The Old Library, Trinity College Dublin, 1712–2012
W.E. Vaughan, editor
‘Capturing the richness and diversity of the library collections of Trinity College, Dublin, the fifty contributors to this volume of essays each offer their own particular perspective on Ireland’s largest research library. This [is] a handsome and well-illustrated book … some essays evoke the atmosphere of the place, and do justice to the Long Room as a fine architectural space … As an illustrated companion to the library, there is a particular focus in this volume on visually attractive collections … Colourful personalities have also been invited to contribute and the personal reminiscences of some library users with a long association with the college are an engaging addition to the social history of the institution … This collection of essays is necessarily eclectic, reflecting the diversity of historic collections held in the Long Room of Trinity College Library … this [is a] delightful book’, Bernadette Cunningham, Irish Economic and Social History (2013).
‘This splendid volume celebrates the tercentenary of the Old Library in TCD … the editor W.E. Vaughan claims that the Long Room is the most magnificent room in Ireland … I was hard put to think of a private or public chamber that is so atmospheric … The illustrations are varied and memorable. It is a worthy memorial to a fine building, to a distinctive intellectual history and to a cultural institution that flourishes today not only as a bibliophile’s paradise but as an example of heritage tourism with its exhibitions and shop', Rory Brennan, Books Ireland (May 2013).
‘The volume presents a range of detailed studies by notable scholars in their respective fields, visually enhanced by well-presented reproductions of manuscripts, colour and black and white photographs, works on paper, maps, ephemera, stained glass windows and copies of items from many other discussed collections linked to essays on music, sport, exhibitions and the Great War … [this book] is a weighty tome but beautiful in its execution, visual presentation and layout … This is a book to be dipped into over a long period, one that contains many fascinating pieces of information … The fifty essays in this volume are short, succinct and accessible, highly readable yet scholarly. As an introduction to the Old Library, its formation and selective holdings, this is a fine place to start’, Kevin Molloy, Australasian Journal of Irish Studies (2014).
‘This festschrift marking the tercentenary of the Old Library at Trinity College Dublin is replete with affection … though none of them is long (there are fifty in total, in 462 heavily illustrated pages), some add materially to the history of the library and of some of its treasures', David McKitterick, TLS (May 2013).
'...contains many fascinating side lights on aspects of Irish and Dublin culture over the last three centuries ... Dr Vaughan and his contributors are to be congratulated on this detailed and enlightening record of the past', Peter Costello, Irish Catholic (May 2013).
