The Reopening of Roscommon Library Service after Restrictions were lifted, May 2020

Carolyn Tunney June 2021

“I rely on the library so much”, “the library is my fix”, “I’ve spent a fortune on books”, “I will do two things today: get my hair cut and go to the library”, “It’s good to be back”. These are comments from borrowers using Roscommon Library Service during the first few weeks of re-opening.

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Following are initiatives and services being offered by Roscommon Library Service since returning to the workplace and in some cases while staff were working from home: seed kits, Little Library bags, Sense-Ability, social media presence, online library resources and Age Friendly Digital Training. Library membership and all services are free-of-charge.

The Grow-It-Forward seed-kits include lettuce, peas, beetroot, carrots and tomatoes. In partnership with Healthy Ireland and Libraries Ireland the Grow It Yourself organisation are giving away seed kits. The aim is to support people across Ireland to enjoy the wide range of benefits that come from growing food at home.

The Little Library Initiative includes a bag with picture books for children, five years of age and under. The bags are being distributed to the preschools in the county. Books of the same titles are also available to borrow. The Little Library Initiative aims to develop a link between early learning and care services and their local library to encourage a love of books and reading among young children.

Sense-Ability is a project launched by Sligo, Leitrim and Roscommon Library services in the past number of months. Sense-Ability aims to offer positive library experiences for people with sensory or additional educational needs. Through consultation with professionals, extensive staff training, a programme of events and the development of new spaces and services, Sense-Ability gives everyone the ability to use library services in an inclusive and safe way. A series of six Webinars is currently underway through the three library services. Examples of the Webinar titles: Understanding Autism, creating an inclusive community; Dyslexia and Strategies for reading. A sensory space has been created and a pod has been installed in Roscommon Branch Library.

Roscommon Library Service continues to have a strong Social Media presence through Facebook and Twitter. Examples of posts/ videos are: storytelling by staff, book title suggestions and Healthy Ireland at your Library topics. Examples of Healthy Ireland topics: Understanding grief and loss, Understanding emotion.

Libraries continue to offer a wide-range of Online Resources. These include e -books, – audiobooks, -magazines, -newspapers and -courses. There has been a large increase in the use of Online Resources since March 2020.

Age Friendly Digital Training focuses on helping older people access library online resources. This service has been offered since the beginning of 2021. It is a partnership between Age Friendly Ireland and Libraries Ireland. One-on-one training sessions are delivered to the older person using Zoom or over the phone.

The library has felt busy since returning to work on Tuesday 11/05/2021. New books are arriving to the branch from Headquarters, items are being returned since December 2020 and before, there is an increased number of branch staff and Covid-19 protection measures continue to be in place. The increase in branch staff is a result of staff being recruited to fulfil the Workforce Plan and staff being relocated due to library refurbishment. This is in contrast to the previous five months (almost) when library staff were facilitated to work from home. Staff were supplied with a laptop which is linked to the Council network. This allowed us continue working online and to undertake training. Staff are adjusting to being back in the workplace and providing a service in person.

This is a flavour of what has been happening in Roscommon Library Service since returning to the workplace in May and the months before this.

Roscommon libraries are open for Browse and Borrow. 20 people max. are permitted in the library at one time. Statistics approx. for Roscommon Library Service May 11th-31st 2021: Check-outs of library items 3,800; Check-ins, 3,600; Footfall, 2,220 (two libraries out of five are currently closed for refurbishment).

Annual General Meeting 2021

The Western Regional Section of the Library Association of Ireland will be holding its Annual General Meeting virtually via zoom on the Friday 26th of February 2021.

WRSLAI is a unique group of the LAI based outside Dublin and represents diverse sections of the library profession.

The year 2020 was a strange and turbulent and we look forward to hopefully getting back to activities in 2021. The AGM is where we plan our activities for the upcoming year so if you would like to join our group or committee as a member or an officer, or contribute ideas for events, please join us on the 26th February over zoom. The details are below. 

https://nuigalway-ie.zoom.us/j/96177881653?pwd=ZDN0cG9kVXFVTm9pWStrak1TS0tVQT09

Meeting ID: 961 7788 1653
Passcode: 583165

Tell us about your lockdown

The LAI’s Western Section usually holds a summer seminar in June, many of you have attended and spoken at this event over the years.

We can’t have that seminar this year but we will instead host an online networking event, on the even of Thursday the 4th of June at 9pm.

It’s a chance to hear how people have managed during the 12 weeks of working from home, what has worked well, what hasn’t worked at all and hear about the plans to reopen libraries from our colleagues across the sector.

We think that sharing our experiences usually helps gain a sense of perspective so We invite you to sign up for this event.

It will be on Zoom and you can remain off-video, off-mic and just listen in, or participate fully, whatever you are most comfortable with.

This is a free event and we look forward to hearing your stories. Please follow the link below to register.

https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/not-your-usual-zoom-call-tickets-107673755100

 

Annual General Meeting Announcement

 

The Western Region Section of the Library Association of Ireland will hold their Annual General Meeting on Monday 27^th January @ 11.30 am at The Marine Institute, Rinville, Oranmore, Co. Galway

 

 

Continuing with our innovative and accessible approach to everything, we will also host a virtual meeting room  to facilitate access to the meeting for those who cannot travel.  You can dial into a virtual meeting room using your internet connection to view shared screen and participants, or dial in with your phone to the number that will be provided.

Please RSVP to westernlibraries@gmail.com if you would like to attend either virtually or physically and we will add you to the meeting.

Opportunity: We  are looking for a new officers for this vibrant, small, but busy section of the LAI. We welcome new committee members to the team. Any new officers can work with the existing committee, which consists of our previous Chairs and officers, so guidance will be provided in the positions. We welcome fresh and interesting ideas to this dynamic group and are open to new ways of working.

We look forward to another busy year in 2020. If you would like to join our team, or would like to contribute ideas for networking events please join us.

What are we going to do about our own CPD? Views from recent LAI event in Athlone

Library staff from across library sectors gathered at Athlone Institute of Technology on October 11^th for a networking event where skills and CPD were the themes steering the discussion. Our opening talk was the perfect confluence of personal interest meets CPD and Michael Doheny gave us a talk from the heart about how his passion for counselling sparked a really interesting library initiative around a bibliotherapy section in the AIT Library and an accompanying Positive Living LibGuide.

Participants from HSE libraries, the Institutes of Technology, university and public libraries were vocal in their contributions around the CPD needs they identify for themselves and for the profession. The scene was set for a lively discussion early on when one contributor remarked that librarianship is no different to the other professions, in that our graduates are simply ‘ready for training’ once they complete their formal education. Recognising the need for ongoing professional development and upskilling is what characterizes a profession so the organising committees felt this was an appropriate and timely theme for this free event, attended by 26 library workers, about half of whom were LAI members.

Certain technical competencies and sometimes, as ASL Chair David Hughes pointed out, “a tech curious attitude” can go a long way in helping library staff to develop their systems acumen. David admitted that he is an accidental systems librarian and encouraged people not to be afraid to dabble with technology to explore what it can do. There are many ways that library staff can avail of technical upskilling, talk to us in ASL and WRSLAI if you need something in particular and we can try to help you out through our contacts and networks.

The absolute pre-requisites for library staff to do their jobs were acknowledge as important with a growing emphasise emerging across all sectors for us all to be more digitally capable but it was the soft skills that attracted most discussion on the day. Participants felt that they could do with training in areas such as working in teams, leadership, PR, advocacy, marketing, report writing and the presentation of data. There was a good exchange of ideas as others at the event were readily able to suggest ways to get these opportunities. The following table lists some, not all, available training outlets for some of what was discussed on the day:

Required library skill	Where to get training
Presenting Data	Library Juice Academy, Excel For Librarians
Report Writing	Robert Gordon University
Academic Writing	Helen Fallon’s courses Maynooth University
PR, Advocacy, Marketing, Leadership, Working in Teams, Supervising Teams	Check locally with your line manager or HR/Training officer Look also at libraryskills.io

Participants in the event will receive a CPD Certificate from the LAI and all were encouraged to begin or maintain a CPD diary. Having a diary, even if it’s just the back page of your work diary, reminds you of all that you have learned and achieved and is an invaluable record when you prepare an application for a job or when you apply for things like LAI awards.

The Western Regional Section of the LAI partnered with Academic & Special Libraries to hold this event and we were hosted by Jane Burns and her great team at Athlone Institute of Technology. Thanks to both committees and the local team in Athlone who made it all happen and to everyone that travelled to be with us in Athlone.

 

Academic Writing Workshop

 

Athlone Institute of Technology are hosting Helen Fallon and Jane Burns running an academic writing workshop which will include the following:

 

·         Getting a thesis to publication

·         Using your research for blogging, conference, article

·         Writing as a form of CPD

·         Publishing

·         Bibliometrics/altmetrics

 

The workshop will take place in AIT on the 16^th of July.

If you want to find out more about the event or register, click Here

Launch of the AIT Repository

Repositories, their role and research impact in Higher Education

 

Our friends in Athlone Institute of Technology asked us to let people know about an event they are holding on the 5th of April 2019.

The Athlone Institute of Technology is officially launching  their repository this Friday the 5th.

The event will be held in Athlone Institute of Technology, Dublin Road, Athlone Town

from 2.00 pm – 16.30 pm.

The event includes Speakers :

Jane Burns on               Role of repositories in higher education.

Laura Rooney Ferris   Repositories and research impact

Registrar Dr Neill Seery and Michael Doheny Acting Deputy Librarian

All Welcome to what promises to be a great afternoon.

To register your attendance please click here

Great Opportunity for Information and Library Students

Two bursar students are required to digitise, create records, make openly available, and archive an important historical and legacy collection of fisheries data and reports.

The data relate to historic time series of herring stock dynamics north of Ireland and west of Scotland.

The reports and literature relate to pelagic, deep sea fish and sharks including unique early literature by Irish scientists that urgently requires archiving and digitisation. The early literature by Irish scientists working for the predecessors of the Marine Institute is currently not available online. These data are crucial to our understanding of climate change, marine biodiversity and the effects of fishing on marine species.

The successful candidates will work as part of a team to input and archive these data, onsite in Oranmore, Co. Galway, within the Marine Institute Library. Suitable candidates are sought from librarianship, communications, biological sciences, marine science or information technology courses.

Depending on your area of studies, there may be an opportunity to visit and spend some time in the wet labs; to potentially collaborate on a peer reviewed journal article based on the historical data on herring stock dynamics over a 100-year period; to be involved in Seafest, held this year in Cork; or to work further on the Marine Institute Open Access Repository. Additional opportunities will be tailored to your area of interest.

There are 24 bursar positions available, most relating to the marine and environment. However, there are also three science communications positions also available (1 in the research office and 2 in the communications office) that library students may also be interested in putting as their second choice on the application form, should the library positions be filled.

Further details can be access for the https://www.marine.ie/Home/home

 

Annual Winter Networking Morning #winterwest18

 

The Western Region Section of the Library Association of Ireland is pleased to announce that is is holding its annual winter networking morning in the lovely campus of the University of Limerick on Friday the 30th November.

There will be a chance to network over tea coffee and pastries from 10am.

To celebrate Library Ireland Week, the Glucksman Library is inviting the staff of local libraries to visit and tour their new library on the same morning.

The event will begin with a chance to catch up with library colleagues and will be followed by a library tour and a presentation about the ARC, UL’s new automated storage and retrieval system.

The event is free to attend but registration is required

Please follow this link to register: https://ul.libcal.com/event/3356859

 

 

Call for papers – #libwest18

 

The Western Region Section of the Library Association of Ireland is pleased to announce that our annual seminar will be held on the 11^th  June 2018 in Ballinasloe Library.

Our Title this year is CHALLENGING TIMES.

2018 is a year of celebrations, commemorations and anniversaries and challenges still to overcome. It’s the year of data and privacy including GDPR and its implications for our work. It marks a hundred years of women getting the right to vote. It’s the year sign language was finally officially recognised as a language. It’s the year of Irish. It’s the year the Region of Galway Gastronomy is launched. To name just a few.

We look forward to hearing your views on Challenging Times in your workplace, and receiving your proposals

We are accepting submissions for 10 minute lightening talks, or 20-30 minute presentations. We also welcome poster submissions.

Please keep proposals to 300 words max and they should be emailed to westernlibraries@gmail.com with an outline of the proposed talk and a brief biography of the speaker.

The deadline for submissions is the 11^th May 2018.

Further details will be posted on our blog www.wrslai.wordpress.com

Feel free to contact us via email or on social media through the blog www.wrslai.wordpress.com  or on twitter @wrslai