National Library of Ireland - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The National Library of Ireland is Ireland's national library

National library

A national library is a library specifically established by the government of a country to serve as the preeminent repository of information for that country. Unlike public libraries, these rarely allow citizens to borrow books...

located in Dublin, in a building designed by Thomas Newenham Deane

Thomas Newenham Deane

Sir Thomas Newenham Deane was an Irish architect, the son of Sir Thomas Deane, and father of Sir Thomas Manly Deane, who were also architects....

. The Minister for Arts, Sport & Tourism

Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism (Ireland)

The Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht is the senior minister at the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht in the Government of Ireland.The current minister is Jimmy Deenihan, TD. He is assisted by:...

is the member of the Irish Government

Irish Government

The Government of Ireland is the cabinet that exercises executive authority in Ireland.-Members of the Government:Membership of the Government is regulated fundamentally by the Constitution of Ireland. The Government is headed by a prime minister called the Taoiseach...

responsible for the library.

The mission of the National Library of Ireland is 'To collect, preserve, promote and make accessible the documentary and intellectual record of the life of Ireland and to contribute to the provision of access to the larger universe of recorded knowledge'

The library is a reference library

Reference library

A reference library does not lend books and other items; instead, they must be read at the library itself. Typically such libraries are used for research purposes, for example at a university. See List of closed stack libraries...

and, as such, does not lend. It has a large quantity of Irish and Irish-related material which can be consulted without charge; this includes book

Book

A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...

s, map

Map

A map is a visual representation of an area—a symbolic depiction highlighting relationships between elements of that space such as objects, regions, and themes....

s, manuscript

Manuscript

A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...

s, music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

, newspaper

Newspaper

A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...

s, periodicals and photograph

Photograph

A photograph is an image created by light falling on a light-sensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic imager such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are created using a camera, which uses a lens to focus the scene's visible wavelengths of light into a reproduction of...

s. Included in their collections is material issued by private as well as government publishers.

The Chief Herald of Ireland and National Photographic Archive

National Photographic Archive

The National Photographic Archive is located in Temple Bar, Dublin, Republic of Ireland, and holds the photographic collections of the National Library of Ireland. The archive was opened in 1998 and has a reading room and exhibition gallery...

are attached to the library. The library holds exhibition

Art exhibition

Art exhibitions are traditionally the space in which art objects meet an audience. The exhibit is universally understood to be for some temporary period unless, as is rarely true, it is stated to be a "permanent exhibition". In American English, they may be called "exhibit", "exposition" or...

s and holds an archive of Irish newspapers. It is also ISSN

International Standard Serial Number

An International Standard Serial Number is a unique eight-digit number used to identify a print or electronic periodical publication. Periodicals published in both print and electronic form may have two ISSNs, a print ISSN and an electronic ISSN...

National Centre for Ireland. The library also provides a number of other services including genealogy

Genealogy

Genealogy is the study of families and the tracing of their lineages and history. Genealogists use oral traditions, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kinship and pedigrees of its members...

.

The main library building is on Kildare Street

Kildare Street

Kildare Street is a well-known street in Dublin, the capital city of Ireland close to the principal shopping area of Grafton Street and Dawson Street, to which it is joined by Molesworth Street. Some Irish government departments have their offices on this street but it is most famous for Leinster...

, adjacent to Leinster House

Leinster House

Leinster House is the name of the building housing the Oireachtas, the national parliament of Ireland.Leinster House was originally the ducal palace of the Dukes of Leinster. Since 1922, it is a complex of buildings, of which the former ducal palace is the core, which house Oireachtas Éireann, its...

and the archaeology section of the National Museum of Ireland

National Museum of Ireland

The National Museum of Ireland is the national museum in Ireland. It has three branches in Dublin and one in County Mayo, with a strong emphasis on Irish art, culture and natural history.-Archaeology:...

History

The National Library of Ireland was established by the Dublin Science and Art Museum Act, 1877, which provided that the bulk of the collections in the possession of the Royal Dublin Society

Royal Dublin Society

The Royal Dublin Society was founded on 25 June 1731 to "to promote and develop agriculture, arts, industry, and science in Ireland". The RDS is synonymous with its main premises in Ballsbridge in Dublin, Ireland...

, should be vested in the then Department of Science and Art for the benefit of the public and of the Society, and for the purposes of the Act.

An Agreement of 1881 provided that the Library should operate under the superintendence of a Council of twelve Trustees, eight of whom were appointed by the Society and four by the Government; this Agreement also conferred on the Trustees the duty of appointing the officers of the Library. This arrangement remained in place until the library became an autonomous cultural institution in 2005.

After the foundation of the Irish Free State in 1924/5 the Library was transferred to the Department of Education under which it remained until 1986 when it was transferred to the Department of An Taoiseach. In 1927 the Library was granted legal deposit status under the Industrial and Commercial Property (Protection) Act, 1927. In 1992 the Library transferred to the newly established Department of Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht (now Arts, Sport and Tourism) and on 3 May 2005 became an autonomous cultural institution under the National Cultural Institutions Act, 1997.

External links

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History

See also

External links