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Fagel Symposium
Trinity College, Dublin
4th – 6th September 2008
We write to invite you to a symposium on the Fagel Collection, which is housed in the Old Library of Trinity College, Dublin.
In 1802, at the height of the Napoleonic War, Hendrik Fagel, Greffier of Holland, was effectively exiled in London, where reduced circumstances eventually forced him to sell the family library. Christie’s prepared and circulated an auction catalogue, but Trinity College, Dublin, put in a preemptive bid and acquired the entire collection before the auction took place. At a stroke the holdings of the College library were increased by 40%, from 50 000 to 70 000 volumes. Today the overwhelming proportion of Fagel’s books, pamphlets and maps remains on shelf as a discrete collection in the East Pavilion of the magnificent Old Library.
Representing the intellectual and social interests of a wealthy and distinguished Dutch family over a period of some 200 years, the collection also transformed the content of a university library that had until then been dominated by theology. Published in the principal languages of Europe, the newly acquired holdings were particularly strong in such areas as history, politics, law, belles lettres, geography, cartography (everything from cosmography to manuscript plans of dyke systems), natural history and philosophy. The scale of the acquisition is impressive by any standards: lot 7593 was ‘A Collection of Historical and Political tracts, in Number upwards of 10,000’ and lot 9061 ‘A fine Collection of Maps and Plans, in Number about 2000’.
However, the existence of the Fagel collection is virtually unknown outside Dublin and the research potential of these resources has been little exploited. Indeed, over the years the overall funding of the library has been such that a substantial proportion of the holdings has not even been properly catalogued.
It is in order to help remedy this situation that the above symposium will be held. Its immediate purpose is to bring together a number of academics and librarians, who are working either on the history of the book or in any of the fields mentioned above (and others), to discuss the collection. Some of them will already have first-hand knowledge of the collection and its value; others will perhaps hear of it for the first time from this letter, but will welcome the chance to find out about it.
Accordingly, we invite you to attend and, if in a position to do so, to offer a paper. We envisage the papers as falling into two main areas:
The collection as a collection / History of the book
Papers which would examine:
• the collection as social history or family history
• the collection as an accumulation of artefacts: printers, bindings, provenance
• the nature and range of the holdings
• tasks to be undertaken: cataloguing, digitisation, conservation
The collection as a resource for further study
Papers which would address:
• a research topic in, say, literature, history, art history, history of science (e.g. medicine, astrology, mathematics), geography, cartography or politics – or an interdisciplinary combination of these – using materials from the collection
We envisage the papers as being of variable length. One might give a very brief compte rendu of the holdings in a particular area of research; a longer one might outline a project for cataloguing or digitisation; something longer still might discuss an aspect of the politics of the Low Countries (or France, or Spain) as revealed by a group of pamphlets in the collection. Papers should be in English and should not exceed 30 minutes. It is hoped that this eclectic mix of approaches will give a wide-ranging overview of the collection and the treasures that it offers to researchers in many disciplines.
In addition to this scholarly programme there will be a reception, opportunities to visit the collection and a cultural event.
We also intend to publish a volume of proceedings and, although we cannot guarantee publication of all the papers that are given, they should be formulated with this in mind. Thus, finances permitting, we would hope to produce a volume that is both academically impressive and visually pleasing, i.e. liberally illustrated.
As regards the longer term, the symposium itself and the volume of proceedings which will document it are part of a strategy aimed at attracting more researchers to work on the Fagel collection and in particular obtaining substantial funding for postgraduate and/or postdoctoral researchers who will further exploit its resources.
In addition to travel and a nominal registration fee, we estimate that the cost of the symposium will not exceed some €160 for two nights’ accommodation (in the College) and a further €150 for meals, coffee etc. We have received a guarantee of substantial support from one of the funding bodies to which we have applied and a proportion of this will be used to reduce individual expenses. As of now, however, we are unable to guarantee a specific level of subvention, so intending participants should investigate sources of support in their home institution and elsewhere.
A number of rooms on the College campus have been provisionally reserved by the Accommodation Office; these should be booked online:
Go to http://reservations.tcd.ie, then ‘Conferences’, then ‘Online Accommodation Reservations’; the conference name is ‘Fagel Symposium’ and the conference code is ‘08FAGEL’.
It is not possible for us to know the names of all those who might be attracted to this conference. Please feel free to pass this information on to anybody else whom you believe might be interested in attending. We have an upper limit of 50–60 participants in mind.
We are in the process of setting up a website dedicated to the conference. It will be accessible via: http://www.tcd.ie/longroomhub/calls/. We intend to make further information about the Fagel collection available on this site within a few days. In the meantime we can draw your attention to three articles:
L. Brummel: The Fagel Library in TCD, in L. B.: Miscellanea libraria, The Hague 1957
J.-P. Pittion: The Fagel Collection, Hermathena 121 (1976), 108-16
Vincent Kinane: The Fagel Collection, in The Treasures of the Library Trinity College Dublin, ed. Peter Fox, Dublin 1986, 158-69
The symposium will take place under the aegis of the Long Room Hub, which Trinity College has recently established as a research resource for the arts, humanities and discursive social sciences.
An application form is attached below. Completed forms should be sent to Tim Jackson (by 15th March 2008), as should requests for further information.
Charles Benson Helga Robinson-Hammerstein
Keeper of Early Printed Books Senior Lecturer in Modern History
Tim Jackson Martine Van Berlo
Associate Professor of German Lektor in Dutch
Fagel Symposium
Trinity College, Dublin
4th – 6th September 2008
I wish to attend the symposium.
Name
Position / Area of specialisation
Address for communication
Tel.
e-mail
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[Delete as appropriate]
I do not wish to offer a paper
I wish to offer a paper on the following topic:
[Please supply a brief résumé (max. 200 words) on a separate sheet
[Please return by 15th March 2008 to Tim Jackson at <tjackson@tcd.ie> or by post to Department of Germanic Studies, Arts Building, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland]