GSI Customer Centre

John O'Donoghue and Enda Gallagher

In its offices in Beggars Bush, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4, the GSI has a walk-in Customer Centre and visitors are welcome to visit without prior appointment. It provides access to a large portion of GSI’s vast reserves of data, information, products and publications. It stocks for sale a wide range of GSI (and other) publications, including maps, books and dvds. As well as purchasing items, visitors to the Customer Centre can talk to a “duty geologist” who can provide initial guidance around the visitor’s particular query. Visitors can also view and search GSI’s dedicated “Document Management System” (DMS). This is a database of over half a million scanned documents from our archives including e.g. maps, reports and borehole and mine records. If the visitor finds something of interest it can be downloaded free of charge. Perhaps the most consulted sections of the DMS are the 19th century one and six inch maps which to this day serve as excellent reference sources.The Customer Centre also has an important collection of aerial photographs of Ireland dating from 1973. Completed over the course of five years these photographs were part of the first complete aerial photographic survey of the Republic of Ireland. The survey was flown at a height of 15,000ft to give a nominal scale of 1:30,000 and the photos have a wide range of uses including archaeological research and research into land boundaries. The GSI library is located within the Customer Centre and contains a large range of textbooks journals, pamphlets and theses on Irish and International geology. It also houses the Portlock and Burdon collection of valuable geological books and journals. The latter collection is called after David J Burdon, a distinguished hydrologist and founder member of the International Association of Hydrologists.



The Customer Centre is open to both the casual enquirer and the serious professional so why not visit it soon where you will be cheerfully welcomed and assisted professionally by GSI staff members, Frank Fagan and Derek Collins (the latter pictured above).

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