Audio Visual Recording Service

The Audio Visual Recording Service is based in Library Headquarters in Armagh and was created in 1975 to supply educational broadcasts to SELB schools. The service has since been extended to the other Boards and in 2002-3 over 60,000 radio and TV broadcast copies were supplied to schools across Northern Ireland.

AVRS has a licence under the 1988 Copyright Act to record, retain and make copies of broadcasts to schools and colleges, and in the past year almost 60% of N.I. schools either borrowed or purchased recordings.

It is the policy of AVRS to record all daytime broadcasts of BBC and CH4 schools television programmes and all BBC schools radio programmes as detailed in the published schedules. General output or night time broadcasts intended for an older audience are also taken where the subject matter is thought to conform to the curriculum. These recordings are retained as necessary and details about them are included in the annual AVRS catalogue. Copies of this catalogue are sent to all schools in September and the catalogue is also available on the SELB website.

Schools may borrow any programme listed in the catalogue, or they may retain the recordings for a small charge per tape. A scale of charges is included on pages 3 & 4 of the catalogue.