Since January, Dublin’s Trinity College has expanded the typical Book of Kells visit to include a new facility, called the Red Pavilion, which uses immersive digital exhibitions to further show-case the illuminated ninth century manuscript and the Old Library where the manuscript sits.
But more changes are to come, all as part of a $94 million conservation project meant to safeguard the Old Library and its collections for the long term.
Trinity College installed the Red Pavilion, on campus and a short walk from the Old Library, as a way to enhanced fundraising for the library project. The Book of Kells entry fee was raised from $20 to $26.
To date, 184,000 of the total 200,000 books have been removed from the Old Library’s well-known Long Room to temporary, climate-controlled storage.
In the next few years, the Old Library will be shut down to enable work to continue. At that time, the Book of Kells will be relocated, but available for viewing, in the nearby on-campus Printing House.
After the conservation work is completed, the Book of Kells, which contains the four gos-pels of the New Testament, will be returned to the Old Library, and the Red Pavilion will be removed.
