Pictured: Karen Jones, Registrar Designate; Deirdre Giblin, Director of Development and External Engagement; Mary Buckley, Librarian; John McGarrigle, Registrar; Norma Smurfit; Gina Quin, President of NCI
Gina Quin, President of National College of Ireland, was delighted to welcome Norma Smurfit to the IFSC campus, to visit her namesake Norma Smurfit Library, and for the specific purpose of launching NORMA, an e-repository of theses and research produced by NCI staff and postgraduate students.
This digital archive both showcases and supports the work of NCI staff and students. Multi-media friendly, NORMA currently makes 4,321 items available - and globally searchable; 2021 has already seen nearly 1.9 million downloads worldwide.
Built in-house by NCI’s librarians, using Eprints open source software, NORMA is an open access resource archive of the scholarship, creative output and administrative records of the NCI. NORMA assists in advancing research and preserving the college’s scholarly record, directly serving the library’s mission:
The fundamental purpose of Norma Smurfit Library is to provide our students and users with the right information, in the right form and at the time required. The Library seeks to connect the traditional library service and Online information sources. The Library seeks to keep its “unique user centred” focus, and that this is an essential element of Library
Head Librarian, Mary Buckley, said: “My time at NCI has seen us move from predominantly paper materials to predominantly online, through many phases of technological advancement. The application and integrity of the role a library plays does not change but, in order to keep doing that work as fully as possible, librarians must embrace technological change. NORMA is the latest step in our institutional repository development, and we are already looking to where next it will lead us - a one-stop shop for research, conferences, journal publishing and staff profiles.”
The Norma Smurfit Library at National College of Ireland won the 2020 Education Award for Best Library Team. You can visit NCI library online, and also access the NORMA database.
