NEWS Number 39: Spring 2010 As part of its ongoing programme to improve Library services, and in response to demand from both the general public and tourist visitors, the Library has recently extended weekend opening hours for its exhibitions in Kildare Street and Temple Bar. The Library’s photographic exhibition space, the National Photographic Archive (NPA) in Temple Bar, is now open all day Saturday, as well as from noon to 5pm on Sunday, and the Library’s three exhibition spaces in Kildare Street are now open all day Saturday. Also this year, for the first time, the National Photographic Archive exhibition will be open over Easter – from Saturday 3 April to Monday 5 April from noon to 5pm each day, while the Kildare Street exhibitions will be open on Easter Monday from noon to 5pm. The Library continues to provide late-night opening facilities for researchers, with the main Library Reading Room and the Manuscripts Reading Room in Kildare Street all remaining open until 9pm three nights a week (Monday to Wednesday). These facilities are also open from 9.30am to 5pm on Thursday and Friday, and from 9.30am to 1pm on Saturday. The two exhibitions currently on show at the main Library venue in Kildare Street are the award-winning Yeats: the life and works of William Butler Yeats and Discover Lifelines: letters from famous people about their favourite poems. The Discover Lifelines exhibition marks the 25th anniversary of the Lifelines project, which began in 1985 as a fundraiser Leabharlann Náisiúnta na hÉireann at Wesley College, Dublin. National Library of Ireland At 2/3 Kildare Street, a third exhibition featuring extremely rare artefacts and entitled Discover your Library: Explore, Reflect, Connect, opened in January. It uses innovative interactive Microsoft technology to enable visitors to examine objects from the Library’s collections in the kind of detail that has previously not been possible. One of the most popular features of the Discover exhibition is the interactive Microsoft Surface ‘discovery table’; it uses Silverlight technology NUACHT which responds to natural hand gestures, enabling exhibition visitors to interact with the digital content in a simple and intuitive way. The exhibition will be updated with new artefacts every four months. Over the lifetime of the exhibition, the ‘discovery tables' will also provide digital versions of several thousand items including hundreds of rare manuscripts, books, maps, letters, prints and drawings. The Library’s fourth exhibition, Witness to War, is currently on show at the National Photographic Archive (NPA) in Meeting House Square, Temple Bar. The pages overleaf feature a detailed article on this exhibition. National Library Events Library Late Launch of Discover Lifelines exhibition The Spring/Summer programme of ‘Library Late’ events explores the art Discover Lifelines marks the 25th anniversary of the Lifelines project of writing for both stage and screen. In this series of public interviews, which began in 1985 as a fundraiser at Wesley College, Dublin. The college which runs until 26 May, some of Ireland’s leading writers will discuss donated all correspondence, photographs and other related archival their craft and will also discuss the differences and similarities between material to the National Library of Ireland and the exhibition displays some writing for stage and screen. of the letters received from politicians, writers, poets, artists and media personalities since the project began. At the first event in the current series, which was held on 24 February, Sophie Gorman, Arts Editor Irish Independent, interviewed award- winning film and television writer/director John Carney. John Carney is photographed on the evening of the event with interviewer Sophie Gorman. The exhibition was launched on 4 February by broadcaster and comedian Discover your National Library Graham Norton who is photographed here with Gerard Danaher, SC, On 20 January, Dr Martin Mansergh, TD, Minister of State with special Chairperson of the Board of the National Library of Ireland and Niall responsibility for OPW and the Arts launched Discover your National MacMonagle, English teacher, Wesley College Dublin and a member of the Library: Explore, Reflect, Connect. Over the lifespan of the exhibition, Board of the National Library of Ireland. Niall MacMonagle was responsible several thousand different objects will be featured and will also be made for the original Lifelines project, which has raised over €100,000 for available online. Concern to fund the organisation’s work in the developing world. The Discover Lifelines exhibition will remain on show in the Library’s Main Hall until June 2010. John J O’Meara Memorial Lecture If Newman were around today – reflections on higher education in the 21st Century was the title of the fifth John J O’Meara Memorial Lecture which took place in the Library’s Seminar Room on 3 February. This year’s lecture, which was organised by the National Library of Ireland Society, was given by Dr Diarmuid Martin, Archbishop of Dublin. The respondent was Professor Dominic O’Meara, University of Fribourg, Switzerland. Dr Mansergh is photographed here with the Chairperson of the National Library of Ireland Gerard Danaher, SC (left); Paul Rellis, Managing Director, Microsoft Ireland (far right) and Éamonn Ceannt, grand-nephew of the Irish republican Éamonn Ceannt who was executed for his role in the Easter Rising of 1916; the letter he wrote to his wife, Áine O’Brennan, a few hours before his execution is among the artefacts on view currently. Pupils from Scoil Chaitríona in Baggot Street, Dublin photographed at the launch experimenting with the technology used to explore the exhibits. Dr Martin is photographed here with Professor Dominic O’Meara (far right); Fr J Anthony Gaughan, Chairman, National Library of Ireland Society (far left); Felix M Larkin, Vice-Chairman, National Library of Ireland Society, and Odile Ryan, the late Professor John J O’Meara’s daughter. DUBLIN: ONE CITY ONE BooK The Dublin: One City One Book project is designed to encourage everyone in Dublin to read the same book during the month of April each year. 2010 marks the fifth year of the Library’s involvement in this unique Dublin City Council initiative which is led by the City Library Service. The project provides an opportunity for the Library to collaborate with the City Library Service and to organise events such as lectures and exhibitions – all specifically aimed at showcasing some of the rare and fascinating items held in the Library’s collections and bringing them to the attention of a wide audience. The various exhibits on display focus on themes related to the chosen book for that year, thus making the selected collection items particularly relevant and topical. For example, last year, when the featured book was Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the Library mounted an exhibition of Dracula material drawn from its collections. In 2008, when the featured book was Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, visitors had the opportunity to view early editions of this 18th century novel, later translations of Gulliver’s Travels in Catalan and Lithuanian, a text printed in shorthand, and a number of Dr Bogdan Florin Popovici, Archivist with the National Archives of Romania, who gave a lecture entitled beautiful illustrations that have appeared in various editions of the Dracula’s Myth: from facts to tourism marketing; Nicolae Pepene, Alexander Maoiru and Elizabeth Miller, book since it was first published in 1726. Professor Emerita, Memorial University of Newfoundland, who gave a lecture entitled Bram Stoker’s Dracula: from Notes to Novel, are photographed here with Dacre Stoker, great-grandnephew of Bram Stoker, who attended both lectures as part of the Library’s programme of events for One City One Book 2009. In 2007, when Sebastian Barry’s A Long Long Way was the featured book, the exhibition focused on the Manuscripts Department’s collection of diaries and letters written by Irishmen who served in the First World War, as well as letters and other materials written by the families of these men. The 2010 exhibition will focus on historical editions of this year’s featured book, Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, and will include a display of some of the earliest copies of the novel, a number of dramatisations and translations of the work, and a copy of the first illustrated edition published in 1908. The exhibition will run in the Main Hall for the entire month of April. Each year the Library’s Seminar Room attracts large audiences for lectures given by visiting experts on the subject of the featured book. Some items form the Library’s exhibition of Dracula material from April 2009. The guest lecturers this April are Professor Terry Eagleton and Dr Albert Power. Professor Eagleton is Distinguished Professor of English Literature at Lancaster University and Adjunct Professor of Cultural Theory based at the Moore Institute for Research in the Humanities and Social Studies at NUI Galway. Dr Power is the author of a textbook on land law as well as of a number of articles on authors in the tradition of macabre fantasy. He has had fiction published in commemorative collections and his first book of short stories, Darling Savishna and other stories, is due to be published later this year. Professor Eagleton’s lecture entitled The Contradictions of Oscar Wilde will take place on 20 April. Dr Power’s lecture, Dorian and Melmoth: Brothers of the Black Bargain, will take place on 28 April. Both events will begin at 7pm. All are welcome and admission is free. Full details of the 2010 Dublin: One City One Book programme may be found on http://www.dublinonecityonebook.ie/ The Field Day Archive Brenda Scallon and Liam Neeson in Translations by Brian Friel, 1980.