Editing National Library of Ireland (section)

==History==
The library building, as well as its sister building the [[National Museum of Ireland – Archaeology]] which mirrors it across the front of [[Leinster House]], were erected in 1890 and faced with Leinster granite, while "buff-coloured micaceous Mount Charles sandstone from Donegal was used on the upper sotreys and for dressings around the doors and windows." According to Wyse Jackson, curator of the Geological Museum at Trinity College Dublin, over 3,000 tons of the sandstone were transported to Dublin and dressed on site.{{sfn|Wyse Jackson|1993|page=35}}

<!--  Commented out because image was deleted: [[Image:FrontHall.jpg|thumb|right|190px|"Sapientia" mosaic, front hall]] -->The National Library of Ireland was established by the Dublin Science and Art Museum Act 1877,<ref>{{cite book |last=De Breffny |first=Brian |author-link= |date=1983 |title=Ireland: A Cultural Encyclopedia |url= |location=London |publisher=Thames and Hudson |page=165|isbn=}}</ref> which provided that the bulk of the collections in the possession of the [[Royal Dublin Society]], should be vested in the then Department of Science and Art for the benefit of the public and of the Society, and for the purposes of the Act.

An Agreement of 1881 provided that the Library should operate under the superintendence of a Council of twelve Trustees, eight of whom were appointed by the Society and four by the Government; this Agreement also conferred on the Trustees the duty of appointing the officers of the Library. This arrangement remained in place until the library became an autonomous cultural institution in 2005.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Collins |first=Sandra |date=December 2018 |title=The National Library of Ireland |url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0955749019878523 |journal=Alexandria: The Journal of National and International Library and Information Issues |language=en |volume=28 |issue=3 |pages=177–181 |doi=10.1177/0955749019878523 |s2cid=211399600 |issn=0955-7490|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

After the foundation of the Irish Free State in 1924/5 the Library was transferred to the Department of Education under which it remained until 1986 when it was transferred to the [[Department of the Taoiseach]]. In 1927 the Library was granted legal deposit status under the Industrial and Commercial Property (Protection) Act 1927.<ref>{{Cite ISB|year=1927|num=16|section=178|title=Industrial and Commercial Property (Protection) Act 1927|stitle=Delivery of books to libraries|date=20 May 1927|parl=ifs}}</ref> In 1992 responsibility for the Library was transferred to the newly established [[Department of Children, Disability and Equality|Department of Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht]] (now the [[Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media]])<ref>{{cite ISB|year=1993|type=si|num=21|date=20 January 1993|access-date=13 August 2018|title=Arts and Culture (Transfer of Departmental Administration and Ministerial Functions) Order 1993|signedby=Taoiseach, Albert Reynolds|archive-date=13 August 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180813143736/http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1993/si/21/made/en/print}}</ref> and on 3 May 2005 became an autonomous cultural institution under the National Cultural Institutions Act 1997.

===Structural decay===
By 1993, the Mount Charles sandstone which had been used to [[Stone veneer|face]] the library building (as well as that of [[National Museum of Ireland – Archaeology]]) had begun to break up through the "precipitation of salts within the fabric of the rock".{{sfn|Wyse Jackson|1993|page=12}} The sandstone had been badly affected by the coal-polluted atmosphere in Dublin over the century it had remained in situ, and was replaced in the 1960s by a grey limestone from [[Ardbraccan]], [[County Meath]].{{sfn|Wyse Jackson|1993|page=35}} As of 1993, Wyse Jackson noted that "Close examinations of the stone remaining on the National Museum shows obvious decay and exfoliation of the outer layers of the rock, caused by the breakdown of the ferrous cement used to bind the sand grains together".{{sfn|Wyse Jackson|1993|page=35}} Wyse Jackson made the note that the same rock had not been broken down by the atmosphere or pollutants in its native County Donegal where a number of buildings constructed as early as 1820 were still extant.{{sfn|Wyse Jackson|1993|page=35}}