Greg Daly
Central Catholic Library Conflict has erupted at Dublin’s Central Catholic Library over a proposal to transfer the library’s holdings to Dublin City University (DCU).
The library board is split over the proposal, The Irish Catholic understands, and up to 50 library members met outside the library on June 22 to call for the company’s assets not to be transferred without the members being consulted.
Financial difficulties lie behind the proposal, according to company secretary David McEllin, who told The Irish Catholic that “the library has limited income”, and at a time when other Catholic libraries, including ones in England and Australia, are having to close, a key question is whether libraries can be supported by other institutions.
“It’s really about preservation,” he said, explaining that the Merrion Square-based collection houses about 70,000 items, the oldest of which dates back to the 16th Century and that DCU is in a better position to preserve this at its St Patrick’s College campus than is the cash-strapped Central Catholic Library.
A significant number of library members, however, are understood to be uneasy about the proposal, believing that it would be against the ethos of the organisation to hand over a Catholic library to a secular university.
AGM
This year’s AGM had been scheduled for June 22, but was postponed for a number of reasons, according to Mr McEllin, who says it must by law take place by September, 15 months since the last AGM.
“There were people who weren’t satisfied with that,” he said, explaining how a group met outside the library at the prearranged time. The Irish Catholic understands that many of those who met believed the meeting had been postponed in an attempt to block the appointment of new company directors who might have been opposed to the proposed move.
With no key-holding company officers present, the gathered members were unable to enter the locked building and so met around the library steps, where they unanimously passed a motion calling for any transferral of assets to be debated by the members.
Stressing that the DCU transfer is at this stage merely a proposal, Mr McEllin said, “anything with DCU would have to be a vote of the members anyway”.