Celebrating Open Access Week – An Leabharlann opens its pages!

Guest post by Jane Burns, (@JMBurns99), Research Officer, Royal College of Surgeons, and Occasional Lecturer, SILS, UCD.

An Leabharlann is the professional journal of the Library Association of Ireland. It has for a significant number of years been the voice of the Irish library community. The journal is peer reviewed and is published twice a year. An Leabharlann is fully electronic and is available to read and download from the Library Association of Ireland’s website here.

The journal provides opportunities to read articles by fellow librarians and to keep up to date with our professional developments. It is uniquely Irish and it is our own. The Editorial team of An Leabharlann is made up of volunteers involved in all parts of the reviewing, research and publication process. Marjory Sliney is at the helm of the Editorial team, she is a now retired librarian who has a lifetime of experience and expertise in our profession. (editor@libraryassociation.ie).

All members of the profession including students are encouraged to submit articles, book reviews or news using the submission guidelines found in the front cover of the publication. Over the years I have been lucky to be involved in this publication as the Business Manager and have been delighted to see the content develop from strength to strength. It is fantastic to see the interest in the publication with global subscribers and LIS professionals all over Ireland.  

With the growing trend and support by librarians to provide, where possible, open access to articles and research, An Leabharlann has now followed suit.  This decision was taken recently by the Executive Council of the LAI.  Now all issues are OA with the exception the most recent issue - this is one of the many benefits of LAI membership as only members can view the most recent issue.

An Leabharlann provides us all with an opportunity to publish and research articles in an Irish environment. With the move to OA contributors to An Leabharlann will now have a much larger potential global audience. Collectively and individually it provides us with opportunities to demonstrate to this audience the fantastic, innovative and professional work that we do here, to network on a global scale and to identify collaborative research endeavors.

There are two other significant events taking place in Dublin this week to mark Open Access week 2014: the RIAN research meeting taking place on Thurs October23, 2014 and a TeachMeet organised by Repository Network Ireland on Friday, October 25, 2014.  The keynote speaker for the Repository Network Ireland event “Open Access in a Changing World” will be given by Dr. John B. Howard, University Librarian, UCD (@John_B_Howard).

Anyone attending either or both of these events might want to consider writing an article about the state of play of OA in Ireland for the next issue of An Leabharlann. Details of both events are below.

I am looking forward to more and more colleagues becoming involved in writing and publishing about the work that they do. Keep an eye out for the fantastic writing tips and courses that Helen Fallon (@helenfallon) from Maynooth University promotes via her blog; many participants in these courses go on to publish in An Leabharlann.

RIAN Event:
RIAN is the national open access portal for Irish research publications. There will be a RIAN open meeting on Thursday 23rd October in Dublin. Anyone with an interest in repositories and contributing to RIAN is welcome to attend. Please RSVP to doreen.odonovan@ucc.ie as spaces
are limited.

Repository Network Ireland Invites You to a TeachMeet
North Training Room, Berkeley Library, TCD, Dublin
Friday, 24th October 2-5pm

The Keynote on Open Access in a changing world will be given by Dr. John B. Howard, University Librarian and Adjunct Professor, UCD School of Computer Science and Informatics, UCD James Joyce Library, University College Dublin. There will also be presentations on e-Deposit Ireland, Open Access – the European Dimension, the results of the Lenus Survey and a Researcher's Perspective on Finding health information.

This event is free, but please reply to this email to repositorynetworkireland@gmail.com to register. Find out more about RNI at http://rni.wikispaces.com or follow on Twitter @RNIreland.