Mary Pollard facts for kids

Mary "Paul" Pollard (born June 5, 1922 – died June 24, 2005) was a special kind of librarian. She worked at the Library of Trinity College Dublin and was an expert in very old books.

Early Life and Learning

Mary "Paul" Pollard was born in Essex, England, on June 5, 1922. She was the oldest of four children. Her father was from Ireland.

Mary went to Hawnes School. She started studying medicine for a few years. But then she decided to change her path. She chose to become a librarian instead. She got a job at Southlands Teacher Training College. While working there, she also studied to become a certified librarian.

Her Career as a Librarian

In 1957, Mary Pollard moved to Dublin, Ireland. She took on two part-time jobs. One was at Marsh's Library and the other at the Library of Trinity College Dublin. Marsh's Library couldn't pay her a full salary. Instead, they gave her a flat (an apartment) right under the library. It was known for being very cold! She lived there for the rest of her life.

Mary worked at both libraries for eight years. Then, she started a full-time job at Trinity College. Throughout her career, she became a specialist in old, rare books. In 1964, she became the official rare book librarian at Trinity. She even wrote a special paper for her advanced librarian degree. It was about the woodcut designs used by printers in Dublin long ago.

Improving the Old Library

Mary was in charge of the department for older printed books. This section was in a newly built part of the Old Library. It opened to readers in 1968. At first, this department handled books printed before 1800. Later, it included all the books in the Old Library and Gallery, even those from the 1800s.

Mary worked hard to make the library's collection of old books better. She did this even with very little money. She found missing books in areas like 18th-century English literature and Irish history. She then tried to buy these important books. For example, in 1976, she helped buy a collection of items related to Jonathan Swift. This was done with money from a special fund.

New Ways to Organize Books

Mary Pollard also brought in new rules for cataloging books. This made it easier to find and understand the old books. She even created extra rules in 1970. These rules helped describe every detail of a book's physical appearance.

Around the same time, she started teaching students about historical bibliography. This is the study of how books were made and printed in the past. This teaching eventually became an official part of a university course. As part of this work, Mary set up a special hand press. It was called the Trinity Closet Press. This press is still used today for printing.

Mary became a sub-librarian in 1970. In 1980, she became the first "keeper of early printed books." She retired from this job in 1983. After retiring, she focused on her research about the book trade in Dublin. This research led to two important books. They were called Dublin's trade in books, 1550–1800 (published in 1989) and A dictionary of members of the Dublin book trade, 1550–1800 (published in 2000).

In the early 1960s, Mary also started her own small hand press. She used an unused room at Marsh's Library. For 20 years, she printed very limited editions of short stories and poems. These often made fun of current events.

Later Life and Her Collection

In 2001, Dublin University gave Mary an honorary D.Litt. This is a special degree that honors her achievements. In 2002, she was chosen to be a member of the Royal Irish Academy. A book honoring her, called That woman!: studies in Irish bibliography, was published in 2005. Mary Pollard passed away on June 24, 2005.

Mary had a huge collection of children's books. She collected them over 50 years. There were 11,500 books published before 1914! She was especially interested in books about Ireland and books for girls. This amazing collection is now known as the Pollard Collection. She left it to the Library of Trinity College Dublin. She also left her notebooks about collecting.