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Temporary Disruption of the Library’s UK Electronic Legal Deposit Service

Group of electronic device users logging onto their devices

Please be advised there is a temporary disruption of the Library’s UK electronic legal deposit service, due to a technical issue. Content including e-books, e-journals and the web archive are likely to be unavailable for a number of days. The Legal Deposit Libraries are working hard to resolve the situation as soon as possible. We will keep readers updated during this process. If you require urgent access to a title available on UK eLD only, please contact library@tcd.ie for assistance.

Our electronic Legal Deposit collection is a shared endeavour with the other UK Legal Deposit Libraries. Our access to this content is via the British Library. Unfortunately, they are experiencing a major technology outage following a cyber-attack. The outage is affecting their website, online systems and services, and includes electronic Legal Deposit. They anticipate restoring many services in the next few weeks, but some disruption may persist for longer. Please see their blog  https://blogs.bl.uk/living-knowledge/2023/11/cyber-incident.html

for updates from them.

Legal deposit libraries of Ireland and the UK celebrate 10th anniversary of digital collecting

The six legal deposit libraries of Ireland and the UK, comprising  the Library of Trinity College Dublin, the British Library, the National Library of Scotland, the National Library of Wales, the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford and Cambridge University Library,  are celebrating 10 years of collecting and preserving digital publications today [6 April, 2023].

The Library of Trinity College Dublin is the only library on the island of Ireland that enjoys UK Legal Deposit status which entitles it to receive a copy of every item published in Ireland and the UK. It has enjoyed this status since 1801, enabling the Library to build an unparalleled record of our intellectual and cultural heritage for the benefit of students, researchers and visitors from near and far.

In 2013 these powers were extended from printed publications to include non-print (electronic) legal deposit, allowing readers to access websites, e-books, and online journals, creating an unprecedented collection of digital and online publishing which captures contemporary living. The commitment to electronic legal deposit has also provided access to the UK Web Archive, which holds millions of websites and over 100 curated collections including Brexit and the global Covid-19 pandemic, to name but a few.

Ranging from the most contemporary electronic collections to 19th century print collections, the impact of both print and non-print legal deposit for the island of Ireland has been significant.

  • In 2016, marking the centenary of the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland, the Library of Trinity College Dublin collaborated with the Bodleian Library and British Library to archive websites from both the Irish and UK web domains as they reflected on this pivotal moment in modern Irish history in the 1916 Web Archiving Project.
  • The Library of Trinity College Dublin has one of the most significant collections of Northern Irish publications published on the island of Ireland, including books, pamphlets and local history, especially relevant as we mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement also this week.
  • By the 1930s, the number of newly published books banned in Ireland each year was between 100-150, denying the Irish public the right to important Irish and international literature. Under Legal Deposit, the Library of Trinity College Dublin continued to receive these books and was able to provide access, albeit under very restricted conditions.
  • Legal Deposit enabled the collection of books by women authors from the 19th century onwards, both from Ireland and the UK. This helped to counteract collection bias and improved representation.

Commenting on its significance, Librarian & College Archivist, Helen Shenton said:

“Today, the Library of Trinity College Dublin together with our five legal deposit libraries in the UK, celebrate 10-years of digital collecting, which has enabled the creation of a seventh, transnational digital library for the benefit of all. It is also an opportunity to look back on the significant impact Legal Deposit has had over centuries, building an unparalleled record of our intellectual and cultural heritage.”

About Legal Deposit Libraries

There are six legal deposit libraries across in Ireland and the UK. They are:

The legal deposit libraries work together to ensure the long-term preservation of Irish and UK publications. They ensure that publications are held securely and that they can be discovered and accessed by readers. For further details on the 10th anniversary celebrations on digital collecting see British Library announcement.

Covidence ─ information sessions on the Library’s literature review tool

A student using a laptop to study

Are you about to undertake an advanced literature review ─ perhaps a scoping, rapid or systematic review, or a meta-analysis? Has your supervisor said you need to conduct a systematic search and then “screen” those results? Or are you a staff member or postdoc contemplating how you would do this efficiently?

If so, we have the tools to help. We recommend using Covidence to screen your results. In Trinity, we have a site licence to Covidence which means any reviews that have a Trinity member can use it. If you haven’t already, you can register for our institutional account in Covidence and create a blank review: instructions to register for Covidence.

And now we are happy to announce that the Library is holding two information sessions about Covidence, to be delivered by the people behind the software. Anyone at Trinity who wants to know more can attend.

The first one covers the basics:

Covidence 101 ─ Getting started (link)
Tuesday 21st Feb 2023 ─ 11 am (1 hour)

The Covidence training webinar includes a live demo providing an overview of the systematic review workflow and showcases some of the most popular features:

  • Settings
  • Importing
  • Title & Abstract Screening
  • Full Text Review
  • Extraction form version 2
  • Export
  • PRISMA

You’ll also get tips & tricks to jumpstart your progress, as well s the opportunity to get your specific questions answered.

The second one takes a detailed look at the Extraction stage:

Covidence ─ Data Extraction (link)
Tuesday 28th Feb 2023 ─ 11 am (1 hour)

This Covidence training webinar is a detailed overview of the Data Extraction stage and process. A live demo includes turning your protocol into an extraction framework in Covidence data extraction “version 2”, as well as the opportunity to get your specific questions answered.

Can’t make the sessions? We have comprehensive guidance on how to conduct systematic and related reviews to get you started, and don’t forget your Subject Librarian is available for consultations and advice.

Exploring The Library’s Databases – Research Treasure

Last term the Library was pleased to announce the purchase of 14 new electronic resources supporting multiple disciplines across the Arts and Humanities. We thought we would take a closer look at some of the collections, starting with the Gale Primary Sources, British Library Newspapers, Part II: 1800–1900 and Part III: 1741–1950, which provides 23 publications (nearly 1.4 million pages) from across the United Kingdom and Ireland to reflect the social, political, and cultural events of the times. Link – A-Z Databases: british newspapers

How does this archive help researchers?

Continue reading “Exploring The Library’s Databases – Research Treasure”

Reader’s Choice is now Reader Recommendation

Based on the popularity of the Library’s Reader’s Choice pilot scheme for books received under UK electronic legal deposit (UK eLD), the Library has extended the scheme’s scope and improved how it works in Stella Search. Under the pilot scheme, print requests were limited to specific publishers and publication years and were mediated by single-purpose, pre-loaded records in Stella Search. With Reader Recommendation, the UK eLD records themselves include the link to the recommendation form; purchased print copies will be requestable via new records for the print version. Of course, the Library continues to be under pragmatic constraints in operating the scheme, particularly the availability of the print titles from its suppliers, and the availability of funds. As before, it will monitor and review the scheme in the context of evolving collection development policies and practices.

New Research Methods Resource at the Library

SAGE Research Methods Core is a research methods tool created to help researchers, faculty and students with their research projects. It contains over 1000 books, reference works, journal articles, and short videos from SAGE’s renowned Research Methods list. Researchers can explore methods concepts to help them design research projects, understand particular methods or identify a new method to conduct their research, and write up their findings. Since SAGE Research Methods focuses on methodology rather than disciplines, it can be used across the social sciences, health sciences, and more.

Content includes 1,000+ books, reference works, journal articles, and short videos from SAGE’s renowned Research Methods list covering the entire research process and the full range of qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods used across all disciplines.

Continue reading “New Research Methods Resource at the Library”

Stella Search improvements

Pomodoro Sphere

Stella Search has got even easier to use! Finding books or other items that form part of our Library Catalogue Only collection is now more straightforward, as you can use the new tab Books & More on the Library homepage or in Stella Search itself. In Stella, you can flick between the default All Results, Books & More, or Articles & More, without having to rerun your search.

The Books & More tab searches for our print books, e-books, journals, subject databases, theses, DVDs, printed music… and more. You can now sort by the title or author surname, in alphabetical order, to make it easier to find the one you want. It *doesn’t* search within the millions of articles we have access to through our subscriptions – that’s what the new Articles & More tab in Stella does.

A search for "the Hobbit" within the new Books & More tab in Stella Search.
A search for “the Hobbit” within the new Books & More tab in Stella Search.

Most of these options were always there – but a little hidden, in the “facet” tickboxes at the side of the results. Those are still there. Don’t like the tabs? The default search (All Results) works exactly as it always has, with books and articles together.

Have feedback? Send us an email at library@tcd.ie with the subject “Stella Search tabs”.

Open Access Allocations 2022 (IReL)

In early 2021 IReL introduced a number of new transformative open access agreements.  This is a major development for the Irish research and publishing landscape and there has been an unprecedented uptake of open access publishing. To date IReL has enabled 24 such agreements across many disciplines, helping to ensure that Irish research is available to the broadest possible audience.

While some of these agreements allow unlimited OA publishing, several are based on a fixed number of OA articles per year, and in several cases our allocations for 2022 are due to run out in the coming weeks.  Once this happens, these publishers will cease offering immediate OA on publication without charges. From January 2023, they will resume offering OA with a fresh 2023 allocation. 

The agreements which will run out in the coming weeks are: 

  • Wiley fully-OA journals – from late July.  See items marked as “Wiley – fully OA journals” in the list.
  • Springer – from late August
  • ScienceDirect Elsevier – from late August

List of journals covered by the IReL agreements.

There remain alternative ways for you to make your work open access:

  • Submitting to the institutional repository, TARA (instructions).
  • If your publication was a result of funding, you may be able to use part of that funding to pay an article processing charge.

If you would like further information please contact publisherapproval@tcd.ie

IReL Open Access agreements update

In early 2021 IReL introduced a number of new transformative open access agreements. This is a major development for the Irish research and publishing landscape and there has been an unprecedented uptake of open access publishing. To date IReL has enabled 20 such agreements across many disciplines, helping to ensure that Irish research is available to the broadest possible audience.

While some of these agreements allow unlimited OA publishing, several are based on a fixed number of OA articles per year, and in several cases our allocations for 2021 are due to run out before the end of the year. Once this happens, these publishers will cease offering immediate OA on publication without charges. From January 2022, they will resume offering OA with a fresh 2022 allocation. 

Continue reading “IReL Open Access agreements update”