The “End Period Poverty” initiative in University College Dublin has now been extended into the UCD James Joyce Library, ensuring it is the largest academic library in the country to provide free sanitary products to students.
Following an earlier successful rollout of this service in the UCD Students’ Union building, the Library, the Dean of Students and the UCDSU worked together to make free sanitary products, critical to ending period poverty, available to even more students by placing dispensers in the women’s, men’s and unisex/disabled toilets in the Library.
Speaking about this launch, Lorna Dodd, Associate Librarian said “The Library plays a pivotal role in everyday student life and we are committed to student well-being. The Library is the ideal location for this service as it has the longest opening hours on campus and is accessible to all UCD students. We are delighted to work with the UCDSU on this initiative“
A promotional campaign by the Library and the UCDSU highlights this service across social media, campus newspapers, university plasma screens, and via posters and stickers. The strong images used in the campaign represent a diverse range of people of different ages, ability/disability and ethnicity, and draw attention to this important student service. Promotional materials also include a QR code linking to a webpage which displays library floorplans, and other campus locations, highlighting where free sanitary products are available, so making it as easy as possible for people to avail of this service.
While this initiative directly benefits UCD students, it has also provided an excellent opportunity for UCD Library to work collaboratively with colleagues across the campus including the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Office, the UCD Dean of Students and the UCD Students’ Union. Additionally, it supports key objectives identified in UCD Library’s new Strategic Plan, relating to both student engagement and creating an inclusive Library for all.
For more please see https://www.ucdsu.ie/free-period-products and the following:
“Period Poverty in Ireland” Report launch
Irish Times article