The Giant Irish Deer which was donated by the Earl and Countess Dunrav-

en to the University of Limerick in 1971 returned to popular reading fol-

lowing some restoration work. He will reside in the Popular Reading Room

for now but will probably relocate to a more suitable environment follow-

ing LISB2.

The skeleton has been fully restored under the guidance of the leading

Irish Osteologist in Giant Irish Deer, Dr. Ruth Carden, National Museum of

Ireland and Kate Aughey, Cultural and Heritage Conservationist and Sven

Habermann, owner and manager of Letterfrack Conservation. The resto-

ration and consolidation includes the additional fabrication in wood and

epoxy resin (hand painted) of 14 ribs, dorsal ribs, parts of the sternum and

antler prongs that were absent from the original skeleton. So the elk will

be more complete and look better.

In this issue

The Irish Elk returns

1916 medal for display

Staff moves

Projects update

LISB2

Site investigation work for

LISB2 began beside the li-

brary in late June. Work on

the foundations is due to

start in September.

SOCIAL MEDIA

The library has a loyal follow-

ing on social media; almost

1,600 followers on Twitter -

about double that of NUIG

Library - with our Elk story in

August being our highlight on

social media this summer,

over 300 people viewed the

entry on Facebook.

Much of our Twitter and Face-

book activity is to promote

our collections and services.

You can join in by sharing and

liking our content from your

own account.

Summer 2015 staff update September 2015

The 2015 Quality Action Plan, drawn from the results of the library

survey, was produced by the Quality Review Group and approved

by the LMG. The library’s 2015 Annual Plan has been updated to

include these quality-focused improvements.

Planning and Quality

Daly family papers & the 1916 Rising

The Special Collections Department has acquired a collection of papers,

photographs and artefacts relating to the involvement of the Daly family

of Limerick in the 1916 Rising. The collection features material relating

to Edward Daly who was in command of a battalion of volunteers who

were stationed at the Four Courts during the Easter Rising. These items

will form part of the library’s Rising exhibition in March 2016 in the Hunt

Museum.

One of the items in the collection is a 1916 Rising medal, awarded to Éamon T de hÓir who participated in the Rising during the week com-mencing 23rd of April 1916. Only about 2,500 of these medals were is-sued. The medal will form part of the library’s Easter Rising exhibition in 2016. To read more about the medals, see http://www.irishmedals.org/1916-rising-medal.html

Preparing for the new academic year

Eight Peer Advisors were recruited to work in the library for 6 weeks to assist students. They are

from across the four faculties and are a mix of postgraduates and undergraduates. Pictured

above, from left to right: Carla Heeran; Niall Devitt; Mairead Long; Derval Cleary; Siobhan Brassil;

Robert McCarthy; Aaron Cusack; Edmund Ryan

Staff news

Michelle Breen was elected to

the UL Governing Authority as

a support staff representative

at the July 1st election. Michelle

will serve on the GA until No-

vember 2017. A celebratory

morning was held in the staff

room to mark this occasion, as

Michelle becomes the first li-

brary staff member to serve on

the Governing Authority in an

elected capacity.

With 30 years service, Gio Lynch retired in August.

Donna O Doibhlin has secured a new post at UCC Library

and will depart UL at the end of September.

Micheál Ó hAodha will for now be the faculty librarian for

Science & Engineering and Liz Dore will be the faculty

librarian for Education & Health Sciences with Catherine

Lee continuing to work in Information Services while re-

cruitment progresses for the vacancy left by Donna.

Joe Peakin left in August to take up a new role in Inflight

Dublin.

Collections project update

The Library Attendants have been conducting a major stock check

exercise since early July and in this two-month period they have

made excellent progress. Over two thirds of the Main Library (ML)

collections are now completed. This equates to c.130,000 records at

an average rate of c.650 items per day. The stock check will contin-

ue into term-time and once the ML collections are completed, check-

ing in the Store and the various sequences will commence. The pace

is likely to slow a little as term gets underway as the movement of

stock increases. Technical & Digital Services has been very sup-

portive in correcting records where errors with suffixes, barcodes,

class numbers etc. have been identified. The weeding phase of the

project will begin once the stock check is finished.

Michael Smalle is the new

Librarian for Student Engage-

ment & Success—the First

Year Librarian.

Michael will work in Infor-

mation Services, delivering

improvements in the Univer-

sity’s strategic areas of tran-

sition to University, and

student retention.

A design company called Iterate has been selected to conduct the web redesign work. The project

team of Caleb, Ciara, Anne & Michelle, along with Gobnait, met the selected vendor in August and

communications will issue in due course regarding progress and testing opportunities.

UL will host a WB Yeats conference in October and the library will be involved in

some of the conference events

http://www.internationalyeatssociety.org/conference

The Cataloguing and Metadata Group of the LAI and the Western Regional Section of the LAI are or-

ganising a joint training session on RDA (Resource, Description and Access). The training session will

take place in UL Library on Thursday, the 24th of September.

Coming up . . .

Summer 2015

Glucksman Library staff communications

Prepared by the Administration Department

Feedback to Michelle.breen@ul.ie

The ANLTC is organising an Innovation Day at Maynooth University on

October 8th. The theme is New Spaces and New Models for

Frontline Services. This will include a guided tour of the new library

and some short talks on customer service provision.

A staff night out will take place on September 18th at the Castletroy Park Hotel to mark Gio’s retire-

ment. Kathleen is organising the event and all are welcome.