Christmas story telling in Ballybane Library

Here are some of the many happy faces at the Christmas Story Telling session that took place in Ballybane Library on Saturday 20th of December 2008 with Clare Muireann Murphy

Winning Young Poet from Ballybane

The Library
By
William Ikenna-Nwosu

The Library is my favourite place
There I always see a friendly face
In the Library there are a lot of books
But you cannot judge them by their looks

There are lots of books on the shelves
Some about fables some about elves
Lots about the human body
For the babies, some about Noddy

If you just ask me
It’s a wonderful place to be
You could go with your buddy
Instead of getting very muddy.

This poem was a winner in the Junior Poetry Competition which was held as part of Children’s Book Week during October in Ballybane Library.

Final Over The Edge: Open Reading of 2008

The final Over The Edge: Open Reading of the year will take place in Galway City Library, St. Augustine Street, Galway on Thursday, December 18th, 6.30-8pm.

The Featured Readers are Paula Gilbert, Denise Heneghan & Clare Muireann Murphy.

Clare Muireann Murphy is a professional storyteller. She has performed at festivals such as The Electric Picnic, Vienna Lit, Kilkenny Arts Festival, Baboró Children's Festival with Rab Swannock Fulton and Singapore Out of the Box Puppet Festival. Clare played Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in a solo show as part of the Tales for Winter series in November. Her repertoire includes the Irish myths and legends as well as many more tales from world folklore. She founded Story Night, the monthly story share gathering at the Spirit Centre on Nun’s Island. She is an Arts Foundation Fellowship nominee and a winner of the Social Entrepreneurs Award 2007 for her storytelling work.

Paula Gilbert is originally from Meath but moved to Claremorris, Co. Mayo when she was young. She has always loved writing and would love to write a book of short stories. She has attended John Corless’s Creative Writing Classes at G.M.I.T-Castlebar. She read her story ‘Mad Mooney’ at this year’s Force 12 Writers’ Weekend in Bellmullet. She is secretary of Mayo Writers Block, who won first prize at this year’s National Writers Group Festival in Longford.

Denise Heneghan is a social entrepreneur with a background in technical management and voluntary leadership. She started writing poetry four years ago, and has attended workshops facilitated by Geraldine Mills and Kevin Higgins. She is currently a member of the advanced poetry class at Galway Arts Centre. She has been a finalist at a number of Cúirt and Baffle Poetry Slams. She won third prize at Baffle 2005, and was shortlisted in the 2008 Over The Edge New Writer of the Year competition.

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. For further details phone 087-6431748.

French novelist Le Clézio wins Nobel literature prize

French author Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, a globetrotting novelist hailed as a child of all continents, has won the Nobel prize for literature.
"His works have a cosmopolitan character. Frenchman, yes, but more so a traveler, a citizen of the world, a nomad," Horace Engdahl, permanent secretary of the Academy, told a news conference to announce the laureate.

There are few modern writers more cosmopolitan than Le Clézio. He was born in France. His father was a Mauritian-born British doctor. He spent part of his childhood with his father in Africa and several years in the 1970s living with an Indian tribe in Panama. He now lives and teaches for most of the year in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He once said: "The French language is my only country, the only place that I call home."
His best-known book, written in 1980, is Desert, which contrasts the ugliness and ignorance of Europe, as experienced by immigrants, with the simple nobility of a lost Tuareg civilisation in the Sahara, destroyed by French colonialism.
The Swedish Academy said it had awarded Le Clézio the prize of 10 million Swedish kroner (£790,000) because he was an "author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, an explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilisation".

Ballybane Library

Here are some images of the activities that took place during the October 2008 Children's Book Festival in Ballybane Library

Oranmore Library Prize winners

Prize winners from the October Book Festival in Oranmore Public Library. Oisín and Ailbhe Doyle won prizes in the Art competition and Cian Mullan won a prize in the Writing competition. They received book tokens. Our congratulations go to them.

Ballybane Chess Club

Following a very successful chess tournament during our recent ‘Children’s Book Festival’ Ballybane Library decided to start a chess club for children in 5th and 6th class from local schools. Thirty two children from four schools – St. Michael’s Boys’ Mervue, Gaelscoil Dara, Brierhill N.S. and Scoil Náisiúnta Cholmcille – had participated in this tournament. Peter Healy from St. Michael’s was the overall winner and Brierhill N.S. won the team event.
The new Club meets on Fridays from 3.30 – 4.30p.m. at Ballybane Library and is suitable for children in 5th and 6th class. It is an informal gathering of children who can play chess to enable them to improve their skills in chess. To date fourteen children have signed up for the club. If other library branches set up similar clubs, then an inter library chess competition could be arranged.

Poet-critic, John Goodby, for November Over The Edge

The November Over The Edge: Open Reading will take place in Galway City Library, St. Augustine Street, Galway on Thursday, November 20th, 6.30-8pm. The Featured Readers are Elizabeth Power, Gordon Hewitt & John Goodby.

John Goodby is a poet and translator who lectures at the University of Swansea. His poetry has been described by Sean O'Brien as ‘bold and sensuous ... it reads like a chowder of names laced with methedrine ... at once lush and abrasive.’ John Goodby has translated Heine's Germany: A Winter’s Tale (2005), the contemporary Algerian poet Soleiman Adel Guemar, and is currently translating the work of Pier Paolo Pasolini. Among his latest publications are the first anthology of translations of Irish women poets into Spanish, No Soy Tu Musa and Uncaged sea (2008), a cut-up version of the Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas. He is the author of the influential Irish Poetry Since 1950: From Stillness Into History (Manchester University Press) and founder of Wales’s only poetry performance group, Boiled String.

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. For further details phone 087-6431748.

Recent opinions on the value of books, reading and libraries

Almudena Grandes, wrote last week in the Madrid newspaper El Pais that "true freedom is not to be able to say what you think, but is the power to think about what is being said."
And she continued: "Because an uneducated country is not a country of citizens, but of audiences, a country of audiences who will swallow everything."

And Rawi Hage, the Beirut-born writer, speaking after being awarded the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 2008 said:
"To all those librarians who currently and historically have gathered and diffused knowledge, beauty, and resistance, even as the waves of ignorance periodically cover words and stifle thought, I say: I am an admirer and an ally."

Age banding

The practice of indicating suitable ages for goods bought by or for children is rarely the subject of controversy. Apart from the children themselves, who always desire whatever happens to lie in the age bracket above, most adults find such advice helpful in avoiding potentially dangerous or inappropriate items.

But publishers' plans to introduce age ranging guidance onto children's books have met with fierce opposition from authors including Philip Pullman, Anne Fine and Michael Rosen.

The 'No to age banding' Campaign has been set up by writers and other professionals who believe that the proposal to put an age-banding figure on books for children is ill-conceived and damaging to the interests of young readers. The Campaign's statement and supporters are at: http://www.notoagebanding.org/

Galway City Library Summer Reading Programme...revisited

The Summer Reading Programme has been running in Galway City Library since the 1980's.
One of the interesting features of this years recent certificate award ceremoney was the attendance of a former particpant of the programme from the early years.
She is now a lecturer in pharmacology at NUIG and was one of the first to receive a certificate when it started over 20 years ago. This year she attended the awards with her niece, who completed the reading programme this year.
Her career success is evidence that reading is the gateway skill that makes all other learning possible.

Hallowe'en in Oranmore Library

Some fantastic and imaginative costumes were to be seen at the recent Fancy Dress party in Oranmore Library.

One of the prize winners, left, came as Jacqueline Wilson's Dustbin Baby!

Presentation Team Read Certificates in Ballybane Library

Some of the many participants at the celebrations recently held in Ballybane Library for the presentation of the certificates for 'Team Read' Summer Reading Programme

Con Tempo Quartet in Westside Library

The Con Tempo string quartet started off the 2008 Children's Book Festival activities in Westside Library. They played to 3rd and 4th classes from Scoil Bhride National School, Shantalla on Wednesday 08 October.

The children and teachers were thrilled by the instruments, the musicians and the music. Everyone present learnt something new, some even 'played' the violin and cello.

Oranmore October Book Festival School Quiz

Oranmore Public Library recently organised it's annual school quiz during the October book festival. 17 teams of 4 (68) children took part, with Craughwell National School (left) coming out on top this year and Lisheenkyle N.S the unlucky runners-up.

John Joe McDonagh Exhibition at Galway City Library

The City Library in Augustine Street is a public space in the city. It is a public space without obligations which is open to anybody. It is a space where anyone is free to come in and sit and read. The library occasionally houses art exhibitions.

Currently on exhibition is the work of John Joe McDonagh.

John Joe McDonagh was born in Galway. He started painting on entering The Tech on Fr. Griffin Road as a student and has been painting since.

John Mulhern was John Joe’s first Art Teacher. John Joe has many fond memories of Mr. Mulhern and his early painting days. The first year in school John got him to enter the Caltex Art Competition and JJ was rewarded with first prize in the Under 16 section. His prize was a box of oil paints and paint brushes.

Painting became part of his life. It still plays a big part in his every day life and most of his waking hours are spent with brush in hand. You name it, JJ paints it.

Boats and the sea were his first themes; then it was mountains, hills and valleys, rivers and lakes and the delights of the seashore. He finds painting very therapeutic and gets a great buss from it. He is a great student of art and had taught at Cregal Art and in Ivors of Terryland.

The exhibition of his work which is currently on display in Galway City Library is the product of his rehabilitation after having a leg amputated.

The exhibition continues until October 31st. If you are in the city be sure to make your way to Augustine Street and see this exhibition.

European Mobility Week in Galway City Library

Cyclecraft, published by The Stationery Office, London, is the definitive guide to safe and enjoyable cycling for both adults and children. The book was launched in Galway City Library as part of European Mobility Week.

Photograph shows the author John Franklin presenting a copy to Tom Browne, Library Staff Officer.

John Franklin, is a consultant and registered Expert Witness on cycling skills and safety and was a member of the reference group that set up the National Standard in the UK.

Westside Library Summer Party 2008

Westside Library held two parties to celebrate the summer reading programme participants last Saturday 04 October.
380 children joined the reading programme in July. They were encouraged to read 7 books during the summer. To show they had read the books; they either wrote book reviews or drew alternative book covers or spoke to the staff about the books at the weekly meeting. Weekly winners were chosen from the book reviews and art.
All of the winners received a prize at Saturday’s parties.
70 children attended the first party which was kicked off with a blast of songs from DJ Mike. He soon had everyone including the parents and library staff up dancing! There were some funny movers on the dance floor. Over 80 children attended the second party which everybody enjoyed. What a better way to spend a wet afternoon than disco dancing at the library.

Galway Mobile Library's 'TEAM READ' Winners

Below are some of the winning entries of our Summer Reading Challenge 'Team Read' which was organised by our Mobile Library.
The first image is from the 8 to 10 years 'Design a T-Shirt' category by Rebecca Sweeney.

The drawing below this is from the Under 7 years 'Favourite Sport' category by Vivian Forde.

Below are two of the winning entries of our Summer Reading Challenge 'Team Read' Book Reviews.
The first entry is the winning review in the Under 7 years category of Soggy Saturday by Phyllis Root. This entry is by Kaitlyn Lyons.

The winner of the 8 to 10 years category is Amanda Forde's review of Soccer Star by Michael Hardcastle is below. (Click on the images enlarge them)

Our congratulations go to everyone who took part during the summer.

Ability West Exhibition in Tuam Library

An exhibition of artwork by Team Products/Ability West has been exhibited in Tuam Library recently.

Last March, ten members of Team Products/Ability West took part in an eight week art course with Galway based artist Jim Kavanagh who very kindly devoted his time and expertise free of charge.

This initiative was organized by Tuam Library as part of Library Ireland week.

The exhibition was launched on Thursday 25th September with members of Ability West, their families and friends present. Pat McDonagh, one of the artists declared the exhibition officially open.

All artists were thrilled to see their work exhibited.

Over 30 members of Team products/Ability West also attend the library each Friday morning for drama class, which they thoroughly enjoy.

Gort Team Read Award Party

The Team Read Award Ceremony and Party took place at Gort branch library on Saturday 6th September, 2008.

61 children received Team Read certificates having successfully completed the summer reading challenge at Gort library.
Proud parents and siblings joined in the party and admired the exhibition ofbook reviews written by the children. A great time was had by all

Photos show the lucky winner, age 7 of the Team Read Prize-draw who went home with a book token to the value of €50


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Culture Night at Galway City Library

Following the successful completion of Tanya McCrory's Galway Dance Residency, the County and City Arts Offices have initiated a Dance Library Collection in Galway City Library.
The collection of over 80 dvds and books on Dance was introduced and launched on Friday night September 19th at 6.30 pm.

The event formed part of Galway's first ever 'Culture Night' when all art and culture venues in the city remained open late.
The Galway City Library remained open until 10.00pm.