The HardiBlog

  On 30 June 2024, the National Open Access Repository Project hosted a  webinar , gathering key stakeholders, experts, and community members to discuss one of Ireland’s most important initiatives for enhancing open access to research. Funded by the National Open Research Forum (NORF), this project aims to align the island of Ireland’s fragmented repository landscape into a standardised and globally connected network. The project holds particular significance as part of Ireland’s broader research and innovation agenda, encapsulated in its National Action Plan for Open Research 2022-2030. I had the privilege of co-chairing the webinar with Dr Cillian Joy, Head of Open and Digital Research at the University of Galway, with distinguished guests invited from the Project Board to share their considerable expertise and experience. The goal of this project is more than just technical upgrades. It’s about aligning Ireland’s repositories to support Green open access and bibliodiversi...

This blog post introduces two new publicly available Optical Character Recognition (OCR) models for the Irish language and the core dataset on which they were trained — the first bilingual Irish-English newspaper, An Gaodhal , produced monthly from 1881 to 1898 by an Irishman living in Brooklyn, New York, and available in the University of Galway Library .   The title page of An Gaodhal (Vol. 4, No. 4, February 1885) Models The first of these OCR models is a monolingual Irish (Gaeilge) model, one of the first to be made available publicly. The second model is the first ever to combine multilingual and multiscript functionality in a single OCR model: it extracts Irish texts in Cló Gaelach script and English texts in Roman script that are printed on the same page. The models were trained with the software called Transkribus , and are available on the Transkribus website .   An Gaodhal Irish (Gaeilge) Monolingual Model v.2 (ID# 61350) 164,015 training tokens publicly availab...

The Open Repositories 2024 conference showcased significant advancements in the world of open scholarly publishing. This year's conference provided a platform for discussing various transformative initiatives, focusing on the COAR Notify protocol, RAID Persistent Identifiers (PIDs), and rights retention. One of the highlights for us was the opportunity to present Ireland's vision for a unified and connected open repository network. This forms part of the National Open Research Forum (NORF) Open Access Repositories Project . Our recent publications detail these efforts: Loughnane, C., Joy, C., Callaghan, F., Ronan, S., Schmidt-Supprian, C., Drohan, A., Ó Doibhlin, D., Holden, D., Harnett, S., Connell, B., Simpson, A., Manning, P., Derven, C., & Brennan, N. (2024). Advancing Ireland's Open Repository Landscape: A Strategic Roadmap. University of Galway. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10810233 Loughnane, C., Joy, C., Callaghan, F., Ronan, S., Schmidt-Supprian, C., Drohan...

We are excited to announce that the new University of Galway Research Repository is live. This new repository shows our commitment to Open Research by providing researchers and their collaborators with a dedicated space for all their Open Research outputs. The repository has improved features to support different media types. This helps ensure that different kinds of research are easy to access, preserve, and organise, promoting better visibility and impact for University research. All content from our old platform has been successfully moved to the new repository, and it is now ready to accept submissions from our communities. University of Galway authors can submit their publications, including peer-reviewed articles, conference papers, reports, books, book chapters, and PhD/MD/Research Masters theses. This process is called green open access publishing (or self-archiving), where authors publish in a journal and then deposit the final draft (post-print) in the repository without th...

  The Consortium of National and University Libraries (CONUL) held its 2024 conference this year in Belfast, where I gave a 20-minute presentation on the National Open Research Forum (NORF) Open Access Repositories Project . The theme of the talk was how the project is bringing the fragmented repository community together across the island of Ireland. The aim of the project is to create a robust, community-centred open repository network integrated and aligned not only technologically but with a shared sense of purpose and a commitment to sharing knowledge and expertise within an open and interoperable research ecosystem supporting each one of its institutional repository members. Much of the talk was focused on the data gathering conducted previously and the next steps of the project, including piloting OpenAIRE v.4 metadata alignment in four repositories while continuing to develop events and initiatives to foster the community engagement piece of the project. These events, aim...

MakerSpaces have become common sights in universities and libraries across the world in recent years. They typically have three features in common – an active community of practice, a physical space in which individuals can collaborate and communicate in person, and access to otherwise difficult to obtain tools or technologies.  In our Library MakersSpace, students from various disciplines come together to make, break, remake, experiment, and have fun. One part-time postgraduate student is employed to keep the 3D printers running, while other students work in the space on a volunteer basis. These students help foster a friendly and welcoming environment in the space, and also work in self-managed groups on projects throughout the year. One such project, Make Tobē Mobile has recently concluded its first phase.    MakerSpace volunteers from left to right: Daniel, Xiao, Matthieu, Mustafa, Tristan, Bradley, Amy Meet Tobē Dr Liam Carr of University of Galway’s Discipline of Ge...

  The Aebhgréine De Ceabhasa Collection In April 2024, the Aebhgréine De Ceabhasa special collection was catalogued and is now available for research and review . This collection features volumes of Irish folklore, poetry and Irish history from the 20th century. The De Ceabhasa family consisted of Claude Chavasse (later changed to De Ceabhasa), his wife Moirin Fox (Moirín De Ceabhasa) and their daughter Aebhgréine. Claude originally lived in Oxford before moving to Galway where he and his family immersed themselves in Irish culture and history. Moirín was a poet and author. She penned a biography about Irish revolutionary Terrence McSwiney. Originally from Cork, McSwiney was involved in the 1916 Rising, politics and was also a poet. There are several volumes about McSwiney within the collection which highlight his early life and role in politics. Several volumes of McSwiney’s poetry are also included in this collection. As aforementioned, Moirín was also a poet. Included in this co...

We at the University of Galway Library are heartbroken to learn of the passing of a long-time friend of the Library and tireless champion of art and culture in the West of Ireland, Ronnie O’Gorman. Ronnie’s family link to the University’s library dates back to the 19 th century, when his grandfather, Philip O’Gorman, was hired as Clerk in the Library in November 1887 on the recommendation of Acting Librarian, Professor D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson.  He held this position until 1898, after which he went on to rent a shop on High Street before buying the building on the Shop Street end of Church Lane, now Easons, where he opened a book shop which grew into a thriving printing works, the Galway Printing Company, running the length of the lane.   Ronnie was well known to all in Galway as founder of The Galway Advertiser and, as readers of his weekly column will know, he had a keen scholarly interest and contagious enthusiasm for the history of Galway city as well for Irish Art and I...