Friday, April 29, 2011

Bank Holiday

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

Monday, April 18, 2011

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.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

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!

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

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.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

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.

Monday, April 4, 2011

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!