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.

Newbery and Caldecott Awards 2007

American Library Association announces literary award winners:



John Newbery Medal For the most outstanding contribution to children’s literature.

The Higher Power of Lucky written by Susan Patron, is the 2007 Newbery Medal winner. The book is illustrated by Matt Phelan and published by Simon & Schuster/Richard Jackson
Three Newbery Honor Books were named: “Penny from Heaven,” written by Jennifer L. Holm and published by Random House; “Hattie Big Sky,” by Kirby Larson, published by Delacorte Press; and “Rules,” by Cynthia Lord, published by Scholastic.





Caldecott Medal winner Is awarded to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children.



Flotsam, illustrated by David Wiesner, is the 2007 Caldecott Medal winner. The wordless book is published by Clarion.

Two Caldecott Honor Books were named: “Gone Wild: An Endangered Animal Alphabet,” written and illustrated by David McLimans, and published by Walker, and “Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom,” illustrated by Kadir Nelson, written by Carole Boston Weatherford and published by Hyperion/Jump at the Sun.

First Over The Edge: Open Reading of 2007

The first Over The Edge: Open Reading of 2007 takes place in Galway City Library, St. Augustine Street, Galway on Thursday, January 25th, 6.30-8pm.

The Featured Readers are Elaine Feeney, Mary Mullen & Todd Swift. The reading is a special occasion for co-organisers, Susan Millar DuMars and Kevin Higgins, as it is the fourth anniversary of the series, which began in January 2003.

Elaine Feeney was born in Galway in 1979. She teaches English at St. Patrick’s College, Tuam. She has performed and read her poetry at various readings and festivals, including the Cuirt Festival Poetry Slam. Elaine has poems forthcoming in both The Shop and Nthposition.com. According to 2005 Patrick Kavanagh Award Winner, Dave Lordan: “Her performances are notable for their fearless confrontation with the controversial truth of women’s lives in the new Ireland.”

Mary Mullen is an Alaskan-born writer who has lived in County Galway for the last decade. Her work has been published in We Alaskans, Sunday Miscellany 2003-2004, The Stinging Fly, the Cork Literary Review, Galway Now, West47online, the Anchorage Daily News, and a chapbook ‘The Whole Building Could Be On Fire’. She is working on a collection of personal history essays and short stories. Mary is a graduate of NUIG’s MA in Writing.

Todd Swift is the Canadian-born author of three poetry collections, Budavox, Café Alibi and Rue du Regard. He currently lives in London. Todd is an editor of many poetry anthologies, including 100 Poets Against The War. He also compiled the recent audio CD Life Lines: Poets for Oxfam. His latest publication is Natural Curve, a pamphlet of poems from Rubicon Press, Alberta. He has co-edited a major collection of essays on Anglo-Quebec Poetry, Language Acts, to be launched spring 2007 in Montreal. His New and Selected Poems, 1987-2007, edited with an Introduction by Kevin Higgins, is forthcoming from Salmon Publishing in 2008.

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 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

On Friday, January 26th, starting at 8.pm., Aosdana poet and founder of the literary magazine, Cyphers, Macdara Woods will read from his work at The Imperial Hotel, Eyre Square, Galway. Admission is €8 and €5.

Born in Dublin City in 1942, he has been publishing his work since the early 1960s. His poetry collections include Decimal D. Sec Drinks in a Bar in Marrakesh (1970); Early Morning Matins (1973); Stopping the Lights in Ranelagh (1987); Miz Moon (1988); The Hanged Man Was Not Surrendering (1990); Notes From the Countries of Blood-Red Flowers (1994); Selected Poems (1996); Knowledge in the Blood: New & Selected Poems (2001) and The Nightingale Water (2001).

His work has been translated into more than one dozen languages. Two books of his poems have been published in Italian, Biglietto di Sola Andata (1998) and Con Pesaro City ai Miei Piedi (1999), which included an audio CD with readings by the author and music by the Italian group Militia.

In 1975, he co-founded the literary journal Cyphers with Eilean Ni Chuillean in, and Leland Bardwell and Pearse Hutchinson, and he continues to serve as its editor.

Galway County Council Arts Grant/Bursary 2007

Galway County Council promotes, develops and supports the vibrant Arts sector in Galway County and offers several grants and schemes annually, which groups and organisations can avail of.

PUBLICATION ASSISTANCE GRANT : This grant is to assist writers to publish their own original work. This grant is for new work and innovation in creative writing. Application forms are available from the Arts Office, Áras an Chontae, Prospect Hill, Galway Tel: 091 746875 or email: bcunningham@galwaycoco.ie Fully completed application forms for all of the above schemes/ grants must be returned not later than 4p.m. on Wednesday 31st of January 2007 to the Arts Office, Áras an Chontae, Prospect Hill, Galway.

TYRONE GUTHRIE AWARD This is a special bursary award for two artists, selected by open competition, to spend two weeks in residency at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Annaghmakerrig, the artists’ workplace in County Monaghan. Each bursary covers all board and lodging expenses for a two-week period, plus the use of a studio if necessary. This Award is open to all art forms. Application forms are available from the Arts Office, Áras an Chontae, Prospect Hill, Galway Tel: 091 746875 or email: bcunningham@galwaycoco.ie

Fully completed application forms for all of the above schemes/ grants must be returned not later than 4p.m. on Wednesday 31st of January 2007 to the Arts Office, Áras an Chontae, Prospect Hill, Galway.

Science Friction...

A machine that electronically stores 2.5 million books that can then be printed and bound in less than seven minutes is to be launched early next year. It prints in any language and has an upper limit of 550 pages. The 'Espresso' will be launched first in several US libraries. The company behind the project predicts that, within five years, it will be able to reproduce every book ever published.

The new machine as a technological innovation promises to revolutionize how we buy books. It allows printing and binding a single copy of a book at the point of demand without human interactions. Buying a book will eventually be very similar to getting cash from an ATM. You choose a title, insert a credit card to pay for the book -- and walk away with the finished book a few minutes later. On a global scale this would eliminate shipping and warehousing costs for books (thereby also eliminating returns and pulping of unsold books) and allow simultaneous global availability of new books.

This technology and process will produce one each of ten different books at the same speed and cost as it can produce ten copies of the same book. There are two machines currently deployed at the Library of Alexandria in Egypt, and at the World Bank InfoShop in Washington DC.

Final Over The Edge of 2006 in Galway City Library

Poets Medbh McGuckian, Hugh Doyle and Cate Huguelet read to a packed house at Galway City Library

New collection of Fr Browne photos published

Father Browne's Galway is the title of the latest set of Fr Browne's photographs to be edited by Fr E.E. O'Donnell, curator of the 42,000 photographs in the collection.
This is the nineteenth book of Fr Browne's photographs to be published, and the third to be published by Currach Press.

Father Francis Browne's photographs enjoy international acclaim. In this latest collection, he showcases the magnificent sights of Galway city and county, as well as her people and customs.There are some 42,000 photographs in the Father Browne archive. This is the third volume to be published by Currach Press, with Father Browne's Trains and Railways and Father Browne's Limerick, being the earlier productions

Frank Browne was born in Cork in 1880. In 1897 he toured Europe with his camera and on returning to Ireland joined the Jesuit Order. After his two years of noviceship, he attended the Royal University in Dublin where he was a classmate of James Joyce. He is mentioned several times in Finnegans Wake. He served as chaplain to the Irish Guards in World War I, after which he suffered poor health. Two years in Australia cured him. On his return to Ireland, his priestly work took him to practically every parish in Ireland. He won numerous photographic awards and died in 1960.

Medbh McGuckian to read at December Over The Edge

The final Over The Edge: Open Reading of 2006 takes place in Galway City Library, St. Augustine Street, Galway on Thursday, December 14th, 6.30-8pm.

The Featured Readers are Cate Huguelet, Hugh Doyle & Medbh McGuckian.

Cate Huguelet was raised on Chicago’s South Side and moved to Ireland in 2005. Her writing has appeared in various publications in Ireland and the US. Her collaboration with visual artist Emma Petterson featured in the 2006 Cúirt Document exhibition. After completing an MA in Writing at NUI, Galway, Cate has relocated to Cork, where she is working on a first collection of poems.

Hugh Doyle lives in Spiddal. He was a finalist in this year’s Cúirt Poetry Grand Slam and was also selected for Mark Doty's poetry master-class during the Cúirt Festival. He has read his work at the launch of the Oxfam Life Lines poetry CD during the Project 06 festival in Galway, at the Clare Island Festival and at the Newcastle Irish festival in the UK.

Medbh McGuckian was born in 1950 in Belfast. She is one of Ireland’s most critically acclaimed poets. She has been Writer-in-Residence at Queen's University, Belfast, the University of Ulster, Coleraine, and Trinity College, Dublin. Among the prizes she has won are England's National Poetry Competition, The Rooney Prize, and The Forward Prize for Best Poem. She is the author of twelve poetry collections; the most recent The Currach Requires No Harbours was published by Gallery Press earlier this year.

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 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, Poetry Ireland and The Arts Council

Post-Primary Essay Competition

An Chomhairle Leabharlanna in association with the Europe Direct Information Centres and The European Commission Representation in Dublin, is delighted to announce an essay competition for secondary school students for the prize of a trip to Brussels in April 2007.

Each of the eight centres will choose two winners from the essays submitted to them. There are two categories the first/second/third year category and the fourth/fifth/sixth year category.

Please submit all entries to your local Europe Information Centre –in Co. Galway they are Ballinasloe or Carraroe Libraries.

The deadline for submission of entries is by Friday 19th January 2007. The Essay can be written in English or Irish. Information on the competition and the essay theme has been circulated to all secondary schools by An Chomhairle Leabharlanna. Judging will be completed by each centre by 23rd February 2007 and winners will be announced by Friday 2nd March 2007.

Competition details and application forms are here

Libraries in the sand Manuscripts Are The Subject of Intensive Study

Researchers in Timbuktu are fighting to preserve tens of thousands of ancient texts which they say prove Africa had a written history at least as old as the European Renaissance. Private and public libraries in the fabled Saharan town in Mali have already collected 150,000 brittle manuscripts, some of them from the 13th century, and local historians believe many more lie buried under the sand.

The texts were concealed under mud homes and in desert caves by proud Malian families whose successive generations feared they would be stolen by Moroccan invaders, European explorers and then French colonialists. Written in ornate calligraphy, some were used to teach astrology or mathematics, while others tell tales of social and business life in Timbuktu during its "Golden Age," when it was a seat of learning in the 16th century. "These manuscripts are about all the fields of human knowledge: law, the sciences, medicine," said Galla Dicko, director of the Ahmed Baba Institute, a library housing 25,000 of the texts. "Here is a political tract," he said, pointing to a script in a glass cabinet, somewhat dog-eared and chewed by termites. "A letter on good governance, a warning to intellectuals not to be corrupted by the power of politicians."

Bookshelves on the wall behind him contain a volume on mathematics and a guide to Andalusian music as well as love stories and correspondence between traders plying the trans-Saharan caravan routes. Timbuktu's leading families have only recently started to give up what they see as ancestral heirlooms. They are being persuaded by local officials that the manuscripts should be part of the community's shared culture. "It is through these writings that we can really know our place in history," said Abdramane Ben Essayouti, Imam of Timbuktu's oldest mosque, Djingarei-ber, built from mud bricks and wood in 1325.

Experts believe the 150,000 texts collected so far are just a fraction of what lies hidden under centuries of dust behind the ornate wooden doors of Timbuktu's mud-brick homes.

Over the Edge - Galway City Library

The Over The Edge Open Reading Series, an evening of featured poets plus an open mic session, takes place once a month on a Thursday in Galway City Library (Hynes Buildings, Augustine Street) from 6.30-8.oopm. The next next reading will take place on 23 November.

The featured readers are Adrian White, Joan McBreen & Fiona Claire. 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 especially welcome. The MC for the evening will be Susan Millar DuMars.

Adrian White moved from Manchester to Galway in 1990. He has worked as abookseller, a barman, a painter and decorator, a removal man and a car park attendant. His first novel, An Accident Waiting to Happen, was published in 2004and his second, Where the Rain Gets In, came out in March 2006. Both are published by Penguin Books. Man Dog Bitch is the title of his third book.

Joan McBreen is from Sligo and now lives in Tuam. She edited The White Page - Twentieth Century Irish Women Poets (Salmon Publishing). Joan has published three collections of poetry; the most recent Winter in The Eye - New and Selected Poems, was published by Salmon in 2003. In 2004 she launched a CD, The Long Light on the Land - Selected Poems by Joan McBreen with Traditional Airs and Classical Music.

Fiona Claire is an actress and writer who lived for many years in Los Angeles, but recently moved to County Galway. She has worked in numerous television shows, including Third Rock From The Sun, Star Trek Voyager, and King of Queens, and in films such as L.A. Confidential, and Contact. She has written a collection of fables for adults, one novel and is working on a second.

Over The Edge is now also offering a manuscript appraisal service to new writers. Fiction and non-Fiction will be assessed by Susan Miller DuMars, while poetry will be critiqued by Kevin Higgins. For information about readings and script appraisal, tel. 087 6431748 or e-mail kphiggins@hotmail.com.

T S Eliot Poetry Prize 2006

The Poetry Book Society has announced the Shortlist for the T S Eliot Prize 2006, to be awarded to the writer of the best new collection of poetry published in 2006. Now in its fourteenth year, the T S Eliot Prize is 'poetry's most coveted award'

• Simon Armitage, Tyrannosaurus Rex versus the Corduroy Kid, Faber
• Paul Farley, Tramp in Flames, Picador
• Seamus Heaney, District and Circle , Faber
• W N Herbert, Bad Shaman Blues, Bloodaxe
• Jane Hirshfield, After, Bloodaxe
• Tim Liardet, The Blood Choir, Seren
• Paul Muldoon, Horse Latitudes, Faber
• Robin Robertson, Swithering, Picador
• Penelope Shuttle, Redgrove's Wife, Bloodaxe
• Hugo Williams, Dear Room, Faber

Judges Sean O'Brien (Chair), Sophie Hannah and Gwenyth Lewis chose the following ten collections: The judges will make their final decision on Monday 15 January 2007, when the prize of £10,000 will be presented by Mrs Valerie Eliot.

The T S Eliot Prize is sponsored by the broadcaster and supported by the T S Eliot Foundation.

2007 IMPAC Literary Award - Longlist

The International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award is open to works of fiction written in, or translated into English and published within a specified period of time.

The nomination process for the Award is unique as nominations are made by selected libraries in capital and major cities throughout the world. Participating libraries can nominate up to three books each year for the Award: the books must meet the criteria for eligibility which are distributed to libraries each year.

The longlist includes 138 novels which have been nominated for the 2007 award, with 28 of them works in translation.

There were nominations from 169 libraries around the world.

The Irish nominations, including Galway Public Libraries, are here

The short list will be announced on April 4th 2007 and the winner on June 14th 2007

The Ireland Life-Writing Archive

Many Irish people - and people connected with Ireland - have written (or are writing) about their lives. This is Irish 'Life-Writing'.
UCD is launching the Ireland Life-Writing Archive which will collect as much of this material as possible. It doesn't matter when or why you wrote about your life - we would like to include your writing in this archive. Material may be of any length, and in any written form - in English, Irish, or any other language.

The archive will include:

Life Stories/ Autobiographies
Personal memoirs
Diaries
Travel writing
Biographical Fictions

Anything written about life in Ireland will be of interest in the future. The Ireland Life-Writing Archive invites anyone who has written (or who has access to) reminiscences or life-accounts to join us in our project of preserving and archiving this valuable material. The texts you send us will be catalogued and preserved in UCD for the use of scholars and researchers; some material (only with your permission) may be published on the UCD website.

For further details, contact Dr Eibhlín Evans, The Ireland Life-Writing Project, School of English and Drama, USD Belfield, Dublin 4; tel. 01 7168530, e-mail eibhlin.evns@ucd.ie, or go to the website www.ucd.ie and follow the links.

Artist in the Community Scheme 2006

Twice yearly, the Arts Council offers grants to enable artists and community groups to work together on projects. The scheme covers all art forms. The Artist in the Community Scheme is managed by CREATE.

The aim of the scheme is to encourage intense collaboration between community groups and artists. The focus of the collaboration must be a project in which the members of the community group and the artists work together in order to realise an artistic project or an event. It is essential that consultation take place between the artist and the community group, so that both parties are involved in deciding on the nature of the project. Group ownership of the art should be maintained at every stage.

Phase One , the research and development award of up to €1,000, gives artists an opportunity to explore and develop a project in a community context. This work should constitute the preliminary stage of a project with the intention of eventually leading to a full length project. Any professional artist may approach a community group with a view to making an application for research and development. Equally, a group may approach an artist. However the research and development strand is an artist led initiative and as such artists make the application.

Phase Two is open to community organisations or groups who are planning a project of between 6 weeks and 5 months with a maximum award of €5000, and those who are planning a project of between 6 months and 9 months with a maximum award of €10,000. The artist and the community group must demonstrate that they have influenced each other significantly in the drafting of the project. It is the community organisation or group that makes the application to the scheme.

Further information Katherine Atkinson, CREATE Phone: + 353 1 4736600
Web: http://www.create-ireland.ie
Email: support@artsincontext.com

Eclectic trio of poets for October ‘Over The Edge’

Once a month Galway City Library hosts the 'Over the Edge' poetry reading evening. The October 2006 session takes place on Thursday the 26th between 6.30 and 8.00pm.
The Featured Readers are Yvonne Green, Brendan Murphy & Niamh Ní Lochlainn.
Everyone is welcome.

Yvonne Green lives in London, where she practised at the English Bar for 20 years before stopping to concentrate on her poetry. Her poems have appeared in leading UK poetry magazines such as Poetry Review, Magma, Modern Poetry In Translation, The London Magazine, European Judaism, The Jewish Quarterly and Arete. She has read her work at the The National Portrait Gallery, the Institute for Contemporary Arts and on BBC Radio 4.

Brendan Murphy was born in Liverpool to English parents and Irish grandparents. He is a graduate of Sheffield University, where he studied the History of Art, Film and Design. His first performance was a Saturday night slot with a friend at his local pub, with whom he developed an improvised repartee on the week’s news. Brendan has lived in Galway for the last eight years. He won the 2006 Cúirt Festival Poetry Grand Slam, and recently performed at the famous Green Mill in Chicago.

Niamh Ní Lochlainn grew up in Dublin with Irish as her first language, spending her summers in the West Kerry Gaeltacht. She has been living and teaching in Connemara for the last four years. She was a prize-winner in the 2005 Strokestown Poetry Competition and her first collection Guth ón dTobar, (A Voice from the Well) was short-listed for the Strong Award for Best First Collection by an Irish Poet at the 2006 Poetry Now Festival in Dun Laoghaire.

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 especially welcome.

The MC for the evening will be Susan Millar DuMars.

Over The Edge acknowledges the financial support of Galway City Council and The Arts Council

For further details contact Kevin Higgins on 087-6431748 or e-mail kphiggins@hotmail.com .