Vol. 481 No. 1
203 Mr. Kenny asked the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands her views on whether it is a serious situation that 70, 000 manuscripts remain uncatalogued by the National Library; the action, if any, she proposes to take in this regard; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [15723/97]
: Cataloguing in the National Library is an ongoing task and there are levels of cataloguing appropriate to each type of manuscript. The National Library considers that there are 350 collections of papers which are not processed to an adequate standard, nearly all of which are estate papers. There are preliminary lists available of 50 of these collections, but it is not possible to give a precise figure for the number of individual items that the collections represent. It can be stated that 750,000 items have been appropriately catalogued. This has involved the making of 61,000 individual catalogue entries. In the past year, in order to improve access by users, new catalogue entries are being made available on the library's online public access catalogue.
As with all the cultural collecting institutions under my aegis, the National Library operates within a framework of scarce resources. Within this context, priority is being given to the cataloguing of manuscripts which are rare or particularly important.
