Children’s Bookmarks exhibition inspired by TCD Pollard Collection of Children’s Books

Posted on: 27 March 2007

More than 70 primary school children are exhibiting their collection of handmade books in Trinity College’s Long Room in an exhibition entitled Bookmarks which opened on March 26th last. The exhibition which was opened by children’s writer, Siobhán Parkinson, sees the culmination of the Bookmarks programme, a story writing, illustration and bookbinding workshop series developed by Trinity College in association with The Ark Children’s Cultural Centre. The programme involved 75, 5th and 6th class students from primary schools designated as disadvantaged and are linked to the College through the Trinity Access Programme (TAP), which offers support to students from under represented backgrounds to progress to higher education. The schools include James’s Street Christian Brothers Primary School, Assumption Senior National School, Walkinstown and St Ann’s Senior National School, Fettercairn, Tallaght.

As well as attending a series of workshops with children’s writers, including Gordon Snell and visual artists from the Ark, the children also had access to Trinity’s outstanding collection of Children’s Books – The Pollard Collection – as a stimulus for their creativity and as a means of learning about their own literary and cultural heritage. The Pollard Collection consists of over 10,000 historic children’s books spanning three centuries, 17th to 20th centuries. The Bookmarks programme of workshops and exhibition forms part of the College’s plans to develop this wonderful collection and to exploit its potential for teaching and as an imaginative resource for today’s children.

The Bookmarks exhibition is running all this week in the Long Room, the Old Library, TCD, March 26-April 2, 2007.