This website is created and maintained by staff of the library's ICT & Information Services Department at Library Headquarters, Ennis, County Clare, Ireland. This 'website' is in reality a collection of separate websites and services, including the Online Catalogue, Foto (the photograph collection), the Music of Clare project, the online Forums, the library blog, the eAudio service, the GoogleMini search facility and the 'main' website covering library services and information about the culture of County Clare. It would not have been possible to create the wide range of information about County Clare on this site without the contributions of CLASP, a FÁS Community Response Scheme sponsored by four library staff members which ran from 1995 to 2006, and numerous volunteers from around the world who have helped us in transcribing material, for example for the Tithe Applotment Books project. We are very grateful to all those who have donated material for inclusion on the website. We are also very grateful to all those who have identified people and places in our photo collection, and to all who have provided so much valuable information on our online Forums. We are also grateful to Rainer Kosbi for developing his online map systems, and to Eric Stackhouse and his staff at Pictou Antigonish Regional Library, Nova Scotia, for their generous co-operation re the online forums.

Awards:
Clare County Library wins major award for genealogy November 2010
Foto wins Excellence in Local Government Award in Arts and Culture category November 2007

Donations & Volunteers
CLASP (Clare Local Studies Project)
People who have donated genealogical and historical material to this website
Volunteers who have assisted with transcription projects for the website
List of all those who have donated images to Foto, our online photo collection
List of all those who have identified people and places in Foto, our online photo collection

Website Architecture:

Layout and Site Maintenance:
Jackie Dermody-O'Brien (Staff Officer - Library)
Mona O'Connor (Staff Officer - Library)
Anthony Edwards

Website Content:

Data sourcing, collection and maintenance:

Links and Online Resources: Maureen Comber

Library Services:

Book promotions: Carrie Stafford (Senior Executive Librarian, Bibliographical Services)
Branch Libraries, Developments & News: Anthony Edwards
Local studies: Maureen Comber
Special services: Anthony Edwards

County Clare:

Archaeology, Folklore, Genealogy, History, Literature & Song, People, Places & Placenames, Online Publications:   
Maureen Comber
With the grateful assistance of Clare Local Studies Project (CLASP) and the numerous volunteers from around the world the world who have assisted in transcribing material, and all those who have donated their material.

Local Facilities & Democracy: Mona O'Connor
Clubs, Societies, and Community Groups: Mona O'Connor
Education & Training: Patricia Fitzgerald
Economic Development & Health and Welfare: Carrie Stafford

Other Cultural Services:

The Arts: Siobhan Mulcahy (County Arts Officer)
Archives: Rene Franklin (County Archivist)
Clare Museum: John Rattigan (Curator, Clare Museum)
CLASP: Anthony Edwards & Maureen Comber
Heritage: Congella McGuire (County Heritage Officer)

Foto - Clare Images Online:

Research & indexing: Maureen Comber
Software customization: Anthony Edwards and Jackie Dermody-O'Brien
Scanning: Maureen Comber and Jackie Dermody-O'Brien

Historical Maps Online:

Project management: Anthony Edwards
Customisation: Maureen Comber and Anthony Edwards

Online Forums:

Board administrator, Pictou-Antigonish Regional Library:
Eric Stackhouse (Chief Librarian, Pictou-Atigonish Regional Library)
Board administrator, Clare County Library:
Anthony Edwards

Library Blog:

Blog editor: Anthony Edwards
Content: Carrie Stafford, Patricia Fitzgerald, Anthony Edwards, Maureen Comber

Music of Clare project:
Anthony Edwards, Maureen Comber & Jackie Dermody

Library Catalogue (WebOpac):
Jackie Dermody-O'Brien and Anthony Edwards

eAudio Books service:
Anthony Edwards

Facebook:
Teresa Carmody O'Shea

Background:
Following the completion of its first phase of automation (the creation of a bookstock and membership database and the creation of a county-wide network linking all branch libraries to the central database), Clare County Library assumed full responsibility for all its Information Technology requirements in 1997 under the leadership of Anthony Edwards. Staff of Clare County Library's own ICT & Information Services Department have been responsible since then for the maintenance and development of all of its Information Technology requirements, from software to hardware, from servers, firewalls and routers, to PCs, the county-wide network and the library website. The library also delivers more than twice the national average of Internet sessions to the public. Clare County Library developed its own IT department from existing resources, following automation. No extra staff were recruited. Library IT staff taught and trained themselves, and four have studied for and achieved professional qualifications in IT.

The library also services the IT requirements of the County Arts Office, and created and maintains websites for the County Museum, County Arts Service, County Heritage Office and the County Archives. It is also responsible for 100 public-access Internet PCs, which have become two crucial service indicators for Clare County Council, of which the library service is an integral part. Clare County Library was the first public library in Ireland to offer its catalogue on the Web; the first to offer a local authority museum website; the first with an online Community Information service; the first with Online Publications; the first with online Literature Promotion; the first with an online catalogue of photographs, the first with online maps, the first with online forums, the first with online music and the first to create a Virtual Branch Library (in Cranny). Clare County Library sees its award-winning website as a fundamental part of its operations and structure, viewing the ‘library’ as neither a building nor an institution but a resource to be used by people for information, learning, culture and the imagination thereby improving the intellectual and cultural quality of life of the community. Unity of place – the county of Clare in the republic of Ireland - provides the basis for this website. Covering everything from history, genealogy, people, places, the Arts, Heritage and Archives to community information, literature promotion, OPAC (the online catalogue), Foto (the photograph collection), the music of Clare, the library blog and the online maps, the library website is an essential first stop for anyone interested in County Clare.

Links: (as of the 20th January 2009) this website has 123,465 internal links; 9,280 external links (from this site to others) and 2,319 links from other sites to this one. These figures exclude links in Foto and OPAC and the Forums.
Files: (as of October 2012) this website has 158,056 files in total (including more than 27,000 HTML files). Total data is 5.62 GB. These figures exclude files in Foto (21,000 files), Music of Clare, OPAC and the Forums.

We would like to thank Paddy Comber for all his help in staff
training and site development in the early days