Dear students and staff,

A very warm welcome to the new academic year, especially to first-year undergraduates, new postgraduates and new members of the Trinity community.

Library Supports & Services

Every student has access to a dedicated librarian who is available to support you throughout your academic journey at Trinity. If you have not already met your Subject Librarian you will meet them at a Library class or workshop.

All Library staff are here to assist you. Ask any member of the helpful team at Library counters, email your Subject Librarian or library@tcd.ie. 

The Library HITS (Helpful Information for Trinity Students) programme will also help you with a wide range of skills workshops relevant to your studies.

UK Electronic Legal Deposit 

Electronic Legal Deposit (UK) is available again on dedicated terminals in the Library. Access to the electronic Legal Deposit (eLD) content was disrupted due to the major cyber-attack of the British Library at the end of October 2023. Following a large-scale exercise to confirm the eLD content was free of malware, a new secure interface was developed and is now available in all Trinity’s reading rooms, as well as the other five UK legal deposit libraries. 

Digital Collections and Open Scholarship

In a significant step for the Library’s contribution to Open Scholarship, the Library’s digitised content can now be made available for re-use under an open licence on the Library’s Digital Collections platform. This is in line with the new ‘Policy on Open Licensing of the Library’s Digitised Content’. Here are details of the Creative Commons Attribution licence to use. 

New search and discovery platforms 

The Library launched two new search and discovery platforms to replace Stella Search at the beginning of September. They are the ‘Library Catalogue’ for Library holdings; and ‘Articles and More’ for subscribed e-resources and database content. Some technical issues have arisen with the ‘Library Catalogue’ therefore Stella Search has been temporarily reinstated as the primary catalogue for Library holdings. You can find further information and updates in our Library Guide and Library home page. 

The Eavan Boland Library

The Library is holding an outdoor exhibition on Eavan Boland for those who may wish to find out more about the acclaimed Irish poet. The former Berkeley Library was renamed the Eavan Boland Library last year.  There is a display about the denaming and renaming process in the foyer and it also featured in an hour-long RTÉ Nationwide programme RTÉ player.

Old Library Redevelopment Project

The major conservation programme is well underway of the Old Library’s 18th century building.  Three quarters of a million of the most valuable and vulnerable collection items have been safely transferred, security tagged and catalogued as part of the major Decant of the Research Collections from the Old Library last year. This timelapse gives a sense of all that it involved. The Research Collections Study Centre is now in the Atrium of the Ussher Library. A new integrated Design Team is on board with McCullough Mulvin as the architects. The Old Library is anticipated to remain open until the end of 2027 at which point the Book of Kells will transfer to the beautifully restored Printing House, adjacent to the ‘Book of Kells Experience’ red pavilion. 

Later this semester, a temporary display of Cuala Press material from the Library’s collections will open in the newly conserved Printing House, to pilot its use as a display space; more details to follow. 

A reminder also that Trinity staff and students can continue to visit the Old Library and the new ‘Book of Kells Experience’ in New Square for free through this link (by using Student/Staff ID number in the promo code box). 

Virtual Trinity Library

The Library is currently hosting an exhibition in the Long Room ’The Island of Ireland in Maps’, showcasing maps from the 16th century onwards. The exhibition highlights the Library’s extensive cartographic resources. This will be followed in February 2026 by an exhibition on the founder of the Irish National Land League Michael Davitt, whose papers are being conserved and digitised as part of the Virtual Trinity Library. 

New Research and Innovation Laidlaw Library at Trinity East 

The first ‘digital first and foremost’ Research & Innovation Laidlaw Library is planned as an anchor to the growing campus at Trinity East, on Dublin’s Grand Canal Quay, with its anticipated opening at the end of 2027. The Laidlaw Library is being created from the refurbishment of an existing building and adjoins Trinity’s Portal Innovation Hub. Consultation across the University reinforced the need for different sorts of library spaces and surfaced many creative ideas for this first new library in the 21st century. 

Library Educational Outreach and Civic Engagement

The Library is developing a programme of activities and supports that will further promote equality, diversity and inclusion. The aim is to create more opportunities for people with intellectual disabilities, physical disabilities, students from overseas and non-traditional user groups to engage with the Library collections. 

As part of becoming a ‘Green Library’, the Library is hosting a Climate Café, which is an opportunity for staff and students to discuss climate related issues. Supported by the Global Room, and Trinity Sustainability, it will include book discussions, talks and visible mending workshops among other activities every month.

Libraries and Democracy

Finally, Libraries have been called ‘the last bastions of democracy’. In a world of malinformation, misinformation and disinformation, the value and values of libraries and archives have never been so important. In today’s geo-politics, libraries are increasingly politicised, as articulated in his article in the Observer ‘There is no political power without power over the archive,’ by Bodley’s Librarian Richard Ovenden, in which he outlines how the banning of books and deletion of data represent a fundamental threat to democracy. Libraries are not only safe spaces conducive to study and thought, but are guardians of knowledge, potential refuges for threatened research data and endangered archives, and trusted transmitters of information for our current communities and for the future. 

With warmest good wishes for the forthcoming semester,

Helen Shenton 

 

––––––––––––

Helen Shenton FRSA, FIIC
Librarian and College Archivist
The Library of Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin