Presentation given at Digital Humanities Research Colloquium, 10 October 2018. After the recent fire at the National Museum of Brazil the Bendegó meteorite was one of the few artefacts left relatively intact. Considering the cycle of creation and destruction of libraries from the time of the library in Alexandria to now, how do libraries prepare for this type of event and are libraries phoenix-like in their re/creation? In this presentation I discuss the different forms of destruction and re/creation and what this might mean for the library of the future.

1. Destroying & Creating the
Library of the Future
Elaine Harrington | Special Collections Librarian
UCC Library
Digital Humanities Seminar – UCC
10 October 2018

2. National Museum of Brazil
Slide Credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Museum_of_Brazil#/media/File:Pal%C3%A1cio_de_S%
C3%A3o_Crist%C3%B3v%C3%A3o.jpg

3. National Museum of Brazil
Slide Credit: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/our-art-has-burned-for-centuries-it-will-go-up-in-smoke-
again/2018/09/05/53702182-b11b-11e8-a20b-5f4f84429666_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.a9ba54b87cda

4. What is a Library?

5. What is a Library?

6. What is a Library?

7. Destroying Libraries

8. In Our Memory
Library of Alexandria:
48 BCE or 270 CE
Battle of Baghdad:
1258 CE
Great-Britain's coasting pilot: being a new and exact survey of the sea-
coast of England and Scotland, from the river of Thames to the
westward and northward; with the islands of Scilly, and from thence to
Carlisle: likewise the islands of Orkney and Shetland. London, s.l., n.d.

9. Dissolution of Monasteries
Fountains Abbey, Yorkshire (diss. 1539)
Slide Credit: Fountains Abbey, Yorkshire. Watercolour by Samuel Grimm. (1773) © British Library CC BY-NC
https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/fountains-abbey

10. Effects of War
Slide Credit: Burned books from Leuven.

11. Destroyed by Fire
Glasgow School of Art (2014 & 2018)
Slide Credit: https://twitter.com/itvnews/status/1007925534901395457

12. Destroyed by Flood - Potential
Slide Credit: Tansey, Eira. “Tracking Hurricane Florence.” (2018)
https://repositorydata.wordpress.com/2018/09/12/tracking-hurricane-florence/

13. Memory of the World
Lost Memory - Libraries & Archives Destoryed in the Twentieth Century
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001055/105557e.pdf

14. Disaster Management

15. Environmental Factors
• Light: encourages chemical reactions
• Temperature: fixed between 13 – 16C
• Relative humidity: fixed between 45 – 60%
• Standard: BSI PD 5454
• Air pollution
• Mould
Slide Credit: @HarperCollinsUK pic.twitter.com/bZDyaHwSP7

16. Storage
• Soundly constructed, well ventilated,
watertight
• Stable internal climate
• Secure

17. Handling
• Use appropriate equipment:
➢ Foam supports
➢ Book snakes
➢ Weights
➢ Archival page inserts
• Support a book’s spine to reduce strain
• No resting on top of pages or manuscripts
• Keep food, drink and ink away from items
• No quick-fix repairs: adhesive tape,
laminators

18. Emergency Planning
Slide Credit: https://www.ucc.ie/en/media/support/ocla/emergencyplanning/EMandBCP__01June2016.pdf

19. Creating Libraries

20. Acts of Parliament
The Queens Colleges of Ireland were
established by the Queens Colleges
(Ireland) Act, 1845.
Irish Universities Act,
1908.
RDS: Dublin Science and Art
Museum Act ,1877.

21. Transferring Libraries – Cathedral
Slide Credit: Aquinas, Thomas. Incipiu[n]t preclarissima opuscula diui Thome aquinatis sacri ordinis p[re]dicato[rum] in
quibus o[mn]is ph[ilosophi]e [&] diuina[rum] scriptura[rum] theoremata est co[m]plexus. [Venice: Hermann Lichtenstein, 1497].

22. Slide Credit: Burnet, Gilbert. The History of the Reformation of the Church of England: in two parts. London: Printed for J.
Walthoe and B. Tooke [etc.], 1715.
Transferring Libraries – Green Coat School

23. Slide Credit: Ls.3: Cin Lae part of the Murphy manuscript collection (77 manuscripts in total).
Transferring Libraries - Personal

24. Collection Donations
Slide Credit: Fraser, Robert. Statistical survey of the county of
Wexford: drawn up for the consideration, and by order of the
Dublin Society. Dublin: Printed by Graisberry & Campbell,
1807.
Slide Credit: [The Whole Worke of ...
John Vigo]. Newly corrected ... by
George Baker and Robert Norton].
Whereunto are annexed certain works,
compiled and published by Thomas
Gale]. London: Thomas East, 1586.

25. Digital Libraries

26. Manuscripts Photostats
Access to Paper Content
Slide Credit: Ls 1 Slide Credit: NLI Ms. 321
Microform
Digitised Content

27. Access to Audio-visual Content

28. Access to Databases
13 of the 242 databases UCC Library subscribes to.

29. Parker Manuscripts
Slide Credit: https://parker.stanford.edu/parker/
Slide Credit: https://www.corpus.cam.ac.uk/matthew-parker-1504-1575

30. Recreating Medieval Libraries
Medieval libraries exist in fragments: the books themselves or
library catalogues
Slide Credit: http://mlgb3.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/
Slide Credit: Biblia Latina. Basiliae: per
Johannem Petri de Langendorff et Johannem
Froben de Hamelburg, 1498. R.1.4

31. Output of MU1003: Henebry Wax Cylinders
Henebry Wax Cylinders
https://ucchenebrywaxcylin.wixsite.com/waxcylinders
https://twitter.com/HWaxCylinders

32. HI6091: Skills for Medieval Historians
http://blogs.ucc.ie/wordpress/theriverside/2018/07/10/viking-cork-a-case-study-in-objects-and-text/

33. Slide Credit: 1890s Guy’s South of Ireland Pictorial Map
MU6031 Sound Studies & Musicology

34. Sonic Histories of Cork City
https://shoccproject.wordpress.com/

35. National Museum of Brazil
Slide Credit:
https://twitter.com/Wikipedia/status/1037066123869483008
As of 8 October 2018: Results 5,444

36. Barriers to Future Learning
Slide Credit: http://www.newstalk.com/Page-Not-Found:-the-internets-best-error-pages

37. Digital Preservation
• Ensuring access remains to the items
• Digital files transferable through the ages.
Slide Credit: http://www.scenicreflections.com/download/534360/build_it_Wallpaper/

38. Library Space

39. Creative Spaces

40. Exhibition Spaces
Exhibition plan for Q floor and story boards from 1972:Ireland Votes
For Change exhibition to mark the donation of the Neville Keery
Collection to UCC, and the 45th anniversary of the 3 Irish referendums
of 1972.

41. Spaces for Recording

42. Quiet Spaces
Energy Pod, Q+3, Boole Library
The Pod, Q+1, Boole Library

43. Special Spaces

44. Socially Conscious Spaces

45. Virtual Spaces
Library 2.0. The Future of Libraries in the Digital Age. San Jose State University
https://www.library20.com/ | #library2018 #librarysocialcrisi

46. What is a Library?

47. Library as Relational Space
Five Laws of Library Science
• Books are for use [praxis]
• Every reader, her book
• Every book, its reader
• Save the time of the reader
• The Library is a growing organism [change]
Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan (1931)

48. Slide Credit: William Beauford. Map of Cork City, 1801. UCC Library.
Where We’re Going...

49. ...Brave New World
Slide Credit: https://twitter.com/Fiona_KerrNZ/status/1045792871192748032 #slanza2018
Moata Tamaira: “Brave New World: Technology, Programming & Service Delivery.”

50. Be Future Ready
Slide Credit: Soto, Domingo de. Commentariorum fratris Dominici Soto Segoviensis, theologi, Ordinis
Praedicatorum, Caesareae Maiestati à sacris confessionibus, publici apud Salmanticenses professoris, in Quartum
Sententiarum. Salmanticae [Salamanca]: Apud Ioannem Mariam à Terranoua, expensis Benedicti Boyerii
bibliopolae, 1566-1569.

51. Contact Details
Elaine Harrington, Special Collections Librarian | UCC Library
e.harrington@ucc.ie | 021 4903484 |
@walkerabroad
The Riverside: @theriversideUCC
http://blogs.ucc.ie/wordpress/theriverside/
http://libguides.ucc.ie/specialcollections