Mystery in Oranmore Library

Oranmore library recently held a day of mystery for its members. Borrowers were encouraged to borrow a book specially selected by the Library staff. There was a twist however- all the books were wrapped in brown paper so that library members had no idea what they were bringing home with them.

Adults and children alike willingly took the plunge and were pleasantly surprised to find books they may never have chosen by themselves. Many borrowers reported back that they found authors they had never heard of, or tried new genres such as poetry or biographies.

Don’t you love the feeling that you get when a parcel arrives in the post or somebody gives you a specially wrapped p

resent? Everybody was very excited to bring home their unique gift of a book specially selected and wrapped by our librarians in Oranmore.

Along with our mystery check out we also had a Good Reads

Wall. Library members were asked to add a post-it the wall of authors the loved and hated. We had three categories:

Treat; What would you read as a treat?

Challenge: What was your most challenging read?

Bargepole: What wouldn’t you touch with a bargepole?

Everyone loved taking part and our Bargepole Wall in particular generated lots of discussion and controversy.

Watch out for our next mystery day in the library coming soon!

Clifden Library - Write a Book Competition

Seven students of St. Caillin's National School in Aillebrack, took part in the "Write a Book" Competition 2011 Students range from 3rd to 6th Class. All seven books were presented to Clifden Library on Tuesday the 28th June.
The books will be on display in Clifden Library for the summer.

Outside Clifden Library with their Books;
Tadgh O'Neill - Ryans Story, Francesca Mc Donagh - Sweet Pea Valley, Grainne King - The True Story of Goldilocks, Amy Roberts - Amy's Favourite Foods, Eimear Roche - Animal Pourquoi Tales, Oscar Coneys- Max is Lost and Alone, Celia O'Neill - A Long Book of Poems & Short Stories

Eurochild Anthology launch in Galway City Library

24 Hours in Galway...City Library, Augustine Street

“Summer Reading Challenge”

Galway County Libraries are inviting all children to participate in the Summer Reading Challenge and discover the joy and pleasure of reading. This year’s theme is “Circus Stars”. Join the “Circus Stars” and get “Reading Stars”.

The Summer Reading Challenge takes place during July and August in all Branch Libraries and Mobile Library. It is free; all children have to do is go along to their local library and get their reading log card. It is not a race or competition, all you have to do is read and enjoy at least six books. There are selected books to help you make your choice. Reading Certificates and medals will be awarded to all children who reach the target of six books.

The Summer Reading Challenge focuses on the joy and pleasure of reading. Studies by the OECD show that children who read for pleasure are more likely to do better than does who don’t.

Last year over two thousand children were presented with Reading Certificates. The feedback from parents and teachers was very positive. Reading during the summer helps children retain and improve their reading skills. We are asking all parents and families to read with their children supporting and encouraging them.

For further information contact your Local Library or Library Headquarters 091- 562471 or email info@galwaylibrary.ie.

Ballinasloe Library and Europe Direct Centre Summer Reading and Arts Project

The Summer Reading and Arts project runs parallel with Ballinasloe Library and Europe Direct Centre's normal Summer Reading Club. The AIMS of this project are;

• To encourage an awareness and appreciation of Europe and European issues through exploring stories from different countries and cultures.
• To encourage an appreciation and interest in books and reading.
• To encourage tolerance and acceptance of difference.
• To have FUN!!
• To learn new creative skills
• To encourage personal and group development.

Participants/Numbers :Young people aged 7-11 yrs

Book Reading - Open Attendance
Wednesday Workshops - Max 15 per group.Booking is recommended

• Book Reading -Tuesday,12th July-11.30am-12.30pm
• Workshop 1 - Wednesday 3rd August-11.30-1pm
• Workshop 2 - Wednesday 10th August-11.30-1pm
• Workshop 3 - Wednesday,17th August-11.30-1pm

Programme Synopsis;

The Book Read session will introduce the theme of Tales of Europe and will include songs, movement, stories and folk tales from different European traditions/cultures.Wednesday workshops will introduce 2 stories in greater depth.The group will explore where the story comes from, the writer,original written language and relevant cultural traditions.Participants will be given the opportunity to design and create their own book cover relating to the stories using assorted papers,pens,collage materials etc. The designs will be exhibited in the library with information about the original text.

Writers will include Astrid Lindgren- Sweden, The Brothers Grimm- Germany,Hans Christian Anderson-Denmark, Tove Jansson- Finland, Alf Proysen-Norway as well as more traditional folk tales from Europe.

Social Inclusion Awareness Week 2011 - Deadline 15th July

Click on the image above to enlarge

Creativity and the Library

The Galway Ensemble in Residence, The Con Tempo String Quartet, performed this week in Portumna, Ballinasloe and Gort Libraries.

They provided the kind of experience for the public which Thomas Rehak, the Chief Librarian of the Municipal Library in Prague, referred to when he spoke at the MetLib Conference in New York last week.

Tomas Rehak said:

"The Public Library must be a place where people want to be. They must be beautiful places...living spaces...places where people can meet"

• We should support creativity
• We should inspire creativity
• We should promote creativity
• We should facilitate creativity

Libraries supporting those who want to understand the World and themselves

Contempo Quartet in Gort Library

Come hear the Galway Ensemble in Residence, ConTempo Quartet on June 15th in Gort Library @ 8:00 p.m.
Free Admission to all Concerts, and early arrival is advised.

The Galway Ensemble-in-Residence selected ConTempo Quartet to be the heart of a music development programme for Galway City and County. Based in NUI Galway, ConTempo began their residency in January 2003.

The residency is designed to bring a love of music to new people and new venues, and to enhance the experience of those already involved in music.

The Secret of Kells: Tuam Library

The Secret of Kells:

As part of the ‘One Book, One Tuam’ project, Midie Corcoran from Earwig Arts Festival, worked with Tuam schools to create a Giant Book of Kells, filled with stories of Finn McCoole and Irish legends.
The giant book is 6 foot in height and 4 foot in width and is on display in the children’s area.

3 Rivers Storytelling Festival

• Suzanne Hogan is a native Australian now settled in Athlone.She trained at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts and has worked in theatres internationally. She investigates via performance how people understand their culture and society through stories, play and dance.She has enjoyed a year long residency in Athlone’s Dean Crowe Theatre as well as several Director- in-Schools programmes as part of Westmeath County Councils Arts initiative. She has done several community projects for the Percent for Arts Scheme working with international choreographers Jeannine Maguire-Lowry and Rionach Ni Neill.

• Liz Weir has worked with all age groups for over thirty years promoting the traditional art for which Ireland is world famous. A children’s librarian by training, she now travels the world telling stories to adults and children, organising workshops on storytelling, and speaking at courses for parents, teachers and librarians. She was the first winner of the International Storybridge Award for “exemplary work in promoting storytelling between Ireland and other countries”. She is the director of the Ulster Storytelling Festival and has been a featured teller at major festivals in Ireland, England, Scotland and in the U.S.

• Danielle Allison comes from an educational background. She has worked with children in schools, libraries and festivals all over Ireland. Danielle tells a wide range of stories, which often involve audience participation. She is a founder member of The Dublin Yarnspinners .Now settled in Athlone, she is committed to bringing the t

raditional Artform of storytelling to the Midlands and is Director of the Three Rivers Storytelling Festival.

• Simone Schummelfeder grew up in the small German town of Beverungen Weserbergland. Her father inspired in her a love of stories early on. At university she learned the power of storytelling as a teaching tool. In 2006 she spent the summer studying with renowned Irish teller Liz Weir. She and her

sister are the authors of a book for children titled Ruprecht Storchschnabel -die Abenteuer des zu vorletzt Geborenen der Elfen (Rupert Stork-beak – The Adventures of the Last of the Last-born of the elves).

• Liz Warren, a fourth-generation Arizonan, is the direcotor of the South Mountain Community College Storytelling Institute in Phoenix, Arizona. She has performed nationally and in Ireland and England. Representing SMCC, she is the producer of the annual Mesa Storytelling Festival in Mesa, Arizona. Her new textbook, The Oral Tradition Today: An Introduction to the Art of Storytelling was published in 2008. Every summer she comes to Ireland to teach “The Irish Storytelling Tradition” as part of Mesa Community College’s Study Abroad Ireland Program.

• Aideen McBride often used storytelling in her at Primary School in Ballymun, Dublin,Now a full time storyteller She has told her stories at the National Museum in Dublin, Cultra Folk Museum in Belfast and at many, many

summer festivals. Her stories, sad and funny by turns, include yarns and folktales handed down to her by her father in Carlow. She loves to include her audience in the stories, many of which have a participatory element. Audiences of all ages will enjoy the spell Aideen weaves with her imaginative and warm delivery of these stories from the Irish tradition.

3 Rivers Storytelling Festival in East Galway Libraries

Like to try reading Finnegan’s Wake?!

A new Italian translation of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake was released in the last days and it returns to us an interesting point of view about the author.
Luigi Schenoni, President of “The James Joyce Italian Foundation”, says that Joyce is a genius: and his especial genius is linguistic; he plays with words like no one else.
The reader remains confused in front of all these strange words, phrases, unusual linguistic forms, abnormities and wonders.

Joyce, seen as an Irish revolutionary, loved the English language, but he was very aware that the languages spoken in the British and Celtic Islands were different (for example, Manx, Irish, Gaelic, Welsh…), and he knew that the language was an open system, in which you can mix all the languages with dialect, neologisms and dead locutions.

So, the language is life.

In the Finnegan’s Wake, we have to watch over not only Tim Finnegan, but the languages, for their internationalisation. Begin to read Joyce, for you will certainly be more intelligent, rich and alive.
In the Finnegan’s Wake, we have to watch over not only Tim Finnegan, but the languages, for their internationalisation. Begin to read Joyce, for you will certainly be more intelligent, rich and alive.

'Coffee and Craft' - Tuam library

Three ‘coffee and craft’ sessions took place in Tuam library over the month of May.

These mornings consisted of knitting, crochet and quilting demonstrations along with a display of work by Tuam Apostolic Work.
Large numbers enjoyed a ‘cuppa’ and a chat as they observed or joined in the crafts.

Guaranteed (money back!) "Boredom Busters “ book lists for Summer 2011 from Galway City Library

Click on an image to expand

Ballinasloe Library/Europe Direct Centre...Europe Day/Bealtaine and the European Year of Volunteering

Some of the events in Ballinasloe Library/Europe Direct Centre for the recent Europe Day/Bealtaine and the European Year of Volunteering....

The people involved were :

Kilconnell Art Group....who celebrated the evening with their teacher, Maura Warde. There was music, song and dancing also.

Wheelchair Association.....with members from Ballinasloe and Tuam who provided a fantastic display of beautiful pieces of stained glass, crochet, artwork, needlepoint ect.

Bisto Children’s Book of the Year 2011

Bisto Children’s Book of the Year & Éilis Dillon Award:
A Bit Lost by Chris Haughton

Judges’ Special Award:
The Heart and the Bottle by Oliver Jeffers

Bisto Honour Award for Illustration:
Mac Rí Éireann by Caitríona Hastins, Andrew Whitson

Bisto Honour Award for Fiction & Children’s Choice Award:
Taking Flight by Sheena Wilkinson

Shortlisted:
Dancing in the Dark by PR Prendergast
The Lunatics Curse by FE Higgins
The Owl and the Pussycat by Edward Lear, Angela McAllister,
Kevin Waldron
Prim Improper by Deirdre Sullivan
Tiny Little Fly by Michael Rosen
Up and Down by Oliver Jeffers

Journeys CreativeWriting Programme in Galway City Library

The Bealtaine Festival continues throughout May and Galway City Library will be the venue for the Journeys Creative Writing Programme. This Group meets through the weeks of May-June to celebrate Bealtaine and write spontaneously during the sessions in response to a variety of stimuli, covering a dizzy range of subjects .

9th May11-12.30pm

16th May 11-12.30pm

23rd May 11-12.30pm .

30th May 11-12.30pm

Anna-Marie Byrne of AgeActionWest, ph. 091 527831 will facillitate.

Moya Roddy reads in Inishbofin Library

Moya Roddy will read in Inishbofin Library on Saturday 7th May at 5:00pm. This is one of the events in the eleventh annual Inishbofin Community Arts Festival.

Her stories have been published by Penguin, Serpent's Tail and Arlen House. Her latest collection Other People, has recently been published by Wordonthestreet.

She collaborated with Pete Mullineaux on Butterfly Wings which was broadcast on RTE Radio in 2010.

Photography Course for Bealtaine 2011 in Oranmore Library

As part of the Bealtaine Festival 2011 Oranmore Library will hold a digital photography course.

• Get tips on how to take the best photographs.
• Learn how to utilise all the features on your digital camera.
• Learn how upload your photos onto a computer and save onto a memory stick for printing.
  
  

There will be an opportunity to exhibit your photos in the library at the end of the course.

The course will run for four weeks, every Friday from 9.30am to 11.00am starting on the 6^th of May.

Course Requirements: The course is free but you must have your own point-and-shoot digital camera.

Places are limited. To book a place ring Oranmore Library at 091 792117