Librarians in Northern Ireland are very aware of the need to preserve the visual and written record of the recent troubles as they unfold. Much of this record is ephemeral and difficult to document and preserve. Librarians in Northern Ireland are working to ensure that the account of the visual arts in a time of political and social upheaval is available in the future to the community which created them and to researchers who wish to study them.

Arthouse, the multimedia centre for the arts, is one of the most eye-catching buildings in Dublin’s Temple Bar area. A cultural centre using the latest in communications technology and software, it is the home of the Bureau of Arts Information which among other things has developed Artifact, a visual database of contemporary artists throughout Ireland. This will be available on-line this year. The centre also holds regular exhibitions and multimedia events, and is contributing to making the work of Irish artists better known at home and abroad.

Ireland’s visual arts have always been overshadowed by the prominence of her verbal and literary culture. Over the last decade permanent, tangible developments have occurred within the visual arts. General prosperity has led to increases in arts funding and more disposable income means more people buy art and attend musical and theatrical peformances. Government arts policy is gradually becoming attuned to the needs of the sector. The establishment of a number of important museums and libraries is discussed in the context of Ireland’s booming ‘Celtic Tiger’ economy.

The National Gallery of Ireland Library has recently re-opened to internal and external readers after a number of years. The concentration so far has been on reader services, while a major revision of the cataloguing and classification procedures is being undertaken. New projects to organise the Gallery’s Archives and make them more accessible for research, and to open a sponsored Centre for the Study of Irish Art in 2002-3, show the Library’s revived interest in reaching its potential users.

Interest in, and information on, Irish architecture has increased greatly in recent years. Information providers are faced with the problem of tracking down relevant material, much of it grey literature, and then making it widely available. The problem is exacerbated since such material rarely appears in national and international bibliographies and databases. The solution described here has been to establish a joint database (PADDI: Planning Architecture Design Database Ireland), produced collaboratively by Queen’s University Belfast and University College Dublin.

A recent survey has examined the current position of slide libraries in Ireland, with particular regard to cataloguing, organisation, staffing, funding, facilities, training and computerisation. Despite the existence of a number of substantial slide collections, little training is available for slide librarians; the Association of Visual Arts in Ireland (AVAIL) plans to study possible solutions to this problem as part of a planned series of professional development seminars to be held over the next eighteen months.

The large and varied collection of Irish historical photographs previously housed in the National Library of Ireland has recently been relocated to Dublin’s Temple Bar. A purpose-built archive provides storage vaults, reading room facilities and an exhibition space for this important aspect of the Irish cultural heritage, thus balancing the preservation of the photographs with access to the images. This paper provides a candid look at the development of a National Photographic Archive.

Founded 300 years ago, Marsh’s Library in Dublin – Ireland’s first public library – is described by its librarian as a ‘treasury of the European mind’. The outstanding collections, in their purpose-built 18th-century accommodation, are still accessible to the public. They include Irish books and manuscripts and books on subjects such as travel, botany, music and natural history. Recently the catalogue of printed books has been computerized and made available on the Internet.

In recent years increased interest in the visual arts has led public libraries to increase stock to support this area, to organise exhibitions and to make connections with other arts-related bodies. The recognised extent, quality and value of the public library network lie both in its service to users and in good-quality and centrally located buildings. Imaginative links have been made between the library service and other cultural institutions in Ireland and elsewhere in Europe, particularly in the many thinly populated areas of the country which could otherwise be isolated from the cultural facilities available in the larger conurbations.