New project: Unlocking the Fagel Collection

New project, new job! Today is my first day as a project manager for the project ‘Unlocking the Fagel Collection’ at the library of Trinity College in Dublin. The project is a collaboration between the Koninklijke Bibliotheek and the library of Trinity College Dublin, and aims to broaden access to one of the finest surviving private libraries from the Dutch Republic.

The Fagel collection is a private library that was built up by several generations of the Dutch Fagel family in the 17th and 18th centuries. Five members of this family held the position of greffier of the States-General for 125 years. The last Fagel in office, Hendrik the Younger, was stranded in England after the Batavian revolution in 1795. He managed to get his library across the channel, where it was supposed to be auctioned in 1802. The auction never took place, the library was purchased as a whole for Trinity College.

The collection contains approximately 20,000 items, books, pamphlets, maps and manuscripts, that will account for up to 30,000 bibliographical records due to the high number of composite volumes in te collection. In the spring of 2019 I worked with the collection for two months as a research fellow of Trinity Long Room Hub. The first 2,500 titles were entered to the Short-Title Catalogue Netherlands as a part of the fellowship. Shortly after the state visit of June 2019, a subsidy to unlock the entire collection was granted by the Dutch The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (BZ).

In the next two years, we aim to describe some 30,000 more titles – both in the library catalogue of Trinity College and the STCN – as part of the project ‘Unlocking the Fagel Collection’. Keep track of the progress of the project via official updates on the (social) media channels of the Library of Trinity College Dublin and the Koninklijke Bibliotheek.

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