28 Sept 2021

Outreach Content Creation: How to Produce YouTube Videos and Podcasts

Libfocus is very happy to post the second of the joint second placed entries in this years CONUL Library Assistants Award. Congratulations David RinehartMaynooth University Library


Introduction 

This blog post describes the processes and tools I have used to create YouTube video and podcast outreach content for Maynooth University’s Special Collections and Archives department. The central aim of the YouTube and podcast series was to expand our Library Treasures blog into the audio and visual platforms giving our collections greater visibility and discoverability, thus engaging a larger audience. I detail the tools used, collaboration, editing, and social media promotion. Further, I identify where improvements need to be made in addition to long-term goals. 


Screen shot from the second episode of Library Treasures video series 



Inspiration 

The inspiration for this project was sparked by the pandemic. Being a service that handles unique and rare materials, we tend to cater to patrons with specific interests or visitors keen on historical tourism. We were, thus, faced with the challenge of how to connect our patrons to these rare materials in some way. We took many measures to provide the service as best we could. The positive spin, however, is that we had the space to focus more on our virtual presence. While videos do not replace the in-house experience, it is still a way for us to remain connected to our public while giving the Russell Library space some life during a lonely time. 


Image of the Russell Library Reading Rooms taken by David Rinehart

Getting Started: 


YouTube series: 

Equipment: 

    • Camera (Canon EOS 2000D)
    • Tripod
    • Microphone
    • Computer


Software:

Hosting Service:

    

Image taken by David Rinehart of Hardware Used for Podcast and Video Series Podcast Series: 



Equipment:

    • Microphone 
    • Computer 


Software: 

    • Audacity (capturing audio)
    • Adobe Premiere Pro (works well for audio editing too)

Hosting Service:

 

Collaboration 

One of the greater challenges in creating this kind of content is, as a relatively new employee, identifying the collections and content to showcase. Collaboration has been key for a large project like this and a fantastic way to learn more about the work my colleagues are doing. I have collaborated with three colleagues – an archivist, a conservator, and a library assistant for the first three videos. 

The work load has been divided up in the following way: I establish a timeline while my counterpart writes the script, records most of the video, and takes the necessary images. I then record the 

introduction and outro for continuity. Lastly, I take all of the raw footage and material and edit it into the final product, post it to YouTube, and advertise on social media. 


Image captured by David Rinehart from The Scenery and Antiquities of Ireland (1842) for Adam Staunton’s blog post and episode 3 of the Library Treasures video series 


  


The editing process has been a steep learning curve. I have watched many YouTube videos and read many forums to learn about the techniques and tools available to me. For ease of editing, I have asked my collaborators to share the folders of images and videos with me via OneDrive in the order that they should appear in video, this makes it far easier to place the videos and still images along the timeline to sync up with the content being described. 

Social Media promotion is essential to get the content out to your target audience. It is important to think about which organization handles, individual handles, and hashtags would bring the content closest to your target audience. 

    

Screenshot of twitter post for Library Treasures Episode 2 



Results 

The first video has received 127 views since it was released on March 8th, 2021; the second video has received 48 views since its release on June 14th, 2021 and the third video has received 36 views since its release on July 9, 2021. The first video was created around the theme of women in the collections, e.g. Teresa Deevy, and released on International Women’s Day, which could account for the greater traction it picked up on social media. 


Reflection 

We have had team conversations about how to best get these videos to their target audiences and beyond. We made the decision to change the name of the YouTube series from Collections Spotlight to Library Treasures. We have had a blog of the same name running for years with many hundred followers. The video series and podcast are an expansion of this project and are meant to complement each other. Having the same name makes them more discoverable, as someone who has been following the blog may more easily search for or stumble across our podcast and video series. The three mediums will also have links to each other. 


Our long-term goal is to incorporate the blog posts, video and podcast episodes into LibGuides we are designing for our various collections showcased in Library Treasures posts. We are also developing a LibGuide exclusively for Library Treasures media, highlighting our more recent videos, podcasts, and blogs. This will greatly contribute to the lifespan and discoverability of the posts as they will have a permanent home instead of getting buried in a YouTube channel or deep down in a blog. 


Image created using Canva for third Library Treasures episode 



                


From home-made bread to home-schooling; the turning points in my path to becoming a Library Assistant

Libfocus is very happy to post one of the joint second placed entries in this years CONUL Library Assistants Award. Congratulations Sinead Byrne, RCSI Library 


The Covid pandemic has upturned nearly every aspect of life as we know it. We are constantly being bombarded with Covid related news headlines; barraged by grim projections of escalating case numbers and further waves; and blasted with horrific images of human suffering. 

But buried in all this doom and gloom are the “good news stories”; “reaching out to others” (metaphorically of course); “stories of conviviality”; “neighbourly gestures”........ I could go on. On a personal level there were two major events that changed my perspective on the global situation and prompted a shift in focus in relation to my own career goals. 

The first stand out memory for me was Mother’s Day 2020. My anxiety was at an all-time high. I removed myself from every WhatsApp group albeit one (the FOMO in me would not allow total social exclusion!). A text from a neighbour instructed me to look outside my front door at which point I was greeted by the most delicious loaf of homemade brown bread ....... This was a turning point for me .......the sense of community and the feeling that we are all in this together grounded me. I could not eradicate this awful virus but I could take joy in the simple things and also try focus on my personal goal of pursuing a career in the library sector which was something I had thought about for quite a while. 

I completed the MLIS in 2011, recession hit and, for financial reasons, I was forced to stay in my permanent, pensionable administrative job. Two children later and my interest in library work was still to the fore so I began working on a voluntary basis in a school library. I contacted the Library Association of Ireland to get guidance on CPD (Continued Professional Development) and after a whirlwind application process I was accepted on the Prof Cert in Digital Information Management in UCD. All was going to plan until the pandemic hit. 

The second turning point was the onset of home-schooling. How difficult could it be to home-school a 7 year old while keeping his 4 year old brother amused ...I completed the MLIS part time over two years while working full time...... I have this sussed I thought....... Oh how wrong I was!!!! This picture aptly depicts how I survived my new found career in “teaching”: 


Figure 1. The Home-school Life. 

Home-schooling was a double edged sword –it seriously tested my patience; survival was based on copious amounts of coffee and chocolate. But it had a very positive outcome in that it catapulted me into applying for a role as library assistant in RCSI on a particularly difficult day of “teaching”. 

Fast forward 6 months and I was offered a contract in RCSI. You would be forgiven for thinking I was suddenly enjoying leisurely lunches in the lavish surrounds of the library at Stephen’s Green while doing a spot of people watching. The reality was somewhat different. The not so lavish green at the front of my house is my only option for people watching. The sounds of the neighbourhood kids infiltrate my “office” window ........the sound of laughter and football matches have become the soundtrack to my day. 

And so I began my role as library assistant. Getting to know my team was somewhat different to my experience of starting previous roles. Casual coffee dates and spontaneous after work drinks have been replaced with a more structured social etiquette. Virtual coffee and chat dates were arranged on Microsoft Teams and this is how I got to know the library staff. Although we are dotted around the country I still felt connected from the start. All meetings are conducted online, and there are often “guest” appearances by toddlers or pets! My cat was very keen to join in until I relocated to my “office” upstairs!! I also have regular interaction with students when I deal with their queries via email and LibChat. I have undertaken training courses in the US without having to board a plane. I have attended conferences country wide while remaining at home. All instances of physical distancing while attaining virtual connectivity. 

ALMA, a new library management system was introduced in 2020 and staff are still familiarising themselves with it. I have been building up my expertise by attending training sessions as well as documenting workflows. I have learnt so much in my two months and I am enjoying every second! 

As I write this I am inwardly jumping for joy at the prospect of spending my first day in the library and meeting three of my colleagues. According to Dorothy there is no place like home but I think I might just have to agree to disagree in this instance. 


Figure 2. Dorothy Home-schooling. 

Photo Credits:
Figure 1:
“The Home-school Life” meme. Mom Saves Time, Money, Sanity. Wordpress, 30 December, 2017.
momsavestimemoneysanity.wordpress.com/2017/12/30/my-day-in-gifs/ 

Figure 2:
“Dorothy Home-schooling” meme. My San Antonio, Houston, 30 March, 2020. 

mysanantonio.com/houston/article/Homeschooling-memes-highlight-what-life-is-like- 15166171.php#photo-19240271 

    

24 Sept 2021

Stop, Thief! Preventing theft in Library Special Collections

Libfocus is very happy to post the third placed entry in this years CONUL Library Assistants Award. Congratulations Gretchen Allen, Maynooth University Library.


Copies of Newton’s Principia have been stolen from the Cambridge University Library and from the Carnegie Library (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

 

Book theft is a taboo topic amongst high profile libraries, even though almost every library has experienced a major theft. The reluctance to discuss the topic in library circles has led to a culture of silence surrounding collection security and theft prevention. However, ignoring this type of crime does not make it less common, and libraries can benefit from looking at the patterns of large-scale book theft and adjust their approaches accordingly. This post features a short summary of the different motivations and methods employed by prolific book thieves and gives some suggestions on how libraries can stay vigilant and secure. 



Pages from illuminated manuscripts are often cut or torn out and sold individually, like this single leaf from a 14th C manuscript that was recently repatriated to Italy (Photo: US Immigration and Customs Enforcement) 

Book Theft

Rare books have a cultural mystique that informs how and why they’re stolen. The book collection signifies the taste and status of the collector, even if they haven't actually read them. A book’s rarified aura as a cultural “collectible” has a profound effect on a certain type of thief. For these thieves, rare books trigger a compulsive hoarding instinct for expensive volumes. Rather than being primarily motivated by profit, their aim is to accumulate more books. These thieves are often the most prolific and unrepentant--often they’ll go straight back to stealing books the minute they’re let out of jail. 


In addition to thieves who pursue the book itself as a valuable item, more profit-driven thieves are often interested in the component parts that make up a valuable book. These thieves are more likely to remove and sell the valuable plates, maps, illuminations, or even covering boards, because these smaller components are easier to steal than the whole book. Selling book parts individually can also help circumvent questions of provenance, making them easier to sell off quickly. 


These are by no means the only types of book thieves, but these tend to be two strategies and motivations seen the most in thefts from library special collections. 



Two of Darwin’s notebooks, thought to be misplaced for 20 years, were confirmed to have been stolen from Cambridge University Library (Photo: University of Cambridge) 

What makes libraries vulnerable 

Libraries are particularly vulnerable, as they are fairly relaxed environments in terms of security, even in special collection spaces. This has recently started to change, but even now reading rooms have weaknesses inherent to the nature of a working library. For example, in a museum people are encouraged to stand away from the art, forbidden to touch it, and expected to move through fairly quickly. In libraries, readers are given hours of time to handle and examine books. This makes it easy to just put a book under your jacket and leave. Alternatively, readers can easily bring in small blades to remove pages. If readers have access to stacks, a space from a missing book is easily camouflaged. 


Special Collections are also vulnerable to thefts by employees. Even where security for readers is tight, Special Collections staff are often given open access to collections. Underpaid library staff may be susceptible to temptation to sell priceless collection items. Like the book-hoarding thieves, some inside thieves are taken in by the aura surrounding the collections; there can be the added motivation of “nobody else knows this collection like I do” or “I’ve been taking care of this collection for decades, it’s basically mine”. Large collections are particularly susceptible to items “disappearing”, often due to just being misfiled or misplaced, so theft usually wouldn’t be suspected. In collections with thousands of items, thieves have the same amount of plausible deniability as someone who stole a twig from a forest. 


Because of this, both inside and outside thieves will often steal repeatedly over a long span of time, racking up dozens or hundreds of undetected thefts over years or even decades. 


Book thieves and YOU 

Every institution is different, and different priorities will help determine appropriate security actions. Some suggestions are: 

 Keep thorough records of all appointments

 Provide lockers to store coats and bags
                    Implement CCTV in reading rooms

 Monitor return readers, as most book thieves will take books repeatedly

 Check books upon return to make sure no plates or pages have been
                    removed

 Conduct regular inventory checks and identify missing items

 Keep your staff’s pay and morale high

 Keep staff well-informed of previous thefts, security weaknesses, and
                    blacklisted guests

 Refrain from transporting items through unsecured areas

 Keep keys to collection storage secured on-premises

 In-person invigilation is key

 Talk to other libraries near you about their experiences

 In case of theft, press charges

Conclusion

The fact that book theft is only ever discussed when a thief has already struck has contributed to ignorance in libraries around techniques used to identify, foil, catch, and prosecute book thieves. If libraries and scholars create an open dialogue regarding book thefts, it could lead to an aware and informed library and conservation profession, and hopefully help prevent more crimes in the future.  



19 Sept 2021

Be a Star with Screencast: Producing Valuable Online Resources from Home for Maynooth University Library

Libfocus is very happy to post the third of the highly commended posts in the 2021 CONUL Library Assistant Awards. Congratulations to Fiona Tuohy of Maynooth University Library.

This blog post will give an insight into my experience of using Screencastomatic to create useful online resources for our students during the pandemic. As part of the Teaching and Research Development Team at Maynooth University Library, I worked with our Teaching Librarians to produce short video promoting our many resources. Without the face-to-face contact, we needed to find a way to show our users how to navigate and use our resources themselves. We decided that short How to videos showing the steps required clearly and concisely was the way forward. As we all know it’s never a good idea to jump headfirst into a project but if you keep to this checklist, you’ll save time. 


Steps 

The first thing to do is ask yourself – who is my audience? What is the purpose of this video? If you are creating a video to show e.g. How to find an eBook, break down each step, each mouse click and decide then what exactly you need to show on screen. Have it clear in your mind what will be the first screen and the last screen within the video. Repeat the process but this time say out loud how you would explain each step so the user can do it themselves. 


Script 

It’s essential to write a script. Firstly, it removes the dreaded ‘ehs’ and ‘ems’ we all fall victim to when presenting in person. If it’s a collaboration with a colleague and you are doing a recording for them, a script is such a useful tool to work with. When the topic is something you’re not familiar with, it’s helpful to have a hard copy of the script beside you as you record voiceovers for that awkward word or phrasing you need to double-check (I still can’t say Digital Object Identifiers after 2pm!!). A script helps you monitor the length of the video. What started off as one 15 minute video could work better as two 7 minute videos. 


Photo by Simon Payne on Unsplash 

Practice 

Line up the kid’s toys and use them as your audience! You can’t write a script, cross your fingers and hope for the best when it comes to record. Practice several times – I guarantee you’ll re-draft the script at least once. There may be a lightbulb moment during the redraft where you realise you’ve left out an important step. That’s something you want to happen at this stage rather than on completion. 


Voiceover tips Created using Canva by Fiona Tuohy 

Record

With the continuous doorstep deliveries, outside ambience and incoming calls, recording from home can be a challenge. The beauty of Screencastomatic is you just need a headset with a mic and a quiet place. I know easier said than done for many working from home! For recording first time, there will be nerves and many outtakes but the more your confidence grows the easier it gets. Voiceover tips can provide insight into preparing for a recording. It can make a huge difference to how the final recording sounds. 


Example of MU Library branding for Screencasts 


Edit 

Screencastomatic allows you to add text, highlight, add arrows even insert video. Simple ways to point out the really important information to the user and make it easy to follow. Sometimes you don’t need to record your voice at all. With short how to’s silence really is golden. I would suggest using a title page for your videos – it looks professional and users will become familiar with the branding. 


Number of views for videos within Using Library Services Playlist 

Promote 

Now your video is created you need to promote it to your users. We created a new playlist called Using Library Services within our YouTube channel. But sometimes it can be difficult to promote via YouTube directly. We added the videos to our Working Remotely Guide as they were created and then promoted the guide as our one stop shop for useful resources for our users. The majority of the videos were created in Semester 1 and had consistent views up to March 2021. 


The future 

We are currently working on content for next Semester. The aim is to still use the Working Remotely Guide to connect with our user community but rename to reflect the likely hybrid learning environment in the coming academic year. We also hope to develop our Library Moodle space this year and it will be important to provide content for students to access and use to support their learning in our classes. We can also link in to course module Moodle pages and ensure our academic colleagues can easily access our learning resources for use within courses. Screencastomatic is inexpensive - $15 per year for Deluxe Solo – and reasonably easy to use. By choosing this tool you can create a suite of excellent online content to promote your library resources. 


14 Sept 2021

Preserving our cultural memory in the digital age

Libfocus is very happy to post the second of the highly commended posts in the 2021 CONUL Library Assistant Awards.  Congrats to Stewart Killeen of TU Dublin (City Centre) Library


Recently, I had the great pleasure of watching Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project, Matt Wolf’s documentary film on the life and work of Marion Stokes. Marion Stokes was an African-American civil activist, who besides tirelessly engaging the broad spectrum of American public opinion through public-access television, also took a key interest in technology with all of its political and social implications (Wikipedia, 2021). Her visionary enthusiasm for the new media and technologies which developed throughout the twentieth century and her commitment to democratic values culminated in her astonishing collection of recorded television news footage, spanning a period of 35 years from 1977 until her death in 2012 (Wikipedia, 2021). Her collection, which is now in the care of the ambitious Internet Archive project, consists of 140,000 VHS tapes, and it provides a record of televised news covering many of the seminal events that marked the close of the previous millennium and the beginning of a new one (Wikipedia, 2021). 

Courtesy of the BBC 

It was surely of no little significance to the legacy that Marion Stokes left that for much of her professional life she worked as a librarian with the Free Library of Philadelphia (Wikipedia, 2021). Indeed, in my own short time working as a Library Assistant with Technological University Dublin and through my studies on the MSc in Information and Library Management with Dublin Business School, I have come to appreciate the fragility of our shared cultural record as it is brought to life in a digital world. 


With the arrival of the internet and the explosion of digital technologies that has accompanied it, information professionals have faced both new challenges and opportunities in the curation of information. Traditionally the preserve of librarians and scholars, the digital turn has opened up the domains of human knowledge like never before, offering  “fast facts” to our fingertips (Kavanagh and O’Rourke, 2016, p.4; Rowlands et al., 2008, p.293). In some sense we have all become librarians today, as we access, monitor, and create large volumes of content to be shared and distributed across a wide variety of public platforms. The democratisation of information has undoubtedly improved the individual and collective lives of many, but it has not come without risk. The greatest danger it seems is the tendency to assume that the sheer volume of digital information available is a guarantee of its future sustainability and accessibility. One need only consider the historical and cultural significance of the Marion Stokes collection, however, to appreciate the tenuousness of such an equation. 


As far back as 2003, Clifford Lynch, one of the founding members of the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI), warned of the potential threats to cultural preservation in a digitally-driven economy (Lynch, 2003, p.149). In his paper, The Coming Crisis in Preserving our Digital Heritage, Lynch outlined how developments in intellectual property law, the dynamics of market forces and the technologies involved in maintaining digital information across sustained periods of time may conspire to “create a crisis in our ability to preserve our cultural heritage as this heritage increasingly migrates into digital formats” (Lynch, 2003, p.150). 


Lynch singled out as particularly worrisome the changing terms of availability that increasingly characterise the digital economy where, rather than paying to obtain copies of a given work consumers instead pay to experience these works (Lynch, 2003, p.151). This has in fact become the norm with many of today’s biggest information providers offering a large class of “ephemeral”, “transient,” and “experiential” products in return for a subscription cost (Lynch, 2003, p.151). However, should we choose to abdicate our responsibility for cultural preservation to intermediaries whose primary concern is not the “long-term preservation of the cultural record” we may, as Lynch suggests, run the risk of losing a considerable and vital part of that record (Lynch, 2003, p.151). 


Courtesy of the Haiti Trust Digital Library 


What can be done to avoid such an outcome? 

The success of libraries in supporting digital scholarship within the academic community offers a possible solution. With their expertise in “contextualising information”, their knowledge of metadata creation and their commitment to long-term access, librarians have been instrumental in helping create digital objects that are sustainable in the long-term (Burns, 2016, p.246). Moreover, librarians play a key role in the cultivation of skills that are essential to responsible and effective information management, i.e., information literacy, and there is a growing recognition of the need to cultivate a “digital mindset”, one which inculcates a deeper understanding of the implications of our digital culture (Kavanagh and O’Rourke, 2016, p.7). As Kavanagh and O’Rourke (2016, p.5) have argued, the “truly digital literate person is one who moves beyond passively absorbing information to actively participating in its creation.” By instilling both the skills and appreciation for the creation of sustainable digital objects it is perhaps possible to save some of the digital heritage we will leave to future generations. In doing so we will honour not only our own legacy but also that of Marion Stokes. (777) 


Courtesy of the National Orientation Agency 


Recommended Resources: 

A guide to personal archiving by the Library of Congress
A quick guide to Personal digital archiving by the Digital Preservation Coalition 

How to preserve your digital memories: Sara Day Thomson gives lecture on ‘Personal Digital Archiving’ by the Digital Repository Ireland 

Personal Digital Archiving: the basics by Purdue University Library 


References 

Burns, J.A., 2016. Role of the information professional in the development and promotion of digital humanities content for research, teaching, and learning in the modern academic library: An Irish case study. New Review of Academic Librarianship, 22(2-3), pp.238-
248. https://doi.org/10.1080/13614533.2016.1191520 


Kavanagh, A. and O'Rourke, K. C. (2016) Digital Literacy: Why It Matters. Available at: https://arrow.tudublin.ie/ltcart/37/ (Accessed: 16 July 2021) 


A. Lynch (2003) Chapter 18. The Coming Crisis in Preserving Our Digital Cultural Heritage, Journal of Library Administration, 38:3-4, 149-161, https://doi.org/10.1300/J111v38n03_04 (Accessed: 16 July 2021) 

        

Rowlands, Ian et al. (2008). The Google generation: The information behaviour of the researcher of the future. Aslib Proceedings. 60. 290-310. 10.1108/00012530810887953 (Accessed: 16 July 2021) 


Wikipedia (2021) ‘Marion Stokes’. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Stokes (Accessed: 15 July 2021


10 Sept 2021

3D printing in a pandemic: Maynooth University’s role

Libfocus is very happy to post the highly commended, and the winning, entries in the 2021 CONUL Library Assistant Awards. 
The first of the Highly Commended posts is by Sheree Yeates, Maynooth University Library


I am a library assistant working in the Library Information and Technology Department (LITD) in Maynooth University Library. Part of my role involves the day to day running of the library makerspace. In this space we provide three Ultimaker 3D printers, one of which can be seen below.

Ultimaker 3 Extended – Picture taken by Marie Cullen

These printers are normally used to print prototypes for students undertaking courses in areas such as Design and Innovation. During summer requests get a bit more fun and less academic like the below baby Yoda which was popular when the Disney show The Mandalorian first aired.

Thingiverse A picture of a 3D printed Baby Yoda

When the Covid-19 pandemic began in early 2020 it soon became apparent that there was a personal protective equipment (PPE) shortage, not only in Ireland but in the world. Little pockets of 3D printer users began to discover that they could aid in the fight against the pandemic, and this soon reached Maynooth University.

A number of people began to look into the possibilities. In discussion with me, Cathal McCauley, Head Librarian of MU Library said that ‘The project came about for a few reasons…the overriding one was the camaraderie of the national response that was very strong in March – June 2020.’ We began a project to create PPE. The project, which was made more difficult by the work from home order began in March 2020. It was a partnership between MU library and the Department of Design Innovation.

Each of the three 3D printers were relocated from the library makerspace for the duration of the project. Two went to Anthony Cleary, Design Studio Manager in the Department of Innovation. Anthony had a number of other printers which he also brought home from the design studio and began to create PPE in the utility room of his home. The third printer went to the University Librarian’s Cathal McCauley’s home.



Maynooth University

The process of printing is a simple enough one once you have done it a couple of times and have gotten used to the procedures. I provided brief initial training over Microsoft Teams and Cathal and his four children were ready to get printing. Cathal mentioned afterwards that ‘I think one thing the whole experience highlighted was the user-friendliness of 3-D printing. With some help from you (the author) and Anthony Cleary, inexperienced people like my kids and I were able to produce the content and repair the printers as we learnt about things like cold pulls and base plate levelling.’

Anthony sourced the files of the PPE that were to be printed. These files were found on websites such as Thingiverse. Thingiverse is a dedicated website with mostly free, open-source 3D print files created by hundreds of different people around the world. All the PPE files were open source and available for anyone to download and use.

Anthony began by printing two different types of visors. To do this he used the 3D printer to create the visor clip and then attached a piece of acetate to create the visor. He also printed face mask extenders to stop the PPE from hurting ears and contactless tools for opening doors.

                                                             Picture taken by Anthony Cleary                                                                         Top left – Contactless Tools, Top right – Face mask extenders, Bottom – visor clip 

Cathal and his children also printed face mask extenders, contactless tools and face mask buttons for a local charity that was making cloth face masks.

Between the two homes, hundreds of visors were printed, more than 1,000 face mask extenders, 200 plus contactless tools and hundreds of facemask buttons were also printed.

The PPE and accessories were delivered to Tallaght hospital over two months. As PPE was needed in many different areas over the pandemic, these were also distributed amongst other areas of the local community. This included local nursing homes, pharmacies, gardaĆ­, paramedics and other frontline workers.

Tallaght Hospital

I felt proud to be part of the effort to bring PPE to those who needed it. Maynooth University’s 3D printing effort even received local and national recognition when Nuacht TG4 came to interview Cathal and his children. They demonstrated on air how the printer worked and how the PPE accessories could be used. Their work was also featured in a Liffey Champion article.