The Digital Repository of Ireland (DRI) is delighted to announce that Marsh’s Library has joined as our latest member. Marsh’s Library first opened its doors to the public in 1707. It is now both a museum of what a library looked like in the early eighteenth century and a dynamic and welcoming space for tourist visitors, students and scholars. They join DRI to support an ongoing programme of digitisation and digital preservation of unique and rare items from the collections, making the Library relevant to new and diverse audiences in the twenty-first century.
Director of Marsh’s Library, Dr Jason McElligott, said:
Marsh’s Library is looking forward to working with the DRI to preserve and display some of our rarest books and manuscripts. The first collection to be uploaded to the DRI will be the 1,200 letters written in France between 1660 and 1685 to the intellectual Élie Bouhéreau in the city of La Rochelle. These are a fascinating resource for French social, cultural and gender history. Other materials to be uploaded in the future include 16th and 17th-century pamphlets and broadsides from across Europe which survive in only one copy in the world. As we move to safeguard this important cultural heritage in digital form, we will be able to offer enhanced access to new public and scholarly audiences nationally and internationally.
DRI’s Interims Director, Dr Lisa Griffith, welcomed Marsh’s Library saying:
Marsh’s Library is an important source for the study of Irish and European history so it is exciting that they are joining DRI. The library has an extensive digital collection reflecting the breadth and depth of its physical collections and e look forward to working with them to provide access and preservation to these collections. Their collections will join the growing number of collections that DRI preserves and promotes through our European networks such as Europeana.
Visit our membership page to learn more about DRI membership opportunities. We provide regular updates on collection publications on our Twitter page and you can also follow us on Instagram to uncover more treasures in the Repository.
Image: A letter addressed to Marsh’s Library’s first librarian, the Huguenot refugee Élie Bouhéreau.
