Volumes of knowledge at Magee

EXPERTS in book and paper conservation will be at the University of Ulster’s Magee campus this week to discuss challenges and opportunities facing historic book repositories including important but lesser known ones such as the Derry and Raphoe Diocesan Library.

A two-day conference on June 7 and 8 organised by the University will mark the final phase of the Derry and Raphoe Diocesan Library Project in which conservators attached to Magee have been using specialised techniques to safeguard thousands of volumes of great antiquity.

Keynote speaker will be world-renowned conservation expert, Professor Nicholas Pickwoad, Director of the Ligatus Research Centre, which is dedicated to the history of bookbinding. He is also project leader with St Catherine’s Monastery Library Project based at the University of the Arts London. The monastery at Mount Sinai, Egypt, is the world’s oldest Christian library and houses some the most precious documents of the early Christian period.

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Other speakers are from universities and institutes across Ireland and further afield.

Joe McLaughlin, the University of Ulster’s Archivist and Rare Books Curator, who will speak at it, said: “We’ve called this conference ‘Historic Libraries in Context; the Derry & Raphoe Diocesan Library – Past, Present & Future’.

“The Library Project has been exciting and hugely beneficial for everyone involved. It has conserved and publicised a collection that, before this, was relatively unknown to modern scholars and its legacy is a wider public appreciation of the collection’s importance and the assurance that the contents are in fit condition for access by scholars and public.”

The Derry and Raphoe Diocesan Library Project draws to a close in December 2011 at the end of the Heritage Lottery Fund’s three-and-a-half year £500K funding period. By that time some 5,500 books and pamphlets in the diocesan collection will have received the close attention of the team of international conservators, whose studio is based at Shantallow Library.

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Joe McLaughlin says: “The aim of the conference is to engage with bibliographers, historians and conservators, each with their own understanding of book culture, to identify future avenues for research within the collection and within similar collections in general.

“We hope to generate an interdisciplinary discussion about the current and possible future uses of such libraries and the curatorial and preservation issues that have been raised over the course of the project.”

The printed material, most of which is 16th-19th century and contains books of national and international importance, was housed at the Diocese’s former offices at London Street since the early 19th century. The ravages of climate and time meant storage conditions were far from ideal and, to protect them, the volumes and other documents were handed over on long-term loan to the University of Ulster in 2004.

The Project’s first stage saw the collection stored in a purpose built Rare Books Room at Magee and the second stage has focussed on ‘Conservation and Outreach’.”

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Outreach officer Mary Delargy said the Project has made an enduring contribution to the understanding of the social, religious and political climate in the North-West, and the regions’ place within the history of these islands, in centuries past.

She added: “Schools and the general public have benefitted greatly by visiting the studio, watching the experts at work and gaining an awareness of a written information heritage that they have then been able to use in various study projects of their own.”

Attendance is free of charge, but anyone wishing to come along should contact Mary Delargy, 028 71350791, or [email protected]

Further information is available at www.derryraphoelibrary.org

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