The Taoiseach’s Public Service Excellence Awards are designed to showcase and celebrate public service projects that make a particular difference to the way the citizen can avail of services. The Awards promote innovation and excellence. The creative use of resources and the development of new efficiencies are typical hallmarks of successful entries.
Kildare County Council and the National Library of Ireland were among the award winning projects this year.
Kildare County Council – Clocha Rince Library Project
This project features the provision of a library service to a rural community through a partnership with Clocha Rince National School. The main objective is to provide a template which can be easily replicated and adapted to provide a similar community resource via community partnerships and facility sharing approaches.
This initiative has provided an increase of 400% in opening hours (service had been the mobile library). Community services also provided include public access PCs, study facilities, parent and toddler groups, active age, social information evenings and other services targeted at specific groups.
The cost of the average standalone library of a similar size is €249,000 in the first year whereas Clocha Rinca has cost €60,000.
National Library of Ireland – the Sources Project
This project digitised, encoded and delivered – as a freely searchable online resource – 180,000 records for Irish manuscripts and periodical records, created by National Library staff over a 30 year period (to 1970). Most of the source material had previously been published in the form of 17,000 pages of records but was only accessible as printed catalogues in a small number of major research institutions and specialist libraries.
The project facilitated new ways of accessing the data, as well as the inclusion of new data by including records for additional National Library manuscripts. Every article in 157 key Irish periodicals published over the course of nearly 200 years is included. Close to 100,000 manuscripts worldwide from the remotest monastery to the vast collections of the National Library are included. Catalogue records for all National Library manuscripts are available online.
The Taoiseach’s Public Service Excellence Awards take place every two years. Selected projects from among the Award winners have, traditionally, been showcased at international “Quality Conferences” as models of best practice. Details of the award winners can be found here.
