New Day, New Face!

 

Welcome to the new face of the Nizami Ganjavi Library blog!

It’s been a long time since our last post, but going forward we hope to use this site more actively to keep our visitors up to date on the Library’s holdings, events, and related activities in Oxford and beyond.

Given the theme of renewal, it seems only fitting that the first post on our new site would revolve around the theme of Nowruz — the Persian New Year and a spring festival celebrated across much of Eurasia — which is also, incidentally, the theme for our book display for the month of March 2023!

What is Nowruz?

Nowruz is, at its core, a celebration of spring and – more specifically – of the spring equinox. In the Iranian calendar, which is a solar calendar, this is also the first day of the first month, فروردین Farvardīn, making Nowruz the Iranian New Year celebration.

While Nowruz is celebrated by numerous groups which do not make use of the Iranian calendar, the name Nowruz and certain traditions associated with it betray a common origin somewhere in the distant, pre-Islamic past of greater Iran.

Though the ultimate origins of the holiday are debated, the Persian epic poem, the شاهنامه Šāhnāma of Firdawsī, tells of how the legendary king Jamšēd saved the world from an endless winter by building a gold and bejewelled throne which, when raised up towards the sky, shone like the sun and banished the darkness, saving humanity. In commemoration of this “New Day”, the Iranians celebrate Nowruz < Persian نو naw “new” + روز rōz “day”.

One of the Library’s many versions of the ŠāhnāmaDick Davis’ English translation, Shahnameh: the Persian book of kings (New York/London: Penguin, 2007) can be found on our book dispaly this month.

You can also find جواد برومند سعید Javād Barūmand Sa‘īd‘s excellent research collection on the history of Nowruz, نوروز جمشيد: پژوهشى نوين از پيدايى نوروز Nawrūz-i Jamshīd: pizhūhishī nuvīn az paydāʼī-i Nawrūz.

Nowruz is celebrated in different cultures across Eurasia, so it’s no surprise that there are different ways to render/spell/pronounce the name of the holiday. One book on our display, Fatih Köse’s Osmanlı Devletinde Nevrûz (İstanbul: IQ Kültür Sanat, 2007) relates how Nowruz celebrations were once common among certain classes and populations within the Ottoman Empire, even if they are primarily associated with Kurds in Turkey today.

Here are some other versions of the name for this holiday in languages you may come across.

name language(s)
Navrez Crimean Tatar
Neowrez Mazandarani
Nevruz Albanian, Turkish
Newroz Kurmanji, Zazaki
Novruz Azerbaijani
Nowruz Turkmen
Nûroj Kurmanj (rare/learned)
Навруз Navruz Nogay, Russian
Науруз Nauruz Bashkir
Наурыз Nauryz Kazakh
Нәүрүз Näwrüz Volga Tatar
Нооруз Nooruz Kyrgyz
نەورۆز Newroz Sorani
نورۇز Noruz Uyghur
نوروز Nowruz Gilaki, Iranian Persian
Nawrōz Balochi, Dari, Pashto
نوورځ‎ Nawwraź Pashto (rare/learned)

The Nizami Ganjavi Haft-Sin Table

The Haft-Sin (“Seven S’s”) Table — سفره‌ای هفت سین  Sofre-ye Haft-Sin (Sufra-yi Haft-sīn) in Persian — is a fixture of most Iranian households during the Nowruz season, much the same way as a Christmas tree or Chanukkiah. The table is decorated with seven items, each starting with the letter س S in Persian.

In many regions, Nowruz traditions involve the number seven. Exactly why this is in uncertain, but it likely derives from the importance of the number in the Zoroastrian tradition.
In the Avesta, the most holy text of the Zoroastrian religion, Aməša Spəṇta “The Eternal Holies” are seven emanations of the supreme god, Ahura Mazdā, personified in the form of seven divine beings, each representing one of the seven eternal aspects of creation. You can read about this yourselves in an original-language copy of a portion of the Avesta in the form of William A. V. Jackson’s Avesta Reader (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1893), currently adorning our Nowruz dispay in the NGL.

The seven items on a Haft-Sin table sometimes vary, but the standard seven are, along with the things they are often said to represent:

Persian translation symbolic meaning
سیب sib (sēb) apple beauty
سیر sir (sīr) garlic health
سنجد senjed (sinjid) oleaster love
سمنو samanu (samanū) malted wheat pudding strength
سماق somāgh (sumāq) sumac the sun
سرکه sirke (sirka) vinegar patience
سبزه sabze (sabza) greens rebirth

Additional items beginning with س S that are sometimes used alongside or instead of the above are:

Persian translation symbolic meaning
سکه sekke (sikka) coin prosperity
ساعت sāʿat clock time
سنبل sonbol (sunbul) hyacinth spring

Other items are often placed on the Haft Sin table for their symbolic significance regardless of the letter they start with:

Persian translation symbolic meaning
آینه āyine (āyina) mirror introspection
شمع shame’ (šam‘) candle light
تخم مرغ رنگی tokhm-e morgh rangi (tuxm-i murğ rangī) red painted egg fertility
نارنج nārenj (nārinj) orange in a bowl of water the earth
شیرینی shirini (šīrīnī) sweets pleasure
اسفند* esfand (isfand) seeds of Ruda graveolens (rue) banishing evil
شیر shir (šīr) milk purity
بیدمشک bid-meshk (bēd-mišk) branch of a Salix aegyptiaca (musk willow) nature
**کتاب ketāb (kitab) book wisdom

(* Indeed, in some dialects and in older varieties of Persian, this word was pronounced سفند sifand or سپند sipand and would have therefore begun with س S.)

(** The book in question is traditionally one of four: the Qur’ān, the Avesta, the Šāhnāma, or the Dīvān of the poet Ḥāfiẓ of Shiraz. For our display at the NGL, we’ve chosen a version of the دیوان حافظ شیرازی Dīvān-i Ḥāfiẓ-i Šīrāzī — one of many available in our collections!)

Haft-Sin tables are nevertheless as varied as the people who make them, and no book demonstrates this better than Maryam Khosrowshahi’s Sofreh: the art of Persian celebration (London: ACC Art Books, 2014), also on our book display.

In the two-volume set, you’ll find superbly decorated tables, not only for Nowruz but for other Persian celebrations.

Speaking of which, you can learn more about traditional Persian holidays from another of our holdings on display this month, Aly Mazahéri‘s Le Nowroûz et le Mihrikân (Paris: Association des disciples d’Aly Mazahéri, 1992).

Since Nowruz is such a big part of the culture of so many regions within the NGL’s purview, we’ve decided to celebrate this year by adorning our Nowruz book display with a traditional Haft-Sin table!

The board shows even more information about Nowruz traditions from around Eurasia, so don’t forget to stop by before the end of March and see how many of the items above you can spot on our display.

News and holiday announcements

As we begin to say goodbye to everyone at the end of Term, we have a few bits and pieces of news.

Firstly, a reminder that we close for Christmas on the 20th December, re-opening on 2nd January. We will be open tomorrow, Saturday 7th December, from 11-5pm and will open until 7pm next week (9th-13th December), but go back to our vacation opening hours of 9am-5pm, Monday-Friday from Monday 16th December until the start of next Term.

Secondly, vacation loans are now in effect, with books due back on the 21st January (Tuesday of 1st week). We are aware that some readers’ cards expire at the end of the year; if you are a card holder whose card expires during the Christmas closure, please let us know and we will extend your loan and waive any fines incurred once you have renewed your card.

Thirdly, a bit of good news: the Humanities Research Fair, which was cancelled due to strike action in November, is now rescheduled for 27th January. Details can be found here and the booking link is here.

We trust that everyone has had a productive term! There have certainly been some changes here. Three weeks ago we welcomed a new member of staff, Ruchi Srivastava, who is with us in the afternoons and at the Sackler in the mornings. The extra pair of hands has provided a much needed boost to our ability to shelve books promptly and avoid the shelving trolleys getting out of hand.

Readers may have noticed piles of blue crates in amongst the empty shelves round by the staff office – this is part of an ongoing project to move some of our older and more vulnerable collections to the Book Storage Facility, where they will be kept in cooler and more book-friendly conditions. Some of these materials have also been boxed in specially made acid-free boxes to ensure that they stay in the best condition possible. Books which have been moved to the BSF will still be orderable back to OIL, but if they date from before 1920 they will not be borrowable. All items in the collection which are more than 100 years old are confined to the library.

The reclassification has continued during the term, and will be accelerated by more staff-time after Christmas (more news on that in our next post). There may be a minor book-move after the holidays to accommodate the PJ-section, which is becoming slightly clogged again, but Kate says she will decide on that nearer the time.

Finally, we’d like to wish all our readers a Merry Christmas (for those that do) and a Happy New Year (for everyone), and we will see you in 2020!

 

 

 

 

August and September Library Hours

 

August Bank Holiday Closure

Hello! We hope everyone is enjoying the relaxed atmosphere in the library over the summer.

Just a reminder that, as usual, we will be closed on the August Bank Holiday Monday — 26th August.

 

St Giles’ Fair

We will also be closed for the two days of St Giles’ Fair – the 9th and 10th of September.

For those readers who wonder why we do this, it is partly because of security concerns due to the large numbers of people who converge on this end of the city during the fair, and also because the noise from the rides is quite loud and intrusive. Your humble blogger was in the library while it was closed one afternoon a few years ago and the screams from one of the closer rides were quite alarming!

Otherwise, we will remain open 9am-5pm on Monday-Friday until the start of Michaelmas Term, when our usual term-time opening hours will be 9am-7pm on weekdays and 11am-5pm on Saturdays.

 

Book moves

As some of you will have noticed, there has been a bit of moving going on in the far end of the LC sequence; Kate is currently wading through the PL section.

Our most asked-for resource in that area, the New Catalogus Catalogorum (Z6605.S3 U54 NEW 1949 Ref.) has now moved to the opposite side of the aisle. We hope to get the rest of the move done before the start of Term, and apologise for the occasional loud noises caused by books falling over and shelves being moved around.

May news and reminders

Welcome back to everyone who was away for most of April! We trust that everyone had a relaxing and productive Easter Holiday (as much as the two are not mutually exclusive).

First up from us this month is a new trial for an e-resource which may prove useful to our students, Quran Gateway:

You can find it on the A-Z databases list under “Q” and it will be available for a month, until 31st May.

Building works

Following on from our previous post, we currently do not have any further information about the building works scheduled for the summer. As soon as we know more about the timeframe/scope/disruption or anything else, we will make sure that we post on this blog and also put signs up around the library.

 

Book moves

Kate has been rearranging the PJ area of the Library of Congress section, but only by a few shelves, so everything should be more or less where it was last term. As ever, this is a long-term process, and things will move around as more books are removed from the old sequence and added to the new one.

At present there are no plans for a large-scale move over the summer vacation as the timeline for the building works has yet to be finalised, but there may be a small rearrangement to move things up into the space vacated by the old PJ books which are currently being reclassified. We will inform readers if there is likely to be any disruption, but since Kate is the person who usually does the moves and she is only here on Tuesday and Friday afternoons there will be very little going on for most of the week!

 

Reminders

We are now back on to Term time opening until the end of June, 9am-7pm on weekdays and 11am-5pm on Saturdays.

Readers are requested not to bring coffee – in keep-cups or otherwise – into the library, but just to drink water (in a sealed bottle, not one of the cups from the water cooler downstairs), please. Coffee and foodstuffs attract pests which may damage the books. We realise that people are revising for exams and feel the need to caffeinate themselves in order to concentrate, but that is easily managed in the common room downstairs (and stretching your legs every so often and getting away from your screens is never a bad thing).

As ever, please keep an eye on our Facebook and Twitter feeds for up-to-the-minute (or as soon as we find out about it) news!

Advance notice of temporary summer closure

At some point during the summer vacation, the Oriental Institute Library will need to close temporarily. This is to allow for refurbishment work funded by the recent gift to the University, given in honour of the British Foundation for the Study of Azerbaijan and the Caucasus, which was announced in the University Gazette of 25th Oct 2018. Refurbishment will include creation of a room within the library to provide office accommodation for Nizami Ganjavi scholars. This will involve some substantial building work that will include creation of a new door from the scholars’ room into the main Oriental Institute lobby area. The current library reader service point will be moved to a new location in the library; the acoustic barriers  surrounding the service desk will be removed and new acoustic barriers will be installed around the relocated service point.

The closure dates and advance notice of periods of noise and disruption to users will be communicated as soon as the library receives a detailed schedule of work. We would ask those who are planning to work in the library over the summer vacation to get in touch with library staff to let us know as soon as possible when you are planning to work in the library and what open shelf books you are intending to use. The graduate student vacation loan limit will be raised to 20 books and we strongly advise people to borrow their books at the beginning of the vacation. A fetching service to the Sackler Library will also be put in place. If you know of any colleagues from outside of Oxford who are planning to use the Oriental Institute Library over the summer, we would be grateful if you could share this advance warning with them.

January News and reminders

Happy New Year!

We daresay that all our readers had a pleasant holiday and have now got back into the swing of Term. As we write this on a very snowy Friday afternoon it is pleasing to see that many of our regulars have not been put off by the weather! On a more serious note, however, we ask that readers, if they do come in covered in snow, brush themselves off properly (preferably not in the foyer or the library) before handling the books. Last week we had a few which got covered in droplets of water from readers’ coats and gloves, and we’d rather the books stay as dry as possible, for obvious reasons!

We will, of course endeavour to stay open during any further periods of winter weather, but please watch the Facebook page and other outlets for any updates.

Reader Survey

As you’ll have seen on the Facebook page, the Bodleian Libraries’ reader survey is being run again this year: www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/reader-survey. We urge everyone who uses the library to please respond; it is a valuable tool for us in gauging reader satisfaction and identifying areas which we need to work on or to improve. The survey runs until 17th February, so you still have a couple of weeks to fill it in!

 

Open Access Oxford Week

The next event in the Bodleian’s Open Access week preparations will be a talk on “Open Access and Plan S” by David Sweeney on 11th February: http://openaccess.ox.ac.uk/2019/01/23/open-access-and-plan-s-david-sweeney-talk-11-feb-2019/

 

The Week itself is from 4th-8th March: http://openaccess.ox.ac.uk/home-2/open-access-oxford-week-march-2019/ please see the website for details of related events throughout the week.

 

That’s all for this month! As ever, please see the Facebook page for updates on more immediate matters such as SOLO, deliveries etc.

 

 

November news and Vacation reminders

 

November news

We’re sorry that this blog post has been somewhat delayed this month; this was mostly due to there not really being a great deal of news, but illness was also a factor as there has been a nasty cold going round. We hope not too many of our readers have been affected!

One thing we had been meaning to mention, out of general interest to our readership, was the exhibition about T.E. Lawrence which has been on since October; please see the website for more information: http://www.magd.ox.ac.uk/libraries-and-archives/news/new-exhibition-lawrence-of-oxford/.

We are very pleased to report that, thanks to the sterling efforts of our extra members of staff this term, we have managed to clear the shelving backlog in the Korean Studies Library section in the basement. Thanks in particular to Ben, who has done a great job of sorting this out. Hopefully, now that the shelves are better arranged, we will not find ourselves with the same space problems in the future!

 

Vacation reminders

The Oriental Institute Library will be open until 7pm next week (3rd-7th December) and 11-5pm on Saturday 8th; after which we will revert to our vacation hours of 9-5pm (closed Saturdays) until the 6th of January.

Vacation Loans are now in effect; all books checked out or renewed will be due back on the 15th January (Tuesday of 1st week).

The Oriental Institute building closes for Christmas at 5pm on Thursday 20th December, so we will be closed on the Friday 21st, unlike most of the other Bodleian Libraries. We will re-open on Thursday 3rd January at 9am.

We are aware that some readers have cards which expire on the 31st December and who will therefore not be able to borrow or renew their books beyond that date. We are happy to waive fines for readers in this position once they have renewed their cards as it is not their fault that their card expires during the closed period. Do let us know if you need any help with this.

Finally, we would like to wish our readers a good holiday, and a happy Christmas to those who celebrate it!

 

Welcome to OIL! Michaelmas Term 2018

October is upon us once again (where did September go?!) and we find ourselves at the start of another Academic Year. We are excited to meet all the new students and of course to see all our returning readers again.

What follows is a brief news-report of the summer, and a few reminders of the library rules and general housekeeping so that we can get off to a smooth start.

Summer update

The summer saw the continuation of the building works to change the heating system in the Oriental Institute, and also the installation of new windows on the basement. We were closed for four weeks, during which time our Sackler colleagues facilitated collecting of books from OIL to their reading rooms for our readers (thanks again to them for that!). Unfortunately, a supply problem resulted in the closure not coinciding with the noisiest part of the work, which happened when the shiny new pipes were being installed and caused some disruption. Happily the installation is now complete and the new panels near the ceiling are ready. The new heating system should be much more efficient and less wasteful than the previous (largely uncontrollable) one, so we should not need to have *quite* so many windows open in the middle of winter.

Kate has collated her reclassification data for the 2017-18 academic year; she has reached the last tier of the row which she started last year and has reclassified 645 shelfmarks, amounting to 797 individual books, in the last year.

A minor book-move was carried out over the Vacation. This mostly affects the end of the LC sequence, where the main change is that the PK books now start in the middle section rather than under the windows by the computers. PJ now occupies that space, with space to grow as that is the area currently being reclassified. All the shelves are labelled as accurately as possible (allowing for occasional moves round corners). There are now only two large sections which have similar shelfmarks to the LC collection – PJ and PK. We have noticed a difference over the past few years in the numbers of people asking where things are, which has reduced dramatically as the reclassification has progressed, so we know it is worth doing! If at any time you need a book which is being reclassified, please speak to staff. If it is not a Tuesday or Friday afternoon (the days when Kate is at OIL) then it might be awaiting a label on her trolley, but staff will be able to advise you.

New staff

Excitingly, we have three new members of staff joining the OIL team this term. Ben, who is the Graduate Trainee for the Sackler, will be doing some hours at OIL this year including Tuesday evenings; Katie, who is the Graduate Trainee at the Taylorian, will be working Thursday evenings during the Terms this year, and Jennifer, a new Library Assistant with responsibilities for both Sackler and OIL will be spending some of her time at OIL each week.

We are optimistic that these extra pairs of hands will enable us to deal with problems which have arisen due to our staffing-shortages over the last few years, including the shelving in the basement, which requires a re-organisation of the KSL section for which we have had no time.

General reminders

As it is now Term time, we are now open until 7pm on weekdays and from 11am – 5pm on Saturdays.

Up to 8 books can be borrowed at any one time, the normal loan period is 2 weeks, and they can be renewed online via SOLO up to three times before you need to bring them back to the library. We have longer loan periods during vacations. If you are not able to renew an item it is likely to be because someone else has placed a hold on it; if this is the case, please return the book to the library by its expiry date.

Please leave books for return in the big blue box on the counter just inside the library door or pass them to the library staff member at the desk. Please do not leave returns anywhere else, especially the returns trolleys inside the library, as this may result in them not being checked in properly. If this happens they may stay on your record for longer than necessary, and you could get emails suggesting that they are overdue.

If you have been using a book in the library and are not sure where it came from on the shelves please leave it on the shelving trolleys by the front office or on one of the reshelving areas in the library, rather than putting it back in a random gap. This is especially important for the complex Library of Congress shelfmarks as mis-shelving even a few books away may mean that people cannot then find the book again. If you are not sure, please leave it for us to do. It’s what we’re here for, after all!

As a general rule, books from the BSF cannot be borrowed from the library. Please do not attempt to take them out of the building. They belong to the Bodleian, which has a no-borrowing policy. BSF books can be collected from the library desk – just show us your Bod Card so we can collect it from the back office – and should be returned to the desk after each use so we can put them back in the reserve. BSF books will stay here for one week, and this can be extended using your SOLO account. There are two exceptions to the no-borrowing rule: the Aris Collection of Tibetan Books or the Arabic Literature collection which originated at the Middle East Centre. These books may be borrowed in the normal way. Please do not send books back until you are sure you’ve finished with them completely as they will take up to a week to return if you re-order them. If a book is left on the desk we will usually return it to the reserve rather than sending it back to the BSF for this reason.

Food and drinks other than water are not permitted in the library because they can encourage pests which damage the collections. If you need to eat something, please use the Common Room in the basement.

Water in a bottle with a lid which can be sealed is permitted in the library, but please do not use plastic cups. Keep-cups are not allowed.

PCs for the use of readers are located to the right as you enter the library; four are Library PCs which require a login and the other two are “kiosk” PCs which connect to the internet but have limited functionality for other things. There is also another PC in the basement which is available for readers to use; it is at the far end from the staircase, next to the microfilm reader.

We have a height-adjustable desk, located near the windows by the library computers which is available for anyone who needs to work in a standing position; there is also an adjustable chair which can be used either with the desk or at a normal desk.

If you have any suggestions of books which we should hold but do not, there is a form which can be accessed via SOLO, or you could write something in the Suggestions Book, which is on the counter in the aisle directly opposite the door to the back office, near the photocopiers. We monitor this regularly and are happy to acquire (within budgetary reason) books relevant to the collections.

Finally, if you have any questions, please ask! There will be someone at the desk or shelving nearby most of the time; look out for a note on the front counter.

 

 

Late Summer news and reminders

We’re back!

Enormous thanks to our colleagues at the Sackler Library for their help in ensuring that our readers were able to access the books from OIL which they needed during the closure, and for bringing everything back so promptly when we re-opened! It would not have been possible to ensure accessibility to our collections without their help – not least because most of us were on holiday for most of the closure…

Building Works

We have yet to receive a timetable from the builders for the remainder of the building work still to be done, some of which will be carried out in the library. They have now started on some of that work as of this week, however.

If any areas of the library need to be sheeted off to protect them during the works we will ensure that staff can get into those areas at least once a day to retrieve books which readers may need; we will endeavour to keep everyone up to date so keep an eye out for notices around the library.

Book Moves

Kate has been moving the Library of Congress section around again, we’re afraid. PK now starts in the middle of the library near the Reference section at the Sackler end, the PJ sequence having been extended into the shelves under the windows. This should facilitate her continuation of the reclassification project, which is gradually moving towards its completion. Shelf labels in the affected areas will be updated before the start of Term.

Opening times

A reminder that we are CLOSED on the August Bank Holiday Monday, August 27th, and also on the Monday and Tuesday of the following week – September 3rd and 4th for St Giles Fair.

Otherwise our opening hours will remain 9am – 5pm Monday to Friday until the start of Term.

 

 

 

 

 

News and Summer Announcements

Summer Closure

We would like to give readers advance warning that the Library will be closing during the Long Vacation, due to the ongoing heating works which have been carried out around the building. The work will significantly affect the library spaces, and it will not be safe for readers or staff to access the library during the day. The current dates for the closure are 14th July to 12 August. Please look out for notices in case this changes – we will do our best to keep information up to date.

The protocol agreed with the contractors should allow staff to access the library for an hour at the end of each day to fetch books requested by readers, which will then be made available at the Sackler Library.

We will make sure that everyone is kept informed and will be posting updates here on the blog, on Facebook and Twitter and on signs around the library, so do please keep an eye out for those. If you know anyone from outside Oxford who might be planning a visit to use the library over the summer please share this information with them – we do not want to disappoint anyone unnecessarily!

We appreciate that this is inconvenient for everyone involved, but are optimistic that the improvements to the heating system will mean that everyone in the building can be more comfortable in the long term.

Open Access Week

The University is holding its own Open Access Week in 8th Week, with a series of events of interest to researchers about issues and developments in open access publishing and research dissemination. The full programme and details for booking can be found here: http://openaccess.ox.ac.uk.

Doors

The ongoing issue with SALTO (the door-entry system) appears to be slowly resolving itself. The problem has involved the doors at OIL not connecting to the server and updating the cards which are used here; readers who are also using other libraries where their cards are updated – including the Sackler and the central Bodleian/Weston Library – are not experiencing the same problems. A new Web client for Salto is being installed at the end of June, which should solve any of the remaining problems.

Opening hours over the Summer

Summer Vacation opening hours for the library have been confirmed; we will remain open on Saturdays and until 7pm until Friday 29th June. Thereafter we will be open 9am to 5pm on Monday-Friday from July 2nd until Friday 28th September, apart from the aforementioned 4-week closure.

We will be closed on the August Bank Holiday Monday (27th August) and on 3rd and 4th September for St Giles Fair.

We will start the longer loan period for Vacation Loans in 9th week. We are considering whether to increase the number of books readers are permitted to borrow over the vacation in order to ease the problems which may be caused by the closure, and will let everyone know when a decision is made.