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Dublin: UNESCO City of Literature

abevan — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 11:01:42 +0000

Dublin’s Lord Mayor, Gerry Breen, in the company of the Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport, Mary Hanafin T.D., formally announced Dublin’s designation as UNESCO City of Literature today (Monday July 26 2010). Dublin is one of only four cities in the world with the designation of UNESCO: City of Literature. The sought after accolade was bestowed by the Director General of UNESCO and recognises Dublin’s cultural profile and its international standing as a city of literary excellence.
* Dublin UNESCO City of Literature website; * Read the full press release; * Dublin’s writers tell us why Dublin is a city of literature.
The UNESCO City of Literature award is part of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network launched in 2004. Dublin joins Iowa City, Melbourne and Edinburgh on the UNESCO list.
View the Video Of Congratulations from Iowa City, USA:

MOUNTAINS TO SEA BOOK FESTIVAL 2010

abevan — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:42:44 +0000

The Mountains to Sea dlr Book festival will take place from September 7th to 12th 2010. The festival takes place in various venues in Dun Laoghaire, and is comprised of a series of different literary events.
Tickets go on sale from August 4th and are available via the website or the booking line +353 1 231 2929.
In 2009, The Mountains to Sea dlr Book Festival enjoyed a fantastic debut thanks to the support and enthusiasm of local book-lovers and, thankfully, not a few first-time visitors to Dún Laoghaire. One writer praised the inaugural festival as “of international standard, with a great local tilt”. On a glorious weekend, the Festival welcomed over 5000 guests who revelled in near-Mediterranean sunshine while strolling from venue to venue.
This year we have aimed to build on that initial success by expanding the programme and the range of events on offer. Among the authors appearing will be no less than four former Booker Prize-winners (five, if you count the late JG Farrell who is honoured in a special appreciation event). Fans of crime fiction, sport and politics are also catered for while the children’s programme is vastly expanded with a Children’s Author Lunch among the highlights. Leviathan Political Cabaret and the DLR Literary Tour return and to deliver The Beckett Address we are pleased to welcome one of Ireland’s finest actors and directors, Alan Stanford .
Also appearing will be Kate Atkinson, DBC Pierre, Joseph O’Connor, Jennifer Johnston, David McWilliams, former Taoiseach Garrett Fitzgerald, Waterstone’s founder Tim Waterstone and the great Australian novelist, Alex Miller.
For more information on this year’s event visit www.mountainstosea.ie or phone 01 231 2929.

MyRI project – Measuring Your Research Impact

abevan — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 13:20:09 +0000

4 Irish academic libraries have been successful in bidding for funding for a project to collaborate in producing bibliometrics awareness and training materials. Participating are the libraries of: University College Dublin; Dublin City University, National University of Ireland Maynooth and Dublin Institute of Technology.
Bibliometrics is a set of methods used to measure research publications and is one key approach being used to assess research impact.
Deliverables will include an online tutorial, worksheets, posters, booklets, and multimedia elements. Materials will be editable wherever possible and as well as a generic package, exemplars of adapting and using the materials for Computer Science and Geography will also be delivered.
The grant is from NDLR the Irish National Digital Learning Resources service, with the deliverables hosted in their repository and available for all to use under Open Access license. More information about this project, which should have materials available by year end, can be seen here.

The National and Kildare Libraries’ excellent adventure

abevan — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 10:24:12 +0000

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.

Books on Japan

abevan — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 11:16:33 +0000

The Nippon Foundation of Japan has a book donation scheme which is intended to promote an understanding of contemporary Japan. To this end, the Foundation makes donations of English language books about Japan to libraries worldwide. Last year approximately 300 libraries, mainly in the US and Europe, benefited from the scheme.
The Foundation is currently accepting applications for material from libraries.
Application guidelines and other information can be found on the Foundation’s website.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the Foundation by email.

International Jodi Award 2010 for best cultural website or web service for disabled people

abevan — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 11:11:23 +0000

Nominations are now being sought for the Jodi Awards 2010 from museums, galleries, libraries, archives, heritage sites and disability organisations from all countries.
The Awards are for museums, galleries, libraries, archives and heritage venues which use digital technology to widen access to information, collections, learning and creativity for disabled people. Nominations are also welcome for projects and services by disability organisations, which focus around museum, library and archive collections.
The Jodi Awards celebrate practice that inspires locally, nationally or internationally. We welcome nominations from all kinds of projects, small and big, low-tech and hi-tech and for small and large audiences. What counts is the value of your project and the quality of your engagement with disabled people.
The Awards were first given in 2003, European Year of Disabled People. They are given in memory Jodi Mattes (1973-2001), who worked at the British Museum and the Royal National Institute of Blind People, a tireless champion of equal access to culture for disabled people.
Read short case-studies about the Jodi Awards Winners 2009
The deadline for nominations is Monday August 9 2010.

Gerbrand Bakker twinned with IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, 2010

abevan — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 09:31:16 +0000

The Twin, a debut novel by Dutch author Gerbrand Bakker, has won the 2010 International IMPAC DUBLIN Literary Award. The Award is organized by Dublin City Libraries, on behalf of Dublin City Council and sponsored by IMPAC, an international management productivity company. The prize is €100,000. It is the largest prize for a single novel and will be divided between the author and the novel’s translator, David Colmer, who will receive €25,000. Uniquely, the IMPAC DUBLIN receives its nominations from public libraries around the globe.
The Twin beat off competition from 155 other titles, nominated by 163 public libraries from 43 countries. Translated from the original Dutch by David Colmer, The Twin was first published in English by Harvill Secker, UK in 2008 and in Dutch by Cossee, Amsterdam in 2006. The shortlist of eight novels included novels from the USA, UK, France, Germany and Netherland by Irish author Joseph O’Neill.
“Gerbrand Bakker joins a long list of eminent novelists to win this award” said the Lord Mayor and Patron of the Award, Cllr. Emer Costello, “and having a novel in translation as the winner, means that this beautifully written Dutch novel will come to the attention of readers world-wide, who might otherwise never have come across it. Dublin City Council and IMPAC are extremely proud that the IMPAC DUBLIN Award has grown into one of the highlights, not only of the Irish, but also of the international literary calendar”.
The Twin was nominated by Public Libraries in Amsterdam, The Hague, Utrecht, and Eindhoven.

Ireland’s national portal for open access to research goes live

abevan — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 13:14:23 +0000

RIAN, Ireland’s new national portal for Open Access to Irish published research, provides a single point of access to national research output, and contains content harvested from the institutional repositories of the seven Irish universities and the Dublin Institute of Technology.
RIAN will significantly increase the visibility and impact of Irish research and will expand to harvest content from other Irish Open Access providers as the service develops.
The Irish Government has identified growth in research as critical to its future as a knowledge economy. Raising the research profile is a key strategy in the Universities’ strategic plans, and the ability to showcase research output and identify institutional research strengths is extremely important in attracting new funding and high quality staff.
The development of RIAN was managed by the Irish Universities Association Librarians’ Group and is supported by the Association. This three year project was equally funded by the Universities and the Irish Government’s Strategic Innovation Fund which is administered by the Higher Education Authority.

Cork to Gdansk

abevan — Fri, 28 May 2010 11:03:33 +0000

On June 2 next a unique art exhibition will be launched simultaneously in Bishopstown Library, a branch of Cork City Libraries, and Filia Gdanska in Poland. This exhibition called Cork to Gdansk, My Feelings is the work of Polish artist Magdalena Majewska – Keane who is now living in Cork.
The launch in Ireland will be performed by the Lord Mayor of Cork and will feature a reception of invited guests. The guests will include elected representatives, members of the artistic community, members of the Polish community living in Cork and other citizens. A group of award winning Irish dancers will perform for the guests.
The launch is planned to be something special in that it is hoped the Lord Mayor of Cork and the President of Gdansk will open both exhibitions at, in Cork and in Gdansk simultaneously by the use of Internet technology using webcam or video conferencing technology.

Unlocking the potential of cultural and creative industries

abevan — Wed, 19 May 2010 10:34:33 +0000

The European Commission has recently published a Green Paper on Unlocking the potential of cultural and creative industries. The document recognizes the contribution the cultural and creative industries make to sustainable and inclusive growth. The cultural and creative industries – including the performing arts, visual arts, cultural heritage, film, television and radio, music, publishing, video games, new media, architecture, design, fashion design and advertising – have been identified as a key driver of economic recovery across Europe. This sector currently employs more than 5 million people across the EU, and contributes 2.6% to European GDP.
An online consultation process was launched on May 3rd by Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou, European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth. The objective of this consultation is to gather views on various issues impacting the cultural and creative industries in Europe, from business environment to the need to open up a common European space for culture, from capacity building to skills development and promotion of European creators on the world stage. The responses to the consultation will inform the Commission and help it ensure that EU programmes and policies involving cultural and creative industries are “fit for purpose”.
Submissions must be made before July 30 2010.