Need a book about Ireland? If it is in print and available in a library either here or abroad you can now find it at the click of a mouse via a free on-line research service launched today by the National Library of Ireland.
"Sources", the National Library of Ireland Database for Irish Research provides instant access to up to 196,574 records of Irish interest, meticulously catalogued some decades ago, but now finally digitised.
Users can have near instant access to sources in the National Library but also materials held in universities and research institutions around the world.
It is all there, according to the Library's assistant keeper, Ms Katherine McSharry, from art and architecture through economics and genealogy.
It includes references to books penned by hand by Irish monks on the Continent and now held in German and Swiss libraries, but also to modern periodicals describing politics, zoology and dozens of other categories.
