Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin

Readers' Services

The Readers’ Services Department, the largest of the Library’s departments, serves the students and staff of the College, along with visiting researchers and the general public, in their quest to use the Library’s resources and services.

Counter Services staff and the storage team in the Department manage the various contemporary reading rooms in the Library, including their facilities and collections. Staff in these areas are responsible for the coordination of reading room services such as, the borrowing and renewing of materials, the processing of storage requests in response to readers’ requests, and the shelving and sorting of books and journals.

The Duty Librarian Service is an enquiry desk service operated by a team of librarians in the Readers’ Services Department. The main functions include:

Reference assistance
Guidance on the use of information resources (catalogues, databases, and electronic journals)
Information on services offered by the Library (assistance on My Library Account features, referrals to specialist staff)
Assistance locating material in the Library and beyond (visiting other libraries, Inter-Library Loans)

Through its team of Subject Librarians the department provides the following services to support the teaching and learning needs of students and academic staff:

Ordering of multiple copies of reading list material Inclusion of material in the short loan collection
Provision of library tours and advice and support on using the Library Development and coordination of various Information Skills programmes
Embedding of information literacy into the curriculum in collaboration with academic staff

The provision of research support for academic staff, researchers and postgraduate students is also provided by the team of Subject Librarians. This support takes the form of:

Information skills training sessions targeted to meet researchers’ specialist training needs EndNote (bibliographic management software training sessions
Advice and support on research projects and literature reviews
Assisting researchers with the creation of research profiles within the Research Support System (RSS) and aiding deposit within Trinity College Dublin's institutional repository TARA

Inter-Library Loans, Official Publications and the fee-based Information Service also form part of the overall department.