April News

A quiet month…

Whilst your humble librarians would love to have list of the exciting things which happened during April at the Oriental Institute Library, in reality there is not much to report. Apart from the usual flurry of activity at the end of the month, when Term started and many books were returned after the Vacation, April was a quiet time in the library in which often the loudest sound was the ruffling of pages – and the occasional loud “thump!” wherever Kate was moving books.*

(*It’s not something that can be helped; when moving a shelf’s worth of books on to a different shelf one runs the risk of a couple toppling over, and as we have metal shelving they do make a rather resonating “BONG” noise. For the record, only once did any actually fall off the shelf, and those were caught on the way down!)

The bookmove which was ongoing for much of the month is now finished, and the reclassification has reached almost the end of the DS section; readers looking for books which have an old classification (DS-Number-letters) are advised to check their reference unless the number is 452 or higher as almost all the others will now be in the LC classification.

Staff update

Natalija has now taken over a vacant position on Fridays, which has meant a small shuffle of the staffing in the library, but will improve coverage overall should there be an emergency. We hope readers will not be too confused by seeing different people on the desk at odd times!

Remaining quiet…

As we are now into the final Term we appreciate that readers will be preparing for exams and would just remind everyone that we are here as a quiet space for revision and/or panic. Do let staff know if there is anything we can do.

Finally,

Hopefully, by the end of May, we will be able to give updates on the buildings work which is to be scheduled for the summer, including the replacement of the Library skylights. Stay tuned!