Access to the Digital Collections has resumed from today (April 19th, 2024) following offline maintenance this week. It has been necessary to temporarily restrict access to the College network, therefore for the present the repository of digitised images is available only to Trinity staff and students. We apologise to all external users for any inconvenience caused by this temporary disruption and we are working to resolve these issues. If users have any urgent queries, please contact Digital.Collections@tcd.ie
Produced by the Junior Sophisters of the open module “Studies in Samuel Beckett: Beckett Beyond” (designed and taught by Céline Thobois-Gupta), these research zines disseminate each learner’s investigation of Samuel Beckett’s dramatic work with a special focus on a theme of their choice.
This year, the cohort was composed mainly of visiting students, which steered the research dynamic beyond the shores of Ireland towards various political, cultural, and artistic ecosystems. Topics covered included Gender Performance, Technology, and Samuel Beckett; The Politics of Control in Samuel Beckett and George Orwell; Samuel Beckett, Krapp’s Last Tape, and Traumas; Samuel Beckett and Choreography; the Fight Against the Denial of Catastrophe in Samuel Beckett’s Theatre; and Acting Beckett’s Absurd. Many congratulations to the authors Léana Etienne, Maria Karampatsi, Aoife Kavanagh, Judith Leimann, Charles Putzhoven, and Guo Wen for sharing their work with us.
Copies of the zines are available to read in detail and reflection is invited by completing a feedback form available beside the display.
The Beckett Beyond Zines, which are a significant contribution to undergraduate research in Trinity College, are in the process of being catalogued as part of the Library’s permanent collection, as well as archived on TARA, Trinity’s Institutional Repository.
The Beckett Beyond Exhibition will run until the end of Trinity Term. You can read more about the Beckett Beyond exhibition at this link – https://libguides.tcd.ie/beckettzines
The Library is extending its 24-hour space provision for a six week period commencing after the St Patrick’s Day Bank holiday to help students prepare for exams. The Hamilton Library will open on a 24-hour basis from Tuesday 19th March to Thursday 2nd May, providing an additional 600 study spaces for late evening and weekend study. This will supplement the existing 500 study spaces in Kinsella Hall to help boost capacity during the busy pre-exam period.
The entrance to the Hamilton Library is located on the second floor of the Hamilton building. You’ll need a valid student or staff ID card to enter both the building and the library itself. Security personnel will be present at all times to ensure a safe and secure environment. Toilets, vending machines, PCs and self-service kiosks (for borrowing materials) will be available.
All details of the Library’s opening hours are available here.
The first book club of the year will take place on Friday 9th February in the North Training Room in the Library (former Berkeley Library). The Book Club is open to all staff (professional, research, academic).
We have multiple copies in the Library but we love this one so much you might want to use one of your Christmas book vouchers! It’s widely available in paperback (it’s €13 in Easons for example) and you might find it second hand or in your local public library.
We are extremely grateful to everyone who took the time to complete our recent Library Life Pulse survey.
Congratulations to all our survey prize draw winners whose names were selected to win from a selection of One for All gift vouchers and T-Card credit.
A special mention to our overall winners Ioana Raducu and Victoria Lawlor who were the lucky recipients of airpods and Galaxy buds respectively.
Over the coming months, we will be analysing the findings in greater detail in order to create an action plan that addresses your feedback. We will provide a further update during Hilary term.
Please be advised there is an ongoing temporary disruption of the Library’s UK electronic legal deposit service, due to a technical issue. Content including e-books, e-journals and the web archive are likely to be unavailable for a period of time. The Legal Deposit Libraries are working hard to resolve the situation as soon as possible.
Our electronic Legal Deposit collection is a shared endeavour with the other UK Legal Deposit Libraries. Our access to this content is via the British Library. Unfortunately, they are experiencing a major technology outage following a cyber-attack. The outage is affecting their website, online systems and services, and includes electronic Legal Deposit. They anticipate restoring many services in the next few weeks, but some disruption may persist for longer. Please see their blog https://blogs.bl.uk/living-knowledge/2023/11/cyber-incident.html
British Library cyber-attack:
A cyber-attack on the British Library (BL) means that our “electronic Legal Deposit (UK)” items, which are normally available on our reading room PCs and borrowable Library laptops, are currently unavailable. Additionally, UK theses normally accessed through the EThOS system cannot be viewed.
The outage is affecting the BL website, online systems and services, and includes electronic Legal Deposit. They anticipate restoring many services in the next few weeks, but some disruption may persist for longer.
BL updates and contacts
Regularly check the British Library blog and their X feed @britishlibrary for updates on the current status of their services. You can contact the BL via X or emailing customer@bl.uk (be prepared for delay to responses).
Finding alternative copies of books and articles
Our readers can obviously double-check Stella Search for alternative copies, but may also want to consider HathiTrust or Archive.org for older and out-of-copyright material.
If you are looking for a book and no print or other e-book version is available, contact your Subject Librarian for assistance with sourcing alternative content options; we may be able to purchase an e-book copy, for example, or show you how to request an Inter-Library Loan.
If you are looking for a specific article and we don’t seem to have the journal via a subscription, again, contact your Subject Librarian for help.
Although the British Library catalogue is not available, you can still check for British Library published material in Library Hub Discover. This resource is a database of 204 UK and Irish academic, national & specialist library catalogues. If you want to easily find a copy in another library in the UK or Ireland, then make friends with Library Hub Discover.
Do you have a BL login? Consider resetting your password on other accounts
The BL says: ‘As our systems remain unavailable, you won’t be able to change the password you have used to access British Library services. However, if you use the same password to login to other, non-British Library services we recommend that you change it.’
Many thanks to our colleagues at the Bodleian Library who originally created much of the above guidance. This is also included in the our https://libguides.tcd.ie/bl-cyber-attack.
We will keep readers updated during this process. If you require urgent access to a title available on UK eLD only, please contact library@tcd.ie for assistance.
A Library survey was launched university-wide today seeking feedback from all staff and students on their experience of using the Library.
The Library is at the heart of the University, providing services, resources, training and space. This is an opportunity for you to have your say in relation to your Library and how it can best support you currently, and in its future development.
As a thank you for taking part, all participants will have the option of entering a prize draw to win AirPods, Galaxy buds, One4all vouchers and T-card top-ups.
Are you a member of staff who would like to know more about the climate emergency but don’t know where to start?
We’ve teamed up with Dr. Clare Kelly in the School of Psychology to bring you a monthly book club to showcase some of the best readings on the climate and biodiversity crisis.
December’s Book Club
Our third book club takes place on Friday, 8th December and this month’s pick is: Richard Powers’ The Overstory. The Library has seven copies!
On Monday 13th November, the Library will be launching its Study Space Campaign to address the issue of ‘desk-hogging’ (i.e., the practice of leaving books and personal belongings unattended for long periods of time at Library study spaces, thus preventing others from using those spaces). A dedicated team of stewards will be freeing up study spaces that have been left unoccupied for more than 60 minutes. Belongings are moved to clear plastic boxes to designated storage areas on the same floor.
The Library Study Space Campaign relies on the cooperation of all readers. We ask that you be respectful and support the Steward Team to ensure that everybody has a fair chance of finding a suitable study space during this stressful pre-exam period. You can also assist us by not leaving personal belongings (especially laptops, phones, USB drives or other valuables) unattended for any length of time, and by sticking to the 60 minute break rule.
Reminder to take breaks, stay hydrated and eat all snacks and meals outside of the Library, but do take your valuables with you.
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us at: library@tcd.ie.
Please be advised there is a temporary disruption of the Library’s UK electronic legal deposit service, due to a technical issue. Content including e-books, e-journals and the web archive are likely to be unavailable for a number of days. The Legal Deposit Libraries are working hard to resolve the situation as soon as possible. We will keep readers updated during this process. If you require urgent access to a title available on UK eLD only, please contact library@tcd.ie for assistance.
Our electronic Legal Deposit collection is a shared endeavour with the other UK Legal Deposit Libraries. Our access to this content is via the British Library. Unfortunately, they are experiencing a major technology outage following a cyber-attack. The outage is affecting their website, online systems and services, and includes electronic Legal Deposit. They anticipate restoring many services in the next few weeks, but some disruption may persist for longer. Please see their blog https://blogs.bl.uk/living-knowledge/2023/11/cyber-incident.html
Are you a member of staff who would like to know more about the climate emergency but don’t know where to start?
We’ve teamed up with Dr. Clare Kelly in the School of Psychology to bring you a monthly book club to showcase some of the best readings on the climate and biodiversity crisis.
November’s Book Club
Our second book club takes place on Friday, 10th November in the North Training Room in the Library (former Berkeley Library). This month’s pick is Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything.
Intricate scenes painted on book edges depicting landscapes, flowers and buildings are the subject of a new exhibition in the Library of Trinity College Dublin.
Château de Fontainebleau on the fore-edge of M. Menzikof & F. Dolgorouki: Histoire russe v.2 (London, 1805)
The exhibition features highlights from the Library’s Bollmann Collection which includes fore-edge paintings executed over 250 years. They were painted on books printed between 1639 and 1895, with a wide variety of subjects – landscapes, mansions, religious buildings, boats, coats of arms, and flowers. Many of the books in the collection are in decorative bindings and the most beautiful of these will be on view in the exhibition alongside the fore-edge paintings.
Entitled “Bound to please: the Elsbeth and Bettina Bollmann Collection of fore-edge paintings and bindings”, the exhibition in the Long Room of the Old Library will run until the end of November and forms part of the Book Of Kells exhibition.
The unusual art of painting on the flat fore-edges of books goes back many centuries but the more subtle art of creating a hidden picture which is only visible when the leaves of the book are fanned appeared in England in the middle of the 17th century. There are three 17th-century fore-edge paintings in the Bollmann Collection, one of them probably executed in 1652 and the other two dated 1685 and 1688.
The art of fore-edge painting was taken up by the firm of Edwards of Halifax in the late 18th century and is often associated with that family. Founded by William Edwards in Halifax, Yorkshire, William was joined in his business by his sons, two of whom opened their own premises in London.
Apart from fore-edge paintings, the Edwards are known for their Etruscan-style bindings, described as such because motifs typical of Etruscan vases were used to decorate them, and for illustrated vellum bindings, on which a drawing on the cover is covered with a thin layer of transparent vellum to protect it. Both of these designs by the Edwards family are represented by several books in the Bollmann Collection. These stunning bindings are among those forming part of this exhibition.
Most fore-edge paintings are not dated and some of them were added to books many years after the books were published. Double fore-edge paintings and triple edge paintings, which are not commonly found, are believed to date from the early 20th century. Books with these paintings are among the highlights of this exhibition.
Helen Shenton, Librarian and College Archivist, commented:
“The Bollmann Collection of fore-edge paintings and bindings is the largest collection of fine bindings acquired by the Library of Trinity College Dublin since the early 19th century. Most of the volumes are decorated with fore-edge paintings and many of them are in fine bindings, making this the most important collection of bindings to be acquired by the Library in over 200 years, since the Quin Collection was received in 1805.
“We are most grateful to Bettina Bollmann for making this donation of exquisite fore-edge paintings and bindings to the Library’s precious Research Collections. We are delighted to showcase highlights in this physical exhibition as well as an online exhibition and videos.”
The books on display in the Trinity exhibition form part of a collection of 52 books which was donated to the Library in 2022 by Bettina Bollmann, who had joined her mother Elsbeth over several decades in assembling the collection.
Most of the volumes are decorated with fore-edge paintings and many of them are in fine bindings, making this the most important collection of bindings to be acquired by the Library in over 200 years, since the Quin Collection was received in 1805.
Pictured in the main image are Principal Librarian, Early Printed Books & Special Collections, Dr Lydia Ferguson and exhibition curator, donor, Bettina Bollmann.
Are you a member of staff who would like to know more about the climate emergency but don’t know where to start?
We’ve teamed up with Dr. Clare Kelly in The School of Psychology to bring you a monthly book club to showcase some of the best readings on the climate and biodiversity crisis.
The Book Club is open to all staff (professional, research, academic) and takes place in the North Training Room in The Library (former Berkeley Library), the second Friday of every month (12:00-14:00).
These are moderated events, where Trinity staff can ask questions and engage in discussions about the book with the Trinity staff community. There is no need to register and all staff are welcome.
October’s Book Club
Our first book club takes place on Friday, 13th October in the North training room in the Library (former Berkeley Library).
This month’s pick is: Generation Dread : Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis by Britt Wray.
Check the availability of Generation Dread in The Library
Due to ongoing construction works, there will be periods of noise during weekday office hours from Wednesday 9 to Friday 18 August in the Ussher Library – we apologise for any disruption caused. Due to the nature of the works these are likely to be quite loud and constant this week; next week should be more intermittent.
Students wishing to use reading rooms with less distraction may wish to temporarily move to the Lecky Library, former Berkeley Library, or indeed the Hamilton Library at the East End of College.
Applications for student shelvers are now being accepted for the coming academic year 2023/24.
Each year the Library employs a number of student shelvers who work 10-12 hours per week at the Libraries on Campus and in the Trinity Centre at St James’s Hospital. The primary role of student shelvers is to sort books and return them to the shelves each morning before the Library opens.
A full job description and short-listing criteria are available on the application website. Please ensure you read these in detail before completing the form on the website.
The closing date for receipt of applications is 12 noon on Monday 7th August 2023.
Please Note: Interviews for these positions are likely to take place at the end of September 2023. Shortlisted candidates will be notified by e-mail of their interview time at least one week in advance of the interview date.
If you have any questions please contact Maria Kelly, Reading Room Maintenance Executive: kellyM10@tcd.ie
