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#17 My Goodness, My Guinness

The Iveagh Hall – the main place of interaction between Library staff and our readers on a daily basis – features in very few of our period photographs.

It’s named after the Iveaghs (they of the lovely Iveagh Gardens off Earlsfort Terrace) – that is, the Guinness family. Yes, *that* Guinness family. As with the other “named” space in the Berkeley, the Morrison Room, this is to recognise the substantial donation made towards the fund to construct the New Library. The first drive towards funding the building began in 1954 (several years before Building for Books and the wider appeal to alumni) with Lord Iveagh, then Chancellor of the University, pledging one-tenth of the estimated construction cost. That was calculated in 1954 money at £450,000 (it ended up costing £800,000 in 1967 prices, which isn’t that big a stretch taking into account inflation). So, Lord Iveagh pledged £45,000. That would be equivalent to several million euro today.

Here we have one of those rare photos, taken from the booklet to accompany the opening in 1967:

You can see that the lights above the oriel windows haven’t even been wired in yet – I wonder if anyone noticed that in the photo at the time? These lights are now blanked off with steel plates from when the area was refurbished. You can also see the massive air conditioning duct that was removed. They still exist on the upper floors.

That this area actually has a name will be news to many –  the signage is small and discreet above the modern stairwell down to the Orientation Space.

This sign is far away Dougal. But also small.

When it was in operation, the area was full of shelves, reference books and catalogues. This shot is from 1976.

Image: Tony Cains

One of Koralek’s famous concrete counters was at the far end of the Hall. When the area was refurbished in ’02, it took days to take that apart. As now, the area to the left when you enter was for staff, but that extended to the end of the building, encompassing what is now the Counter Reserve section.

Here’s that in the ’80s, being used by our cataloguing department.

Image: Peter Fox

This is looking towards Nassau Street – you can see the wall along it in the distance. This view doesn’t exist any more – the Ussher is in the way.

Finally, as an overview of the Iveagh Hall, we have a few seconds of video, courtesy of Peter Fox.

We’ll talk about how the area has changed – and is changing again now! – next time.

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