Victorian Library Technology in Kilkenny

Kilkenny County Library Service is one of the few public library authorities in the British Isles that has a surviving Library Indicator in good condition.

Kilkenny City has a long tradition of library service provision going back to the early 19^th Century with the Kilkenny Circulating Library, this was absorbed into the Carnegie Library that opened on John’s Quay in 1910. This was transferred to the control of Kilkenny County Council in 1925.

The reason that the Library in Kilkenny acquired such a piece of Victorian technology, its function, the demise of Library Indicators in other services and its survival in Kilkenny will be outlined below.