National Library of Ireland

National Library of Ireland
Location	Kildare Street, Dublin 2, Ireland, Ireland
Established	1877
Collection
Items collected	books, journals, newspapers, magazines, manuscripts, maps, prints, drawings, printed music, photographs and ephemera
Size	estimated 8 million items
Legal deposit	Yes, since 1927
Access and use
Access requirements	Free. Open to all those who wish to consult the collections for material not otherwise available through the public library service or an academic library.
Other information
Director	Fiona Ross
Website	http://www.nli.ie

The National Library of Ireland (Irish: Leabharlann Náisiúnta na hÉireann) is Ireland's national library located in Dublin, in a building designed by Thomas Newenham Deane. The Minister for Arts, Sport & Tourism is the member of the Irish Government 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 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 books, maps, manuscripts, music, newspapers, periodicals and photographs. Included in their collections is material issued by private as well as government publishers.

The Chief Herald of Ireland and National Photographic Archive are attached to the library. The library holds exhibitions and holds an archive of Irish newspapers. It is also ISSN National Centre for Ireland. The library also provides a number of other services including genealogy.

The main library building is on Kildare Street, adjacent to Leinster House and the archaeology section of the National Museum of Ireland.

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, 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.

See also

• National Photographic Archive
• List of Ireland-related topics
• National Archives of Ireland
• Trinity College Library, Dublin
• UCD Library

External links

• Visit the National Library of Ireland website
• National Library of Ireland Catalogue, including digitised material
• Sources: A National Library of Ireland database for Irish research
• National Library of Ireland on Twitter
• The National Library of Ireland's exhibition, Yeats: The Life and Works of William Butler Yeats
• The National Library of Ireland's exhibition, Discover your National Library
• The National Library of Ireland's exhibition, The 1916 Rising: Personalities and Perspectives