The HardiBlog

In early November, I attended the first National Open Research Festival (NORFest: https://norf.ie/norfest-2023-programme/ ) a two-day event run by the National Open Research Forum (NORF) and the Digital Repository Ireland (DRI) at the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin. The organisation and running were led by Dr Daniel Bangert, NORF’s National Open Research Coordinator, shortly before taking up his new position as Director of 4TU.ResearchData in the Netherlands.   My talk, ‘Strengthen and align Ireland’s network of open access repositories,’ was part of Lightning Talk Session 2: Achieving 100% Open Access to Research Publications, a very interesting and varied panel of speakers chaired by Dr Marion Boland, Head of Research Policy at Science Foundation Ireland.                                              https://twitter.com/dri_ireland/status/17200...

The survey reveals fragmented metadata practices in Irish repositories. Highlighting the urgent need for national cooperation and standardisation. The goal is now to elevate Irish open repositories and align with European and International best practices and standards. Staffing disparities highlight the need for dedicated resources with recommendations for collaborative national initiatives and training. Introduction The survey of Open Repositories in Ireland was conducted between April 24 and May 30, 2023, as part of the National Open Research Forum (NORF) funded project on strengthening and aligning Ireland's Open Repositories . This survey engaged stakeholders from educational, governmental, and research institutions, seeking to evaluate key performance indicators related to repository provision and management. The resultant findings offer critical insights into the current state of open repositories in Ireland and pave the way for strategic recommendations to advance the open ...

Access to Encyclopedia of Autism Spectrum Disorders (2021) second edition, published by Springer is now available. This major online reference work explores autism through a wide range of issues. It contains 3,745 fulltext entries and covers topics across the following major conceptual areas of Autism Spectrum Disorders and Pervasive Developmental Disorders, including: Research trends and findings Behaviour/speech Communication Treatments Education The Encyclopedia of Autism Spectrum Disorders can be accessed via the library catalogue.   Collection Development / Forbairt Bailiúchán

Recently, the University of Galway Postgraduate Research Society invited me to conduct a workshop on Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools and their application in the research process. This workshop, primarily attended by PhD students and postdocs, discussed the burgeoning potential of AI in enhancing different parts of the research process and scholarly work. Banner for the Open Scholarship Cafe on 27 Nov. 2023   This blog summarises mainly the attendees' sentiment towards AI in the research process. Through a series of polls, we gained valuable insights into the priorities, concerns, and experiences of researchers as they contemplate integrating AI tools into their work. These polls revealed a pragmatic view of AI's role in research, from eagerness to enhance literature discovery to cautious optimism about drafting and data manipulation, and highlighted the community's awareness of the ethical dimensions that come with this technology. The results of the polls and the s...

  The Library's  Reading List Service  is  a one-stop teaching support service for academic staff. We are now preparing for the upcoming semester II. 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 Training We are providing in-person  training sessions  to assist lecturers in publishing reading lists on the Reading List Service for the new academic year.  Alternatively lecturers can use the resources provided on our  Reading List Page Existing Reviewing List Owners We request that existing Reading list owners update their current lists by  December 1st . This will provide enough time for new books to be ordered and to be available for the new semester.  Further Information More information about using our   Reading List Service   including user guides, videos and training...

The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication is a new online research encyclopedia dedicated to the large and diverse scholarly world of communication research. Launched in 2015, it publishes essays based on up-to-date, impactful scholarship written by respected authorities in the field and it currently contains 746 full-text articles.  The  Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication  was developed for researchers, teachers, and students interested in all facets of the study of communication. Essays examine the evolution and structure of research programs; the questions and puzzles that drive research; and the relationships between theory, methods, and empirical data. In doing so, they provide information about their subjects and also highlight unresolved questions and potential new directions for research. Access to the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication is available on the Library Catalogue .  Collection Development / Forbairt Bailiúchán

The Library is delighted to have purchased perpetual access to  The Sunday Times Historical Archive 1822-2016 .  T his resource brings almost two centuries of news together, providing the complete run of the newspaper and its supplements, in one cross-searchable and browsable platform. Despite the similarity of names, The   Sunday Times  was an entirely separate paper from  The Times  until 1966, when both papers came under common ownership. The   Sunday Times  remains editorially independent from The   Times , with its own remit and perspective on the news. The Library already has access to  The T imes Digital Archive 1785-2019  and recently added extra years of content to bring this newspaper more up to date.  The Sunday Times is famous for many of its stories, including Kim Philby's outing as a Soviet spy, the thalidomide investigation, and the publishing of the forged Adolph Hitler diaries. Throughout its long histor...

In support of our  Equality, Diversity and Inclusion  Strategy, the Library has  ordered a selection of recent e-books that explore and examine the under-representation of women in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) fields. For ease of browsing we have created a reading list of these new titles - Gender & Diversity in STEM- New E-books .    All of these titles can also be accessed via t he  Library Catalogue .  T he promotion of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion is a key element of the  Library Strategy 2021-2025.                  Collection Development / Forbairt Bailiúchán