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
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 postgraduate 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.
After 30 years services, 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, deliver im-
provements in the Universi-
ty’s strategic areas of stu-
dent transition to University,
and 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 [email protected]
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.