Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 24 October 2018
331. Deputy Sean Sherlock asked the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht if her attention has been drawn to over 1,800 books being lost at the National Library of Ireland; and the meetings she has held with officials on the matter. [43986/18]
View answerThe National Library of Ireland has over 10 million items in its collections, acquired since it was founded in 1877. Of this number, the Library's book collection amounts to 500,000 individual volumes, acquired over 140 years.
My Department has been informed that a recent large scale stock check of the book collection in the West Wing of the Library (where the majority of the onsite book collection is housed) was carried out ahead of the redevelopment of the main building on Kildare Street. After the stock check, a total of 1,801 of the books expected to be in the West Wing store could not be located and are considered missing by the National Library. In a number of instances, the National Library holds a duplicate copy of these books, so that while the individual volume is missing, a copy of that particular edition is still available. The 1,801 books thus identified equates to 0.36% of the Library’s total stock of 500,000 volumes.
The National Library of Ireland does not have evidence that any of these items were illegally removed or stolen. In fact, this percentage of books unaccounted by our National Library falls within international norms for libraries of comparable age. The National Library has informed my Department that the American Library Association notes that establishing a “standard” rate of book loss across libraries is very difficult. However, they cite various studies that suggest that overall loss rates of 4-8% are not uncommon. In 2007, the Library of Congress noted that it could not find 13% of the books in the collection. Therefore the percentage of books unaccounted for in the National Library falls well within international norms for libraries of comparable age, .
The current procedures employed by the National Library for additions to its collection corresponds to international best practice. The process involves documenting the item, including details of provenance, price (if purchased), extent, format and other key identifiers. The material or item is assigned a unique Accession Number. Larger additions to the collection, consisting of 5 or more boxes, will be added to the holdings of uncatalogued collections pending assignment to a Special Collections cataloguer.
I understand that a stock check of manuscripts and rare books will begin in 2019, following on from the West Wing stock check. This work will continue over a number of years, forming part of a regular programme of stock checks in the future. The National Library expect that a number of misfiled items will be located during this check. For now some items have been flagged as not on the shelf in their expected location, but will not be formally assessed as to whether they are missing, until the full inventory is carried out. As such, therefore, the National Library have not confirmed to my Department that any irreplaceable items are formally missing.
Once the stock checks are complete the National Library of Ireland will provide an update to my Department.
