The HardiBlog

Since the summer, the Open and Digital Research Team in the Library have been testing and refining an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) pipeline. The Library’s OCR pipeline aims to convert scanned images of textual archival records into a format that is machine-readable, at scale. This is an especially important enhancement to the University’s digitised heritage collections, making its holdings more searchable and supporting diverse areas of research interest. The first test case for the pipeline has been the Irish emigrant letters taken from the Kerby A. Miller Collection, as published online to the Library’s Digital Collections and a standalone digital repository for materials relating to Irish emigrants to North America called Imirce . In December 2024, the first batch of OCR enriched material has been launched to both the Digital Collections and Imirce online, and further heritage collections are scheduled for processing in 2025.  What this means for users  The Digital ...

On Tuesday 3 December, the Imirce project team hosted a Collection Day for members of the public to donate new material towards the digital repository of Irish emigrant letters and memoirs. In a single morning the digital collection has been enriched with 400+ more letters that will be released online by February 2025. The Day The morning began with a welcome, introductions and some background about the Imirce project presented by Catriona Cannon (Head of Heritage Collections and Digitisation), Daniel Carey (Professor of English), Breandán Mac Suibhne (Professor of Modern Irish History) and Marie-Louise Rouget (Digital Archivist for the Imirce project). The donors then moved through a morning of interview sessions to review their donated letters, sign deposit agreements and take part in recorded oral history interviews. All donors were also given a tour of the digitisation studio, hosted by Brendan Duffy and Eimhin Joyce, giving them a peek behind the scenes to better understand and a...

The Academic Skills Team in the Library support the information and academic research needs of University of Galway Undergraduate and Taught Master’s students. We are Siobhán, Jane, Gabi, Regina and Mike and we would like to introduce you to the services and resources that we provide.  Our Service Supports Our team is responsible for delivering information literacy to the student body. One of the frameworks we draw upon to guide the delivery of our support is the CILIP Definition of Information Literacy: "Information literacy is the ability to think critically and make balanced judgements about any information we find and use. It empowers us as citizens to develop informed views and to engage fully with society” (CILIP 2018) We support the following broad learning outcomes: Finding, using and evaluating key information sources for students' academic work (e.g. books, journal articles, market reports, standards, theses, grey literature, websites) Identif...

The Library's  Reading List Service  is  a one-stop teaching support service for academic staff.   When you use our service we will:  prioritise your course materials  order required books/e-books request chapter and article digitisation  provide direct linking to the list from Canvas We are now preparing for Semester II. Training We are providing in-person  training sessions  to assist lecturers in publishing reading lists on the Reading List Service for the new semester.  Alternatively lecturers can use the resources provided on our  Reading List Page Further Information More information about using our  Reading List Service   including user guides, videos and training is available from the  Reading List page .   Please email readinglists@universityofgalway.ie if you have any queries. Collection Development / Forbairt Bailiúchán

The Library has purchased perpetual access to the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Environmental Science. This is an authoritative and comprehensive introduction to the broad field of environmental science. It is multidisciplinary in approach and is suitable for all student levels.  Consisting now of 350 articles, it is updated monthly and content will develop with the field over time.  Examples of topic covered include: Agricultural Subsidies and the Environment   Ecological Water Management in Cities Extinction Pesticides and Human Health Rewilding Valuation of Marine Systems The Oxford Research Encyclopedia's have been developed to provide trustworthy, up to date content that is engaging and accessible for students. Multi-media features embedded in articles, along with cross-referenced links to related content will further expand the scope of the encyclopedia.  The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Environmental Science can be accessed via the Library Catalogu...

 The Library has purchased online access to the Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements The encyclopedia covers a broad range of topics about the most significant social and political developments and changes throughout human history. Topics covered include the French revolution,  the global women’s movement, Martin Luther King Jr. and the American civil rights movement, the Arab Spring and the rise of white supremacy as a worldwide movement. It contains over 600 entries including multiple entries (links below) on topics such as: Class  Environment and climate change movements                  Gender and Sexuality   Identity  Life Course and Social Movements  Race and Ethnicity  Radicalization/Radicalism  Religion  Revolution(s)   Social movements and collective action events   Student/Youth movements   Theories/Perspectives   The Encyclopedia of Social ...

As academic publishers continue to consolidate power through diverse mergers and acquisitions, librarians need to be better informed about our role in facilitating “academic freedom”.   How are Scopus, ScienceDirect, LexisNexis, Mendeley, SciVal, SSRN, Pure, and Elsevier related? They’re a few of the vast holdings of RELX, a multi-national conglomerate with £3 billion in profit in 2023 ( RELX 2023 Results ). Why does this matter? In a recent article titled “ Elsevier’s Stranglehold on Academia: How Publishers Get Rich Off Our Data ”, Christien Boomsma starts by taking us through a day in the life of an academic, listing some of the touchpoints where they and their work interact with RELX products. Boomsma is a journalist and librarian at the University of Groningen, so while “UG” in the article refers to “University of Groningen”, staff and students at the University of Galway are in the same position. Whenever we find an article through Scopus, add references to Mendeley, deposit...