Dr Elizabethanne Boran, Librarian of the Edward Worth Library, Dublin
My appointment as Librarian in the Edward Worth Library, a collection of c. 4,300 volumes collected by an eighteenth-century physician, Edward Worth, has fuelled my interest in the history of early modern libraries – which was the topic of my Ph.D. The Worth collection is a capsule library, left to Dr. Steevens’ Hospital in Dublin following Worth’s death in 1733. Although roughly one third of the collection relates to medical topics the collection as a whole is broad-ranging and reflects Worth’s interests in early typography and fine book-bindings. My current research therefore includes the history of bookbinding as well as my other research interests: the history of science, the seventeenth-century respublica literaria, the History of the Book, the history of uiversities, and, more generally, the history of ideas in the seventeenth century. I am currently, the Secretary-General of the International Commission for the History of Universities; the Secretary of the Irish National Committee for the Blue Shield; the Irish Member for the Society for the History of Natural History; a committee member of the Library Association’s Rare Books Group of Ireland, and a member of the History of Science, Technology and Medicine Network of Ireland.
Select Publications
- Elizabethanne Boran, E. Charles Nelson and Emer Lawlor (eds), Botany and Gardens in Early Modern Ireland (Dublin, 2022).
- Elizabethanne Boran (ed.), Book Collecting in Ireland and Britain, 1650-1850 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2018).
- Elizabethanne Boran and Mordechai Feingold (eds.) Reading and Teaching Newton in Early Modern Europe (Leiden: Brill, 2017).
- Elizabethanne Boran and Pieter Dhondt (eds), Student Revolt: City and Society in Europe. From the Middle Ages to the Present Day (London: Routledge, 2017).
- Elizabethanne Boran, Aldines at the Edward Worth Library (Dublin: Trustees of the Edward Worth Library, 2015).
- Elizabethanne Boran (ed.) The Correspondence of James Ussher, 1600-1656 (Dublin: Irish Manuscript Commission, March 2015) 3 vols.
- [With Professor Michael Hunter]: ‘Introduction’ to a special issue on Robert Boyle in Intellectual History Review vol 25 issue 1 March 2015. Professor Michael Hunter and I co-edited this special issue, which originated from a workshop held in the Edward Worth Library in November 2011.
- Elizabethanne Boran and Crawford Gribben (eds.) Enforcing the Reformation in Ireland and Scotland: 1550-1700, (St. Andrews Studies in Reformation History: Ashgate, 2006).