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Virtual Trinity Library

Virtual Trinity Library is opening up the unique and distinct collections of the Library of Trinity College Dublin, catalysing research and safeguarding the iconic treasures of the Library of Trinity College Dublin for generations to come. This ambitious, multi-year initiative is to catalogue, conserve, digitise and research these unique collections of national importance making them accessible to a global audience, from schoolchildren to scholars.

Virtual Trinity Library is part of an international landscape of institutions that are enabling access to patrimony and cultural heritage. Universities such as Oxford, Cambridge, and Harvard, as well as national libraries, museums, archives, and galleries have similar initiatives to share national memory, enrich society and facilitate international links between collections and people. By additionally contributing to such international initiatives as Europeana, the vision is to create new digital research entities on a previously unimaginable scale, on which new types of scholarship will be possible. The importance of Virtual Trinity Library for teaching, learning and research was evident during the COVID-19 pandemic, which accelerated the digital transformation of the University and the Library.

Virtual Trinity Library will be accessible to all through its Digital Collections repository.

The ambitious digitisation project is centred on the Library of Trinity College's most prized collections across nine representative categories. The nine themes are:

Virtual Trinity Library is a strategic flagship project, forming part o f the University's philanthropic campaign, Inspiring Generations and is complementary to the Old Library Redevelopment Project which addresses the physical rejuvenation of the Library,

Helen Shenton
Librarian & College Archivist

Virtual Trinity Library will scale digitisation across nine key collections:
  • to conserve and protect the Library's most precious items
  • make collections easily accessible to a global audience, from school children to scholars
  • use new technologies to greatly expand research potential
  • place the Library of Trinity College in a virtual network with the other great libraries

Image of Oscar Wilde. Forget-me-not waltzes taken from a fully digitised object.

An 'In Conversation' with President of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Vartan Gregorian with the Librarian & College Archivist, Helen Shenton, discussing 'Creating a Virtual World Library for our Cultural Heritage' on the occasion of the launch of Virtual Trinity Library.