About Us
Listed below are some frequently asked questions about the National Library of Ireland:
We do not have parking facilities for readers. On-street parking in the vicinity of the Library is limited and subject to time restraints. However, there are a number of commercial multistorey carparks in the immediate area including the Setanta Centre and Schoolhouse Lane Carpark.
The Library’s main Reading Room, exhibition area, seminar room, shop and café are all wheelchair accessible. The Reading Room, the exhibition area and the shop in the National Photographic Archive are also wheelchair accessible.
The National Library of Ireland is a research library, not a lending library. Readers must consult Library material in one of our Reading Rooms.
It is possible to order a copy of any page from a newspaper, including the front page as a gift. Please see our Copying Services page for information on placing an order and a list of prices.
The National Library does not loan material via the Inter-Library Loan Scheme. However, subject to certain conditions, we can provide photocopies of certain material under the Scheme.
The Library holds complete files of most Irish newspapers. Details our holdings can be found on the NEWSPLAN database which is accessible on this site.
Newspapers and other periodical literature are not made available to readers until they have been either bound or microfilmed. This is to ensure that the material in question is preserved for access by future generations of Library users. Microfilming and binding arrangements are such that it is usually two or three months before a particular issue of a newspaper or periodical can be made available in the Reading Room.
The newspaper collection is very heavily used, and unfortunately newspapers are inherently fragile because they are printed on poor quality paper. Constant handling and exposure to light accelerate the inevitable process of disintegration and decay, and will eventually lead to the destruction of valuable collections. Therefore, as part of the newspaper preservation programme, certain titles are only made available on microfilm in order to protect the original newspaper files.