Over The Edge in Galway City Library

The next Over The Edge: Open Reading takes place in Galway City Library, St. Augustine Street, Galway on Thursday, March 1st, 6.30-8pm.

The Featured Readers are Enda Coyle-Green, Alan McMonagle & Aideen Henry.

Enda Coyle-Green lives in County Dublin. Widely published in magazines and anthologies, her work has also been broadcast on RTE Radio 1 and Lyric FM. Prizes for poetry include a Hennessy Award nomination in 2002. Her first collection, Snow Negatives, received the Patrick Kavanagh Award in 2006.

Alan McMonagle lives in Galway. His work has appeared in Southword, The Cuirt Annual, west47online and Crannog. Last year he took second place in the Sean O'Faolain short story competition and was also short-listed for the Fish Story award. He is currently pursuing an MA in Writing at NUI Galway.

Aideen Henry lectures at NUI, Galway. She began writing poetry quite recently and has had poems published in West 47 and Crannog magazine. Aideen has taken part many times in the Over The Edge open-mic. She is currently attending a poetry workshop at Galway Arts Centre.

As usual there will be an open-mic when the Featured Readers have finished. This is open to anyone who has a poem or story to share. New readers are always especially welcome. The MC for the evening will be Susan Millar DuMars.

For further details contact 087-6431748.Over The Edge acknowledges the financial support of Galway City Council and The Arts Council

Library Success Stories 2

The Library Association of Ireland's Youth Library Group in conjunction with the Libraries in Northern Ireland are hosting a Library Success Stories 2 on Tuesday 17th April 2007 in the Iontas Arts & Resource Centre, Castleblayney, County Monaghan.

A very successful and well attended Library Success Stories Day was held on Monday 14th November 2005 in Omagh Library, County Tyrone.

Aim of the Day: A forum for the exchange of ideas and good practice in libraries
Who is it Aimed at: Frontline and support staff involved in developing or delivering projects, programmes and activities in local libraries.
What the Day consists of: It will consist of paralled workshops highlighting a range of very successful projects and activities.
End Result of the Day: Staff from different library authorities and across the border, will talk to each other and exchange ideas and good practice. Get some positive reinforcement that there are alot of worthwhile things going on in our libraries. Produce firstly in hardcopy the projects, programme and activities discussed for each participating county and secondly online - via a website with passwords etc.

Please email me to get a template for you or your staff to fill in about any project, programme or activity. (Please fill in each project, programme, activity seperately) If the template could be filled in and emailed back to me before Friday 23rd February. If you would like for your library authority to participate in this day, please forward the names of the staff to me before Friday 2nd March. Each library authority can send up to 3 staff maximum.

On behalf of the Youth Library Group, I cannot stress enough how important a day such as this is for frontline staff as I myself participated in the first library success stories in Omagh and it was wonderful to hear such fabulous innovative ideas, and most of them done with little or no money.

Deirdriu McQuaid
Youth Library Group Secretary
Library Association of Ireland

Library Ireland Week 2007

Library Ireland Week 2007 takes place from 5th to 11th March.

The Week celebrates and highlights the role of libraries, librarians and information professionals. A working group consisting of members from sections and groups of the Library Association of Ireland is currently co-ordinating events around the country and among the various library sectors. Posters, bookmarkers, a logo and a website will all feature in this year’s publicity campaign.

The LAI would like library staff in all sectors to participate in Library Ireland Week by organising an event or events. Examples of events held in 2006 include exhibitions, tours, author visits, recitals, competitions and readings. Events coinciding with LIW or which would normally be held on a weekly/monthly basis can be included in the promotion. Libraries will soon be able to register their events on a Library Ireland Week website.

Do you have a 'story' to tell about your library that would be of interest to local/national media during LIW? Are you willing to 'champion' LIW in your area – to encourage participation, to collate information about activities, or to organise a photograph of library staff from different sectors. If so contact bboardman@libraryassociation.ie

Iraq Diary of Saad Eskander

When the Saddam regime was toppled in 2003, the Iraq National Library and Archive in Baghdad was set alight and looted. Much damage was done, in particular to the library’s archive collections.

In early December 2006, after consulting the heads of his departments, Dr Eskander, the Director of the Iraq National Library and Archive re-opened the Library and Archive even though the security situation remained as bad as before.

The British Library has posted the diary of Saad Eskander, noting that it "describes the perilous and tragic situation that the Iraq National Library and Archive is operating under and which led to the institution's temporary closure" at the end of November. Eskander's concerns are simply security and survival; what most other librarians consider first-order challenges are, in Iraq, much lower priorities.