Heritage Week in Galway Libraries

Heritage Week will run from 25th August – 2nd September 2007. In Ireland Heritage Week is co-ordinated by the Heritage Council with support from the Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government.
Each year many national and hundreds of local community organisations participate by organising events throughout the country. There is something to appeal to almost everyone and the main aim is to build awareness of our built, natural and cultural heritage thereby encouraging its conservation and preservation. The following events are taking place in Galway Libraries:

Heritage Morning at Gort Library, St. Colman’s Old Church of Ireland
at 11.30am Sat. 1st Sept.
"Reflections on Gort Past & Present"
Exhibition of Old Photographs
Guest Speaker: Tom Hannon, followed by an opportunity to mingle and share memories of Gort.

An exhibition of drawings and photographs of various houses,streets and people from the 1800's to the present,which are relevant to this area.
Organised by the Archaeological and Historical Society of Uí-Mháine and Ballinasloe Public Library and taking place in the Ballinasloe Library from the 25/08/2007 - 02/09/2007

50th anniversary of the publication of Kerouac's book On the Road.

Few novels have had as profound an impact on Western culture as On the Road. Pulsating with the rhythms of 1950s underground America and promise of the open road, Kerouac's classic novel of freedom and longing defined what it meant to be "beat" and has inspired generations of writers, musicians, artists, poets, and seekers who cite their discovery of the book as the event that "set them free." This year is the 50th anniversary of Kerouac's classic novel that defined a generation. Below are three of Kerouac's other books which have been added to stock at Galway City Library in Augustine Street.

Old Angel Midnight, by Jack Kerouac
Old Angel Midnight (1959) was one result of Kerouac's automatic writing experiments in which he would spill his chemically inspired thoughts onto paper to see what came out. Though Kerouac was initially denounced by literary critics as an oddball, his spontaneous twistings and turnings of language rate well with those of Joyce and Stein, and time has proven him to be an important and enduringly popular American writer.

Heaven and Other Poems, by Jack Kerouac
Donald Allen, the late great editor of the Evergreen Review at Grove Press first met Jack Kerouac in 1956. At the time, Allen was working on the "San Francisco Scene" issue of the Evergreen Review, and Ginsberg and Kerouac brought him manuscripts and news of developments on the West Coast. Over the next three years, Kerouac would send Allen poems for various projects, along with letters in which he discussed his poetry, his life, and the work of his young contemporaries. The unpublished poems are collected here, as are the letters.

Pomes All Sizes, by Jack Kerouac
This book, which Kerouac prepared for publication before his death in 1969, collects poems written between 1954 and 1965. Most are playful--comments about friends, variations on the sounds of words. Yet a few extremely sensitive longer pieces appear, including "Caritas," in which the poet runs after a barefoot beggar boy to give him money for shoes and then begins to doubt the boy's veracity. Other intriguing poems reflect the poet's religious concerns of the moment, running the gamut of Eastern and Western religions.

INDICATORS SHOW PUBLIC LIBRARY SERVICES ARE ON THE UP

The annual Service Indicators in Local Authorities for 2006 has just been published by the Local Government Management Services Board (LGSMB). The 60 indicators across 42 headings were first published in 2004.The 4 indicators which are applied to the public library service are:

• Opening hours: the average opening hours per week for full-time libraries appears to have fallen slightly, from an average of 38.7 to 38 between 2004 and 2006 although this is, at least partially, due to a change in definition. Average weekly opening hours for part-time libraries rose slightly from 15 to 16.7 over the same period;
  
• Registered members: according to the data collated by the LGMSB, the number of registered members of public libraries has risen as a proportion of the local resident population from an average of 17.3% in 2004 to 21% in 2006;

• Items issued: the number of books issued per head of population rose slightly from 3.1 to 3.4. Other issues remain constant at 0.2 items per head;
  
• Availability and use of public Internet access points in libraries: overall this has not changed significantly since 2004 as continued investment in library services means that the vast majority of libraries now provide internet access for public use; usage, however shows a significant increase. Based on figures supplied, the libraries facilitated over 1.7 million internet sessions in 2006, an increase of over 18% on similar figures for 2004.

Service indicators in local authorities 2006: report to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government by the Local Government Management Services Board. – Dublin: LGMSB, 2007.

The report can be downloaded from:
http://www.lgmsb.ie/upload/documents/Service%20Indicators%20in%20Local%20Authorities%202006.pdf

Summer events in Oranmore Public Library

Here are some of the events taking place In Oranmore Public Library during August.

Wednesday August 8th: Juggling Workshop 2.30-4pm. Suitable for childrena aged 7-12. No experience or equipment needed. Everything provided. Booking essential.

Thursday August 9th: Arts & Crafts workshop 2.30pm-4pm. suitable for children aged 6-10. Booking essential.

Friday August 10th: Storytelling for children 12-1pm. with Clare Murphy. Active animated stories suitable for children agend between 4-6 years.

Conact the library on 091-792117 or email

Additions to Galway City Library

Readers may be interested in the following books which have been added to stock at Galway City Library:

Insatiability, by Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz
This novel, the author's masterpiece, is one of the greatest expressions ever of the tortured intersection of political and personal destinies in Eastern Europe. Witkiewicz was a gifted painter, poet, philosopher, dramatist, novelist, and wit. Here he creates a unique and fascinating hybrid: a novel of education grafted onto a stinging sociopolitical satire. The protagonist, Genezip Kapen, moves from youthful innocence and promise through the formative and transformative crucibles of sexual initiation (and confusion), drug addiction, madness, and murder. His own psychic and moral fragmentation evinces what his author perceived as the larger decline of his country.

Appointment, by Herta Muller
Romanian-born Müller offers a grim portrait of totalitarian life's squalor and pain. The sharp generational divide following the war and the dreadful ways in which people learn to cope with the Communist regime are threaded throughout—as are some lighter moments, shaky though they may be. Appropriately disorienting and tightly wound, this perfectly controlled narrative offers a chilling picture of human adaptation and survival under oppression. Sensitive, observant, unrelenting-and compelling, this book confirms her standing as one of Europe's greatest writers.

On the Nature of Human Romantic Interaction, by Karl Iagnemma
Iagnemma would seem to be a paradox: he's a notable author of short stories whose works have won a Pushcart Prize and a Paris Review Discovery Prize as well as a research scientist in the mechanical engineering department at MIT. In fact, these disparate aspects of his personality work together; he seamlessly blends the lyrical and the precise to create gemlike little portraits of individuals who seem suddenly to have caught their "reflections in a cloudy mirror." Iagnemma is pointed, but he isn't merciless; his empathy makes these characters live. A beautifully crafted collection.

Tuam Library news

Nowo Otwarty Dzial Polskiej Ksiazki! (Polish books Now Available)

Goraco zapraszamy Wszystkich czytelikow pragnacycfh czytac ksiazki jezyku polskim do wypozyczania ksiazek w publicznej bibliotece – Tuam Library.

(A selection of Polish books are available for borrowing from the Tuam Library)


Tuam Arts Festival runs from 17th – 26th August: A mixed media exhibition will take place in the Tuam Library. This exhibition is entitled ‘Snap!’ and will be broken into two parts, each running for a week. The first will feature artists Kevin Flanagan, Sinead Ni Bhaoil, Ben Geoghegan and Johnny Salmon who will exhibit ceramics, photography, film and drawings. The launch of this exhibit will take place on Wednesday 15th at 7.00 pm.
The second part of this exhibition will include the work of Sharon O’Grady, Mark Kelly, Joanne Hynes and Tom Flanagan who will exhibit paintings, prints and film installation. This part of the exhibition will be launched on Wednesday 22nd at 7.00.
Writing workshops and other events for children will also take place in the Library in association with the Tuam Arts Festival


Summer Events:
On Tuesday 10th July, a large crowd of children gathered to hear the magical stories from Galway based Storyteller Clare Murphy. Clare enthralled the children with tales from lands, far and wide. Clare amazed the children further with her juggling workshop. Over 20 children took part in making juggling balls from a mixture of flour, rice and balloons…it can be done!! She then proceeded to show the children how to juggle… Tuam seems to have many budding jugglers in its midst.
On Wednesday 11th July, an art and craft workshop entitled “Beautiful butterflies, gruesome grubs and beastly bugs” took place in the library. Nineteen children took part and made scary looking insects.
“If you go down to the woods today, you are in for a surprise…" a teddy bears picnic was held on Wednesday 18th July. Forty-six children arrived with their teddies to join in the fun!
On Thursday 19th July, 2 circus skills workshops took place in the library. Eimhin Shortt taught the children basis circus skills and played theatre games. Everyone who attended the workshops had lots of fun and lots of laughter could be heard in the library!

• Story-time takes place every Thursday morning from 11.30 – 12.30 for children aged between 3 and 8.
• Computer classes for retired people take place every Friday morning from 10.00 – 11.30.
• An exhibition of new works by the Nuala B. Higgins Art Group will take place from Tuesday 7th August to Saturday 11th August.
• Anne Harkin Petersen will open an exhibition on Tuesday 7th August at 7.00.