National Library of Wales

Sir John Williams, one of the principal founders of the National Library

In 1873, a committee was set up to collect Welsh material and house it at University College, Aberystwyth. In 1905, the government promised money in its budget to establish a National Library and a National Museum of Wales, and the Privy Council appointed a committee to decide on the location of the two institutions.^[11] David Lloyd George, who later became Prime Minister, supported the effort to establish the National Library in Aberystwyth,^[12] which was selected as the location of the library after a bitter fight with Cardiff, partly because a collection was already available in the College. Sir John Williams, physician and book collector, had also said he would present his collection (in particular, the Peniarth collection of manuscripts) to the library if it were established in Aberystwyth. He also eventually gave £20,000 to build and establish the library. Cardiff was eventually selected as the location of the National Museum of Wales. Funds for both the National Library and the National Museum were contributed by the subscriptions of the working classes, which was unusual in the establishment of such institutions. In a Prefatory Note to A List of Subscribers to the Building Fund (1924), the first librarian, John Ballinger, estimates that there were almost 110,000 contributors.^[12] The Library and Museum were established by Royal Charter on 19 March 1907.^[11][13] The Charter stipulated that if the National Library of Wales should be removed from Aberystwyth then the manuscripts donated by Sir John Williams will become the property of the University College.^[12][14] A new Royal Charter was granted in 2006.

The National Library of Wales was granted the privilege of legal deposit under the Copyright Act 1911. Initially, however, the Library could only claim material deemed to be of Welsh and Celtic interest without any restrictions on expensive or limited edition publications.^[15] In 1987, the last of these restrictions were removed to make the legal deposit entitlement of the National Library of Wales equal to those of the Bodleian Library, Cambridge University Library, Trinity College Library, Dublin and the National Library of Scotland.^[16]

The first use of the Library of Congress Classification by a library in Britain was at the National Library of Wales in 1913.^[17]

Buildings

The North Reading Room

On 15 July 1911 King George V and Queen Mary laid the foundation stone of the National Library of Wales.^[18] Designed by architect Sidney Greenslade, who won the competition to design the building in 1909, the building at Grogythan,^[19] off Penglais Hill, was ready for occupation in August 1915 but the task of transferring the collections was not completed until 1 March 1916, St David's Day.^[12] The central block, or corps de logis, was added by Charles Holden to a modified version of Greenslade's design. It was completed in 1937 and is a Grade II* listed building.^[18][20] The grounds (landscaping) of the National Library of Wales are also Grade II listed, and are seen as a significant part of the historical landscape of Wales^[21] with the landscaping both supporting, and playing a key part of the overall architectural design of the library building.

The Library is faced with Portland stone on the upper storeys which contrasts with the Cornish granite below it.^[7] Restoration work was necessary in 1969 and 1983 due to the effects of weathering on the Portland stone.^[22] In recent years many changes have been made to the front part of the building.

The large North Reading Room, where printed books are consulted, has "the proportions of a Gothic Cathedral", being 175 feet long, 47 feet wide and 33 feet high. There are galleries at three levels above the floor. The feasibility of installing a mezzanine floor to make better use of the space has been considered on two occasions. The South Reading Room is used for consulting archives, manuscripts, maps and other printed materials. Carved above the entrance is the room's original name the Print and Maps Room. Above it on the second floor of the south wing is the Gregynog Gallery where temporary and permanent exhibitions display the treasures of the Library's collections.^[22]

A six-storey bookstack, which was completed in 1931, was built to increase storage space for the rapidly expanding book collection.^[18] A second bookstack was officially opened in March 1982.^[18] In 1996, the Third Library Building was opened, doubling the storage capacity of the Library.^[18] The second phase of the building was built by T. Alun Evans (Aberystwyth) Ltd.

A fire on 26 April 2013 destroyed a section of roofing in an office area of the building.^[23][24] Restoration was assisted by a government grant of £625,000.^[25]

Wartime sanctuary

Entrance to the tunnel that was constructed under the National Library of Wales for the storage of valuable material during the Second World War

During the Second World War, many of Britain's most valuable artworks and manuscripts were stored in the National Library of Wales, which provided the evacuated treasures with a refuge from enemy bombing raids.^[12][26][27] The architect Charles Holden was instructed to design a tunnel for this purpose in the outcrop of rock close to the main building, with the British Museum sharing in the costs that this incurred. The tunnel was heated and ventilated to ensure the preservation of vellum, papyri and paper during its use from 18 July 1940 until 23 May 1945. In addition to an extensive consignment from the British Museum,^[12] which weighed over one hundred tons,^[28] the Library received forty-six boxes of manuscript and printed books from Corpus Christi College, Cambridge and over a thousand pictures, eighty-two boxes of books and twenty members of staff from the National Gallery.^[12] The Library also received irreplaceable items from other prestigious institutions such as the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, Dulwich College and the Royal Society.^[29]

A number of distinguished scholars from the British Museum accompanied the collections to Aberystwyth.^[12] Their senior member of staff was Deputy Keeper of Printed Books, Victor Scholderer, who responded to a letter from the Director, Sir John Forsdyke, by insisting that he and his colleagues would continue to sleep in the Library so that the tunnel could be checked during the night to ensure that the air conditioning was functioning properly.^[28] Scholderer, an expert on incunabula, produced A Handlist of Incunabula in the National Library of Wales in gratitude to the hospitality that was afforded to them by the Library.^[12] Likewise, Arthur E. Popham, Keeper of Prints and Drawings, dedicated The Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci ″To the Librarian and staff of the National Library of Wales″.^[12][29] Several other institutions donated funds to the Library as an expression of their gratitude^[29] and Mrs. David Sassoon, London presented two works by Cicero that were printed at Venice in the fifteenth century.^[30]

The artefacts that spent World War II in the care of the National Library include the Magna Carta,^[26] drawings by Leonardo da Vinci,^[26] paintings by Rembrandt, Rubens and Velásquez from Dulwich College,^[12] letters of the kings and queens of England,^[26] and autographs belonging to William Shakespeare.^[26]

Librarians

• John Ballinger (1909–1930)
• William Llewelyn Davies (1930–1952)
• Thomas Parry (1953–1958)
• E. D. Jones (1958–1969)
• David Jenkins (1969–1979)
• R. Geraint Gruffydd (1980–1985)
• Brynley F. Roberts (1985–1994)
• J. Lionel Madden (1994–1998)
• Andrew M. Green (1998–2013)
• Aled Gruffydd Jones (2013–2015)^[25][31]
• Linda Tomos (2015–2019)^[32]
• Pedr ap Llwyd (from 1 April 2019)^[33]

Discover more about History related topics

Aberystwyth University

Aberystwyth University

Aberystwyth University is a public research university in Aberystwyth, Wales. Aberystwyth was a founding member institution of the former federal University of Wales. The university has over 8,000 students studying across three academic faculties and 17 departments.

National Museum Cardiff

National Museum Cardiff

National Museum Cardiff is a museum and art gallery in Cardiff, Wales. The museum is part of the wider network of Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales. Entry is kept free by a grant from the Welsh Government; however, they do ask for donations throughout the museum.

David Lloyd George

David Lloyd George

David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922. A Liberal Party statesman and politician from Wales, he was known for leading the United Kingdom during the First World War, for social-reform policies, for his role in the Paris Peace Conference, and for negotiating the establishment of the Irish Free State. He was the last Liberal Party prime minister; the party fell into third-party status shortly after the end of his premiership.

Cardiff

Cardiff

Cardiff is the capital and largest city of Wales. Cardiff had a population of 362,310 in 2021, forms a principal area officially known as the City and County of Cardiff, and the city is the eleventh-largest in the United Kingdom. Located in the south-east of Wales and in the Cardiff Capital Region, Cardiff is the county town of the historic county of Glamorgan and in 1974–1996 of South Glamorgan. It belongs to the Eurocities network of the largest European cities. A small town until the early 19th century, its prominence as a port for coal when mining began in the region helped its expansion. In 1905, it was ranked as a city and in 1955 proclaimed capital of Wales. Cardiff Built-up Area covers a larger area outside the county boundary, including the towns of Dinas Powys and Penarth.

John Ballinger (librarian)

John Ballinger (librarian)

Sir John Ballinger CBE was a Welsh librarian, the first librarian at the National Library of Wales. He was described by a later librarian at the National Library, Andrew Green, as "one of the most distinguished professional librarians of his time".

Copyright Act 1911

Copyright Act 1911

The Copyright Act 1911, also known as the Imperial Copyright Act of 1911, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (UK) which received royal assent on 16 December 1911. The act established copyright law in the UK and the British Empire. The act amended existing UK copyright law, as recommended by a royal commission in 1878 and repealed all previous copyright legislation that had been in force in the UK. The act also implemented changes arising from the first revision of the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works in 1908.

Bodleian Library

Bodleian Library

The Bodleian Library is the main research library of the University of Oxford, and is one of the oldest libraries in Europe. It derives its name from its founder, Sir Thomas Bodley. With over 13 million printed items, it is the second-largest library in Britain after the British Library. Under the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003, it is one of six legal deposit libraries for works published in the United Kingdom, and under Irish law it is entitled to request a copy of each book published in the Republic of Ireland. Known to Oxford scholars as "Bodley" or "the Bod", it operates principally as a reference library and, in general, documents may not be removed from the reading rooms.

Cambridge University Library

Cambridge University Library

Cambridge University Library is the main research library of the University of Cambridge. It is the largest of the over 100 libraries within the university. The Library is a major scholarly resource for the members of the University of Cambridge and external researchers. It is often referred to within the university as the UL. Thirty three faculty and departmental libraries are associated with the University Library for the purpose of central governance and administration, forming "Cambridge University Libraries".

National Library of Scotland

National Library of Scotland

The National Library of Scotland (NLS) is one of the country's National Collections. It is one of the largest libraries in the United Kingdom. As well as a public programme of exhibitions, events, workshops, and tours, the National Library of Scotland has reading rooms where visitors can access the collections. It is the legal deposit library of Scotland and is a member of Research Libraries UK (RLUK) and the Consortium of European Research Libraries (CERL).

Library of Congress Classification

Library of Congress Classification

The Library of Congress Classification (LCC) is a system of library classification developed by the Library of Congress in the United States, which can be used for shelving books in a library. LCC is mainly used by large research and academic libraries, while most public libraries and small academic libraries used the Dewey Decimal Classification system. The classification was developed by James Hanson, with assistance from Charles Martel, in 1897, while they were working at the Library of Congress. It was designed specifically for the purposes and collection of the Library of Congress to replace the fixed location system developed by Thomas Jefferson.

Corps de logis

Corps de logis

In architecture, a corps de logis is the principal or main block, or central building of a mansion, country or manor house, castle, or palace. It contains the rooms of principal business, the state apartments and the ceremonial or formal entry.

Charles Holden

Charles Holden

Charles Henry Holden FRIBA, MRTPI, RDI was an English architect best known for designing many London Underground stations during the 1920s and 1930s, for Bristol Central Library, the Underground Electric Railways Company of London's headquarters at 55 Broadway and for the University of London's Senate House. He created many war cemeteries in Belgium and northern France for the Imperial War Graves Commission.

The collections of the National Library of Wales include over 6.5 million printed volumes,^[2] including the first book printed in Welsh, Yny lhyvyr hwnn (1546).^[34] In addition to the printed book collections, there are about 25,000 manuscripts in the holdings.^[35] The archival collections at the Library include the Welsh Political Archive^[36] and National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales.^[37] The Library also keeps maps,^[38] photographs,^[39] paintings, topographical and landscape prints,^[40] periodicals and newspapers.^[41][42] In 2010, the Peniarth Manuscript collection and The Life Story of David Lloyd George were amongst the first ten inscriptions on the UK Memory of the World Register, a UNESCO record of documentary heritage of cultural significance.^[43]

Collection development is focused on materials relating to the people of Wales, those in the Welsh language and resources for Celtic studies,^[3][4] but other materials are collected for the purposes of education and literary and scientific research.^[4] As a legal deposit library, the National Library is entitled to request a copy of every work published in the United Kingdom and Ireland.^[44][45][46] This has allowed the Library to collect modern Welsh, Irish and Gaelic language books for its Celtic collection.^[30] The acquisition of material through legal deposit has been supplemented by purchases, international exchanges, donations and bequests.^[15]

The Celtic collection includes works in all six Celtic languages. A representative collection of Scottish Gaelic books has been assembled, primarily through purchase of earlier publications, guided by the standard bibliographies, and, for books published after 1911, by legal deposit. Irish literature, which is far more extensive, has been collected through a similar combination of purchase and deposit. However, many collections purchased by or donated to the Library have contained rare Irish books. The Library of Dr E. C. Quiggin, which was received in 1921, contained a large Irish collection and many early Breton books. Further Breton books have been purchased or were acquired in the libraries of Sir Edward Anwyl, Thomas Powel, Dr Thomas Gwynn Jones, Dr Paul Diverres and Llywarch Reynolds. The holdings of Cornish and Manx printed books include practically everything that has been published in those languages, with a few facsimiles.^[30]

The online catalogue of the National Library is available to search remotely or onsite [1]. The Library's holdings can also be found in the European Library^[47] and Copac^[48] union catalogues.

Manuscripts

The National Library of Wales keeps many rare and important manuscripts, including the Black Book of Carmarthen^[49] (the earliest surviving manuscript entirely in Welsh), the Book of Taliesin,^[50] the Hendregadredd Manuscript,^[51] and an early manuscript of Geoffrey Chaucer.^[52] Around three hundred medieval manuscripts are deposited in the Library: about 100 are in Welsh.^[53] The manuscript collection amalgamated a number of entire collections that were acquired in the early years of the Library's existence, including the Hengwrt-Peniarth, Mostyn, Llanstephan, Panton, Cwrtmawr, Wrexham and Aberdare manuscripts.^[53][54] The Welsh manuscripts in these foundation collections were catalogued by Dr J. Gwenogvryn Evans in the Reports on manuscripts in the Welsh language that he compiled for the Historic Manuscripts Commission.^[54]

Peniarth Manuscripts

Laws of Hywel Dda (fol. 1v), King Hywel

Hengwrt Chaucer

Vaux Passional (fol. 9r). In the first miniature the sovereign (King Henry VII) is presented with this book while the infant Henry VIII (upper left) mourns the death of his mother.

The Peniarth Manuscripts collection is considered to be of global significance and the most important collection of manuscripts in the National Library of Wales. In 2010, it was included in the UK Memory of the World Register of documentary heritage.^[43][55] Of the 561 volumes of manuscripts in the Peniarth collection, some four-fifths were collected by Robert Vaughan (c. 1592–1667) for his library in Hengwrt, Meirioneth.^[12][43][55] Three of the Four Ancient Books of Wales are part of the Peniarth collection, and this is indicative of the overall quality of the manuscripts and their importance as part of Welsh heritage. There are, however, also manuscripts in Cornish, Latin and English that are themselves noteworthy.^[12][55] The collection includes:

• The Black Book of Carmarthen (c. 1250), the earliest manuscript in Welsh (Peniarth MS 1).^[12][55]
• The Book of Taliesin (c. 1350–1400) contains the oldest Welsh verse by the sixth-century poet Taliesin (Peniarth MS 2).^[12][55][56]
• The White Book of Rhydderch (c. 1350), a composite volume that contains the earliest version of the Mabinogion (Peniarth MS 4).^[12][55]
• The earliest fragments of Branwen and Manawydan and two fragments of Geraint ap Erbin comprise the four parts of Peniarth MS 6.
• Ystoryaeu Seint Greal (Tales of the Holy Grail), transcribed by Hywel Fychan around the year 1300, is the finest in a series of Romance manuscripts. A letter addressed to Lady Charlotte Guest concerning access to this text to have it copied is loose inside the volume (Peniarth MS 11).^[12][57]
• The Chronicle of the Princes in Peniarth MS 20 (c. 1330) is one of the two main versions of Brut y Tywysogion, the other being the Red Book of Hergest, which is in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.^[58]
• History of the Kings (Peniarth MS 23C), is a copy of Brut y Brenhinedd, the Welsh translation of the Historia Regum Britanniae by Geoffrey of Monmouth. It is a rare instance of an illustrated medieval Welsh manuscript.
• The Laws of Hywel Dda (c. 1300–1350), the earliest extant text (in Latin) of native Welsh law (Peniarth MS 28).^[12][59] More than 50% of the manuscripts known to contain the laws of Hywel Dda are in the collections of the National Library, with the majority being in the Peniarth Collection (see the list of Welsh Law manuscripts).
• Llyfr Du'r Waun (mid-13th century), also known as the Black Book of Chirk, the earliest Welsh text of the laws of Hywel Dda (Peniarth MS 29).^[12]
• Peniarth 32 is a 15th-century volume of the laws of Hywel Dda.
• The Peniarth 51 manuscript contains poetry, Welsh grammar, vocabularies, and historical triads that was written, mostly in the hand of Gwilym Tew, during the second half of the 15th century.
• Barddoniaeth Hywel Dafi (c. 1483–1500), a volume of poetry most by and possibly in the hand of Howel Davi.^[60][61] Other poets included in this volume are Bedo Brwynllys, Dafydd Llwyd, Llywelyn ap Morgan, Dafydd ap Gwilym and Ieuan ap Howel. The assumption that this manuscript was written by Howel Davi is challenged by evidence, such as slips of the pen that occur in poems of Davi's composition, that suggest the scribe was copying these poems. With the exception of two sections (42 and 43), which are an attempt at transcription by an unskilled hand, the entire manuscript appears to be the work of one scribe (Peniarth MS 67).^[61]
• Beunans Meriasek (The Life of St Meriasek) (1504), the earliest surviving manuscript in the Cornish language (Peniarth MS 105B).^[12][55][62] It is believed to have been completed in 1504 by Radolphus Ton, who was a canon during the final efflorescence of Cornish literature at Glasney College, Penryn. This play, which is set in Camborne, is a celebration of the life and work of St Meriasek that depicts the cultural links between Cornwall and Brittany.^[62][63] Beunans Meriasek was rediscovered by W. W. E. Wynne in the 1860s among the volumes from the Hengwrt Library that had been bequeathed to him in 1859.^[12][62] It is the most important extant Cornish manuscript.^[12]
• Cywyddau and other poems, written in the hand of Lewys Glyn Cothi, comprise the manuscript Peniarth 109.
• Esboniadau ar Gyfraith Hywel Dda (Peniarth MS 164), is a volume of commentaries on the Laws of Hywel Dda from the early 15th century.
• Peniarth Manuscript 259B is a version of the Laws of Hywel Dda from the mid-16th century.
• The Hengwrt Chaucer (c. 1400–1410), a folio volume of The Canterbury Tales, sometimes attributed to the scribe Adam Pinkhurst. One of the treasures of the National Library of Wales and by far the most important of the Peniarth Manuscripts in English (Peniarth MS 392D).^[12][64]
• The 15th-century volume comprising Disticha Catonis, the Battles of Alexander the Great, and History of the Three Kings (Peniarth 481D), and the late 15th-century Vaux Passional (Peniarth 482), which was prepared for Henry VII, were acquired and deposited in the National Library by Gwendoline and Margaret Davies in 1921. These two fine illuminated manuscripts were retained by W. R. M. Wynne when he sold the Peniarth Manuscripts to Sir John Williams.^[65]
• A bound volume containing books by Giovanni Battista Palatino and Ugo da Carpi, both notable Italian masters of the 16th century, which is assumed to have been owned by John Jones of Gellilyfdy (Peniarth MS 522).^[12]
• Bede's De natura rerum (12th century), a copy of the scientific treatise in Latin that is believed to have been written in Wales. Contains decorative initials, including three that have a zoomorphic design similar to those found in Irish manuscripts from this time (Peniarth MS 540B).^[66]
• Over forty manuscripts in the hand of John Jones of Gellilyfdy, embellished with initial capital letters and head- and tailpieces that demonstrate his calligraphic talent.^[12]

Llanstephan Manuscripts

The Llanstephan Collection of manuscripts was donated to the National Library of Wales by Sir John Williams in 1909. It had been his personal collection, which he kept in the library of his home, Llanstephan mansion, Carmarthenshire.^[12][67] The collection is composed of the 154 manuscripts which had belonged to Moses Williams (1685–1742),^[53] that were purchased from Shirburn Castle, Oxfordshire and other manuscripts of diverse origins collected by Sir John. Medieval Welsh prose is well represented in the Shirburn Castle collection, with chronicles, legends, fables, theological tracts and collections of works by eminent poets of the period. These manuscripts include a Welsh translation of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia from the 13th century, the Gutun Owain Manuscript and the Red Book of Talgarth.^[12][67]

Cwrtmawr Manuscripts

The Cwrtmawr Manuscripts are one of the significant manuscript collections that were transferred to the National Library of Wales in the early years of its existence. They are from the personal collection of John Humphreys Davies, who was the Principal of University College, Aberystwyth.^[68] Davies was a barrister and a keen book collector who acquired the manuscripts gradually from a number of sources. The largest group of manuscripts are those acquired from John Jones ('Myrddin Fardd'), but there are several other substantial groups including those from a Welsh clerical family, the Richards of Darowen, Peter Bailey Williams and his brother Rev. St George Armstrong Williams, William John Roberts ('Gwilym Cowlyd'), and Daniel Silvan Evans.^[69]

General Manuscript Collection

Llanbeblig Hours (fol. 2r): the "Lily Crucifixion" Annunciation scene with the Virgin Mary enthroned under a green canopy

Medieval Astronomy (fol. 4v)

NLW MS 17110E Liber Lanavensis fol. 5r

In addition to the Peniarth and Llanstephan manuscripts, the collection that Sir John Williams donated to the National Library included 500 manuscripts in the general collection (NLW MS 1–500). These manuscripts are an amalgamation of the various purchases that Sir John made between 1894 and 1899, including groups of manuscripts from the Welsh philologist Egerton Phillimore, Sir Thomas Phillipps of Middle Hill, the Ashburn library and Sir Edmund Buckley of Plas Dinas Mawddwy. Descriptions of 446 of these manuscripts are provided by J. H. Davies in Additional Manuscripts in the Collections of Sir John Williams, which the Library published in 1921.^[12][54] The manuscripts in the National Library which are not part of the foundation collections are the focus of the Handlist of manuscripts, which was first published in 1941.^[53] All manuscripts acquired by donation or purchase are added to this open-ended series, either singly or in groups, if they are: a) in a format compatible with the collection, i.e. manuscript books or rolls, or unbound material that can be filed; and b) not integral to an archive or individual collection. There is, however, much archival material, most notably correspondence, held in the General Manuscript Collection.^[53] Individual manuscripts of particular interest include:

• A volume of medieval astronomy texts is the oldest scientific manuscript in the National Library (NLW MS 735C). The first section of the volume was written around 1000 and the second dates from c.1150. Both sections were copied in the Limousin region of France. The Latin text describes the constellations with the aid of diagrams and colour illustrations of Zodiac images.^[13][70]
• The Black Book of Basingwerk (NLW MS 7006D) is a 15th-century manuscript containing a version of Brut y Brenhinedd, a Welsh translation of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae. Particular features of interest include the medieval wooden board binding and the decorated initials embellished with gold.^[13][71]
• The Llywarch Reynolds Manuscripts (NLW MS 970 to 997) are the 28 volumes that Llywarch Owain Reynolds bequeathed to the Library in 1916. The most notable among them is the 17th century collection of Welsh poetry, Llyuyr Hir Llywarch Reynolds.^[72]
• The Book of Llandaff (NLW MS 17110E), also known as Liber Landavensis, is an ecclesiastical manuscript written between 1120 and 1140.^[73]
• The Llanbeblig Book of Hours (NLW MS 17520A) is a small manuscript book compiled around 1390. The manuscript has a number of entries in the calendar that connect it to Wales, including a celebration of the dedication of the church of Saint Peblig, Caernarfon. Isabella Godynogh (d. 1413) was possibly its original owner. The full-page miniatures, illuminated with gold, and the fine lettering indicate the value of the book.^[13][74] The Llanbeblig Hours is the only known illuminated manuscript that contains the iconographical Lily Crucifixion motif, and may be the earliest example of its use in any media.^[75]
• NLW MS 20143A is a manuscript of the laws of Hywel Dda written in Welsh around 1350. It is unusual in that it retains a medieval binding.
• The Tintern Abbey Bible (NLW MS 22631C) is a 13th-century Bible that has a known association with the medieval library of the Cistercian monastery at Tintern, Monmouthshire. It was purchased by the National Library for £30,000 in a Christie's sale in December 1988^[13][76] and is the second book known to have survived from the Tintern library.^[76] Under ultraviolet light the erased 15th-century inscription Ista biblia olim Abbathie de Tinternie (This Bible used to [belong to] Tintern Abbey) is visible to confirm the provenance of the manuscript.^[76]
• Beunans Ke (NLW MS 23849D) is a 16th-century Cornish manuscript discovered among the papers of Professor J. E. Caerwyn Williams after they were deposited in the National Library in 2000.^[77]

Groups of manuscripts in the general collection include:

Rare books

There are many rare books in the National Library of Wales including the three earliest books printed in Welsh,^[14] Yny lhyvyr hwnn (1546),^[14][34] Oll synnwyr pen Kembero ygyd (1547)^[14] and A Dictionary in Englyshe and Welshe (1547) by William Salesbury.^[14] The Library also holds the first Welsh translation of the complete Bible (1588).^[79] The National Library's rare books include collections of incunabula, sixteenth-century European imprints, private press publications, bindings and scientific works.^[15]

Thanks to the collections of printed books that were donated by Sir John Williams, J. H. Davies and Edward Humphrey Owen, the Library has particularly strong holdings of publications in the Welsh language from before 1912. Of the two hundred and eighty-six Welsh books published between 1546 and 1710, the National Library possesses copies of two hundred and ten, and has facsimiles of others that exist as a unique copy in another institution.^[30]

Many of the named collections of printed books include early or otherwise rare books:

Sir John Williams Collection

Yny lhyvyr hwnn, 1546: attributed to Sir John Prise

First Welsh Bible, 1588

The Sir John Williams Collection forms the nucleus of the Library's printed books collection. The collection of approximately 23,360 volumes contains many items of importance to the history of Welsh printing, which were donated to the Library when it was established in 1907. Nineteen of the first twenty-two books published in Welsh are present,^[14] of which fourteen were acquired from the Shirburn Castle library with the Llanstephan Manuscripts. The collection from Shirburn Castle comprises 193 printed books and pamphlets that were all printed before 1750; a superb miscellany of books from the first century of Welsh printing.^[12] Some of the particularly significant items that belonged to Sir John are:

• Yny lhyvyr hwnn ... [In this book ...] (1546) by Sir John Prise, the only known copy of the first book printed in Welsh.^[12][14]
• Oll synnwyr pen Kembero ygyd by Gruffudd Hiraethog (1547).^[12][14]
• William Salesbury's A Dictionary in Englyshe and Welshe (1547).^[12]
• A translation of the New Testament by Salesbury (1567).^[12] The difficulty of reading Salesbury's pedantic translation prompted William Morgan, vicar of Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant, to begin his translation of the Bible in 1578.^[13]
• Y Drych Cristianogawl [The Christian Mirror] (1586–7), probably the earliest book printed in Wales.^[80]
• The first Welsh translation of the complete Bible by William Morgan (1588).^[12] Morgan's Bible not only strengthened the hold of the Protestant faith in Wales, it also created a new and accessible prose.^[13]
• John Penry's pamphlet of 1588, An exhortation unto the governours.^[80]
• The Welsh translation of the first part of Canisius's Opus catechisticum by Rosier Smyth, published in Paris, 1609.^[80]
• Cân o senn iw hên Feistr Tobacco [A Diatribe against Tobacco] (1718), the only extant copy.^[12]
• Early editions of Morgan Llwyd, Robert Recorde, Henry and Thomas Vaughan, and the epigrammist John Owen.^[80]
• A comprehensive collection of publications from the Kelmscott Press.^[30]
• A 1488 edition of Lancelot du lac, part of a large Arthurian collection.^[80]
• A Fourth Folio of Shakespeare (1685).^[30]

Ty Coch Collection

Purchased in 1910, the library of Edward Humphrey Owen (1850–1904), from Ty Coch, Caernarfon, is the third of the National Library of Wales' foundation collections. The 3,680 volumes are mainly of Welsh interest, with the 1567 New Testament and 1588 Bible to be found among some twenty books from the sixteenth century. Other items of interest are a first edition of Milton's Paradise lost (1668), numerous first editions of John Ruskin and George Borrow, and books from the Baskerville and Strawberry Hill presses.^[80]

John Humphreys Davies Bequest

When John Humphreys Davies died on 10 August 1926 he bequeathed his collection of over 10,000 printed volumes to the National Library of Wales. Davies was a keen bibliographer who acquired multiple copies of some works for variants in the typography and accumulated an important collection of Welsh literature, discovering some previously unrecorded works in the process. Some of the early Welsh books that Davies collected contain leaves or signatures that were not in the copies that the National Library already possessed.^[30] The rare books include:

• Annerch ir Cymru (1721) by Ellis Pugh was the first Welsh book to be printed in America.^[30]
• A complete first edition of part one of Aleluja, neu, Casgliad o hymnau, ar amryw ystyriaethau (1744) by William Williams of Pantycelyn.^[30]
• Testament Newydd (1567).^[30]
• Y Bibl (1630).^[30]
• Ystyriaethau Drexelivs ar dragywyddoldeb (1661),^[30] Ellis Lewis' Welsh translation, from the English translation by Winterton, of Jeremias Drexel's De aeternitate considerationes.
• A previously unrecorded large paper issue of Y Bibl (1690).^[30]
• A copy of the 1688 edition of Taith neu siwrnai y pererin [Pilgrim's Progress] is one of the seventy-three works by John Bunyan.^[30]
• Eighty-three volumes of the works of William Williams of Pantycelyn.^[30]

There are also substantial collections of pamphlets, elegies, almanacs, ballads, satires and tracts that Davies had collected.^[30]

Bourdillon Collection

In 1922 the National Library of Wales purchased the collection of French medieval literary texts and early illustrated books that had been assembled by Francis William Bourdillon (1852–1921). Bourdillon's library included twenty-three editions of the Roman de la Rose and an important group of works on the Arthurian legend. The 6,178 printed volumes include sixty-six incunabula, 180 English short title catalogue books (1475–1800), including twenty-five STC and fifty Wing books. Further, there are 320 volumes that were printed in continental Europe during the sixteenth century, and another 260 items which date from the 17th and 18th centuries.^[80]

Incunabula

The National Library has a collection of about 250 incunabula, which are predominantly German, Italian and French imprints.^[15] Sixty-six of the incunabula, including seven different editions of the Roman de la Rose,^[15] with the accepted first edition among them,^[81] are part of Francis William Bourdillon's collection that was purchased by the Library in 1922. At least three of the incunabula acquired from Bourdillon's library are not known in any other copy: a Quatre fils Aymon, a Destruction de Jerusalem, and a Vie de Ste. Catherine.^[81] Sir Charles Thomas-Stanford presented or bequeathed eighteen incunabula in total, half of which were printed in Germany.^[30]

Three examples of early English printing were donated to the Library by Gwendoline and Margaret Davies of Gregynog in 1921. Two of these books were printed by William Caxton: Speculum Vitae Christi of 1488, and the copy of Ranulf Higden's Polychronicon (1482) that had previously been the property of Higden's Monastery, St. Werburgh's Abbey at Chester. The third is another copy of the Polychronicon, printed by Caxton's successor Wynkyn de Worde in 1495.^[30] Nine specimens of early printed books (three German, five Italian and one printed in Ghent) were deposited by Lord Harlech between 1938 and 1941.^[81] Other notable incunabula in the Library are the Astronomica by Marcus Manilius (1474) with illuminated initials and borders, and Hartmann Schedel's Liber Chronicarum (1493).^[15]

During the time that the incunabula expert, Dr. Victor Scholderer, Deputy-Keeper in the Department of Printed Books at the British Museum, spent in Aberystwyth during the Second World War, he took an interest in the National Library's small collection of fifteenth-century printed books and produced a Hand-list of incunabula that was published as a supplement to the National Library of Wales Journal. The hand-list and its addenda and corrigenda describes 129 books, mostly printed in Germany, Italy and France, although examples from the Netherlands and England were also listed. Scholderer noted that some of the forty-five books printed in France, particularly those in the vernacular, were very rare.^[81]

Sixteenth-century imprints

There are approximately 2,500 sixteenth-century European imprints in the Library. Works from the leading scholar-printers of the early sixteenth-century are represented in the collection, which covers a broad array of subjects.^[15][80] These include Johann Froben (Basle), Jodocus Badius (Lyons and Paris), Robert Estienne (Paris) and Aldus Manutius (Venice). Aldus Manutius of Venice, who is known for his dolphin and anchor printer's device, was the finest of the Italian printers of this period and about a hundred examples of his works, known as Aldines, are in the National Library. The Library's also owns works from the sixteenth-century Antwerp press of Christophe Plantin and his son-in-law, Balthasar Moretus, who published De Symbolis Heroicis (1634) with its title-page designed by Peter Paul Rubens.^[15] The collection of French medieval romances and editions of the Roman de la rose from the library of F. W. Bourdillon and the Aldines, which are from the collection of J. Burleigh James, are important features.^[80]

The National Library of Wales has one of the two copies of the 1539 edition of Miles Coverdale's Great Bible, that were printed on vellum and illuminated throughout. The other copy is in the library of St. John's College, Cambridge.^[82]

Private presses

The Library has a substantial private press collection, some 1,800 volumes in total, with representative examples from all of the important British presses.^[80] The holdings of ordinary and special bindings of the Gregynog Press books are comprehensive and along with the reference collection from Gregynog, form the core of the National Library's collection of private press editions.^[15] However, the Library also has a complete set of the Kelmscott Press publications that Sir John Williams collected, including The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer (1896). The private press collection has been developed through further acquisitions by donation, purchase and legal deposit, and contains examples of the productions by the Doves Press, Ashendene Press and the Roxburghe Club.^[30] Works from foreign presses have been collected and include many publications of the Grolier Club, the Bremer Presse edition of Luther's Bible (1926–8) and Eclogues of Virgil (1927) from the Cranach Press^[80]

Fine bindings

The National Library has many examples of books with fine bindings in its holdings. These include under-painted vellum, Victorian carved wood and papier-mâché bindings, French art nouveau bookbinding and bindings by Bernard C. Middleton and the Gregynog Press binder, George Fisher. In the late 1970s, the library acquired an archive recording the work of the Birdsall bindery, Northampton.^[15]

Bourdillon's library includes books printed before 1600 in their original pigskin or stamped calf bindings and some examples of modern fine binding.^[30]

Examples of fore-edge paintings that depict topographical scenes in Wales have been collected by the National Library, including a view of Conway Castle and Bridge on a 1795 copy of The Poetical Works of John Cunningham,^[83] a rural view, stated to be Wales, painted on a 1795 edition of Milton's Paradise Lost bound by Edwards of Halifax, and an 1823 English-Welsh bilingual edition of The Book of Common Prayer with a double fore-edge painting of (1) Bangor and (2) Bangor Cathedral. Other locations in Wales include Barmouth and Neath Abbey, both painted on books published during the nineteenth century. The earliest volume with a fore-edge painting owned by the Library is the 1669 Book of Common Prayer with a depiction of the Crucifixion.^[84]

The Euclid Collection

The National Library's collection of works ascribed to Euclid contains more than 300 volumes, representing 270 editions,^[80] and is considered to be an important reference point for Euclidean bibliographical studies.^[15][85] The collection has been developed through additions to the initial thirty-nine volumes of early editions of the Elements that Sir Charles Thomas-Stanford donated in 1927,^[15][80] including further eleven volumes from Sir Charles in 1928.^[80] With the subsequent additions the collection covers all of Euclid's works, including Data, Phaenomena, Optica and Catoptrica along with numerous editions of the Elements, in many languages. There are two incunabula (Erhard Ratdolt, Venice, 1482 and Leonardus de Basilea & Gulielmus de Papia, Vicenza, 1491) in the collection, as well as seventy-three volumes from the sixteenth century, including the first English (Reynold Wolfe, London, 1551) and Arabic (Typographia Medicea, Rome, 1594) editions.^[80][86]

Archives

The National Library of Wales is home to the largest collection of archival material in Wales.^[2] Around 2,500 archives of various sizes have been collected since the library was founded.^[87] These archives contain many different types of document, such as charters, estate records, correspondence, literary drafts and digital materials, which range from the medieval to contemporary periods. Many of the earlier archives are those of the landed gentry and their estates, which developed over many centuries, but these are supplemented by corporate archives including the Church of Wales archive and the archive of the Court of Great Sessions that the Library has received. The Library collects corporate archives, which are the records of institutions, societies and public bodies, and the personal archives of individuals who have played a significant role in the life of the nation. Personal archives contain a variety of material that is related to the life and work of notable individuals and families.^[88] For example, the papers of Celtic scholar Sir Idris Foster include correspondence, personal papers, scholarly and academic notes, and papers relating to organisations and societies, such as the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, the University of Wales and the Church in Wales.^[89]

The Welsh Political Archive

All materials concerning politics in Wales are kept in the Welsh Political Archive that the National Library established in 1983. This archive coordinates the collection of manuscript, printed and audiovisual records relating to the major political parties active in Wales, with the largest party archive being Plaid Cymru, and notable politicians including Lloyd George. The records of organisations including the Welsh National Council of the United Nations Association and the Association of Welsh Local Authorities also to be found in this archive, as are papers generated by the Parliament for Wales Campaign 1953–6, and several nationalist pressure groups.^[53]

Some of the political archives cannot be accessed due to their embargo status.^[53]

Modern Literary Archives

The Modern Literary Archives are home to the work of some of the most important Welsh poets and authors.^[13][90] An insight into the creation of prose and poetry is provided by the letters, manuscript and typescript drafts,^[13][90] notebooks, proofs and other personal papers of 20th and 21st century writers.^[90] Archives belonging to Welsh-language authors,^[13][90] Welsh authors writing in English^[13][90] and literary organisations are deposited in the National Library.^[90]

Papers and manuscripts belonging to Welsh authors who achieved their fame during the 20th century have been collected by the Library. The Archives of Welsh Authors include the work of authors, poets, playwrights, scholars, journalists and archdruids of the Gorsedd. Significant holding from these archives include draft copies of novels: Cysgod y Cryman [The Shadow of the Sickle] by Islwyn Ffowc Elis, Y Stafell Ddirgel [The Secret Room] by Marion Eames and Cyfres Rwdlan by Angharad Tomos; Saunders Lewis's letters, and the correspondence between Rhydwen Williams and Alwyn D. Rees; the diaries of Caradog Prichard and Euros Bowen; and, manuscript copies of poetry, such as Y Mynach by Gwenallt, Y Mynydd by T. H. Parry-Williams and Cerddi'r Gaeaf by R. Williams Parry.^[90] Parry-Williams and Williams Parry were both first cousins of Thomas Parry, the National Librarian.^[91]

Dylan Thomas is the most prominent name amongst the Anglo-Welsh authors and the Library has a large collection of his papers. Other important items in the Archives of Welsh Writers in English are Raymond Williams' drafts of the novels Border Country and People of the Black Mountains and the papers of David Jones, which include draft copies of In Parenthesis and The Anathemata.^[90]

Prominent holdings in the Archives of Literary Organisations, Journals and Publishers are the National Eisteddfod of Wales, BBC Wales, the Welsh Arts Council and the Welsh Academy.^[90] The archive of the National Eisteddfod of Wales contains the central office records, compositions, adjudications and criticisms from 1886 onwards.^[92] The Eisteddfod is a unique institution and an important part of the literary tradition of Wales that celebrates poetry, song and the Welsh language.^[13] The substantial archive of BBC Wales includes radio drama scripts and talks by well-known authors.^[90] A further collection of Welsh authors archives is available in the papers of the Welsh Arts Council.^[90]

National Screen and Sound Archive

The National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales^[37] contains The Life Story of David Lloyd George, a 1918 biographical film, which is thought to be the first feature-length biopic of a living politician. It was included on the UK Memory of the World Register in 2010.^[43]

A 2001 documentary film, Against the Dying of the Light, was produced about the work of the Archive.^[93]

Penrice and Margam Estate Records

NLW Penrice and Margam Deeds 1

This extensive collection of estate and family records that was preserved at Penrice Castle in the possession of Miss Talbot of Margam contains manuscript material from the twelfth to nineteenth centuries. This includes the Margam Abbey archive which is one of the fullest surviving British monastic archives with charters from the period of the initial foundation of the Abbey at Pendar, its relocation to Margam, and the dissolution of the monastery.^[94]

Along with the manuscripts are numerous seal impressions which are themselves of historic importance.^[94] A collection of more than 30,000 seal impressions dating from the twelfth century onwards is preserved in the National Library of Wales, with examples including the seals of Welsh princes, ecclesiastic and papal seals, and in a variety of designs.^[95]

Pictures

J. M. W. Turner – Dolbadarn Castle

The charter of the National Library of Wales states that pictures should be collected which portray places in Wales or people of Welsh background.^[13][96] Images in a number of different media are collected including paintings, drawings, prints and digital formats.^[96] The collection contains over 4000 framed paintings and drawings including paintings of Dolbadarn Castle and Aberdulais Mill by J. M. W. Turner^[13][97] and examples of the work of the landscape artist Richard Wilson,^[13][97] who influenced Turner, and Wilson's pupil, Thomas Jones of Pencerrig.^[97]

A set of original drawings of Welsh scenes that Thomas Rowlandson made during his 1797 tour of Wales with Henry Wigstead, and a set of original drawings of castles, abbeys and cities by Samuel and Nathaniel Buck were donated by Sir John Williams. The Library also has some two hundred original watercolour drawings of Welsh landscapes by John Warwick Smith, and collections of original drawings of Welsh interest by Philip J. de Loutherbourg and S. H. Grimm. The collection of engraved prints illustrate a wide variety of Welsh topography and aspects of Welsh culture, and also show the development of the art of engraving. Every method of engraving is represented in the collection, which also contains examples of the work of famous engravers.^[98]

There are around 15,000 Welsh portraits in various media and a further 50,000 photographs and negatives in the Library's collection.^[96] Portraits include the National Library's main benefactors, Sir John Williams, Sir John Herbert Lewis, Lord Rendel, and Lord Davies of Llandinam;^[98] prominent Welsh individuals including David Lloyd George and Hwfa Môn; and, those by artists with a connection to Wales, such as Hugh Hughes, William Roos and Christopher Williams.^[96][98] Self-portraits by modern Welsh artists are also collected and include Keith Andrew, David Jones, Charles Tunnicliffe and Kyffin Williams.^[96] There are also many photographic portraits of Welsh individuals in the 1880s and 1890s that were taken by John Thomas.^[98]

There is a large collection of the iconic work of Kyffin Williams in the Library, which includes his paintings of north Wales, sketches and watercolours of the Welsh colony in Patagonia and caricature portraits.^[13][97] Kyffin Williams bequeathed a significant part of his estate, including his own works and archives, to the National Library when he died in 2006.^[99]

Photographs

CND rally, Aberystwyth

John Talbot Dillwyn Llewelyn carrying a gun

The Library holds a collection of more than 800,000 photographs,^[100] including the earliest-known photograph in Wales.^[13] The daguerreotype of Margam Castle, made by Reverend Calvert Richard Jones, dates from 1841.^[13] Many other examples of photography from the 1840s and 1850s, such as the early Swansea photography of the Dillwyn Llewelyn family, are kept in the National Collection of Welsh Photographs. This collection also contains mounted portraits by high-street photographers, topographic views and portraits by John Thomas and scenic postcard photography by Francis Frith that are connected to Wales.^[100]

During his career as a photojournalist, Geoff Charles produced a photographic archive that records life in Wales from the 1930s until the 1970s. The Geoff Charles Photographic Collection is the largest individual collection in the Library with 120,000 negatives. This unique contribution to Welsh photography is being preserved and digitised with sponsorship from the Big Lottery Fund.^[101]

Maps

The first printed map of Wales from 1574 – Cambriae Typus by Humphrey Llwyd

There are over a million maps in the Library's collections.^[102] There are maps on paper, parchment, cloth, wood, metal and digital media. These formats include a range of material such as globles, manuscript items, a 15th-century woodcut print, copper printing plates, carpet-sized map of Britain and Ordnance Survey digital data.^[103]

The Ordnance Survey Maps Collection includes near-to-complete coverage for Wales, beginning with photocopies of the Ordnance Surveyor's drawings that formed the basis of the first edition of the one-inch-to-the-mile map which was published in 1818.^[103]

The collection of antiquarian printed mapping is substantial and includes examples of Humphrey Llwyd's Cambriae typus (1574), the first printed map specifically of Wales, and the first county maps of Wales.^[103] In 2000, Peter Bellwood stole at least fifty antique maps from the Library, which were sold to private collectors for £70,000. Arrested in 2004, he was jailed for four and a half years.^[104][105]

A complete set of tithe maps, covering almost the whole of Wales, is housed in the National Library.^[106][107] The Welsh Church Commission Collection, which, in 1944, was deposited in the Library,^[107] includes the diocesan copies of the tithe maps that were transferred to the Commission in 1920 following the disestablishment of the Church of Wales.^[106][107] They are an important source for the study of mid-nineteenth century Wales and, therefore, are the most frequently used collection of maps and one of the most consulted categories of documents in the Library.^[106] The Cynefin Project is digitising over 1100 tithe maps and transcribing the appointment documents to link them together. The project is planned for completion in September 2016.^[108]

Other holdings in the maps collection include: manuscript estate maps, enclosure maps, estate sale catalogues, railway plans, architectural drawings, mining plans, and nautical and aeronautical charts.^[103]

Discover more about Library collections related topics

Celtic studies

Celtic studies

Celtic studies or Celtology is the academic discipline occupied with the study of any sort of cultural output relating to the Celtic-speaking peoples. This ranges from linguistics, literature and art history, archaeology and history, the focus lying on the study of the various Celtic languages, living and extinct. The primary areas of focus are the six Celtic languages currently in use: Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Manx, Welsh, Cornish, and Breton.

Breton language

Breton language

Breton is a Southwestern Brittonic language of the Celtic language family spoken in Brittany, part of modern-day France. It is the only Celtic language still widely in use on the European mainland, albeit as a member of the insular branch instead of the continental grouping.

Edward Anwyl

Edward Anwyl

Sir Edward Anwyl was a Welsh academic, specializing in the Celtic languages.

Llywarch Reynolds

Llywarch Reynolds

Llywarch Owain Reynolds was a Welsh solicitor and Celtic scholar, who collected a large number of manuscripts that are now held by the National Library of Wales.

Cornish language

Cornish language

Cornish [kəɾˈnuːək], is a Southwestern Brittonic language of the Celtic language family. It is a revived language, having become extinct as a living community language in Cornwall at the end of the 18th century. However, knowledge of Cornish, including speaking ability to a certain extent, continued to be passed on within families and by individuals, and a revival began in the early 20th century. The language has a growing number of second language speakers, and a very small number of families now raise children to speak revived Cornish as a first language. Cornish is currently recognised under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, and the language is often described as an important part of Cornish identity, culture and heritage.

Manx language

Manx language

Manx, also known as Manx Gaelic, is a Gaelic language of the insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, itself a branch of the Indo-European language family. Manx is the historical language of the Manx people.

European Library

European Library

The European Library is an Internet service that allows access to the resources of 49 European national libraries and an increasing number of research libraries. Searching is free and delivers metadata records as well as digital objects, mostly free of charge. The objects come from institutions located in countries which are members of the Council of Europe and range from catalogue records to full-text books, magazines, journals and audio recordings. Over 200 million records are searchable, including 24 million pages of full-text content and more than 7 million digital objects. Thirty five different languages are represented among the searchable objects.

Copac

Copac

Copac was a union catalogue which provided free access to the merged online catalogues of many major research libraries and specialist libraries in the United Kingdom and Ireland, plus the British Library, the National Library of Scotland and the National Library of Wales. It had over 40 million records from around 90 libraries as of 2019, representing a wide range of materials across all subject areas. Copac was freely available to all, and was widely used, with users mainly coming from Higher Education institutions in the United Kingdom, but also worldwide. Copac was valued by users as a research tool.

Black Book of Carmarthen

Black Book of Carmarthen

The Black Book of Carmarthen is thought to be the earliest surviving manuscript written solely in Welsh. The book dates from the mid-13th century; its name comes from its association with the Priory of St. John the Evangelist and Teulyddog at Carmarthen, and is referred to as black due to the colour of its binding. It is currently part of the collection of the National Library of Wales, where it is catalogued as NLW Peniarth MS 1.

Book of Taliesin

Book of Taliesin

The Book of Taliesin is one of the most famous of Middle Welsh manuscripts, dating from the first half of the 14th century though many of the fifty-six poems it preserves are taken to originate in the 10th century or before.

Hendregadredd Manuscript

Hendregadredd Manuscript

The Hendregadredd Manuscript, is a medieval Welsh manuscript containing an anthology of the poetry of the "Poets of the Princes" (Gogynfeirdd); it was written between 1282 and 1350.

Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for The Canterbury Tales. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He was the first writer to be buried in what has since come to be called Poets' Corner, in Westminster Abbey. Chaucer also gained fame as a philosopher and astronomer, composing the scientific A Treatise on the Astrolabe for his 10-year-old son Lewis. He maintained a career in the civil service as a bureaucrat, courtier, diplomat, and member of parliament.

The National Library of Wales has published a series of books about its history and collections, including manuscript catalogues, a bibliography of Welsh publications, Parish Registers of Wales, and academic studies of Gwen John, Kyffin Williams and others. The Library also publishes the National Library of Wales Journal.

Between 1909 and 1984, the Library published Bibliotheca Celtica in fulfilment of the terms of its charter to keep a register of books printed in Welsh and other Celtic languages or relating to Wales and the Celtic nations. In 1985 Bibliotheca Celtica was merged with the Subject Index to Welsh Periodicals to form A Bibliography of Wales (Llyfryddiaeth Cymru). In 1987, the retrospective bibliography Libri Walliae: a catalogue of Welsh books and books printed in Wales 1546–1820 was published.^[15]

Many of the most important manuscripts and books at the Library have been digitised and made freely available to view on the library's website in its "Digital Mirror".^[109]

In April 2012, the Library made a policy decision not to claim ownership of copyright in digital reproductions. This meant that the rights information attached to digital representations of works would reflect the copyright status of the original (i.e., that originals in the public domain would remain in the public domain in their digital form). The Library has applied this policy to projects delivered since then (the Welsh Journals Online and Cymru1914) and is still in the process of updating rights information for its pre-2012 projects. Metadata are released into the public domain using the CC0 licence.

The Library has experience of sharing content from its collections under open content licences on platforms such as Wikipedia (e.g., the John Thomas photographic collection) and Flickr. In February 2013, the Library contributed 50 images relating to Monmouthshire to Wikipedia, a successful pilot project with Wikimedia UK. The following month, they became one of the cultural heritage organisations that partnered with Wikimedia Nederland, Wikimedia UK and Wikimedia France, together with Europeana, to be part of their collaboration to provide a set of tools to mass upload material from GLAM institutions to Wikimedia Commons. Also in 2013, the Library was awarded the Wikimedia UK 'GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) of the Year Award', for being 'a reliable supporter of the Wikimedia movement aims.' By January 2016 almost 8,000 images had been made available for free download.^[110]

The 'Cynefin: Mapping Wales' Sense of Place' project has created a unified tithe map of Wales by digitising over a thousand tithe maps.^{[107][108][111]} Cynefin is a partnership between Archives Wales, the National Library of Wales and People’s Collection Wales^[108] that was launched in November 2014.^[111] A valuable online tool for historical research is being produced by crowdsourcing the contributions of volunteers through the Cynefin website to transcribe the apportionment documents and link them to the digitised tithe maps.^[111][112]

The Kyffin Williams Bequest Project was set up to catalogue and digitise the material that Kyffin Williams bequeathed to the National Library of Wales on his death in 2006. In addition to the collection of artwork, the bequest also included funds to cover this project. The cataloguing work began in 2008 and the digitisation started in 2009.^[99]

• 

  A group of men and boys standing on the quayside, Aberdyfi. Aberdyfi Regatta. John Thomas c. 1885

• 

  Chwarel Sets, at Trefor; John Thomas c. 1875

• 

  Thomas Christopher Hofland's 'An old gateway at Monmouth' lithograph; 1825

• 

  An image from the Geoff Charles (1909-2002) Collection: a Sunday school trip to Rhyl; Geoff Charles 20 July 1955

• 

  Dick Puw; John Thomas c. 1875

• 

  Viaduct on the Festiniog and Blaenau Railway, Blaenau Ffestiniog, Wales; John Thomas c. 1875

Welsh Journals Online

The National Library of Wales has digitised the back-numbers of 50 journals relating to Wales, in Welsh and English, in the Welsh Journals Online project funded by Jisc. It forms the largest body of Welsh text on the Web, and as well as allowing free access for all to scholarly articles on history, literature and science, and poems and book reviews. OCR of the page scans was undertaken to create TEI searchable text versions. The website contains a total of 400,000 pages. It is intended to add new issues of the titles as they emerge from the embargo period agreed with the publisher.^[113]

The fifty titles include:^[114][115]

Welsh Newspapers Online

The Cardigan Bay Visitor, 24 June 1887

The Visitor's List and Guide, 22 June 1887

The Illustrated Usk Observer, 7 July 1855

Y Dydd, 5 June 1868

Welsh Newspapers Online is an open access database of Welsh regional newspapers that has been created from the National Library of Wales' collection of historical newspapers.^[116][117] The database includes nearly 120 newspapers titles and provides access to over 1,100,000 pages from the years before 1919. Content relating to the First World War that has been digitised is also included in the database.^[117] The following publications are included:^[117]

Discover more about Digital content related topics

John Thomas (photographer)

John Thomas (photographer)

John Thomas was a Welsh photographer, specialising in landscape images of Wales and Welsh chapels, and portraits of notable Welsh people, particularly church and chapel ministers.

Wikimedia UK

Wikimedia UK

Wikimedia UK (WMUK) is a registered charity established to support volunteers in the United Kingdom who work on Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia. As such, it is a Wikimedia chapter approved by the Wikimedia Foundation, which owns and hosts those projects.

Europeana

Europeana

Europeana is a web portal created by the European Union containing digitised cultural heritage collections of more than 3,000 institutions across Europe. It includes records of over 50 million cultural and scientific artefacts, brought together on a single platform and presented in a variety of ways relevant to modern users. The prototype for Europeana was the European Digital Library Network (EDLnet), launched in 2008.

Trefor, Gwynedd

Trefor, Gwynedd

Trefor is a village on the northern coast of the Llŷn Peninsula, in Gwynedd, Wales. It had a population of 1,067 at the 2021 Census. Trefor is in the Community of Llanaelhaearn, and Llithfaen is nearby. There is a beach in Trefor and also a shop in the village centre. It was in the historic county of Caernarfonshire.

Geoff Charles

Geoff Charles

Geoff Charles was a Welsh photojournalist. His collection of over 120,000 images is being conserved and digitised by the National Library of Wales.

Jisc

Jisc

Jisc is a United Kingdom not-for-profit company that provides network and IT services and digital resources in support of further and higher education institutions and research as well as not-for-profits and the public sector.

Optical character recognition

Optical character recognition

A process called Optical Character Recognition (OCR) converts printed texts into digital image files. It is a digital copier that uses automation to convert scanned documents into editable, shareable PDFs that are machine-readable. OCR may be seen in action when you use your computer to scan a receipt. The scan is then saved as a picture on your computer. The words in the image cannot be searched, edited, or counted, but you may use OCR to convert the image to a text document with the content stored as text. OCR software can extract data from scanned documents, camera photos, and image-only PDFs. It makes static material editable and does away with the necessity for human data entry.

Text Encoding Initiative

Text Encoding Initiative

The Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) is a text-centric community of practice in the academic field of digital humanities, operating continuously since the 1980s. The community currently runs a mailing list, meetings and conference series, and maintains the TEI technical standard, a journal, a wiki, a GitHub repository and a toolchain.

Archaeologia Cambrensis

Archaeologia Cambrensis

Archaeologia Cambrensis is a Welsh archaeological and historical scholarly journal published annually by the Cambrian Archaeological Association. It contains historical essays, excavation reports, and book reviews, as well as society notes and accounts of field visits. The journal has included "much valuable material on the manuscripts, genealogy, heraldry, toponymy, folklore and literature of Wales".

Bwletin Cymdeithas Emynau Cymru

Bwletin Cymdeithas Emynau Cymru

Bwletin Cymdeithas Emynau Cymru is a Welsh language magazine that includes critical studies of hymns and hymn-writers. Cymdeithas Emynau Cymru was founded in 1967 to promote the study and use of Welsh hymns and hymn tunes. The Bulletin's founding editor was Gomer M. Roberts. He was succeeded in 1978 by E. Wyn James.

Y Cofiadur

Y Cofiadur

Y Cofiadur is published by Cymdeithas Hanes Annibynwyr Cymru, a society founded in 1920 by Undeb yr Annibynwyr Cymraeg. The first issue was published in 1923. It is an annual Welsh-language magazine on the history of religion and contains articles on the history of Welsh Independent churches and the individuals involved, with references. It also includes society notes. The magazine has been digitised by the Welsh Journals Online project at the National Library of Wales.

• The library was the setting for award-winning 2017 film The Library Suicides [cy], based on the book of the same name. Filming took place there in 2016.