Welcome to the website
T he idea, of Redcliffe Men's Shed was to develop a library of resources, both on paper and digital format. This is proudly a library created by older men, for older men. It thus differs from a municipal library, State library, National library, University library, or reference library, in that it is developed for a particular client base, in contrast to being a library for all users.

The history of the library, is that Redcliffe Men's Shed has long had a library, but it had several problems. In particular, it was not responsive to clients' needs. Much of the library was a rather patchy array of donated books, that, in many cases, had little connection with the needs of older men. More than half the library was fiction books, whereas Men's Shed needed a technical library, focused on woodwork, fitting and turning, welding and model making, for example. It also needed resources on men's physical and mental health, social inclusion, and similar topics. There were also other problems with the library, for example, it did not have a catalogue, or a register of borrowings or returns. Furthermore, the library had no on-line resource database, and that is fundamental to a modern library.

The library was fully reviewed in 2025. As part of the review the library was further enhanced at that time, with a Library of Congress catalogue, computer access to holdings, and a series of links to external on-line resources. To access certain parts of Zetlin, you must hold membership of your local municipal library. As a professional library, there are no publications held, featuring naked women images. The Zetlin software is freely available to any Men's Shed that wants to run it's own application of Zetlin.

All content of this website is the copyright of Robert Constantine 2025