The HardiBlog

From 4:30pm - 6:30pm on Thursday15th December there will be a function in the Library foyer. It is advisable to study on the 1st or 2nd floor as noise disruption is foreseen for the ground floor!

Due to essential maintenance access to the Wiley Online Library will be unavailable on Saturday, December 17th, from 10.00 - 13.00. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Unseen Documents Unveiled during Launch of Duddy Archive at NUI Galway Documents highlighting the secrecy and tension involved in communication and negotiation between the British government and the IRA throughout ‘the Troubles’ were unveiled in NUI Galway at the launch of the Brendan Duddy Archive on Tuesday 22 November. The archive holds documents from the three main periods during which Brendan Duddy secretly acted as an intermediary between the British government and the IRA. The first was in the early and mid 1970s when Duddy acted as intermediary during a series of contacts over the release of hostages and the ending of hunger strikes. In 1980 and 1981 Duddy acted again as intermediary during the Republican hunger strikes. In July 1981 he began to record these contacts, conducted mainly by telephone, in a red hardbound notebook, the ‘Red book’. Between 1990 and 1993 Duddy was again active at this intersection after a new Northern Ireland Secretary of State, Sir P...

The Library has recently implemented a trial of bX, Ex Libris’ scholarly recommender service. bX is now embedded with our SFX service to provide enhanced opportunities for academic discovery for our users. Users of SFX will now see recommended articles where possible, along with links to fulltext if available - see the screenshot below for more details. It works by analysing global usage of SFX for all Ex Libris customers, and manipulates this information to show our users other articles the global scholarly community found relevant – similar to Amazon’s ‘Other Customers Also Bought ...‘ feature. 

Access Skills4Study through Blackboard now! This free online resource has modules on: Reading Note-Making Critical Thinking Skills Academic Writing Referencing & Plagiarism Test your own strengths and weaknesses in each other these areas and then proceed to develop your skills. We are keen to get your opinions of this resource and have set up a two minute simple questionnaire for your feedback: http://tinyurl.com/skills4studyfeedback

Due to essential maintenance, access to Wiley Online may be interrupted on Saturday Nov 5th at 10am, for up to 2 hours.

Academic Writing Centre Workshops This November, in addition to the regular one-on-one teaching sessions, the Academic Writing Centre will provide two special workshops on essay writing. The workshops have been specially designed for second-year Arts students, but other students are also welcome to apply. The workshops will take place on the following dates: 3 November 2011 at 6pm 8 November 2011 at 6pm. Places are strictly limited, and early booking is strongly encouraged. To make sure of a place, please send an email to writingcentre@nuigalway.ie stating your name and discipline of study.  A brief description of your expectations or the problems you hope to address would be also particularly helpful.

Our team of subject librarians are available to help you find quality information for your assignments or essays.  Find out who the subject librarian is for your subject and what they can do to help you at our Subject Support Pages pages.

The Library's Opening Hours this bank holiday weekend are as follows: Saturday, October 29th     8.30 - 17.30 Sunday, October 30th       10.00 - 17.30 Monday, October 31st      Closed The Reading Room will remain open from 8.30 - 01.30 every day over the weekend. Enjoy the weekend!

From Tuesday 1st November, as part of the Tulca Festival, the Library foyer will host a mixed media display of work from acclaimed Romanian artist Lia Perjovschi. Lia Perjovschi’s multidisciplinary practice recovers, collects, and disseminates the information which has been inaccessible to Romania until 1989. Her works are neither installations nor performances; they look like offices for individual research, reading rooms or places for debates; the focus is the body of art. Her work examines what, how, and ultimately who, enters into the archive of history, mapping the connections in history, history of art, theory, politics and language. On Sat 5th Nov she will host a talk on her practice in the Library Browsing Room at 3pm- this is a free event, and no booking is required. More information on Tulca

Hansard , the record of debates in the Houses of Parliament at Westminster, is now available as part of the House of Commons parliamentary papers database covering the years 1803-2005. This database also contains the  Eighteenth Century sessional papers collection , containing material published by the Houses of Parliament, 1688-1834.

Library Reading Room Access Control Arrangements From Monday 14th November 2011 entry to the Library Reading Room, during all hours of opening, will require you to activate the access control system via your University ID Card. This measure is being implemented on foot of student feedback so as to ensure that the space is retained for NUIG students only. In order to have your University ID Card coded for access you must: Send an e-mail to: accesscontrol@nuigalway.ie Provide the following details: Your Name Your ID Number Indicate if you are, or are not, already on the access control system. (You will know you are on the access control system if there is another access controlled door which you use regularly, in which case the door to the Library Reading Room just needs to be added to your account. If you are not on the access control system a new account will be generated for you.) Please Note – Post 13th November you will not be able to enter the Library Reading Room unless your Uni...

Library Reading Room Re-Opening Monday 24th October Drop by and see your refurbished study space, incorporating all the things you told us you wanted: Improved study spaces with power points Upgraded environment - new carpeting, lighting, ventilation/heating Enhanced printing/copying & vending facilities Lobby to exclude external noise & cold Access control to retain the space for NUIG students only

The Academic Writing Centre in the Library is now open for business. The Centre offers drop-in assistance to all undergraduates with essays, assignments, reports and the general development of writing skills. Opening Hours: Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings 11.00-13.00 - Group Study 3, Library Floor 2 Monday to Thursday evenings 19.00-21.00 in the Consultation Room in the Library Foyer. Bíonn seirbhís Ghaeilge ar fáil maidin Dé Céadaoin agus maidin Dé hAoine (11.00-13.00). More information is available on the Library Website .

Library Reading Rooms - Alternative Study Space In order to facilitate the completion of the current refurbishment works on the Library Reading Rooms this area will remain closed to the public until Monday 24th October. Alternative study facilities are available at the James Hardiman Library during normal opening hours, and at weekends in UC 102 Theatre, Aras Ui Chathail as follows: Saturday 15th, Sunday 16th, Sunday 23rd October from 17.30 - 23.00 Saturday 22nd October from 18.00-23.00

RSC Publishing would like to highlight essential planned maintenance to the RSC Publishing Platform on Saturday 8th October 2011 at 08.00 – 12.00 GMT, which may affect performance and accessibility of content. For more information and highlighted time zones Go to http://blogs.rsc.org/technical/2011/09/29/rsc-publishing-platform-maintenance-2/

We're delighted to tell you that our library system is back in action. Apologies to all who were inconvenienced by the downtime that was caused by a hardware failure. The following services are now restored: self-check self-return viewing holdings of particular titles placing holds requesting Inter-Library Loans booking group study rooms

Galway Ensemble-in-Residence will be performing in the Library Foyer on Friday 23rd September at 1pm Take a break and come along to enjoy the music of Joaquin Turina, Bela Bartok, and Mozart All Welcome

For Culture Night 2011, the James Hardiman Library at NUI Galway will be opening up and exploring their unique literary, theatre and landed estates archives. To mark the first involvement of NUI Galway Archives and Special Collections in Culture Night we are delighted to put on a programme of events that will share these wonderful archival collections. At 7pm Special Collections Librarians Marie Boran and Brigid Clesham will talk about their new project, the Irish Landed Estates Database, an incredible resource for those interested in tracing their family history or looking at the history of the landed estates of Ireland. At 8pm, Fergus Fahey, Institutional Repository and Digitisation Librarian, will discuss the personal archive of writer John McGahern. Having catalogued the McGahern Archive, Fahy will deliver a detailed and insightful overview of this wonderful collection of hand-written novels, drafts, stories and correspondence, created over a lifetime’s work by one of Irela...

Library Induction will take place on Tuesday 13 Sept 11.00-16.00 Wednesday 14 Sept 11.00-16.00 Thursday 15 Sept 11.00-16.00 Come along and win *FANTASTIC* prizes, including a Dell laptop, iPad2, Digital Camera, External Hard Drives, and iPods. Library Induction is an essential part to your college success- so come along and get wise! Your University ID is your card for access to the Library, you’ll also need it to borrow material, print from any PC and to photocopy. Library Opening Hours Guide to Using the Library Your Borrowing Rights WiFi Finding your way around

On Friday, September 9 and Saturday, September 10 , JSTOR will be performing site maintenance that requires a “read-only” period for these two days.  During this scheduled maintenance, users will be able to search, browse, and access and download PDF files for content in JSTOR.  They will not be able to save citations, reset passwords, create or update MyJSTOR accounts, or purchase articles.

There will be a limited service in the Library from 14.00 onwards on Wednesday 31st August. The Library will be open until 22.00 and the Customer Services Desk will be staffed until 1700, but other offices will be closed due to a staff training event in the afternoon. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

An exhibition on the early modern maps of Galway will take place in the Library foyer from 20th - 29th August to mark National Heritage Week. The exhibition will feature maps of Galway dating to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries from our holdings. It will also include the recent addition of the Pictorial Map of Galway from the mid-seventeenth century, which the Library has placed online. For access to this online resource visit http://archives.library.nuigalway.ie/citymap ; Visit http://www.heritageweek.ie/ for further information on Heritage Week.

Please note that due to a planned Reading Rooms Refurbishment Project that the Library Reading Rooms at basement level are closing to the public from Friday 29th July and will remain closed until late September 2011. Alternative study areas are available at the following locations: Study facilities will be available throughout this entire period in the James Hardiman Library , during normal opening hours . In addition from Friday 29th July to Sunday 4th September additional space has been allocated in Theatre UC102 in Aras Ui Chathail , this service will operate on a 7 Day basis from 08.30-23.00 . However it will terminate at the start of term as the space will be required for lectures.

Users can now browse, search, and read full-text content anytime, anywhere on the Annual Reviews mobile site. Visit www.annualreviews.org from a mobile device to: Browse journals and articles Search journals by keyword, author or title View abstracts Read full-text articles (personal or institutional subscription required) Read forthcoming articles (personal or institutional subscription required) View and search references and related links Download articles to your mobile device for offline reading Share articles and links via Social Networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) Select journals and articles as favorites Download a PDF tutorial that highlights the features of the Annual Reviews mobile website. You can find out more here: http://www.annualreviews.org/page/about/mobile