Trinity College Library - The Long Room

The Long Room is the main chamber of the old library at Trinity College in Dublin.  It was built between 1713 and 1732 and in 1860 the upper level was added to accommodate the numerous volumes the library acquired.  It holds over 200,000 of the library's oldest books.

Prior to going up to the Long Room, we toured the ground floor and saw the Book of Kells.  The Book of Kells is the four gospels in latin, written around 800 AD.  It is ornately decorated and is available for viewing, but it remains under a glass case so one can view two pages of text in one volume, and two pages of drawings in another volume.  The pages are changed and one can check the college web site, www.tcd.ie/Library to see what pages are open on a given day.  One can also view it online, page by page, to see the entire Book of Kells.

Though it is in a library, one cannot, as Steve suggested, "check it out"!  (Nor can one take pictures of the Book of Kells.)