Library Ireland Week events In Galway Public Libraries

Loughrea Library
Spring Concert - Sunday 1st March @ 7pm. Concert of classical music, the second in the series, including Bach, Mozart & Debussy by local musicians. Admission is free.
Toddler story time - Thursday 5th March @ 11am. A 45 minute session of story time and colouring for toddlers with a member of library staff.

Ballybane Library
Seminar is entitled “Life Balance” and is a presentation by Oranmore based Life Coach Rachael Hewetson. Wednesday 4th March at 11.15am.

Galway City Library
'ConTempo Quartet Lunchtime Concert' - Tuesday March 3rd at 1.10 p.m A free lunchtime concert by Galway's Ensemble-in-Residence ConTempo. ibrary, Hayden Sun Quartets Op.20 no. 6. "A group set on pushing the interpretative envelope...full of imaginative daring." The Irish Times
An Taisce's "Spring Into Action"- An exhibition to celebrate the work if Galway schools involved in the first year of the national rollout of An Taisce's Green Schools Travel Programme. Throughout the week.

Gort Library
11.30am Wed. March 4th - Gort Reading Circle will be having an open discussion on “The Book Thief” by Martin Zusak

Portumna Public Library
Book Club Meeting - Monday 2nd of March at 7.15pm to discuss 'The Olive Farm' by Carol Drinkwater.

Westside Library
Westside People Reads - Tuesday 03 March @ 6.30 pm where Westsiders will share their favourite books with other readers. Come along and either participate or enjoy the suggestions. The event is free and all are welcome.

Plenty more of events are being held thoughout the county, so check with your Galway local public library. More details will be posted here soon. All events are free.

Over The Edge: in Galway City Library

The February ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ takes place in Galway City Library on Thursday, February 26th, 6.30-8.00pm. The Featured Readers are Hajo Quade, Marie Cadden & Geraldine Mitchell.

Geraldine Mitchell from Killadoon, Louisburgh, was awarded the prestigious Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award in November 2008. This award was previously won by now established poets such as Paul Durcan, Pat Boran, Eíleain Ní Chuilleanain and Joseph Woods.

Hajo Quade was born in Germany but has lived in Galway since 1989. He took up writing in 2007 when he did a number of creative writing classes with Susan Millar DuMars. He was runner-up in the 2008 Over The Edge New Writer of The Year competition.

Marie Cadden was reared in Dublin and the North of England. She has lived in Spiddal, Co. Galway since 1977. She was a teacher of deaf children and children with autism, retiring last year.

Away with Words in Ballybane library

Events at Gort Public Library

Gort Reading Circle for adults takes place in the library at 11.30am on the first Wednesday each month. The Reading Circle is a friendly, informal discussion group for people who wish to share their love of literature. Each month the reading circle members choose a particular title for discussion.

Storytime for Preschoolers takes place in the library at 12.00 every Friday

The Forge Literature Festival will be taking place in Gort during the last weekend of March. The Forge Literature Festival is organised by the Galway Writers’ Centre. Author Readings and Workshops will take place in venues throughout the town of Gort between Fri. 27th and Sun. 29th March 2009. As part of the Forge Literature Festival, Gort Public Library will be hosting a children’s reading with Gabriel Fitzmaurice at 12.00 on Saturday 28th March and an adult reading by controversial archaeologist Michael Gibbons at 3.00pm on Saturday 28th March. Admission is free and all are welcome.

Upcoming events for April 2009 at Gort Public Library include a Chamber Music Evening at 7.30pm on Sunday April 5th and Exhibitions by Local Artists. Details will be posted closer to the time.

Library Ireland Week

Library Ireland Week will take place from 2nd to the 8th of March 2009.

The first Library Ireland Week took place in 2005. In an effort to promote the work of Librarians and Libraries, the Library Association of Ireland (LAI) co-ordinates events and activities, with the help of libraries and information units all over Ireland.

Posters, bookmarkers, a logo and a website will all feature in this year’s publicity campaign.

Galway Public Libraries events and activities will be posted here.

Public Lending Remuneration Scheme

The Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government has announced recently that it has launched the Public Lending Remuneration Scheme in respect of the public library service.
The Scheme, which will be administered by An Chomhairle Leabharlanna (The Library Council) with the co-operation of the local authority library service, will provide that qualifying authors, whose books are loaned by public libraries, will receive remuneration in respect of such loans.
Under PLR, a payment will be made to registered authors, resident in the European Economic Area (EEA), in respect of books registered with the PLR and loaned by public library authorities.

Authors are required to register with An Chomhairle Leabharlanna, providing an address and bank details, etc. Details of books registered will be entered into an author/title database and checked against bibliographic databases for accuracy. Authors are required to register each title and each edition of each title for which they are claiming payment.

Public library authorities will provide An Chomhairle Leabharlanna with loans data, giving details of the number of times each book in their collections is issued during a specified period.

At the end of the PLR period, the loans data from each authority will be matched to the author/title data and a list of authors whose books have been loaned, and the number of issues of each, will be produced. Authors will then be notified of the amount they are to receive and payments will be made.

Payment will be made to authors in respect of their contribution to the work for which the payment is due. The scheme will allow for the percentage of the payment to be made for various levels of contribution, which include, inter alia, contributions such as sole author, joint author, editor, translator, and illustrator.

The rate of payment will be set each year and will be the product of the total number of loans for which a payment is due, divided by the total amount available. Illustrators, photographers, editors and translators may all register for PLR (providing they are named on the title page of a book).

Pictorial Allsorts in Ballybane Library

“Pictorial Allsorts: (The Story so Far)” an art exhibition by local artist Terry Smith, is on display in Ballybane Library from Saturday 31st January to Saturday 28th February inclusive. The exhibition chronicles Terry’s work over the last eight years since he began painting.

It is a stunning mixed media exhibition featuring many local landmarks including Merlin castle, Ceannt station and views of Galway canal. Terry is well known as a musician and is clearly a man of many talents.

The exhibition was formally launched on Saturday 31st January at 2.30pm in Ballybane Library. The distinguished author, John Arden, launched the collection and praised Terry’s inspiration and talent. John Arden also commented on the wonderful facilities and welcoming ambience in Ballybane Library. The library is a community library in the true sense of the word.

The exhibition may be viewed during library opening hours Tuesday to Saturday, 11am to 1pm and 2pm to 5pm.

RTE visits Tuam Library as part of One Book, One Tuam initiative.

On Tuesday 20th January, RTE filmed some of the workshops taking place as part of ‘One Book, One Tuam…From Tuam to Terabithia’ for The Den. Midi Corcoran of Earwig Arts Festival performed a drama workshop with the children. Midi read from ‘Bridge to Terabithia’ and the children acted out scenes from the book. Leo Moran from the Sawdoctors talked to the children about how much he enjoyed the books and sang some of the songs included in the book.
As it was the day of Barack Obama’s inauguration, it was interesting that these songs included ‘This land is your land’ and ‘Free to be, you and me’

‘This land is your land …
‘Nobody living can ever stop me
As I go walking,That freedom highway
Nobody living can make me turn back
This land was made for you and me…

And also ‘Free to Be You and Me…

‘I see a land bright and clear
And the time’s coming near
When we’ll live in this land
You and me, hand in hand…

Workshops will continue in the library over the next few weeks. A website has also been created for the project http://www.onebookonetuam.com/