Members of Music PAL and guests at the LAI/CILIP conference

At the annual joint conference of the Library Association of Ireland and the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, (LAI/CILIP) which took place in the Maldron Hotel in Tallaght, Dublin,  Robin Adams, Chair of the Implementation Team for the PAL Programme, gave a presentation on the PAL programme highlighting the Cork PAL and Music PAL initiatives.  His presentation focussed on the origins of the PAL programme, and on the cross-border and cross-sectoral cooperation which brought it to fruition.

The event provided an opportunity to promote the PAL programme to the wider library audience where it was received with great enthusiasm and interest.  The presentation by Robin Adams, Cross Sectoral Initiatives in Library Services can be downloaded here.

Two Irish libraries were among twelve recipients of the inaugural Excellence Award for Music Libraries, presented by the International Association of Music Libraries, UK & Ireland branch, meeting in Nottingham on 11^th April. Cork City Libraries (Rory Gallagher Music Library) and Trinity College Library Dublin (Music Collections) were honoured alongside ten UK libraries. Both libraries are participants to Music PAL.

This new biennial Award aims to acknowledge ‘outstanding music services to the library’s user community’, and to ‘highlight and celebrate activity in music libraries showing sustained good work and good practice which has the potential to be adopted and adapted by others’. The Award is presented every two years and is open to all music libraries no matter what their sector, size or type. This year’s nominations were assessed by an international panel of experts chaired by the distinguished musicologist John Tyrrell. The panel included music librarians from various sectors, professional musicians, and leading figures from the wider library profession.

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Celebrating the launch of Music PAL from left: Senator Mark Deary, Deirdre Purcell, Robin Adams, Norma McDermott, Roy Stanley.

Access to Cork PAL and Music PAL libraries and archives will now be easier following the simultaneous launches of both initiatives on 8th March during Library Ireland Week.

In Dublin, novelist and broadcaster Deirdre Purcell noted the great achievement of the Music PAL scheme in enabling the access to the services and collections of the 27 participating institutions.

In Cork, Minister Batt O’Keeffe praised the example of resource sharing set by the Cork PAL libraries and archives to other  organisations.

The Irish Times and Irish Examiner have published reviews of the schemes.