Library Service, Local Studies

The Local Studies Service of the North Eastern Education and Library Board is located in Ballymena Central Library. The role of this area wide service is to collect, record, organise and conserve all appropriate material about life in the NEELB area. The NEELB area covers most of County Antrim and the eastern part of County Londonderry. It comprises the Local Government Districts of Antrim, Ballymena, Ballymoney, Carrickfergus, Coleraine, Larne, Magherafelt, Moyle and Newtownabbey.

 

The NEELB Local Studies Service holds a variety of resources that can assist many different user groups. The collection of nearly ten thousand books includes not only material pertaining to the local area, but also books of interest on Ireland, north and south. The map collection includes Ordnance Survey maps from the 1830’s up to the present day. These are in a range of scales including 1:10 000 and 1:2500 maps, and also include the older six inch to a mile maps. There are also many historical maps of the area, as well as a range of maps dealing with topics ranging from land use, to business use, to political boundaries.

 

The NEELB holds a collection of over two thousand three hundred modern and historical photographs relating to the local area. These are catalogued and indexed to assist users in their search for images of the area. Local Studies packs have been compiled on people and places of interest in the area, and these are an invaluable resource to anyone interested in doing local research.

 

The newspaper collection is available in both hard copy and on microfilm. Titles held in the collection cover Ballymena, Larne and Mid Ulster. There is a run of the Belfast Newsletter on microfilm from 1738 up to 2002, and the Irish Times from 1859 to 1977. The Newspaper Index is a unique record of life in the NEELB area gathered from the local newspapers from 1973 to the present day. This valuable research tool is available to anyone who wants to trace the history of events in the area over the last thirty years.

 

Visitors to the Local Studies Library can also access the Northern Ireland Film and Television Commission Archive. This facility is of interest to anyone who has an interest in moving images, and with over sixty hours of footage it is a valuable research tool in its own right.

 

To assist the family historian there are several resources. In addition to the 1901 Census, the department also holds the Griffiths Valuation for our area. This valuation was carried out between 1848-1864, and gives a complete list of who occupied the land and houses at that time. The department also offers Internet access for those wishing to undertake online Local Studies research, and provides access to the Centre for Migration Studies database of the Ulster American Folk Park.