Our Services

Consulting Audio-Visual Material

Audio-visual material on our Digital Repositories can be consulted from the PC suite in the Archives and Special Collections Reading Room using headphones. There are also two sound booths located in the microfilm room, adjacent to the Reading Room. These have equipment for consulting material on VHS and DVD. They can be accessed by prior arrangement with the staff on the desk in the Archives and Special Collections Reading Room.

Digitisation

Researchers can request reproductions for private study, scholarship or research, and our staff will provide guidance regarding reproductions, rights, and any relevant fees that may apply. We have a form for these requests. Please see our Digitisation page for more information.

Microform

Microforms are non-digital reproductions of documents whih are scaled down for easy storage. They can be read using special machines.

Link to Guide to Finding and Using Microform >

Publishing and Citing Material

Many of our collections are in copyright, and are subject to restrictions in their terms of use for anything other than private research. Any requests for extracts or images from the University’s archival collections for the purposes of publishing, broadcasting, or display, will be influenced both by copyright legislation and the relevant deposit agreement held between the University and the donor. Permission must be obtained to publish material and, where permission is granted, acknowledgement of the source will be required, as well as details of the extract’s archival listing. In the first instance, please contact the archives and special collections team for advice on how to proceed. Where the Library is not the copyright holder, permission must be obtained from the copyright holder, and it is the responsibility of the person wishing to publish material to secure the necessary permissions. No publication right is vested in any person through the supply of a copy of a document in any medium.

Whether for private research, or commercial use, when citing material from the Archives and Special Collections, please include: place of repository, repository name, title of collections, title of item, date, reference number, date of access.

An example of our preferred method of citation would be:

Galway: University of Galway Library Archives: 'Letter from J. Maloney to John Wilson Lynch': 30 November 1887: LE6/B/685. Accessed 29/11/2023

If further guidance is required on this, please contact a member of the Heritage Collections team.

Self-Service Photography of Archives & Manuscripts

Self-service photography is permitted under the following regulations:

• A request should be made to the archivist on duty and the decision is at the archivist’s discretion as there may be circumstances such as copyright to take into consideration
• Small hand-held cameras and camera phones are permitted only. Tripods and flash photography are not acceptable nor is any noise or activity which may disturb other researcher
• By signing the application to consult manuscripts, upon arrival, each reader agrees that any image they may be permitted to take are for their private research only
• Images for publication, and permission to publish, must be acquired through the library’s digitisation service

Self-Service Scanner

A self-service Zeta Zeutschel scanner is located in the microfilm room, adjacent to the Reading Room. This will scan material up to A3 in size, and can output scans in JPG, TIFF or PDF format, which can be saved to the patron’s personal portable drive. (Note: I would like to trial a booking system for this as Collections Development use this machine and at certain times of the year, it might be in high use).

Teaching & Learning

Through both physical and digital access, our heritage collections are embedded in and enhance teaching programmes across campus, spanning a wide range of disciplines. We actively encourage and support academic staff to use archival material in their teaching and always seek to increase academic engagement with our collections. Similarly, we encourage students to make use of the wide ranging and unique material held in our library to enhance their course-work and wider learning experience. Please contact the Archivists, if you seek further information on how our collections might enhance and complement your teaching and learning.