New College Library

Don't let the word "new" fool you. "New" is a relative concept in a country that has so much history. :)

TUESDAY, JULY 15th we visited the New College Library which serves the Divinity School at the University of Edinburgh. I'll admit that my excitement over visiting the Central Library that same day kind of overshadowed this visit in my blog posts, but it was no less amazing. The Central Library just is the type of library I work in and love. Anyways, back to the New College Library. ;)

We took the bus from the dorm to the Royal Mile and then walked up the street and around the corner to the library. Wow, once again the architecture took my breath away. The layout of the library is quite interesting. You go upstairs to the main reading room and from there can access the stacks below the reading room. As the relationship with the divinity school suggests, this library's collection focuses on religious texts and and texts that have importance in religious history. When the library was first established, the main purpose of the divinity school was to educate those wishing to become clergy for the Church of Scotland. Nowadays, the divinity school is much more diverse and the library's collection reflects that. 

Two of the most interesting things I saw in the collection are a Torah scroll (Jewish Old Testament) and a first edition of the King James Bible.