melbourne, just as these aspects of my own life were connected for me by my friendship with Barrie Reid, a faithful friend of Sunday Reed until the end, and a faithful admirer and interpreter of the art of his old friend Nolan. It is the experience of the artist and of Autumn in this book while they are visiting Barnaby’s parents’ cattle station in North Queensland that changes them both forever.

Autumn Laing
Alex Miller
Allen & Unwin
ISBN 9781742378510 | Hardcover | 456 pages | ARP $39.99

Order your copies from James Bennett today!

We launch a new partnership with ebrary

MEDIA RELEASE

September 7, 2011 – Palo Alto, CA, USA – ebrary ®, a leading provider of e-books and research technology, today announced it has partnered with James Bennett, a leading library acquisitions services supplier, to make e-books more readily and efficiently available to libraries throughout Australasia.  Libraries may now seamlessly integrate ebrary’s e-books into their acquisition workflow by ordering titles directly through James Bennett Online (JBO).

Additionally, ebrary has signed new publishing partner Australian Academic Press, a highly respected publisher in the Australian academic market.  ebrary also offers e-books from James Bennett’s top publisher list including Aboriginal Studies Press, University of New South Wales Press, University of Queensland Press, Wiley, Oxford University Press, Allen & Unwin, and many others. 

“As e-books are critical to scholarly research, we are pleased to offer our customers titles from ebrary, which include the vast majority of university presses and other esteemed academic publishers throughout the world,” said Nada Stanojlovic, James Bennett’s General Manager, Library Services & Business Development.”  We believe researchers will find great value in ebrary’s content as well as their technology that makes it easy to discover, use and share valuable information.”

“ebrary is a trusted and well-known brand in the academic and other library markets,” said Stephen May, Managing Director of Australian Academic Press.  “We are excited to make our e-books available on the ebrary platform through James Bennett and other global distribution channels, and we expect to see an increase in revenue as a result.”   

“The e-book market is growing rapidly in many regions throughout the world, so it is critical that we partner with leading distributors such as James Bennett as well as expand our publisher partnerships outside of North America to enhance our products and extend our reach,” said Matt Barnes, Vice President of Marketing at ebrary.  “We look forward to working with James Bennett to meet the specific needs of libraries in Australia.”


About Australian Academic Press (www.australianacademicpress.com.au)

Australian Academic Press is a niche academic publisher for the behavioral sciences, specialising in psychology. Established in 1987, the press publishes a range of books, evidence-based clinical treatment and prevention resources, scholarly monographs, and journals, for both the academic and trade markets.

About James Bennett (www.bennett.com.au)

James Bennett Pty Limited is a major Australian based library supplier and has been servicing libraries since 1964. Based in Brookvale, NSW., James Bennett offers a total package of products and services designed to complement all supply arrangements.  As a part of the Baker and Taylor group, James Bennett offers competitive pricing and supply time, with unmatched global resources and cutting-edge technologies.

About ebrary (www.ebrary.com)

ebrary is a leading provider of e-books and research technology to libraries worldwide. Founded in 1999, the company offers more than 273,000 e-books from over 500 trusted publishers under flexible models including subscription, perpetual archive (purchase), patron driven acquisition, and short-term loans. ebrary is the only e-book provider that enables customers to upload and integrate their own digital materials right from their computers with DASH!™ (Data Sharing, Fast) technology as well as apply cross-referencing with multiple online resources with InfoTools™ technology.  A member of the ProQuest® family of companies, ebrary is headquartered in Palo Alto, CA, USA.

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For more information please contact:

Rachael McDiarmid
Publisher Relations & Marketing Communications Manager
Tel: (02) 8988 5000
Email: jbmarketing@bennett.com.au

A Better Guide to Subcontracting

Malcolm Varty, the Director of "A Better Guide to Subcontracting" is The Bennett Blog's special guest blogger this week.  He kindly gives us some of the background to his online product and how it came into existence.   Enjoy the read.....

MALCOLM VARTY THE DIRECTOR OF 

“A BETTER GUIDE TO SUBCONTRACTING PTY LTD” 

CRACKS A BIG ONE

 

The big one being the answer to subcontractor’s woes. Never before or at least not after Malcolm Varty and Chris White produced a video in 1999 called “A Guide to Better Subcontracting” - which sadly expired due to legislative changes almost two weeks after it was produced by the Bond University in Queensland - has anyone tried to put it all together for ordinary trades people.

Most tradesmen are expected to carry out a business appreciation course before they may apply for a trade licence. In my view these so called courses provided nothing to the applicant apart from basic business practices, which are not designed specifically for the Building and Construction Industry.

TAFE centres for learning provide imaginative and helpful information for their students but are limited in many areas, due to government cut-backs, to fully prepare their students for all possible outcomes when dealing with head contractors.

Registered Training Organisations have their curriculum set by the governing bodies who are mainly the Master Builders Association, the Housing Industry Association and the Unions.

Call me silly but aren’t the above organisation's members the ones that tradesmen have the problems with in the first place?

The only way to afford yourself of real education and help is to subscribe to “A Better Guide to Subcontracting”.  We come from a trade background and have spent the last 18 years fighting for legislative changes to protect subcontractors. We have achieved great outcomes legislatively and also provide a service which applies a professional touch to your specific needs. 

With your help www.abgts.com will be available free in all state and TAFE libraries soon. 

LIBRARIES WISHING TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT "A BETTER GUIDE TO SUBCONTRACTING" SHOULD CONTACT OUR DEDICATED E-TEAM AS PER THE DETAILS LISTED BELOW: 

Tel:      (02) 8988 5000

Fax:     (02) 8988 5031

Email: eresources@bennett.com.au

Request a trial today!

Why you should purchase your EBL titles through James Bennett

As the first — and most experienced — EBL provider in Australia, we deliver EBL titles in the shortest and most efficient timeframes for libraries and their patrons. Here are just some of the reasons for choosing to purchase EBL titles through James Bennett:

• One single, familiar acquisitions workflow for both print and electronic materials
• You receive James Bennett invoices in Australian dollars (or your preferred currency)
• We are currently integrating ebooks into our New Title Services
• We deal direct with EBL on your behalf if you have questions about technical matters or licensing
• You can use JBO to see acquisitions information on all your purchases, whether they are print format or ebooks 
• Separate accounts may be set-up to track ordering, invoicing, and selection method (short term loans, demand driven selection, and standard ordering or non-linear lending)

Contact our eResources team today for a brochure on EBL workflows through James Bennett.  We've been partnering with EBL a long time and are still the most experienced of the library vendors in the ANZ marketplace. Go with a vendor you trust.  Contact James Bennett today:

Tel: +61 2 8988 5000
Fax: +61 2 8988 5031
Email: eresources@bennett.com.au

Want to know more about using James Bennett as your print, digital and multimedia library vendor?  Click here for 10 reasons why.  If you want to add to the list, feel free to do so.  We've worked in library supplies since the 1960s and work with public, academic, specialist, government and reference libraries.  There's a reason why we are the leading supplier in the ANZ marketplace.  Use us to find out why!

Read it! Love it? Add Peter James to your Profile

As many of our blog readers know, we have a service called Read it Love it Add it to Your Profile.  Designed for public libraries comfortable with an outsourced model for profiling & selection, it's a way to bring authors to the attention of the libraries and adding them to their existing profile with us.  That way, the next book published by that author will be automatically sent to them and everybody wins - the reader, the library, the author, the publisher, and us as their library vendor of choice.

This month's selection for Read it Love it Add it to Your Profile service is an author already established in the marketplace, particularly in the UK.  Peter James was born in Brighton, England.  He was educated at Charterhouse then at film school. His novels, many of which have been "Sunday Times" top 10 bestsellers, have been translated into thirty languages and, not surprising considering his background, three have been filmed. He actually has a very impressive resume.  We would encourage you to visit his website and read more about him here.

International best-selling crime thriller novelist published in 34 languages doesn't begin to cover it!

Once you realise what an interesting man Peter James is, have a look at his books!  His website presents his titles in a way that filters just the novels featuring Detective Superintendent Roy Grace of the Sussex police force.  Seven books have already been written featuring DS Roy Grace and in an interview with Shots Magazine, Peter James had this to say about his creation:

Roy Grace has indeed been through the grinder, in his private life, both with his beloved Sandy’s disappearance and now Cleo’s perhaps endangered pregnancy… and professionally with a boss who disliked him, largely for his maverick behaviour and tried hard to undermine him.   But he’s a survivor, and above all, he is a good man in a dark world.

We also liked what Lee Child had to say about one of Peter's earlier books - Dead Like You -  "Sinister and riveting, Peter James is one of the best British crime writers". 

 

So with that background information, we'd like to introduce this month's title for Read it Love it Add it to Your Profile - Dead Man's Grip by Peter James.

    “ I want them to suffer, and I want them dead ...   ”

Carly Chase is traumatised ten days after being in a fatal traffic accident which kills a teenage student from Brighton University. Then she receives news that turns her entire world into a living nightmare.The drivers of the other two vehicles involved have been found tortured and murdered. Now Detective Superintendant Roy Grace of the Sussex Police force issues a stark and urgent warning to Carly: She could be next.The student had deadly connections. Connections that stretch across the Atlantic. Someone has sworn revenge and won't rest until the final person involved in that fatal accident is dead.

The police advise Carly her only option is to go into hiding and change identity. The terrified woman disagrees - she knows these people have ways of hunting you down anywhere. If the police are unable to stop them, she has to find a way to do it herself. But already the killer is one step ahead of her, watching, waiting, and ready ...

Is it his most nail-biting thriller yet?  You tell us!  Request a copy at your local library today.

ISBN 9780230747241 | Paperback | 408 pages | published July 2011 by Pan Macmillan Australia