Posts

Showing posts from June, 2015

Medical Library - Temporary Closure - Alert

Please note   Due to the Refurbishment Project underway at the Clinical Sciences Institute the Medical Library is currently  off limits in order to facilitate required structural works. The precise duration of the closed period is at present unknown, but is likely to extend well into July.     Please check our Medical Library Opening Hours website page for the latest updates: http://www.library.nuigalway.ie/usingthelibrary/openinghours/medicallibrary/        We apologise for any inconvenience caused  

New Exhibition: Yeats and the West

Image
W.B. Yeats - subject of a new Library exhibition The exhibition will be open from 29 June 2015 and will run throughout 2015. Admission is free and all are welcome. 2015 is a year dedicated to the national and international celebration of the life, work and legacy of Ireland's Nobel-prize winning poet, W.B. Yeats. 'Yeats150' marks the 150th anniversary of Yeats' birth and is the inspiration behind the upcoming exhibition, Yeats and the West taking place at the Hardiman Building. The foyer space will be transformed into a story-telling space of the influence of the West of Ireland on W.B. Yeats; his spiritual home and eventual burial place, and how the West was a living presence in Yeats' work but also on those around him, who collaborated with him and inspired those who came after Yeats. The exhibition will present a range of items from the Archives and Special Collections of the Hardiman Library in a display of material and digital content. The themes of th

Library as part of CONUL National Conference

Image
The inaugural CONUL (Consortium of National and University Libraries) annual conference, which took place in Athlone from 3-4 June featured wide representation from across the Library. With eleven speakers in total across the two days of the conference programme, the Library was well represented among peers and colleagues from across the country. The conference thme was 'Innovation and Evolution: Challenges and Opportunities for 21st Century' and considered the broad challenges facing academic and research libraries in Ireland. The conference identified and debated such challenges and provide an opportunity for staff to network, learn, discuss and share their expertise and best practice. Among the speakers from the Hardiman Library were John Cox, Ann Mitchell, Evelyn Bohan, Peter Corrigan, Monica Crump, Cillian Joy, Aisling Keane, Barry Houlihan, Ronan Kennedy, Marie Boran and Connell Cunningham. The issues address by this group in their individual and joint presentations

Who won the Ipad Mini from the LibQUAL+ Survey?

Image
The LibQUAL+ survey Ipad-mini winner was Ms Aoife McHugh, 3rd year Bachelor of Arts (Mathematics and Education). Congratulations Aoife!

'Performing the Archive' conference, NUI Galway, 22-24 July

Image
The Hardiman Library counts among its holding an unrivalled array of Irish theatre archives spanning from the late 19 th century to present day. With major archives including Druid Theatre, Thomas Kilroy, Arthur Shields, Siobhan McKenna, the Lyric Theatre, Belfast and Taibhdhearc na Gaillimhe. The Abbey Theatre digital archive, the largest theatre archive digitization project in the world, comprising more than 1 million items including scripts, costume designs, prompt books and performances is also available to study for generations of scholars to come at the Hardiman Library. Capitalising on this expertise, 'Performing the Archive' is an international conference taking place from 22-24 July 2015 at NUI Galway and will gather together academics, researchers, artists, archivists and librarians engaged in working with archival materials on research and performance projects to explore the uses and possibilities of the archive today from theoretical and methodological pers

Library Information Resources (LIR) Annual Seminar 2015

Image
The LIR HEAnet User Group for Libraries aims to explore and develop awareness of electronic information resources and to promote the use of the HEAnet network in exploiting these resources. Since its inception in 1993, it has provided a forum for discussion on the use of electronic resources and networks by HEI libraries and encouraged communication and co-operation between member libraries in accessing electronic resources. Each year, LIR hosts a seminar organised around a central theme, and in the past has covered topics such as Open Access and Open Source, Cloud Based Collaboration and the Management of Electronic Resources. This year’s seminar was entitled ‘Uncharted Territory? What Next for Webscale Discovery’, and dealt with the topic of library discovery tools. Keynote speakers on the day included Gareth Owen & Mark Hughes from WHELF (Wales Higher Education Libraries Forum) who discussed their recent assessment and selection process for their resource discovery tools: ‘

Library Initiatives From Around the World - The Little Free Library

Image
The Little Free Library movement is a community based book exchange scheme. Working on the principle of ‘leave a book, take a book’, the scheme aims to promote community arts programs, positive mental health, and most importantly, literacy, particularly amongst children. The movement began in Wisconsin, USA in 2009, by Todd Bol, but has spread worldwide since then, with now over 25,000 little libraries spread across over 70 countries. The first little free library built by Bol was a model of a one room schoolhouse as a tribute to his mother, a former school teacher who loved reading, which he filled with books and put on a post in his front yard. These libraries are handcrafted structures, with designs that range from Bol’s very first schoolhouse model, to those of phone boxes, tree stumps, wine casks, and even the TARDIS from Doctor Who. They vary in size, but are usually big enough to contain 10 to 50 books, the majority of which are donated. The movement is now in Ireland, started

New Appointment Within the Library: Digital Publishing and Data Management Librarian

Image
Trish Finnan has recently joined the Research Services team in the Library as Digital Publishing and Data Management Librarian . Her previous roles at NUI Galway include Collection Management Librarian and Subject Librarian, Business and Economics. She has also worked in the libraries at DCU and UL, as well as for the European Commission and in the private sector. As part of the Research Services team in the Library her remit is focused on supporting researchers in relation to open access publishing on ARAN, NUI Galway’s institutional repository. She will also develop support services related to research data management planning. Trish is currently reviewing all workflows that relate to depositing material in ARAN, NUI Galway’s institutional repository. The platform for ARAN is currently being upgraded to the latest version. This will improve its functionality and usage data. The goal is to provide a deposit process that simplifies procedures for the researcher, making it

Celebrating all things Joyce this Bloomsday

Image
To celebrate this Bloomsday, we are looking beyond  Ulysses  and to some other Joycean treasures present in the collections of the Hardiman Library. One such item is an original, autographed edition of a collection of poems written by James Joyce entitled  Pomes Penyeach . The volume also features intricate and ornate illustrations by James' daughter, Lucia Joyce. The volume, which contains the Galway-themed poem, She Weeps Over Rahoon , was donated to the Hardiman Library by Joyce himself in 1935.  The book was published by Obelisk Press, which was run by Jack Kahane, an admirer of Joyce’s work, and by Desmond Harmsworth. Editions of the book were signed by James Joyce and offered for sale at £12. Joyce sent copies to other authors and contacts in the publishing world and his letter notes that the book was deposited in the British Museum Library and the Bibliothèque Nationale. Joyce personally sent a copy of  Pomes Penyeach  to the Hardiman Library of NUI Galway and a man

Digital Material - Print/Screen, expanding the Digital Library at the Library

Image
Print/Screen, expanding the Digital Library at the Library Library staff recently contributed to the excellent Digital Material conference that took place in NUI Galway from May 21 – 22, 2015. The Digital Material conference considered the intersections of digital and material cultures in the humanities. Library staff provided a panel labelled ‘Print/Screen’ Expanding the Digital Library at the Library . The speakers from the Library were as follows: Aisling Keane & Kieran Hoare - “Partnerships, Metadata and Possibilities: Digital Preservation in the Archives.” Cillian Joy - “Digital Preservation Workflows and Integrations.” Niall McSweeney & Barry Houlihan - “From the Cloud to the Reading-Room: Digital Archives in Research, Learning and Teaching. Slides from the panel More about the Library panel From the digital material conference web site: “Information content in current academia and research is balancing between the point of the material and the digital

Upcoming changes to loan periods and renewals

Image
  Over the last number of months we have reviewed the following borrowing, loan and renewal privileges for JHL users - patron / user types loan periods maximum number of books borrowed at a time maximum number of renewals allowed This review applied to normal loan books and no changes are being made for the shorter 3 day and 1 day loan books.   Our goals were to - Reduce the number of different types of patrons / users, currently 27 different types Increase the number of allowable renewals where possible Increase the number of borrowed items allowed where possible The table below sumarises the new patron types and borrowing rights associated with staff and students - Patron Type Includes the following Number of normal items Loan period in days Renewals allowed Max length of loan Taught All undergraduates and postgraduates following a taught programme 6 7 10 77 Research Research postgraduates 12 42 5 252 Sta

Summertime - Time to clear your shelves of unwanted library books

Image
Tá muid ag an am sin den bhliain arís nuair a molaimid d'ár baill breathnú ar do chuid seilfeanna agus tabhair ar ais aon leabhair nach bhfuil uait níos mó chuig an leabharlann in OÉ Gaillimh. Le déanaí fuair muid roinnt leabhair a bhí ar iasacht ar feadh dhá bhlian déag. Níl a fhios againn an raibh siad á n-úsáid go gníomhach nó ina suí ar sheilf áit éigin i rith an ama sin. Anois ar a laghad tá siad ar fáil arís d'úsáideoirí eile. Breathnaigh thart ar do réimse oibre, oifig nó seomra suí agus má thagann tú ar leabhar a fuair tú ar iasacht nach bhfuil uait níos mó, tabhair é ar ais chuig an meaisín sa leabharlann. Tá and measiín suite díreach ar dheas tar éis duit dul isteach ar sa leabharlann. Lasmuigh d'uaireanta oscailte an leabharlann bosca taoibh amuig den doras inar féidir leat na leabhair a fhágáil. Is cuma cé chomh fada a bhí an leabhar ar iasacht - cuirimid fáilte roimh gach ceann a thagann abhaile. It's that time of the year again when we e

BĂ©aloideas, National Folklore Collection – Schools Collection

Image
Schools’ Folklore Scheme (1937-38) In 1937 the Irish Folklore Commission, in collaboration with the Department of Education and the Irish National Teachers' Organisation, initiated a revolutionary scheme in which schoolchildren were encouraged to collect and document folklore and local history. Over a period of eighteen months some 100,000 children in 5,000 primary schools in the twenty-six counties of the Irish Free State were encouraged to collect folklore material in their home districts. The topics about which the children were instructed to research and write included local history and monuments, folktales and legends, riddles and proverbs, songs, customs and beliefs, games and pastimes, traditional work practices and crafts, etc. The children collected this material mainly from their parents and grandparents and other older members of the local community or school district. Now known as the Schools' Manuscript Collection, the scheme resulted in more than half a million ma

The Sunday Times Digital Archive - trial now available

Image
    The Sunday Times Digital Archive 1822-2006 is on trial until Friday 10 July 2015 via http://www.library.nuigalway.ie/aboutourcollections/databases/databasetrials/ .   Please complete the feedback form if this resource is of interest to you.   Further info. - http://gale.cengage.co.uk/sunday-times-digital-archive.aspx                 

Makerspace in the Library, NUI Galway

Image
A makerspace EPL Makerspace (2015) Mack Male. Retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/mastermaq/16994997802/. At the moment, the Library is creating an institutional makerspace in the Library for all students and staff. The makerspace is supported by NUI Galway's Student Projects' Fund and the Library. The vision is to provide a technology enabled space for engaged teaching and learning. A space where students can be creative, collaborate, share, develop ideas, innovate, and generally just ‘make stuff’. Makerspaces are do-it-yourself spaces that provide opportunities and tools to create collaboratively by people with shared interests. They are also known as hacker spaces, hack labs, hack spaces, and maker labs. The space will provide, among other things, 3D printing, electronics kits and components, high powered computers, and software for digital media creation, such as Photoshop. Bringing these items together in a single location is important because they

Remembering Jean Ritchie: legendary folk singer and collector,

Image
The American folk singer Jean Ritchie died on the 1st of June at the age of 92. One of the major figures  in the American folk and Appalachian song movement she was famed for her pure voice, dulcimer playing, songwriting and influential books on the American song tradition. She composed her own songs, many of which were recorded by such diverse artists as Johny Cash, Emmylou Harris and Dolly Parton.  In 1952 she toured Ireland with her husband the photographer George Pickow researching the ballads that she had grown up singing in her Kentucky home. The remarkable photographs taken by George Pickow were acquired by the Library in 1996 and have since been digitised as one of the online archival collections . Last March the Library launched the inaugural Jean Ritchie memorial lecture in her honour. The acclaimed Appalachian author Silas House spoke about the close links between the Irish and Appalachian traditions that Jean Ritchie and George Pickow so responded to. The Guardian n

Library Services have resumed.

UPDATE: Scheduled Downtime for Library Services Library services are once again available. We apologise for the delay, but there were some unforeseen issues with the migration which have now been resolved. Once again we wish to apologise for any inconvenience caused.