#lists 4 or 5 head librarians who maintained the collection BEFORE AMERICA WAS A COUNTRY

[notbecauseofvictories]

one of those pictures is from Marsh's Library, which is a collection assembled in the early 18th century by the Archbishop of Dublin and a former Provost of Trinity College. Subsequent additions have been made as well, and its current claim to fame is that it's where Bram Stoker did his research about Transylvania and vampires.

It's a very cool space, and the staff on duty didn't mind my bothering them about why so many books were marked "opera" (from the Latin, meaning work in collection) and why there was a skull sitting in the reading room (it's a cast of Esther Johnson's, who had an ambiguous relationship with Jonathan Swift).

However, most interesting to me was that…it's just a library. Very little is behind glass, there were none of the blink-y lights or bulky monitors I associate with maintaining a historical collection of books. You can't check out the books, obviously---but then, you never could. I don't even think there was air conditioning.

When I asked about it, the curator said that the library has existed for so long, it's its own ecosystem. The books swell or shrink together as the room warms or cools; the shades are drawn to prevent direct sun damage, but that's about it. Staff basically just monitor moisture levels, and if it it goes the wrong way?

"We open a window," the curator said with a shrug.