Presentation delivered by Trevor Peare (TCD) at the LAI Cataloguing & Metadata Group AGM - Wed 10 March 2021

1. AGM 10 March 2021
Trevor Peare FCLIP, FLAI – Erstwhile Keeper Systems and Keeper Readers’ Services , Trinity College Library
The Printed Catalogue at Trinity –
a story of innovation and imagination
over three centuries

2. The Printed Catalogue 1835-1887
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James Henthorn Todd 1805-1869

3. 1872 Online Catalogue 1990-2016
John Gabriel Byrne 1933-2016
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4. James Henthorn Todd
• Born 23 April 1805
• Entered Trinity 1820
• Honours Degree in Science 1824
• Fellowship and ordination 1831
• Appointed Assistant Librarian 1834
• Appointed Librarian 1852
• Started work on Cataloguing books 1835
• (Barrel-vaulted ceiling in Long Room 1860)
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5. 1860
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6. James Henthorn Todd
• Born 23 April 1805
• Entered Trinity 1820
• Honours Degree in Science 1824
• Fellowship and ordination 1831
• Appointed Assistant Librarian 1834
• Appointed Librarian 1852
• Started work on Cataloguing books 1835
• (Barrel-vaulted ceiling in Long Room 1860)
• First volume of Printed Catalogue 1864
• Died 28 June 1869
• Final volumes of Printed Catalogue 1887
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7. • Todd started cataloguing 1835
• The whole Library catalogued in 1846
• Preparing Printing 1848
• First volume of Printed Catalogue 1864
• Todd died 28 June 1869
• Henry Hutton and Jan Hessels appointed
as editors 1872
• Volume 2 published 1875
• Final volume (9) of Printed Catalogue
published 1887
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The Printed Catalogue

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11. Edition of 250 copies
48 Presentation Copies
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12. • Born 25 July 1933
• Entered Trinity in 1952
• Graduated in Engineering, top of the class
1956
(Also studied French, Latin and Greek)
• Completed PhD 1957 – 1961
• Junior Lectureship 1963, Fellow 1969
• First Chair of Computer Science 1973
• First Interest in Printed Catalogue 1985
• Scanning of original text 1990
• First database and search system 1993
• Available on the internet 2005
• Died 16 April 2016
• Database acquired by the Library 2017
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13. P: Location of entry
H: Heading
A: Author surname
F: Forename
E: Author qualification
T: Title
C: City
PR: Printer
D: Date
X: Format
L: Language
S: Shelf mark
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Next steps?
1887
2000
2017

20. The Printed Catalogue
"The Vast Difficulty of Cataloguing": The Printed Catalogue of Trinity College Dublin(1864-1887)
Vincent Kinane and Ann O'Brien
In: Libraries & Culture, Vol. 23, No. 4 (Fall, 1988), pp. 427-453
University of Texas Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25542091
James Henthorn Todd
Biography
James Henthorn Todd
G. O. Simms
In: Hermathena, No. 109 (Autumn 1969), pp. 5-23
Trinity College Dublin
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23039923
James Henthorn Todd, a Tractarian at Trinity : making Ireland in the mid-nineteenth
century
Patricia (McKee) Hanna,
[PhD thesis], Irish School of Ecumenics, 2015.
http://www.tara.tcd.ie/handle/2262/80059
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21. John Gabriel Byrne
Biography
John Gabriel Byrne (1933 – 1926)
Jane Grimson (Trinity Monday Discourse 2018)
https://www.tcd.ie/Secretary/FellowsScholars/discourses/discourses/2018_John%20Gabriel%20Byrne.pdf
Professor John Byrne: Reminiscences: Father of Computing in Ireland
Chris Horn
Kindle Edition 2017
1872 Online Catalogue
The Trinity College Dublin 1872 Online Catalogue.
Byrne J.G.
In: Marinai S., Dengel A.R. (eds) Document Analysis Systems VI. DAS 2004.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3163. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-28640-0_2
The 1872 printed catalogue online
Byrne, John G.
In: Vaughan, W.E, (ed) The Old Library Trinity College Dublin 1712 – 2012.
Four Courts Press, Dublin 2013 p.217- 229. 21

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Acknowledgements
Christoph Schmidt-Supprian
Niamh Harte
Barbara McDonald
John Byrne
Trinity Library colleagues
Thank you
Trevor Peare FCLIP, FLAI – Erstwhile Keeper Systems and Keeper Readers’ Services , Trinity College Library

23. AGM 10 March 2021
Trevor Peare FCLIP, FLAI – Erstwhile Keeper Systems and Keeper Readers’ Services , Trinity College Library
The Printed Catalogue at Trinity –
a story of innovation and imagination
over three centuries

24. AGM 10 March 2021
Trevor Peare FCLIP, FLAI – Erstwhile Keeper Systems and Keeper Readers’ Services , Trinity College Library
The Printed Catalogue at Trinity –
a story of innovation and imagination
over three centuries