Building boom shakes leather-bound treasures

DUBLIN - The recent prosperity and development of the capital of Ireland is causing major problems for one of the city's most venerable institutions, the library of Trinity College, Dublin.

The university has discovered to its dismay that a quarter of a million books, many of them irreplaceable and dating from the earliest days of print, have been damaged by building dust.

The new Ireland is thus having a detrimental effect on the old, since this side-effect of Dublin's building boom will cost millions to put right.

The Long Room in Trinity is one of Ireland's architectural and academic glories, its vaulted ceiling and shelves of leather-bound volumes presenting a magnificent spectacle to half a million visitors every year.

Its main chamber, described as "a cathedral of the book, a testament to the secular worship of learning", is 65m long, capped by a beautifully timbered, barrel-vaulted ceiling. But its 18th-century splendour is part of the problem, since it is one single chamber where dust, much from all those visitors, can permeate every corner.

As Ireland's largest research library, Trinity College is legally entitled to a copy of every book published in Ireland and Britain. The university sits in the bustling heart of Dublin. It is a highly popular tourist attraction and a growing educational establishment.

The Book of Kells, a huge drawing-point for visitors, is protected. But the dust is affecting important collections such as the Fagel collection, which consists of 20,000 items of pre-Napoleonic material.

Cleaning the books is a labour-intensive task involving old-fashioned techniques. Each one is vacuumed with special equipment before dust and ingrained dirt is removed with brushes and dry sponges. A team of four has already cleaned more than 10,000, but that still leaves almost a quarter of a million to be processed.

Since the old books must be handled with intricate care, it costs €50 ($87) to clean and preserve just five of them. The total bill for the clean-up is an estimated 2 million. At the present rate of progress the work will take 20 years, so the university has issued an appeal for funds. Trinity will also carry out an environmental analysis and develop preventive measures.

- INDEPENDENT