Belfast Central Library is a

public library A public library is a library that is accessible by the general public and is usually funded from public sources, such as taxes. It is operated by librarians and library paraprofessionals, who are also Civil service, civil servants. There are ...

Royal Avenue Royal Avenue is a street in Belfast, Northern Ireland. In the Cathedral Quarter in the heart of Belfast city centre, as well as being identified with the more recent Smithfield and Union Quarter, it has been the city's principal shopping thor ...

Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...

, Northern Ireland. Opened in 1888, it was one of the first major public library buildings in Ireland. A competition for the design of the building was won by architect William Henry Lynn in 1883 and it was built by H & J Martin builders. Designed to reflect the ambitions of the growing city of Belfast, its architecture is a fine example of a public building at the height of the

Victorian age In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardian ...

. On a black

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

base, the

Dumfries Dumfries ( ; sco, Dumfries; from gd, Dùn Phris ) is a market town and former royal burgh within the Dumfries and Galloway council area of Scotland. It is located near the mouth of the River Nith into the Solway Firth about by road from the ...

red

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

exterior with a slightly

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...

feel, houses a three-floor interior with a sweeping staircase, a pillared

foyer A lobby is a room in a building used for entry from the outside. Sometimes referred to as a foyer, reception area or an entrance hall, it is often a large room or complex of rooms (in a theatre, opera house, concert hall, showroom, cinema, etc. ...

, and a fine

dome A dome () is an architectural element similar to the hollow upper half of a sphere. There is significant overlap with the term cupola, which may also refer to a dome or a structure on top of a dome. The precise definition of a dome has been a m ...

d first-floor reading room. The top floor originally included a museum and

art gallery An art gallery is a room or a building in which visual art is displayed. In Western cultures from the mid-15th century, a gallery was any long, narrow covered passage along a wall, first used in the sense of a place for art in the 1590s. The lon ...

. The building is a notable part of the 19th-century cityscape of modern Belfast. It survived undamaged through the

Belfast Blitz The Belfast Blitz consisted of four German air raids on strategic targets in the city of Belfast in Northern Ireland, in April and May 1941 during World War II, causing high casualties. The first was on the night of 78 April 1941, a small attack ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and

the Troubles The Troubles ( ga, Na Trioblóidí) were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it is sometimes described as an "i ...

of the late 20th century. The library is in the library and Cathedral Quarter, on the edge of Belfast City Centre and close to the Belfast Campus of the

University of Ulster sco, Ulstèr Universitie , image = Ulster University coat of arms.png , caption = , motto_lang = , mottoeng = , latin_name = Universitas Ulidiae , established = 1865 – Magee College 1953 - Magee Un ...

. Two additional buildings were added to the site in the 1960s and 1980s, providing staff accommodation and extra storage. These reflect the growth in the book stock of the library in the intervening decades. A newspaper library is in the 1980s building and accessed from Library Street. The Library is now run by Northern Ireland Libraries, a public authority covering the whole of Northern Ireland. Belfast Central Library houses a range of sections, including a lending library & Information and Business library still based in the original reading room. A Belfast, Ulster and Irish Department & Music Library on the top floor. It is a major provider of IT facilities on the ground floor providing free internet access.

Special collections

The Library has a number of special collections, including a fine book collection, the library and manuscripts of

Francis Joseph Bigger Francis Joseph Bigger (1863 – 9 December 1926) was an Irish antiquarian, revivalist, solicitor, architect, author, editor, Member of the Royal Irish Academy, and Fellow of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland. His collected library, now ...

, the manuscripts of the eccentric

Amanda McKittrick Ros Anna Margaret Ross (née McKittrick; 8 December 1860 – 2 February 1939), known by her pen-name Amanda McKittrick Ros, was an Irish writer. She published her first novel ''Irene Iddesleigh'' at her own expense in 1897. She wrote poetry and ...

and the manuscripts of the Ulster playwright

Sam Thompson Samuel Luther "Big Sam" Thompson (March 5, 1860 – November 7, 1922) was an American professional baseball player from 1884 to 1898 and with a brief comeback in 1906. At , the Indiana native was one of the larger players of his day and was known ...

. The

Northern Ireland Music Archive The Northern Ireland Music Archive is a digital archive of materials related to music from Northern Ireland. It is based on a publicly accessible computer system situated in the Music Library at Belfast Central Library, Belfast, County Antrim. The ...

is a computerised database housing recordings, scores and other materials relating to music created by Northern Ireland composers/artists. The Archive, which was funded and developed by the

Arts Council of Northern Ireland The Arts Council of Northern Ireland (Irish: ''Comhairle Ealaíon Thuaisceart Éireann'', Ulster-Scots: ''Airts Cooncil o Norlin Airlan'') is the lead development agency for the arts in Northern Ireland. It was founded in 1964, as a successor to ...

houses music from the contemporary/classical genre, as well as folk and traditional materials from the Geoff Harden Archive.

Northern Ireland Screen Northern Ireland Screen is the national screen agency for Northern Ireland. The agency's purpose is to promote the development of a sustainable film, animation and television production industry.About Us > Overview Northern Ireland Screen website, ...

has also placed an access point to their Digital Film Archive in the Lending Library. Along with

Linen Hall Library The Linen Hall Library is located at 17 Donegall Square North, Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is the oldest library in Belfast and the last subscribing library in Northern Ireland. The Library is physically in the centre of Belfast, and more g ...

, Belfast Central Library houses the repository for the Northern Ireland Publications Resource (NIPR), which collects and catalogues all of Northern Ireland's titles published since 2001.NIPR (Research and Special Collections Available Locally)
, 25 August 2018 (accessed 7 October 2018)

Gallery

File:Belfast Central Library.jpg, Central Library, Belfast, Country Antrim, Northern Ireland File:Belfast Central Library, Front Elevation.jpg, Central Library, Front Elevation, Belfast, Northern Ireland File:Belfast Public Library.jpg, Belfast Public Library building

References

External links

Northern Ireland Libraries
– Official government web portal for Northern Ireland public libraries.
Northern Ireland Composers
– Arts Council of Northern Ireland web site, providing listings of the contemporary/classical materials held in the Northern Ireland Music Archive.
Digital Film Archive
– Official web site, provided by Northern Ireland Screen. {{Authority control Library buildings completed in 1888 Public libraries in the United Kingdom Buildings and structures in Belfast Education in Belfast Libraries in Northern Ireland Tourist attractions in Belfast Grade B listed buildings 1888 establishments in Ireland

Special collections

Gallery

See also

References

External links