Committee Reports > List of Committees > Dáil > 1962 > Committee of Public Accounts > Report - Appropriation Accounts 1960 - 1961

APPENDIX XIV.

ORDNANCE SURVEY: RECIPROCAL PRESENTATIONS OF MAPS.

Chairman,

Committee of Public Accounts.

When I appeared before your Committee on Thursday, 15th March, 1962, you asked me to let you have a note stating if there are reciprocal arrangements whereby we get maps from those countries to institutions in which publications of our Ordnance Survey are presented as shown in Appendix B to the Appropriation Account relating to Vote 21 (Valuation and Ordnance Survey), 1960—61.

Of the institutions referred to in Appendix B, other than those within this jurisdiction, two are in the Six Counties, seven in Britain and one in the U.S.A. There are no reciprocal arrangements with the institutions in the Six Counties or with those in Britain in regard to presentation of maps. The publications of the British Ordnance Survey and the corresponding body in the Six Counties are not supplied regularly to our Ordnance Survey but are given willingly on request. With the Department of State, U.S.A., our Ordnance Survey has an arrangement since 1951 whereby we send them copies of practically all new Ordnance Survey publications, receiving from them U.S. maps and technical publications of equivalent value.

The Industrial and Commercial Property (Protection) Act, 1927, Section 178, applies to maps published by commercial publishers in this jurisdiction. Under its provisions, Trinity College, Dublin, the constituent colleges of the National University of Ireland, the National Library and the British Museum are entitled to a free copy of each newly-published map and the Bodleian Library, Oxford, Cambridge University Library, the National Library of Wales and the National Library of Scotland are entitled to a like free copy on demand within twelve months of publication. While these provisions are not binding on the State as publisher of Ordnance Survey maps, the Ordnance Survey rather than take advantage of its special position to evade a requirement which the law imposes on commercial publishers, supplies a copy of each newly-published map free of charge to those bodies.

Both the Royal Geographical Society, London, and the British House of Commons Library had, prior to the change of Government in 1922, been supplied free with copies of newly-published maps of the Ordnance Survey of Ireland. These free supplies were discontinued on the change of Government but, consequent on requests by the bodies in question, were later resumed insofar as concerned the 1-inch and 6-inch series. The Royal Geographical Society has presented copies of its Journal to the Ordnance Survey since 1931. Presentation of certain map series to Queen’s University and to Magee College was undertaken in 1946 and in 1953 respectively at the request of those institutions.

Valuation and Ordnance Survey.

19th April, 1962.