Vol. 526 No. 3
98 Mr. Deasy asked the Minister for Education and Science if he will make the recordings and transcripts of the Folklore Commission which were gathered since the foundation of the State and which are presently stored in archives in Dublin, available to the various county libraries, so that the general public and in particular the families of those that were interviewed may have access to these historical documents and tapes. [25635/00]
The collections of the Irish Folklore Commission were transferred to the Department of Irish Folklore at University College Dublin in 1971 and are the property of the university. The collections include two manuscript series, the main manuscripts collection amounting to over 2,300 bound volumes and the schools' collection amounting to over 1,100 bound volumes, together with 1,124 boxes of unbound material. There are also collections of sound recordings, both on gramophone discs and audio tapes, photographs, film and video tapes and a variety of plans, sketches and diagrams.
I understand that the Irish folklore collection is housed in the arts building in Belfield and is accessible to scholars and members of the general public each afternoon, Monday to Friday, except for the month of August. Major parts of the Department's collection are also available on microfilm at various third level institutions in Ireland.
I further understand that it would not be feasible to make the main manuscripts collection available to the various county libraries. However, microfilm copies of the locally relevant material from the schools' collection, which is accessible on a county basis, have been supplied to the local county libraries.
