Hot off the printing press and just in time for Christmas is a beautifully little book that provides an overview of the Library’s early Irish gospel books.
The Library of Trinity College Dublin possesses seven early Irish gospel books, dating from the 7th – 9th centuries and possibly earlier, of which the Book of Kells is the most famous. This book outlines what is known about how these manuscripts were made, including recent scientific research on the pigments used by their makers. It explores who might have been responsible for their creation, and the type of environment in which they worked. The different formats of the books, and the nature of their ornament yield some clues as to how they were originally intended to be used, while various interventions – from added lines of text, to forged signatures, to particular patterns of damage – provide glimpses into the stories of their survival. The book is lavishly illustrated with many photographs published here for the first time.
The book is available in the Library shop (with the usual staff discount), and via email from nphelan@tcd.ie.
Susan Bioletti and Rachel Moss, Early Irish Gospel Books in the Library of Trinity College Dublin, (Trinity College Dublin, 2016), pp 97; ills 71. ISBN 978-1-911566-00-7. €10
This year’s event promoting Trinity’s role in research took place on Friday 30 September at locations across campus – and the Library was well represented by involvement in four of the talks and presentations.
Probe was a free evening of music, talks, performance, films, food, experiments and workshops that explored the fascinating research that is shaping our world.
The Library was involved in the following events:
Hidden Histories: Researching the Treasures of the Library
Exhibition Area, Old Library, 5 – 7pm every half hour
Join Library experts in the exhibition area to discover how they research, interpret and conserve the treasures of the Library. Get an insight into the imagery, materials and techniques that were used to produce our most precious early manuscripts, such as the Book of Kells. Take a look down a microscope at the tell-tale characteristics of parchment and leather, and handle some of the raw materials used to create, and to conserve, the early book structures. Take a closer look at the detail and learn about the meanings hidden in the decoration.
What does it mean to have the entire published universe of two jurisdictions, the UK and Ireland, at your fingertips? What kind of research is needed in order to help researchers navigate this universe? Come join us to experience the weird and wonderful depths of the Library’s modern collections. See how a book ends up in the catalogue; how researchers can read Library materials without ever setting foot in a library building; how electronic publications are collected; and how even transient web pages are captured for posterity. Friendly Library staff will be on hand to show and tell, to explore questions about the (digital) future and to discuss some of the possible answers.
Digital Repository and Imaging Service
Trinity Long Room Hub, 5 – 8pm
Explore the work of Trinity’s DRIS (Digital Resource & Imaging Service), a department dedicated to the development of digital library collections to support research, teaching and scholarship. The team at DRIS, in collaboration with Computer Science researchers, will be demoing a software app which displays resources about the Harry Clarke Studios from the DRIS Digital Collections database, provides geolocation information about the churches where the related stained glass windows can be found (based on Ordinance Survey data), and maps out how to get there.
Reconstructing the Past
The Long Room, Old Library, 7 – 8pm
From meteor impacts to ancient scrolls, join us for a storytelling event in Trinity’s iconic Long Room that reveals the different ways researchers look to the past.
Featuring geologist Ian Sanders on reconstructing our planet’s ancient past, zoologist Nicola Marples on understanding the evolution of life, geneticist Dan Bradley on decoding humanity’s past by looking at our DNA, and our own Manuscripts & Archives Research Library curator Jane Maxwell on uncovering and protecting the artefacts of human culture.
Newcomers to Trinity can be a bit intimidated by the size of the Library and its many buildings and services, so we’ve put together a short video to showcase what we do. Enjoy 🙂
What does ingrained dirt on books and ice hockey have in common? What is red rot and foxing? How long did it take Trinity College Dublin to acquire its first 100,000 books and how many books are added annually? Do people still read the books in the Old Library? How are the books in the library organized on the shelves? Where can you see every page of the Book of Kells? What subject matter is covered in the Library and how was the collection built over time? What are the greatest threats to a historical library and how do we protect the books?
To learn the answers to all of these questions and more, come to the Long Room in the Old Library to hear the Preservation Assistants talk about keeping the collection of early printed books. The Preservation Assistants are part of an ongoing project, started in 2004, to systematically clean the over 220,000 books of the Old Library. We’ll walk you through the challenges of preserving an historic collection in a historic setting and explain how the books are cleaned and preserved for the future. Examples of books from the collection, dating from the invention of the printing press in the 15th century to the Victorian Era in the 19th century will be shown.
Talks run Monday to Friday at 10am, 12pm and 3pm until 18th November.
Alumni and current students can see the Book of Kells, access the Long Room, and attend these talks for free, with up to three guests.
Other visitors who have paid for entry to the Old Library are welcome to attend the Keeping the Books talks for no additional charge.
Rare and previously unpublished material held in the Library of Trinity College Dublin relating to WW1 will be brought to a global audience thanks to an online collaboration between Trinity and Google.
Segment from Six One News, June 30th 2015. Copyright Raidió Teilifís Éireann 2015.
Click to go to video.
The Great War Revisitedexhibition was launched online on Tuesday, June 30th 2015 at the Google Cultural Institute. This exhibition features 60 exhibits of unique heritage material from Trinity’s rare books and manuscripts collections relating to the Great War, including recruiting posters, letters, diaries, photographs, videos, pamphlets and artworks.
These highlights from the Library’s rich and diverse collections of material relating to the First World War can now be easily accessed by anyone wherever they are in world, right from their computer, tablet or phone. The Great War Revisited is Trinity’s first collaboration with Google Cultural Institute, which partners with more than 800 institutions – museums, libraries, art galleries and archives – around the world. The platform hosts over 170,000 artworks and a total of 6 million photos, videos, manuscripts and other documents of art, culture and history, to make important cultural material available and accessible to everyone.
Highlights of the exhibition include:
Trinity’s celebrated collection of Irish WWI recruiting posters (one of the largest collection in existence)
Previously unpublished photographs of the Allied campaign in Iraq and Turkey
Letters and diaries from Irish soldiers serving in France, Iraq and Palestine (previously unpublished)
A multitude of political pamphlets, songs and ballads and artworks
Commenting on the launch of the online exhibition Helen Shenton, Librarian and College Archivist, said: “The Library of Trinity College Dublin is delighted to be partnering with Google Cultural Institute on the Great War Revisited online exhibition. Showcasing the richness of First World War material held in the Library, the online exhibition forms part of the Library’s commitment to opening up its historic collections for global online access.”
The exhibition is part of the Library’s contribution to the Trinity College Dublin Decade of Commemoration initiative which includes lectures and conferences and a rededication of the Hall of Honour later this year.
Colour design for House of Gold and Spiritual Vessel, by Terence Clarke, Board of Trinity College Dublin
Beautiful sketches, designs and photographs from the famed Clarke Stained Glass Studios held in archive in the Library of Trinity College Dublin are now freely available online as part of a major national open digital repository for Ireland’s social and cultural data. For a selection taken from the fuller range see the Library’s mini online exhibition.
The Digital Repository of Ireland (DRI), which was launched by Damien English, Minister for Skills, Research and Innovation on June 25th, contains tens of thousands of high quality, metadata-rich digital objects, including video clips, photographs, digitised manuscripts, oral histories, sound recordings, digitised paintings and museum objects, books and letters. The repository links together and preserves both historical and contemporary data held by Irish institutions, providing a central online access point and interactive multimedia tools
DRI is available for use by the public, students and scholars. The repository is the result of nearly four years of research, software development, policy and legal framework design, and data curation by digital archivists and librarians. Trinity College Dublin has been a key partner in DRI, contributing technical, archiving, metadata and legal expertise to the project. Other partners in the consortium are the Royal Irish Academy (lead institute), Maynooth University, Dublin Institute of Technology, National University of Ireland Galway, and National College of Art and Design.
The repository features beautiful and moving collections, including those from five demonstrator projects – the Clarke Stained Glass Studios Archive, Letters of 1916, Irish Lifetimes, Kilkenny Design Workshops, Saol Agus Saothar Sa Ghaeltacht, and the Teresa Deevy Archive. The repository also contains the award-winning Inspiring Ireland collections, featuring content from eight of Ireland’s National Cultural Institutions, and rich collections of multi-media content from our partners Raidió Teilifís Éireann and the Contemporary Music Centre.
The Clarke Stained Glass Studio Archive held by the Library of Trinity College Dublin sheds light on the design and business practice of one of the leading creative businesses of the 20th century, which operated from 1893 until 1973 and was responsible for hundreds of stained glass windows for churches all over Ireland, the UK, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, several African countries, Singapore, and the Philippines.
With the support of the Digital Repository of Ireland project funding, the Library of Trinity College Dublin is currently undertaking a two-year digitisation project which will make thousands of sketches, designs, order books, photographs and business correspondence from this collection available online to researchers, art historians and the public. This work is being carried out by Dr Marta Bustillo, Assistant Librarian, and Joanne Carroll, Digital Photographer of the Digital Resources and Imaging Services Department in the Library.
Dermot Frost, Principal Investigator for DRI in Trinity with responsibility for the technical delivery of the repository said: “Building DRI has been both exciting and challenging. The team in Research IT, along with our partners, have built a scalable and robust digital repository for humanities and social sciences data using best-of-breed open source software components such as Fedora Commons, Hydra and Ceph.”
Helen Shenton, College Librarian and Archivist added, “Through our involvement in DRI, the Library has been able to unearth the treasures of the Clarke Stained Glass Studios Archive. The high resolution imaging of the business archives and designs for stained glass windows will be a vital resource to future researchers and the wider public.”
Speaking at the launch, Dr Sandra Collins, Director of DRI, invited everyone to visit DRI online: “DRI offers exciting historical, cultural and contemporary content that tells the story of Ireland and its people. The content comes from some of the finest institutions across Ireland, and is available without charge for people to view and to enjoy. Some of the collections we care for are restricted by copyright or the sensitive nature of the data, but researchers can request access. We are an open repository, and we want people to explore and enjoy their cultural and social heritage.”
Three roses set in a starburst pattern. IE TCD MS 11182-106. Stained glass panel by Terence Clarke (1917-1968), part of the Clarke Stained Glass Studios Collection.
The Faculty of Engineering, Mathematics and Science is hosting this year’s programme of events for Trinity Week which commences on Saturday 11th April. The theme for the week is ‘Light’ which coincides with 2015 being declared the International Year of Light by UNESCO. This week-long programme will include exciting events which demonstrate the roles light, in all its forms, plays and how it affects and enhances life.
The Library is involving itself in this programme, under the prompting of the Keeper of Preservation and Conservation, by staging a number of events on the theme of light, interpreting the word perhaps more metaphorically than scientifically, and being all the more interesting for that.
Harry Clarke, for example, used light as part of his palette and his role in Irish cultural history will be acknowledged by the installation of a reproduction, from the Harry Clarke Studios archives, in one of the windows of the Trinity Long Room Hub. The image chosen is a glorious drawing of three roses set in a starburst.
The Library has also interpreted the theme in the sense of ‘illuminary – that which illuminates’, recognising that the work the Library does lights up the research mission of the College. Images from the Library’s historic collections in the Manuscripts & Archives Research Library and the Department of Early Printed Books and Special Collections will therefore be projected onto the wall above the Nassau Street Entrance and also above the entrance to the Berkeley.
Taking the metaphorical use of the word ‘light’ and allying it with the centenary of the First World War inspired another Library installation planned for Trinity Week; ‘The lamps have gone out all over Europe. We will not see them lit again in our lifetime’ – a resonant phrase dating from the eve of the First World War which was understood from the beginning as a threat to enlightened civilization. The centenary of the War will be acknowledged with the projection, onto the East face of the 1937 Reading Room, of the names and portraits of the Trinity engineers and medics who fell.
All of the images being projected are accessible through our Digital Collections.
Early Printed Books and M&ARL will take a bit of liberty with the word ‘light’ again in the titles of their exhibition and blog (respectively) which will be curated/posted to coincide with events: ‘…and there was light’ is the title of a small exhibition, curated by EPB in the Berkeley foyer, which explores the theme through texts on religion, science and literature. ‘Throwing a bit of light on the subject’ is the punningly clever title of the M&ARL blog post which will provide a round-up of the Library’s involvement for the M&ARL audience.
Why not check out the website for all relevant projects within Trinity Week?
Captain Anthony Purdon Hagarty Corley of the 1st Australian Division
The Library has a number of events planned to acknowledge the centenary of the First World War. One of these events, which marks a specific battle and the participation of Trinity alumni in it, is a small exhibition which has been curated to coincide with ANZAC Day, 25 April 2015. ANZAC Day was originally dedicated to the memory of those of the Australian and New Zealander Army Corps who fell in Gallipoli in August 1915. To honour the anniversary this year the Library has identified, from among the archives of the Medical School, the portraits of the medical personnel who died in the Dardanelles Campaign, as it was also known, including one Trinity man who served in the Australian army. These nineteen portraits have been treated in the Preservation and Conservation Department and placed on exhibition in the world-famous Long Room of the Old Library where they will be seen by the hundreds of thousands of visitors who visit the Library in the summer months.
The portraits are identified by name, the date of entry to the College, the date and location of death, and the cemetery wherein the individual was interred. It is, as ever, noticeable how very young most of these men were, the youngest having only entered College less than 18 months before his untimely death. The oldest man was in his fifties.
Both the Medical School and the School of Engineering collected and displayed the portraits of their alumni who died in the War; the memory of their service in Gallipoli and other campaigns formed a part of the Schools’ distinct identity within the College. The medical portraits now form part of the College Archives, housed in the Library, while the portraits of the engineers still hang in the Museum Building.
Hot off the printing press and just in time for Christmas is a beautifully little book that provides an overview of the Library’s early Irish gospel books.
What does ingrained dirt on books and ice hockey have in common? What is red rot and foxing? How long did it take Trinity College Dublin to acquire its first 100,000 books and how many books are added annually? Do people still read the books in the Old Library? How are the books in the library organized on the shelves? Where can you see every page of the Book of Kells? What subject matter is covered in the Library and how was the collection built over time? What are the greatest threats to a historical library and how do we protect the books?
