'New Books' feature added to online catalogue

We've added a new feature to the online library catalogue (the OPAC). "New Books and more" uses the Featured Lists module of the Millennium Library Management System, and allows us to create and publish lists of new books etc. Follow the link under 'My Account' or click here to see books added to the library stock in May of this year. More lists will follow shortly.

Quest Seekers - the 2009 Summer Reading Challenge

Great news for parents! Libraries across County Clare are getting ready to welcome children into a fantastical adventure that will keep them reading throughout the school summer holidays....with the 2009 Summer Reading Challenge. The Summer Reading Challenge is an immensely popular and successful reading initiative which reaches hundreds of primary school children all over the county every summer. Originally created by The Reading Agency in the UK, the independent charity working to inspire more people to read more, it is now an annual event in Clare County Library’s programme for children. Each year the Summer Reading Challenge to children is simple. They’re encouraged to read six or more books of their choice during the holidays with collectable incentives and rewards, plus a certificate or medal for every child who completes the Challenge. Children can sign up at their local library from July 1st 2009 and all materials are absolutely free. The 2009 Summer Reading Challenge has a fantasy theme. Called Quest Seekers, it will take young readers into a mysterious and wondrous land where they can discover the joy of reading and nurture a life-long love affair with reading and books. The adventure starts in their local library, where young Quest Seekers are challenged to complete three stages to their quest. They will be issued with promotional materials including stickers, bookmarks, magic pens etc. as they read through the Summer. An interactive Quest Seekers website will launch in mid June (www.questseekers.org.uk) linking children with top authors and illustrators, and giving them space to talk about their favourite books and take part in on-line Quest Seeker games and activities. Quest Seekers also promotes their local library as a place of wonder for children, where librarians can offer them invaluable advice and guidance to help them through their quest. Clare County Library invites parents and teachers to help children become more enthusiastic about reading, maintain their reading level in the term ahead and return to school feeling confident and ready to learn more. Through this fun exercise Library staff hope to build on the love of reading that has been fostered in co-operation with schools during term time and to continue the promotion of books and libraries as an enjoyable and worthwhile activity throughout the summer.

Trim Swift Festival - July 2nd to 5th

Trim Swift Festival is an academic and cultural event celebrating the life, works and legacy of Jonathan Swift, and his close connections with the town of Trim, County Meath. It is open to academics, students and the general public with the aim of bringing together experts and enthusiasts in an atmosphere of scholarly but informal discussion and debate. The academic strand of the festival features a programme of six speakers, internationally recognised for their work on Swift and eighteenth-century literature. Each speaker will present on a topic relating to their research and each lecture-talk will be followed by a question-and-answer session. The festival will also feature a series of debates and discussions on Swift's legacy as a satirist, led by notable figures from politics and the media, children's entertainment, comedy and tours of important sites associated with Swift, including Stella's cottage. There will also be evening entertainment in the form of dramatic performances, readings, music and song, and a closing cabaret. For full details on the festival see www.trimswiftfestival.com

WOW Transatlantic Reading Challenge 2008/2009

Clare County Library’s ‘WOW’ Transatlantic Reading Challenge began in November 2008 for the third consecutive year. 29 schools from County Clare took part in the reading partnership involving schoolchildren, their teachers, librarians and An Garda Siochána, which ended in April 2009.

Children in Ballycar, Ballyea ,Ballyvaughan ,Bansha, Cahermurphy, Clouna, Coolmeen, Coore, Cratloe, Crusheen, Doonaha, Furglan, Holy Family Junior School, Ennis, Inagh, Inch, Kilbaha, Kilfenora, Killaloe, Kilnamona, Kilshanny, Lahinch, Lisdoonvarna, Moveen, Mullagh, Quin, Rockmount, St. Aidan’s National School, Shannon, St. Conaire’s National School, Shannon and Tubber read thousands of books over a six month period in an effort to be named the best readers in the world.

Three schools from Canada, the home of the Adopt-a-Library Literacy Project came first, second and third in the overall competition with two Clare schools, Lahinch and Furglan coming 4th and 5th respectively. These two schools had performed exceptionally well in last year’s competition, reading the most in Clare as they did again this year. They also achieved 2nd and 3rd place in the worldwide competition last year, which so far has been taken up by schools in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. Bansha National School came in at a very strong 10th position in this year’s overall competition and in third place in County Clare.

Clare County Library would like to congratulate these and all the schools who joined the Reading Challenge this year and also to extend its thanks to Sergeant John Staunton, Ennis Garda Headquarters who has provided continued support for the project over the last three years. Library staff and members of the Clare Garda Division visited participating schools during the six-month project to promote the benefits of reading. The Reading Challenge was established ten years ago by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police as part of the Adopt-a-Library Literacy Program. The program was developed to combat youth illiteracy in the hope of reducing crime levels in later years. With this aim in mind, all involved worked together to endorse the virtues of reading and to promote the benefits of library usage in County Clare.

Individual children and all schools in the County can avail of free library membership and we would like to invite all schools who have not taken up the offer to join, to do so in the coming months. Local libraries are an invaluable resource making available an excellent collection of books that can be exchanged throughout the school year thus providing a new selection for children and teenagers to choose from, on a continuous basis. This facility is of particular importance in the light of Department of Education and Science’s abolition of the Books for Primary Schools Scheme earlier this year.

The thirty schools who participated in the ‘WOW’ Transatlantic Reading Challenge 2008/09 were Kilmihil , Ruan, Cooraclare, Clouna, Bansha, St. Senan’s National School, Kilrush, Inch, Furglan, Tulla, Ennistymon, Rineen, Feakle, Cratloe, St. Senan’s National School, Shannon, Moyasta, Doora, Coore, Doonaha, Newmarket on Fergus, Flagmount, Ballyvaughan, Corofin, Burrane, Moveen, Quin, St. Conaire’s National School Shannon, Connolly, Dromindoora, Tubber and Lahinch.

Walking in the West of Ireland

The website Walking in the West of Ireland features a number of walks with directions, maps and images along each route in County Clare. Walks covered to date include a Mullagh More loop walk; Abbey Hill loop walk; Cliffs of Moher Walk; Gleninagh loop walk; Burren Way Green Road above Fanore, and the Burren Way Green Road over Poulacapple. Well worth a look as the summer approaches and the wild uplands of North Clare beckon.

Franciscans Celebrating 800 years, 1209-2009

“Franciscans Celebrating 800 years, 1209-2009”, an exhibition to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the Franciscan Order, is on show in the Civic Offices, Clare County Council, New Road, Ennis until mid June. The exhibition demonstrates the history of the Franciscan Order and its arrival to Ennis around 1250. Exhibits on show include the Moriartus O'Gripha Chalice from the Franciscan Friary, Ennis, 1671; Francis Molloy's Lucerna Fidelium, (Lochrann na gCreidmheach), (1672); and Francis Molloy's Grammatica Latino-Hibernica, (1677), a Latin Irish grammar printed in Rome and subsequently used by the friars in the Friary in Ennis. This was the first printed Irish grammar. O' Molloy studied for the priesthood at St. Isadore's in Rome in 1638. The grammar has the Ennis friary library stamp and manuscript notation, with shelf number and label.

Lifetime Reads

The Irish Independent’s Lifetime Reads series of modern classics was launched on Saturday, April 25 and will continue for 19 weeks. This new collection includes some of the great books from the past half century. These are books we should all read before we die, one reason why the collection has been called Lifetime Reads. The collection was selected by the Irish Independent with advice from the acclaimed author Colm Tóibín. The promotion offers readers the opportunity to collect 20 of the most cherished and enthralling classic novels of the past 50 years. From Breakfast at Tiffany's to One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, the series will appeal to all book lovers and those seeking inspiration on what books to read during the long summer evenings ahead.

The Books:
The Old Man And The Sea, Ernest Hemingway
Schindler's Ark, Thomas Keneally
Breakfast At Tiffany's, Truman Capote
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey
Lord Of The Flies, WilliamG olding
One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich, Alexander Solzhenitsyn
The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
The Human Factor, Graham Greene
The Ice Age, Margaret Drabble
A House For Mr. Biswas, VS. Naipaul
The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark
Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
The Late Bourgeois World, Nadine Gordimer
Beloved, Toni Morrison
Friend Of My Youth, Alice Munro
Jeeves In The Offing, P.G. Wodehouse
The Talented Mr Ripley, Patricia Highsmith
Age Of Iron, J.M. Coetzee
The Day Of The Jackal, Frederick Forsyth

Record Number of Entries for the 2009 Cork City - Frank O’Connor Short Story Award.

The growing popularity of the Cork City - Frank O’Connor Short Story Award, one of the world’s richest literary prizes and the largest for the short story, means that this year’s longlist will be the last presented under the old rules. The longlist consists of all eligible titles entered for the award. There are fifty-seven titles on this year’s longlist. Leading names on the list include Booker winner Kazuo Ishiguro, Orange Prize winner Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, multiple prize-winning poet Sean O’Brien and previously short-listed authors Philip O Ceallaigh and Charlotte Grimshaw. British and American authors account for thirty-two entries between them. This year also brings a strong showing by writers from developing countries, with entries from India and Africa. Entries in translation also figure strongly with titles by Catalonian, Estonian, Dutch, German, Icelandic and Macedonian authors. This year the Frank O’Connor International International Short Story Award is being renamed The Cork City – Frank O’Connor Short Story Award, in acknowledgement of Cork City Council’s generous funding of the award. At €35,000 the award is the largest in the world for the short story form and monetarily is greater than the Costa Book of the Year Award and the Orange Prize. Cork City Council funds the award in recognition of the city and region’s association with world-class short story writers such as Frank O’Connor himself, Elizabeth Bowen, Sean O’Faolain and William Trevor. The shortlist of six will be decided in late June with the winner announced on September 20th at the close of the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Festival in Cork.

Most borrowed books in Irish libraries in January 2009

The ‘most borrowed statistics’ are compiled by the PLR Office from data provided by public library services around the country.
Most borrowed books in Irish public libraries in January 2009:

1. The Official Driver Theory Test - Prometric/Road Safety Authority
2. This charming man - Marian Keyes
3. Heart and soul - Maeve Binchy
4. Someone special - Sheila O’Flanagan
5. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling
6. Horrid Henry and the mega-mean time machine - Francesca Simon, illustrated by Tony Ross
7. Forgive and forget - Patricia Scanlan
8. Horrid Henry and the bogey babysitter - Francesca Simon, illustrated by Tony Ross
9. This year it will be different - Maeve Binchy
10.My sister Jodie - Jacqueline Wilson, illustrated by Nick Sharratt

New exhibition by Musa Engelbrecht at the Russsel Gallery

Life, Love, Loss & Remembrance is an exhibition of new paintings by Musa Engelbrecht opening at the Russell Gallery, New Quay, on Saturday 23rd of May at 6.00pm. To mark the occasion the Gallery will host a wine reception and the official launching will be performed by renowned author Ré Ó Laighléis, a writer of children’s, teenage and adult fiction in English and Irish, his novels and short stories have been widely translated into various languages and he has been the recipient of many literary awards. According to the gallery, “this latest exhibition of the work of Musa Engelbrecht is a stunning collection of oils and acrylics, a body of work of small and larger pieces capturing particular moments of Musa’s life over the last year and which will include a vibrant series of scenery from the south of France where the artist spent some time.” The exhibition will run until the 21st of June. The gallery is open every day. For further information telephone 065 7078185 or visit www.russellgallery.net/