Dec/Jan Opening Hours

The Library closes at 1pm on Wednesday, December 21 for the Christmas break.

We reopen on Tuesday, January 3 at 9am for full term-time hours.  To accommodate students preparing for exams we have extended opening hours in January:


Friday, Jan 6: 9am-10pm
Saturday, Jan 7: 10am-5pm

For full opening hours check our website.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all our users!

Short Loans Get a Bit Longer

From 9am this Thursday, December 15, all items from our 24-hour loan collection will be issuing over the Christmas break until Wednesday, January 4.


UPDATE: Following a request from the Students Union our 24 hour loans will now begin issuing from Wednesday, December 14 at 4pm.

Library Closed on Thursday

The Library will be closed on Thursday, December 8, for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. We will reopen at 9am on Friday, December 9.

 To see our opening times and dates for December through to February 2012 check our website.

Catríona Crowe Event

The Library is delighted to present a talk on the National Census by Catríona Crowe next Tuesday, 6th December 2011 at 2.30pm in room D211.

Catriona is Senior Archivist at the National Archives of Ireland and oversaw the Irish Census Online Project, which has placed the 1901 and 1911 censuses online free of charge.

She is a former President of the Women’s History Association of Ireland, Chairperson of the Irish Theatre Institute and Chairperson of the SAOL Project, a rehabilitation and education project for women with addiction problems in Dublin’s north inner city. She also contributes regularly to broadcast and print media on cultural and historical matters.

All students and staff are welcome.  It you intend coming along we would be grateful if you could let us know by emailing info.library@spd.dcu.ie.

Exam Papers

The Exam Papers section on our website now includes 2010/11 papers from our B.Ed. and Post Grad Diploma in Education courses.

Papers from last year's B.A. and M.A. Degree courses will be added shortly.

A Long Weekend for Short Loans

From tomorrow (Thursday) morning items from our short loan collection (including DVDs) are issuing over the weekend until Monday. This is due to the fact that we are closed this Friday and Saturday for conferrals.

There's an ECCO in Here...

The Library has obtained trial access to two excellent research databases from Gale Digital Collections which offer a wealth of resources from the 18th,19th and early 20th centuries.

ECCO - Eighteenth Century Collections Online is an online library of over 136,000 titles and editions (over 155,000 volumes), published between 1701 and 1800. It provides full text searching of more than 26 million pages, giving immediate access to every significant English-language and foreign-language title printed in the United Kingdom during that period, along with thousands of important works from the Americas.

It is a diverse collection, encompassing everything from books to sheet music to advertisements, from collections on the French Revolution to numerous editions of the works of Shakespeare. Multiple editions of individual works are offered to enable scholars to make textual comparisons of the works.

Subject areas provided for include English Literature, History, Geography, French, Philosophy, Sociology and Fine Arts.

Alongside ECCO, there is The Making of Modern Law: Legal Treatises 1800-1926, also from Gale Digital Collections. This contains fully indexed digitised versions of the Nineteenth Century Legal Treatises and Twentieth Century Legal Treatises collections.  It provides over 10 million pages of legal history from America and Britain, making it the world's most comprehensive full-text collection of Anglo-American legal treatises.

The trial access for both of these databases ends on November 25th so make sure to have a look while they're available!  We'd be glad to receive feedback about them or suggestions for other databases you'd like to try out.

Students and staff of St Patrick's College can access these resources from on or off campus by using the links above or via the Trial Databases page on our website.

Be Constructivist!

We've added an open access peer-reviewed e-journal called Constructivist Foundations to our Journals A-Z.  This title may be of interest to our staff and students in Human Development and Early Education.

As the name suggests, it is concerned with discussion of constructivist approaches and philosophies - as the site puts it:

"the idea that mental structures such as cognition and perception are actively built by one's mind rather than passively acquired".  

The journal is published online three times a year and is now in its sixth volume.  Access of full text articles requires you to register with an email address but it is free of charge.

The addition of this open access title to our listings is nicely timed in line with Open Access Week 2011, October 24-30, an international event which works to promote open access as the new model for scholarly research and publishing.

Oct/Nov Opening Hours

Please note that the Library is closed on the following days next week:

Mon, Oct 31 (bank holiday)
Tue, Nov 1 (church holiday)
Fri, Nov 4 (conferrals)
Sat, Nov 5 (conferrals)

On Wed & Thurs, Nov 2 & 3 we open from 9am until10pm as normal.

New Digital Microfilm Readers

Students or staff viewing material on Microfilm or Microfiche can now do so on new digital reader printers.  The new machines (ScanPro 2000's) are situated beside the existing Microfilm readers in the journals section of the Library.

They allow added functionality for the user including the option to save images of the microfilm scans as pdf files.  This should reduce demand for printing, thereby saving the planet and your print credit in one go!

If you do wish to print, the system is the same as printing from any PC on the student network - no need for card readers.

The supplier video below gives a good overview of what they can do:

If you're using one for the first time just ask for assistance at the issue desk and one of our staff members will show you the ropes!

Our thanks to the Taught M.A. Programme Board for funding this purchase.

Library Catalogue

The Catalogue is currently unavailable. Apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.  The issue is being investigated at present and we hope to have access restored as soon as possible.

 UPDATE: CATALOGUE ACCESS HAS NOW BEEN RESTORED

St Patrick's Confessio

"My name is Patrick. I am a sinner, a simple country person, and the least of all believers" 

Last month saw the launch of the St Patrick's Confessio Hypertext Stack Project (www.confessio.ie), an online representation of the 5th century writings of our patron saint.

This open access resource provides facsimiles, transcriptions, commentaries and translations of the oldest surviving texts written in Ireland in any language.  The manuscripts and printed editions can be viewed in original Latin, English, Irish and other languages.  Contextual material such as Muirchú's Latin Life of Saint Patrick, written 200 years after his death are available, as well as more recent pieces written especially for the project.

The site should be useful for students and researchers in relevant areas but also for those with a more general interest (the About section answers the eternal question "where are the snakes?").

The project was conceived and overseen by Dr Anthony Harvey, editor of the Royal Irish Academy Dictionary of Medieval Latin from Celtic Sources with technical support from the DHO.

Even More From J-STOR

There was good news for scholars recently when our friends from J-STOR kindly opened their vault and made almost 500,000 articles from late 19th and early 20th century publications available free of charge. Better than a poke in the eye, as they say.

This open access content is from a corpus of scholarly articles published in the United States before 1923 and outside the US before 1870. You can see a full list of the free titles here, organised by discipline. Why not have a root around their archives and see what's available in your area? You won't even get dust in your eyes, or if you do you need to clean your keyboard...

 The video below gives a quick tutorial of how to tailor your search:

 You can link to J-STOR from the Databases A-Z on our website.

Maths Week - The Art in Maths

To mark Maths Week (Oct 15-22) we are currently showing a collection of images on our information screen  relating to Dr Maurice O'Reilly's forthcoming lecture, The Art in Maths (Oct 21, Earlsfort Terrace).  

In his talk, Maurice will be exploring mathematical interpretations of various works in the Dublin Contemporary art exhibition.  Our slideshow contains a selection of the works he'll be talking about, so why not pay the Library foyer a visit to get a taster of what's in store...

About JURN

Those working in the humanities may find a look at JURN (www.jurn.org) worthwhile when performing article searches.

It uses a Google custom search engine to cross-search resources found on sites such as Intute and DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) as well as a large number of individually selected titles. The end result is a federated search tool covering over 4,000 open access titles.  It provides a useful and focused way to broaden your article search beyond those e-titles available through our journal and/or database subscriptions.

Sample titles include Americana: The Journal of American Popular Culture, Tympanum: A Journal of Comparative Literary Studies and Aether: Journal of Media Geography but you can see a full list of titles included here.

Get SmART with SmartHistory

SmartHistory (www.smarthistory.org) is an award-winning "web-book" which uses multimedia content - audio, video, images, text - as an alternative to the traditional textbook for students and teachers of art history.

The resource may be of interest to Education students taking the art elective, and it also features contextual discussions and articles concerning different aspects of english, geography, history and philosophy.

Even if you've only a passing interest in art history, it's worth a look to see how well multimedia can be used in an educational capacity.  The interface provides a number of entry points and navigation tools for the various topics, and offers related links depending on which area or era you find yourself delving into.

The site was started in 2005 by Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker and has since grown to include contributions from numerous academics in art history - you can see the full list here.  Check it out!

World Teachers' Day!

World Teachers' Day is celebrated by UNESCO and Education International every year on 5th October (www.5oct.org). This year's theme is Teachers for Gender Equality and promotes gender equality in access to education as well as between male and female teachers.

Today in the Library foyer we have a display with information from UNESCO, the Gender Equality in Education Policy Forum, and Ireland-specific statistics from the 2007 Sé Sí report. We also draw your attention to resources available in the Library that address issues of gender balance and imbalance in the context of education.  

Pop up and have a look!

Catalogue Maintenance

In order to enable essential maintenance work to be carried out on our Library Management System (Talis), the Catalogue will be unavailable for a short period on Monday evening (Oct 3), from around 5.30pm onwards.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

Help us Keep a Journal...

We are currently carrying out a survey of our journal usage, both print and online.  

If and when you consult one of our print journals in the Library this year you'll see a yellow bookmark attached to the cover.

We ask that any time you consult a title from our journal shelves (old or new!), you do the following:

• tick & date the bookmark in the boxes provided (see picture)
• ...and that's it!

If you were here last year you'll remember we did something similar.  Along with online usage statistics, this helps us gauge usage rates of our various titles and tailor our collection towards YOUR needs!

So tick and date the yellow bookmarks and help us keep a journal of our journals.  Thanks!

Attention New Students!

A big Library fáilte roimh to all of our new first years and international students.

 Over the next few weeks we have Library Induction Tours available for all newly registered students, a quick way of finding out all you need to know (for now!) to get the most out of the Library.

 B.Ed.'s will be assigned a group and time so just need to turn up in their pre-appointed group.  B.A.'s and international students can sign in whatever time suits best at the Library Information Desk.

 If you're not sure where to sign in, or have a question about anything in the Library, just ask a member of Library Staff.

Opening Hours

We return to our full term opening hours from next Monday, September 26. That means we're open 9am-10pm from Monday through to Thursday, 9am-5pm on Friday and 10am-1pm on Saturday. See our opening hours for next few months on our website.

Distance Guide Now Online

We've made a guide to our off-campus service available on our website in pdf format. It's aimed at part time or research students or any of you who are more-off-than-on-campus. You'll find various bits and bobs that will make your Library life a whole lot easier. Look here and see...

Open Library

Last week we posted about our e-book collection reaching 200. These are core texts which we purchase from suppliers to ensure access for large numbers of students. If you've used our e-books you'll know that there are some restrictions on how you can use the titles, both in terms of downloading and viewing them online. These relate to Digital Rights Management, a thorny subject in ebook-land at present.

For copyright-free material (where the author's death occurred more than 70 years ago) the same restrictions generally don't apply and there are some excellent resources which offer full-text access to out-of-copyright titles, such as Project Gutenburg.

Another such site is Open Library, a community project run by the Internet Archive which was created with the aim of providing a single page on the web for every book ever published - as they put it "a lofty but achievable goal".

To date, over 20 million records have been added to their catalogue. Where these titles are copyright-free (currently over 1 million records) they provide full text access, either via their excellent BookReader browser app or various downloadable formats for different devices.

They've also launched a scheme for in-copyright titles called the Lending Library. Libraries contribute digitised versions of books in return for borrowing access for their users to other libraries' e-titles. It's still relatively early days for this scheme (and we're not currently a member!) but it looks an interesting model for libraries and e-books in the future.

Watch this space...

August Bank Holiday

Please note that the Library is closed from Saturday to Monday inclusive this weekend due to the bank holiday. We reopen on Tuesday, Aug 2 at 10am.

E-books are 200!

We now have over 200 e-books in our collection. With one or two exceptions, all of these titles are also held in print format in the Library. This way, if the 'real' book is out on loan or you can't make it to the Library on time you know you can access the content in an online format. So no excuses!

Our e-books are viewed through your web-browser and can be found on our Catalogue in the same way you search for print items. To see a list of all titles available in this format just click on the 'SPD E-books' icon on the Catalogue home page. Staff can also put links directly to e-books within their Moodle topics.

If you haven't accessed on of our e-books before the online tutorials page on our website has a couple of videos to get you started, like the one below. Or if you'd like a run-through in person or have any questions such as how to link to them via Moodle, just contact Síol, our information and research skills service:

• info.library@spd.dcu.ie
• 01-8842170

Eneclann Display

We currently have a selection of Eneclann digital publications on display at the entrance to the main library. These titles are in CD-ROM format and contain digitised versions of various 18th, 19th and early 20th century works.

Titles available include:

• 1798 Rebellion, Claimants and Surrenders
• Pigot's Commercial Dictionary
• Slater's Commercial Directory
• Thom's Almanac & Directory
• The Dublin Almanac
• Confederation of Kilkenny
• Census Reports of Co. Dublin and Ireland
• and lots more...

Print editions of many of these titles are also in the Library and all of the CD-Rom versions are available to borrow as main lending items.

Go to Harvard For Free...

We like to point our users to open access resources on the web that might be of use for your study or research. One such recommendation is Academic Earth (academicearth.org), an excellent site containing (mostly) free access to courses and lectures recorded by professors from institutions such as MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Yale and other colleges.

You can watch an individual video or, if you're feeling ambitious, a full series of lectures on a single course. Topics vary from the philosophy of death to the American novel since 1945.

In total there are over 1,500 video hosted on the site, searchable by subject, university or instructor. Why not have a look to see what they have in your area of study or work? At least it's not hard to sneak out of the lecture halfway through...

Happy Bloomsday!

Some of the celebrations for Bloomsday 2011 have taken an unusually digital slant on Joyce's great novel. David Molloy in the Irish Times reports how computer programmer Rory McCann has taken up Leopold Bloom's challenge to “cross Dublin without passing a pub”. Stranger still is the Ulysses meets Twitter experiment which is posting the entirety of Ulysses in 140-character tweets throughout today. You can follow the blasphemy here!

Alternatively you could keep it traditional and take a look at our selection of titles about Ulysses or even the thing itself available on our shelves.

Colum McCann wins IMPAC Award

The winner of the 2011 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award was announced last night and went to Irish author Colum McCann for his novel Let the Great World Spin.

The prize for the IMPAC award is €100,000, the largest for a single novel published in English. It is also unique in that the shortlist is drawn from nominations received from public libraries around the globe, with the winner then chosen by the IMPAC judging panel. As well as being selected by the judging panel, McCann's novel also received the highest number of nominations from the participating libraries this year.

The first half of the novel is framed by a real event in New York in August 1974 when Frenchman Philip Petit performed a tightrope walk between the twin towers. The judging panel remarked of the novel

"In the opening pages of Let The Great World Spin, the people of New York City stand breathless and overwhelmed as a great artist dazzles them in a realm that seemed impossible until that moment; Colum McCann does the same thing in this novel, leaving the reader just as stunned as the New Yorkers, just as moved and just as grateful."

The book is in stock in the library so if you'd like to be stunned, moved and grateful, check it out today from our literature section here!

New English Literature Articles

43 new articles on different aspects of English literature have been added to Literary Encyclopedia, including 3 by Irish-based authors:

• Anne Enright by Heather Ingman (TCD)
• Maeve Brennan by Dolores McLoughlin (TCD)
• Rawi Hage by Rita Sakr (UCD)

Other new additions include articles on J.M. Coetzee's debut novel Dusklands, Toni Morrison's Beloved and an excellent piece on Antrim poet Samuel Thomson (1766-1816), known as the "Bard of Cangranny" and described by author Jennifer Orr as a figure of "unique significance".

Literary Encyclopedia is an online collection of specially commissioned articles written by university teachers and academics around the world and relating to authors, works and themes of English Literature.

The full list of new articles can be seen here and the database is also accessible via the database A-Z on our website.

Bank Holiday Weekend

The Library closes this Friday, June 3 at the usual time of 5pm. We are then closed over the Bank Holiday weekend until Tuesday, June 7 when we revert to our vacation hours of 10am-5pm. Please note that during the summer we close for an hour at lunchtime from 1pm-2pm.

For full June opening hours see our website.

Extra! Extra! (Opening Hours)

Our extended opening hours continue this weekend to accommodate students during exam time - we are open 9am-10pm on Friday, May 27 and 10am-5pm on Saturday, May 28.

Happy Birthday Bob

Dylan, that is. Mr. Zimmerman is 70 today as you may have seen.

Why not take out No Direction Home from our DVD Collection to celebrate? Directed by Martin Scorcese, the award winning documentary film chronicles Dylan's much-discussed cross over from folk singer to rock star in the sixties. It also includes discussion by Dylan and others of his musical tastes and influences from the Clancy Brothers to Billie Holliday.

Or if you're feeling green, how about a look at Hard Rain: Our Headlong Collision with Nature by Mark Edwards, which contains a collection of stunning photographs taken by Edwards over 40 years, detailing environmental and humanitarian concerns, and marries them with the lyrics of Hard Rain, written by Dylan during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. The book also contains essays by Robert May, John Elkington, Geoff Lye, Jonathon Porrit and David Bohm.

Digitisation Talk Today

At 12 noon today in the e-block boardroom, the Library hosts a short lecture and demonstration by Brian Donovan of Eneclann Digital Imaging Services on the importance of digital imaging and archival storage for libraries and universities.

Eneclann are a Trinity College Campus Company who publish historical and genealogical sources on CD-Rom and online and have currently produced around 250 titles of Irish interest. We have recently acquired some Eneclann titles on CD-Rom which will be on display for the talk and available for loan in the Library soon afterwards.

Titles include:

• Census Reports 1851-1911: County & City of Dublin
• A Stroll through Dublin
  
• Deserted Children (Dublin) 1854
  
• Thom's Official Directory of Ireland, 1910
  
• Slater's Royal National Directory of Ireland
  
• Treble Almanack & Dublin Directory 1783
  
• The 1798 Rebellion: Claimants and Surrenders

Continuing on our White House theme this week, Eneclann were in the news for the part they have played in sourcing Barack Obama's Irish ancestry - our speaker Brian is quoted in an article in the Irish Times last Saturday.

All students and staff are welcome to come along to the talk. This event is organised by Síol, our Information and Research Support service.

Read with the Obamas!

As you may have known, the US President arrived in Ireland this morning along with the First Lady. On their arrival Taoiseach Enda Kenny presented them with a gift for their children, Malia and Sasha, of a collection of Hawaiian children's stories by Padraic Colum.

What you might not know is that we have a copy of this same collection in two volumes in our Padraic Colum Special Collection in the Library. Why not check out what they'll be reading at story-time in the White House?!

Our Special Collections are not held in down in the main Library but just ask at the Information Desk for Legends of Hawaii or Bright Islands from our Padraic Colum Collection and you can keep up with the Obamas...

24Hr Loans for Study Week

From this evening (after 5.15pm) onwards items from our 24hr loan collection will be issued until Monday week (May 23rd). This is to accommodate students not staying on campus during study week.

Extra Opening Hours

Over the exam period the Library will be open later than normal on Fridays (until 10pm) and Saturdays (until 5pm). For our full May opening hours check our website.

We wish all students taking exams over the next few weeks the best of luck!

Irish Life and Lore Event

"Our own story and its telling is as vital to our sense of well-being as a good meal and a warm bed."

On Monday the Library hosts a talk by Maurice O'Keefe about his Irish Life and Lore series, a collection of over 1,800 audio recordings from various parts of Ireland which makes up a rich oral history of the island.

The presentation takes place in E233 at 12 noon on Monday, May 9 and all are welcome. To find out more about the project visit http://www.irishlifeandlore.com.

This event is the latest offered by Síol, our Information and Research Support service.

Bank Holiday

The Library closes at 5pm today (Friday, Apr 29) until 9am on Tuesday, May 3 due to the May Bank Holiday.

Maths Anyone Khan Do

Staff and students in our Mathematics and Education Departments may be interested in Khan Academy, a web-based collection of maths tutorials, videos and lesson plans aimed at helping learners both in the classroom and at home.

The resource was created by Sal Khan in 2008 and has since mushroomed in both size and popularity to the point where it now contains over 2,100 educational videos which have been viewed over 43 million times.

More recently the site received funding from Bill Gates and Google which has enabled the addition of some excellent interactive tools. These complement the video tutorials by gauging the level of each user and guiding them towards the next stage. They also enable the teacher to see live data on how their class members are progressing, what videos they have watched and what lessons they have completed successfully.

See the video below for an explanation of some of how the site works both for the learner and educator or go to the full website for more information.

Cáisc Shona Daoibh!

Our opening hours over the Easter break are as follows:

Mon, April 18 9am-5pm
Tue, April 19 9am-5pm
Wed, April 20 9am-1pm

April 21-26 Closed

Wed, April 27 9am-5pm
Thu, April 28 9am-5pm
Fri, April 29 9am-5pm

Sat, April 30 Closed
Sun, May 1 Closed
Mon, May 2 Closed

We return to normal term-time hours on Tuesday, May 3.

From this evening (after 5.15pm) all 24hr loan items will be issued until May 3.

We wish all staff and students a very happy Easter!

IMPAC/Orange Nominees

The nominees for this year's International IMPAC DUBLIN Literary Award were announced today and included three novels by Irish writers. Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann, Brooklyn by Colm Toibín and Love and Summer by William Trevor are all on the shortlist, the largest Irish contingent since the award was founded in 1994.

Other titles shortlisted include The Vagrants by Chinese writer Yiyun Li and The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver. Kingsolver's novel, set in 1930s Mexico, includes depictions of seminal artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera who are subject of a new exhibition in the IMMA which opened last week.

The IMPAC award, managed by Dublin City Public Libraries, is voted for by libraries in over 100 cities across the globe. You can see the full shortlist and the libraries that nominated them here.

There was further Irish success in the nominations for the Orange Prize for Fiction announced today, with Dublin-born writer Emma Donoghue's novel Room among the shortlisted titles.

Let's Get Politico(.ie)

We now offer access to Politico (http://www.politico.ie), an online resource dealing with politics and current affairs in Ireland from 1968 up to the present day.

As well as daily articles and videos on current issues, the site includes fully searchable archives of magazines such as Magill and The Village which can be accessed from the Magazines or Archive links on the main navigation bar and the search results link to full text digital facsimiles of the original articles.

The resource is available from the links above or via our databases a-z on our website.

If you have any problems, questions or comments about using this resource please let us know at our information desk or by phone/ email at 01-8842170 / info.library@spd.dcu.ie.

Visiting Time...

Some of you may be aware that around this time each year we invite children from a local school to visit our Library for some fun and games. This year's event is happening tomorrow (Tuesday) morning at 10am when we welcome pupils from 3rd class in Rutland Street National School.

Apologies in advance - there will be some noise & commotion in the Library during the visit (particularly in the Junior Books section!) as our visitors will be involved in various activities while they're with us - finding books, reading books and even making their own books!

Any students or staff who wish to help out or just want to observe the chaos from afar are more than welcome to join in!

Afraid to Ask? Watch and Learn

We're always here to help in the Library, but for those of you who don't make it so far as our Information Desk we've made some short "movies" showing some basic functions on our Catalogue and website.

As Library productions of course they're silent (shhh...), and we won't be packing for the Oscars just yet, but we hope they'll be of assistance to some users.

For starters we've covered the following areas

(if they're too small to follow just click on the full screen option on the bottom-right of each window)

How to renew a loan


How to reserve a book that's out on loan


How to find and read an ebook on the Catalogue


How to search, copy and print with an ebook


These clips can also be found on our website by clicking on Online Tutorials in the Online Resources page.

They were made using free software so if you think you'd like more of the same (for other tasks) let us know at info.library@spd.dcu.ie and we'll see if we can get Spielberg in again...

An IAR to the Ground...

Irish Archives Resource (www.iar.ie) is a new web portal which allows cross-searching of some noteworthy online archives. The portal harvests content from 16 prominent repositories with material ranging from the 17th Century up to the present.

The searchable records and objects include contents of 11 County and 3 City archives as well as the Guinness Archive, Irish Film Archive and Public Record Office of Northern Ireland.

You can limit your search either to a single repository or to 'Collection Types' with options including Literary Papers, Theatre, Folklore, Trade Unions and Archives of Private Clubs and Societies.

The project was part-funded by the Heritage council and should be useful to researchers in a wide range of areas.

Lá Fhéile Pádraig

The Library is closed tomorrow, March 17 for St. Patrick's Day. We reopen on Friday at 9am. See our full opening hours here.

Síol Workshops and Training

As part of Library Ireland Week (March 7-13), we are pleased to launch Síol Information and Research Support Service.

Good library and information services are an essential underpinning for research, just as they are for successful teaching and learning. Success in research depends critically on the quality of the information services to which researchers have accesss. We would like to invite you along to our refresher courses and basic demonstrations in using our Online Resources.

Over the next three weeks we are offering basic and refresher demonstrations in

• RefWorks Bibliography Manager
  
• Online Databases
• Using the Catalogue
• Journal searches
  
• Accessing Ebooks

For details of when and where these courses are taking place check the Síol page on our website.

Taispeántas Leabharlainne

The Library is currently exhibiting a selection of poems from contemporary Irish poets. The poems revisit traditional Gaelic folklore in a contemporary way. See below for more information.

Filí Comhaimseartha na Gaeilge agus an Traidisiún

Gné lárnach de chuid na filíochta comhaimseartha sa Ghaeilge is ea an úsáid chruthaitheach a bhaineann filí áirithe as foinsí dúchasacha. Agus iad ag tarraingt go comhfhiosach as acmhainní na scéalaíochta liteartha agus an bhéaloidis, ath-insíonn siad na scéalta sin i gcomhthéacs comhaimseartha, díríonn siad isteach ar phearsana, ar eachtraí agus ar théamaí ar leith, agus músclaíonn siad ceisteanna nua faoi bhrí agus faoi thábhacht na mbunsaothar féin.

Is éard atá sa taispeántas seo ná blaiseadh beag den phróiseas atá i gceist agus léiriú ar an gcaoi ar cuid bheo dhinimiciúil dár gcultúr na scéalta Rúraíochta agus na scéalta Fiannaíochta a bhfuil athleaganacha díobh tagtha anuas chugainn i lámhscríbhinní agus ó bhéal. Feicfear sa taispeántas seo: eagráin scolártha de na bunsaothair Ghaeilge; leaganacha do pháistí óga de chuid de na scéalta is cáiliúla; aistriúcháin go Béarla; leabhair thagartha; agus samplaí ó shaothar filí ar leith.

New Literature Resource

Staff and students of the English Department should try out Literary Encyclopedia, a new online database we have obtained access to.

This resource is a unique collection of specially commissioned articles written by university teachers and academics around the world and relating to authors, works, and themes of English literature.

Use the left-hand navigation bar to browse or search the collection by author, work or topic. Alternatively the 'bookshelves' tool provides clusters of articles based on time period, literary movement, or theme.

You can also create an individual account using your @mail.dcu.ie or @spd.dcu.ie email address. This allows you to create your own custom bookshelves for easy retrieval at a later date.

Check it out by clicking on the links above or from the databases a-z on our website.

Seachtain na Gaeilge

Mar chuid de cheiliúradh Sheachtain na Gaeilge an tseachtain seo, táimid ag cur na leabhar Gaeilge agus na leabhar Béaloidis is fearr linn ar taispeáint.

Tá siad le fáil in aice bhealach isteach na Leabharlainne agus tá an chuid is mó acu ar fáil do mhic léinn agus do bhaill foirne a dteastaíonn uathu iad a léamh. Mar sin, buailigí isteach chugainn!

T*ps for Search?ng

When searching on our Catalogue, 'wildcard' characters which can be useful to find the book or journal you're looking for - the two to remember are ? and *

• ? represents a single character
• * represents many characters.

These can be used in different ways, either in the middle of a word or at the end:

• If you didn't know whether an author's surname was spelt Smith or Smyth, you could include results for both spellings by typing Sm?th.
• In a Keyword or Title search entering educat* would return results for education, educator, educating etc. This can be useful if you're not sure of the title or if you just want to broaden your search to include variations of a word.
  

These wildcards work similarly in many of our online resources though there are some variations in how they are treated.

British State Prayers Project

Staff or students in Religion and History departments may be interested in a project being undertaken by researchers in Durham and Reading Universities involving a study of British state prayers and holy-days from the 1540s to the 1940s. Their work includes analysis of how the occasions were marked in Ireland and will explore their wider significance for politics, religion and culture over the four centuries. The website notes of the occasions that they "commanded considerable popular reverence but...could also be a focus for expressions of religious and political dissent".

The researchers are also studying the publication of the prayers and texts through the period including those published by the royal printers for the Church of Ireland before disestablishment.

The project will result in a book considering the significance of these occasions, typically summoned by the ruling monarch or government of the time, and their effect on all aspects of culture in Britain and Ireland. In addition, they will produce an authoritative edition of the original printed forms of the prayers and related texts.

Comóradh an tAth. P.S. Ó Duinnín

Comóradh 150 bliain de bhreith foclóirí, file agus scríbhneoir, an tAthair Pádraig Stiofán Ó Duinnín 1860-2010.

Rugadh an tAthair P.S. Ó Duinnín Lá Nollag 1860. Tá taispeántas sa leabharlann faoi láthair, lena shaothar a chomóradh. Thosaigh an taispeántas an Nollaig a d'imigh thart, agus beidh sé ann go deireadh Eanáir 2011.

Bhí baint mhór aige le hAthbheochan na Gaeilge. Ba bhall é den Irish Text Society augs bhí sé mar chathaoirleach ar Chraobh an Chéitinnigh de Chonradh na Gaeilge. Rinne sé eagarthóireacht ar thrí cinn de cheithre imleabhar de Foras Feasa ar Éirinn. Ach ba é foilsiú an fhoclóra Gaeilge-Béarla, a tháining ar an saol sa bhliain 1927, a thuill clú agus cáil dó agus áit speisialta i measc scoláirí mhóra na tíre.

Bhronn Ollscoil Náísiúnta na hÉireann céim oinigh air sa bhliain 1930. Chuir sé sraith leabhar ar fáil do mhúinteoirí bunscoile - stair na hÉireann ina measc.

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The library is currently running an exhibition to celebrate the work of the Rev. P.S. Dinneen who was born 150 years ago on the 25th December 1860.

The exhibition has been running since December and will remain in place until the end of January 2011.

P.S. Dinneen was a very important contributor the Revival of the Irish Language. He was a member of the Irish Text Society and Chairperson of the Keating Branch of The Gaelic League. He edited three of the four volumes of Foras Feasa ar Éirinn. It was the 1927 edition of his Irish-English Dictionary which earned him a place among the Great Irish scholars. He was awarded with an honorary D.Litt from the National University of Ireland in 1930. He also produced a series of booklets designed for Primary School teachers which included – a history of Ireland.

JFK Online Archive

Scholars of American history (or anyone with a passing interest) may be interested in a new open access digital resource launched yesterday by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston.

The online archive of the 35th American president provides immediate access to hundreds of thousands of digital files such as documents, speeches, phone conversations and photographs.

A quick browse found an audio clip of JFK at Dublin Castle during his visit here in 1963, speaking about the importance of education to democracy and paying tribute to Ireland's educational heritage.

See an article in today's Irish Times about the resource here or go straight to the archive itself here.

Library Closed Jan 15

For health and safety reasons the Library will be closed this Saturday, January 15. This is to allow essential work related to the new building programme to be carried out.

We apologise for any incovenience to our users.

We will reopen next Monday at 9:00 (please note also that our opening hours during vacation week Jan 16-21 are 9am-5pm Monday to Friday).

Extra Opening Hours

Please note our extra opening hours this weekend - we are open until 10pm and 5pm on Friday and Saturday (Jan 7 & 8) respectively. Good luck from the Library to all those undertaking exams next week.

Swetwise Upgrade Jan 8

Any titles on our Journals A-Z which are linked via Swetwise will be unavailable from 7am-7pm tomorrow, January 8 to allow for an upgrade of their interface.

If there is a particular title you require access to, you could try DCU's SerialsSolutions link resolver tool to see if there is an alternative provider.