National Collection of Northern Ireland Publications

NIPR (formerly known as the Northern Ireland Publications Resource) is Northern Ireland’s National Collection of Northern Ireland Publications.

As Northern Ireland has no National Library, no local institution is legally responsible for collecting all material published in Northern Ireland. Prior to the creation of NIPR, there was no reliable way of finding out what was published in Northern Ireland, who was collecting it, and where it was held.

With funding from the British Library, the Library and Information Services Council for Northern Ireland set out to redress the situation and officially launched the Northern Ireland Publications Resource (NIPR) in October 2000. The aim of the project was to collect every book, pamphlet, journal and periodical published in Northern Ireland since January 2000, preserving them for posterity and make them available for consultation by the general public. After a successful initial two-year pilot scheme, further funding was provided by the Northern Ireland Executive to continue the scheme.

Following a review in 2013 the name of the project was changed to NIPR, The National Collection of Northern Ireland Publications, to define more clearly the role and purpose of NIPR.

What is the NIPR?

All books, journals, pamphlets and reports published in Northern Ireland since 2000 are now systematically collected, catalogued and preserved in NIPR. Bibliographic information about the collection is available in the online book catalogue at www.nibooks.org.

The Linen Hall Library, Belfast, is our lead partner, provide assistance with collecting and preserving the collection, and a dedicated repository has been set up within the Linen Hall Library to house the collection.

Voluntary Donations

The scheme depends on voluntary donations of material by local writers, publishers and organisations. One copy of every item published in Northern Ireland is requested for the repository in Belfast to ensure that it is preserved for posterity.

A local publication is defined as anything published in Northern Ireland for public dissemination, regardless of subject or publisher. If you would like to know more about NIPR please e-mail nipr@nibooks.org or phone: 028-90321707