Trinity College Library, in Dublin, the library of the Univ. of Dublin and the largest library in Ireland, est. 1592. Its Old Library building (1712–32) by Thomas Burgh includes the Long Room, housing about 200,000 of the collection's oldest books. The main library is the Berkeley Lecky Ussher Library, three linked buildings with various specialties. Since 1801 the library has been a depository for materials published in the United Kingdom and Ireland. By the early years of the 21st cent. its collection included some 4.5 million volumes and an extensive group of periodicals, manuscripts, early printed books, maps, and music. The most famous manuscripts in the library are the 8th-century Celtic Book of Kells and the Book of Durrow. Other special acquisitions include the Ussher (1661) and Fagel (1801) collections.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2024, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
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