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Library Interview Tips and Techniques 

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Some of the advice in this article stems from a training session we were given by Tom Dale and Jane Falconer in January 2023, many thanks go to them for their invaluable advice and support.

This article is intended to help and reassure those of you applying for the Oxford Graduate Trainees roles or any other entry level library position. If you’re applying for the Bodleian Traineeships then interviews are right around the corner, so we thought we’d offer up some tips and techniques that will help you feel confident and prepared when walking into the interview.

What not to worry about

First off, a few things to set your mind at ease. Below is a list of common concerns prospective trainees have raised – and the reason why you don’t need to worry! We’ve also tried to include advice for how to manage these concerns at interviews as well as links to introductions from previous trainees who were in the exact same position as you! These are only a small collection of our previous trainees and you may find others who have similar life experiences to you by browsing through our Former Trainees  page.

  • I don’t have any library experience… You don’t need any library specific experience to succeed at interviews. Over the years there have been plenty of trainees who have never worked in a library before being accepted into a trainee position. You only need to show that you have the skills to meet the job description, you can pull evidence of these skills from any area of your life such as jobs in other sectors, clubs, or volunteer work.
  • Trainees like me:  Sarah Smith, Sackler Library; Martyna Grzesiak, Lady Margaret Hall; Tom Roberts, Taylor Institution Library; Alice Shepherd, Radcliffe Camera; Charlie Ough, Bodleian Old Library
  • I’ve never had a full-time job… The traineeship is a graduate position, so it doesn’t require you to have previous full-time work experience. Many trainees have been recruited directly after finishing their undergraduate degree, as before, so long as you can prove you meet the job description, you’re in with a chance! Don’t forget extra-curricular society roles are a great way to evidence skills like time management and working in a team.
  • Trainees like me: Jessica Jones, English Faculty Library; Connie Bettison, St John’s College Library; Evie Brown, Bodleian Reader Services ; Léa Watson, Bodleian Law Library
  • I don’t live in Oxford… Not living in Oxford before or even during the traineeship won’t harm your chances, and you’ll probably find that most trainees weren’t Oxford locals before taking on the job. Luckily Oxford has incredible transport links including a station, bus, and park and ride service, as well as being pretty bike friendly so if you do end up needing to commute in every day, you’ll have a wealth of choices for how to do it. The job doesn’t require you to be located anywhere specifically, so long as you can make it into work!

What will the interview be like on the day?

Every interview is different but at least at the Bodleian, they should all follow a similar schedule.

Tour

First you will be given a tour of the library you’ve been invited to interview at. A current member of staff, sometimes even the current trainee will take you around the library and tell you around the building, explaining a little about what the job entails on a day-to-day basis. This is not part of the interview.

The person giving you the tour has nothing to do with the interview process and is often actively discouraged from talking about you to the members of the interview panel. Obviously, that’s not to say you can start hurling insults their way without expecting repercussions, but if you worry that you said something that’s lacking your usual level of wit and intellect or walked straight into a glass door (we’ve all been there), don’t worry – your interviewer will likely never find out!

Take this opportunity to calm your nerves and find out more about the library you might be working in. Don’t forget, an interview goes both ways, and you want to be sure you’ll be happy working in this environment, so don’t be afraid to ask questions!

Test

Before the interview itself starts you will take a quick test. This is designed to test your ability to use finding aids or understand shelf marking systems and normally take around 20 minutes. There’s no way to find out the test questions ahead of time, and you’re not expected to already know anything you’re being tested on. The interviewers are purely looking at how you tackle searching for materials and whether you’re capable of adapting quickly to new ways of sorting and searching through information.

It’s best not to worry too much about this part of the day. The test is short and is not the main way you will be assessed.

Interview

The interview is normally conducted by a panel of about 3 people, sometimes more, sometimes less. They will all introduce themselves before the interview begins but don’t worry too much about learning all their names and career histories, instead focus on answering their questions to the best of your ability.

The interview itself should take around 30 minutes and will consist solely of your interviewing panel asking questions and you blowing them away with your carefully planned answers! There is no set time that it should take to properly answer a question, it really depends on what you need to say. So long as you feel you’ve adequately addressed the question and provided good evidence of your ability it doesn’t matter if the question takes 30 seconds to answer or 2 minutes! There should be a little time at the end for you to ask your own questions as well – again this is an opportunity to get a feel for the work environment and decide whether this is the right job for you!

Remember, no matter what the schedule of your individual interview is, the key thing is to keep yourself as calm as you can. Everyone involved in the process is human – and sometimes things don’t work out quite how you’d predicted, but if you can give off an aura of positive confidence (fake it until you make it is the name of the game) then you’ll give off a great impression no matter what might go awry!

What can I do to prepare?

The key element to passing any exam is to know the syllabus requirements, familiarise yourself with the types of questions you might be asked, then practice your answers. It’s the same with a job interview – in this case however, the syllabus is the job specification. You should do your best to read the job spec thoroughly, so you fully understand what is being asked of you.

  • Break it down 

A fantastic way to ensure you know the job specification as well as you possibly can is to break it down into its component parts. Each criterion might list more than one skill that is required of you, so it’s good to make sure that you’re addressing the whole thing and not just part. A spreadsheet might be useful at this point to keep track of all the different skills you need to demonstrate. Once you have your list of skills, you should look at your previous experience (it doesn’t matter if this is professional or personal) and choose examples of times where you Demonstrate You Fit the Job Criteria to match each skill. You can record these on your spreadsheet too! One thing to note is that you don’t need library specific experience to meet these criteria. A lot of library work is reader services (helping readers) and experience in the service sector like shop work or hospitality roles can be a great way of demonstrating your sk.

  • Think like an interviewer 

Once you have your skills and your examples, try to come up with interview questions for each skill. The questions you’re asked will be designed to help you show off your abilities and demonstrate that you fit the job criteria. Try to come up with as many different questions as you can so that you cover every single way you might be asked about a certain skill. Remember, some, maybe even most questions can cover more than one skill requirement at a time, so don’t just address them one by one, come up with some questions that combine related skills, especially if they’re listed together on the job specification.

  • Answer your own questions 

Now you have a list of practice questions it’s time to do the dirty work. You need to come up with concise but comprehensive answers that fully cover everything asked of you. Focus on answering the question as it’s written, not the questions you wish the interviewers would ask. Maybe you have a great piece of work experience that you think would blow your interviewers socks off, but you should only bring it up if you can show them how it’s directly relevant to the question being asked.

  • Practice Practice Practice! 

Once you’ve drafted up your answers to the practice questions you’ve come up with, it’s time to practice saying them aloud. Even better would be to get a friend to help by choosing random questions for you to answer. Remember – the goal here isn’t to memorise your answers, but to get yourself comfortable talking about your skills off-the-cuff. Feel free to adapt and improvise as you go, just make sure that you’re always demonstrating those key skill requirements and presenting yourself in the best possible light.

  • Do a dry run 

If you have the time and means, then visiting the library that you’re interviewing at ahead of time is a great way to help you panic less on the day. Not all libraries are open to members of the public, but even just practicing making the journey so you’re not stressing over public transport links can be helpful – but this is by no means essential to having a good interview. Whether you can travel there in person or not it’s always good to familiarise yourself a little with the collections and style of the library. Is it a listed building with little room that mainly caters to academics, or a modern space with all the newest library amenities for students and members of the public? Small things like this might not seem overly important, but they could influence the approach you take in interview answers, and showing you have prior knowledge of the library itself can never hurt. You can find all this information and more about the many different Bodleian Libraries here: Find a library | Bodleian Libraries (ox.ac.uk)

The 2022-23 trainees would like to wish you all the best of luck for your future applications and interviews. No matter how things turn out, making it to the interview is a significant achievement so even if you don’t get this job, don’t let it deter you from applying to others. The key thing is to learn from your experience, gather as much feedback as possible and do your best next time around!

Opening Doors: Libraries in the Community

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This is Part IV of our four-part series on our interview with Richard Ovenden.
For more background information on who Richard Ovenden is and how he came to be Bodley’s Librarian please see Part I.
For information about how libraries and the Bodleian itself aim to tackle issues of accessibility, please see Part II.
For a discussion of the role of libraries moving forward into the digital age, please see Part III.

Last week we discussed the duty and future of libraries and archives especially with regards to the digital age. This week, in our final post of the Richard Ovenden Blog Post series, we will look at some examples of how libraries are able to collaborate and serve their various communities.

“we’re [not] just a supporting service … we are actually part of the University.”

As previously mentioned in our first post of this series, Richard Ovenden is Head of Gardens, Libraries & Museums (GLAM) as well as being Bodley’s Librarian. This is a post he took over from Professor Anne Trefethen early last year, “I became head of GLAM in February”, which Richard Ovenden has described as involving “trying to build on all of the work of my predecessors as head of GLAM in supporting the cultural and scientific collections in the University”. Following our interview, Richard Ovenden mentioned that he had a meeting with “the University and Strategy Plan Programme Board which is working on the University’s new strategy”. In particular, Richard highlighted his aim of emphasising the importance of libraries, and their contribution to the University of Oxford: “What I’m trying to do is to help the University develop a strategy that has these kinds of issues that we have just been talking about, as centrally as possible” libraries are “[not] just a supporting service” but instead “we are actually part of the University.”

Uma, an Indian woman with grey hair cut into a bob stands smiling next to Richard Ovenden, a tall white man with short white hair. Uma wears a blue dress and orange and purple scarf around her nexk. She's holding a copy of Richard Ovenden's book. RIichard wears glasses and a navy suit with blue sweater underneath. Both are standing by red sofas in front of one of the windows in the Weston Library.
Richard and Uma Mahadevan Dasgupta at the Weston Library

Throughout our interview, Richard makes a point of discussing Libraries within the context of the communities that they serve. For the Bodleian that primarily encompasses the staff and students at the University of Oxford (although not insignificant are the various independent researchers and even members of the general public who may also interact with our collections). But each library will have diverse communities that they need to determine how best to provide for.

One anecdote in particular that stood out was Richard’s mention of Uma-Mahadevan-Dasgupta, a woman he met who is not a Librarian, but in fact “a civil servant in India … her whole raison-d’être is to build a public library network in rural India”. The community she serves in this process is one that is “disenfranchised from knowledge, if you like, and as part of their educational experience they don’t have those opportunities and that seems to me tragic.” But the work that she’s striving to achieve is “just incredible … it’s very, very simple stuff but it’s kind of transforming the opportunities for people in rural India – young people opening books for the first time, it’s just phenomenal.” Richard’s admiration for Uma and the work she’s doing is clear, and understandable. There are few library staff who wouldn’t see the appeal in getting to create, shape, and expand a new network of libraries across a nation with previously limited access to such resources. As Richard says, “she’s been one of the most inspirational people I’ve met in a long time, and just incredible.”

“Public libraries are on the front line serving their community in every possible way that they can.”

But one doesn’t need to travel all the way to India to see ways in which libraries can change to better serve their underrepresented communities. Richard mentions a recent trip to Berlin where he “gave a talk in a public library”. He describes the library itself as, “a very good public library with a children’s library section and books, but not many. Small, on a modest scale.” It serves “an area of Berlin that has a big immigrant community, they’re facing defacement and vandalism from the far right because they have services directed towards the Turkish” and other marginalised groups. These groups are just as fundamental a part of the local community as any of the other residents and these “public libraries are on the front line serving their community in every possible way that they can.” The talk Richard was giving was in fact directly intended to address the issues of vandalism faced by the library and the wider community, it was on the subject of “censorship and banning books” which shows just how much work even ‘modest’ libraries will put in to serve and protect its users. As Richard says, “they’re really standing up for [their community].”

Two older man stand in a room with yellow walls and wood panelled details. Behind them is a desk with chairs and a portrait of a man in a gilded frame on the wall. Both men have short white hair, wear glasses and dark suit jackets. The man on the left is wearing a grey sweter over a light blue shirt and jeans, whereas the man on the right wears a plain white button up shirt over dark suit trousers that match his jacket.
Richard and Achim Bonte, the Director of the Staatsbibliotek in Berlin

On the same trip to Berlin, Richard made a visit to the director of the Staatsbibliotek, or ‘Berlin State Library’. The Staatsbibliotek is a part of a wider organisation called the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz, or ‘Prussian Culutural Heritage Foundation’ which is “responsible for the museum and state libraries and state archives, state everything.” The Foundation is one of the largest cultural organisations in the world and “responsible for these amazing institutions.” Lucky for us then that Oxford’s Gardens, Libraries and Museums (of which Richard is the head) already have “an MOU” (Memorandum of Understanding – a non-binding letter that says the institutions will work together.) “with that organisation, which sits alongside the MOU between Oxford university and the four Berlin universities.” As Richard says, “this is a cultural and knowledge partnership alongside the academic partnership,” the opportunity for two such prestigious institutions to be able to work together on future projects is a wonderful opportunity for both parties. However, as this MOU was signed just before the pandemic “we haven’t really been able to do much collaboration.” Now that restrictions are loosening however, “we actually have an agenda for collaboration between the Bodleian and the Staats.” This agenda is hopefully one that will continue into the future as, “next year we’re re-signing the MOU with the Stiftung and GLAM.”

One can’t help but feel that this all harks back to the advice Richard gave in our first article. The importance of networks and connections between library staff is central, not just to developing one’s personal career trajectory, but also between institutions as a way of supporting global efforts to protect and preserve knowledge and serve individual communities. Libraries can only continue to do the fundamental work that they are engaged in if they cooperate, share knowledge, and support one another. After all, isn’t that really what libraries are all about?

We would like to thank Richard Ovenden for very generously giving up some of his time to meet with us. We really enjoyed our conversation with him and learned a lot by listening to his experiences of the library world. We hope these blog posts will be useful to those wanting to learn more about what happens behind the scenes at the Bodleian and the wider world of libraries!

 

Four people stand in front of a corner where a panelled wall meets a window. Outside the window is Christmas tree. The first person on the left is woman with light skin and short, dark curly hair. They're smiling widely and wearing a green patterned vest on top of a black turtleneck. To their left is an older man with gtrey hair and glasses. He's also smiling at the camera and wearing a dark suit with a blue sweater over a white shirt and dark tie. Next is a young woman with brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. She smiles and wears a blue jumper with a red and white crest and a blue plaid shirt underneath. On the far right is a smiling young woman with brown curly hair down to her shoulders/ She wars glasses and a multicoloured patterned sweater.
Richard Ovenden with Ruth, Alice and Léa, the trainees who worked on this interview

 

 

Opening Doors: The Future of Libraries in the Digital Age

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This is Part III of our four-part series on our interview with Richard Ovenden.
For more background information on who Richard Ovenden is and how he came to be Bodley’s Librarian please see Part I.
For information about how libraries and the Bodleian itself aim to tackle issues of accessibility, please see Part II.
For a look at how various libraries are able to collaborate and serve their individual communities, please see Part IV.

We’ve previously discussed Richard’s own career in librarianship and the impact of mentors and varied experience on his career trajectory. We’ve also talked about issues of diversity in librarianship and how the Bodleian aims to address these. This week, we will be addressing the duty and future of libraries and archives especially with regards to the digital age. We’ll look at the threat posed by wealthy individuals to libraries, information and public knowledge, and the importance of archiving and preserving information found online.

A banner in grey at the top of the page reads: "Trump Twitter Archive V2". Below, all in black text on a white background, is a search bar with filters for retweets, deleted items, dates, device and an export button. The site lists 56,571 tweets and lists them in reverse chronological order.
A screenshot of the Trump Twitter Archive

We spoke with Richard Ovenden about the problems created by social media, which allows individuals to share, edit or delete a wealth of information at just the tap of a button. Indeed, Richard raised the example of Donald Trump: “he didn’t need a whole army of PR people, he just needed a phone and a Twitter account to dominate global politics through that media. Richard highlighted the extent of Trump’s engagement with social media, and his ability to edit or remove information from public knowledge: “He tweeted 26 thousand times in his presidency, but he deleted 1300 tweets shortly after sending them – or someone in his office did”. Richard Ovenden compares Trump’s actions with Elon Musk, a more recent example of a figure able to change a platform of public knowledge “at a stroke” when “he took over Twitter” last year. As a result, developing archival strategies to capture and preserve the digital history left by “prominent individuals in public life” on social media, websites and other online platforms “in case it disappears”, is “the kind of thing we need to engage in across libraries” as “part of our democratic function”, according to Richard Ovenden. Richard emphasises that “we have to do more in the digital sphere, particularly as more knowledge is created in digital formats”.

“We have to do more in the digital sphere, particularly as more knowledge is created in digital formats”

One group aiming to preserve information shared online, Richard points out, is “an activist archivist group” who “set up an automatic screenshotting for all of his [Trump’s] Twitter history to capture all of his deleted tweets and pass them to the National Archives for the Trump presidency”. Richard explains that the Bodleian is aiming to do something similar: “At this very moment, we’re figuring out an archival strategy for the Twitter profiles of the Bodleian Library, various University Twitter feeds, prominent people in the University who use Twitter as a platform for communication [and] various prominent individuals in public life”. Last October, the trainees had the opportunity to attend the UK Web Archive Conference with talks about the Archive of Tomorrow Project, the Queen Elizabeth Platinum Jubilee Collection, the Climate Change Collection and many more, exploring ways in which online information has successfully been picked, collected and preserved by members of libraries and archives across the UK. Attending the UKWA Conference, coupled with listening to Richard Ovenden speak about archival strategies, has highlighted the positive effects of libraries and archives working together on preserving information found online.

However, whilst it was important to Richard that we dispel the myth of libraries as nothing more than big old buildings full of books, “we can’t not do all the stuff in the physical world that we’re already doing.” The need for the physical space still exists, “look at people walking into the Bodleian … it’s incredibly busy”. The buildings themselves are still being used as “a place for convening – a knowledge space. So, we need to do both of these things and that’s one of our biggest challenges.” Unfortunately for libraries “it’s not an either-or situation.” Resources need to be expended both on maintaining our physical presence and expanding our digital one.

But with all these demands pulling on their resources, it doesn’t surprise anyone to learn that Richard believes “libraries are under threat”. The danger is that the gap that libraries are currently doing their best to try and fill in the digital sphere is being taken up by “big tech companies”. Richard’s fear is that the “knowledge sphere becomes increasingly commercialised – and public knowledge is the product of that commercial entity”. Not only are technology companies increasingly making profits off of public knowledge, they’re additionally taking potential revenue away from key public services like libraries. Richard argues for an “attack on the profits of the big tech companies to come back to the library sphere”. As far as he’s concerned, “some of that [money] needs to be ploughed back into the true knowledge sphere: libraries and archives”

Ground floor of the Weston Library, called Blackwell Hall. There is a reception desk stationed on the right-hand side, and above it a floor with shelves of books.
The Weston Library’s Blackwell Hall, where we Interviewed Richard Ovenden, includes a tearoom open to the public

Not all this is the fault of big tech companies, however, librarians themselves share some of the blame. “Libraries tend to be very good at their customer relations … But we’ve been less good I think at working with our clients, and we have just tended to take things on the chin”. This willingness to pull-through means that as a sector, libraries have sometimes been overlooked, particularly since “other parts of the society have been much more aggressive about defending their patch.” Of course, fighting for proper funding is never easy, “it’s very difficult, particularly at times … when the budgets are under pressure.”  When asked which key areas Richard feels we need to be most vocal in as an industry, the answer is quick: “Library funding. Public libraries. School libraries.” However, he has got plans in place at the Bodleian to ensure that our collections will be available for generations to come, regardless of the willingness of other people to recognise the importance of libraries. We need to be “trying to diversify our audience and diversify our income streams – like drinking coffee and eating cake,” he gives a playful nod to the hot drinks and sweet treats sitting on the table in front of us, “the profits of which get ploughed back to the Bodleian bottom-line.”

But even with these new income streams in place, work still needs to be done on ensuring libraries maintain their relevance. Richard believes there are a “senior echelon of decision makers” who “benefitted from libraries when they were young but then have stopped and then moved and accessed things online and don’t think that libraries are important.” This issue is not unique to high-level decision-makers. “Even in this University when I talk to certain colleagues … some think ‘Oh, well I haven’t walked into a library for 20 years, I get everything online’ as if that has got nothing to do with the Bodleian.” Unfortunately, as Richard points out, “some of that misconception is actually our fault because we have not done enough advocacy in the past decades. Particularly, with communities [such as] the lab-based sciences … where the library has come to them rather than them going to the library.” Whilst this is fantastic in terms of providing an excellent service to our users, we are seeing ramifications in the way that libraries are perceived as a dying industry, when in fact we’re an industry in the midst of radical change. Richard describes this birth of the digital information age as “the revolution that happened 25 years ago”. However, he notes that “our predecessors at that time did not do enough to build those connections with those communities.” So today, those who benefit most from our services are often those who are least aware of them.

“We need to be more assertive. Perhaps even aggressive, about the work that we do and the difference that we make”

The issue with this lies not only in funding, but also in a fundamental understanding of the way libraries work. “[A]s school libraries become defunded, the danger is that we end up with universities with plenty of students who have no experience being in libraries. Particularly, actually, middle-class students whose parents can afford books and things.” Whereas previously this might have been one of the demographics where you’d expect to see a high level of understanding of libraries and the services they provide, today things look very different. But although the issues facing libraries today are myriad and complex, Richard sees one clear solution that comes up time and again. “We need to be more assertive. Perhaps even aggressive, about the work that we do and the difference that we make.” He believes the onus is on us as librarians to provide the rallying cry and make people aware of the value of our services. “We need to be more self-confident about the role that we play in society,” and “we need to engage more in the policy sphere, in the political sphere to argue the case. And to form allies and to be more public about it.” This advocacy needs to be done, “at all levels of society – both age and class and so on.” Without greater societal support libraries won’t be able to emerge out the other side of the digital age and continue their important work of preserving and protecting knowledge for generations to come.

Opening Doors: Accessibility and Diversity in Libraries

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This is Part II of our four-part series on our interview with Richard Ovenden.
For more background information on who Richard Ovenden is and how he came to be Bodley’s Librarian please see Part I.
For a discussion of the role of libraries moving forward into the digital age, please see Part III.
For a look at how various libraries are able to collaborate and serve their individual communities, please see Part IV.

Last time we spoke about Richard’s early career and how he was supported by mentors and colleagues as well as having a solid grounding in a variety of different libraries and library jobs. This time we focus more on one of the biggest issues facing librarianship as a career: accessibility.

Accessibility issues are a wide topic for discussion, encompassing not just physical accessibility of, in many cases, listed buildings, but also the accessibility of the profession to people who are members of certain marginalised groups. “If you look at the make-up of the Bodleian staff it doesn’t reflect society as a whole.” Richard acknowledges. For him part of this issue is “how can we change that when – the make-up, particularly when you go up the organisational structure it’s increasingly white.” And race isn’t the only issue, “there are other forms of diversity that are slightly better represented but still not adequately represented.” One of the more recent comprehensive surveys of the LARKIM (Libraries, Archives, Knowledge and Information Management) industry backs this up. It found that the lack of ethnic diversity within the profession is pronounced and whilst we are a female dominated profession, there is still a significant gender pay gap.

“This is one of the major issues for our industry at the moment.”

A statue of a man standing on a dais between two columns. There is pigeon mesh stretched in front of the statue and windows on either side.
The controversial statue of Cecil Rhodes which still stands atop Oriel College

For Richard Ovenden, accessibility is “one of the major issues for 
our  industry at the moment.” An issue that he acknowledges is not unique. “We share that across the museums and the cultural and scientific collections at Oxford. Particularly thinking about Oxford as an institution that has been … very implicated in empire and all of what that entails.”  It’s a legacy that will take more than a few years to undo, but the Bodleian is in the process of addressing at least some of the issues it caused. This impetus for change is coming from the very top. Richard mentions a “Bodleian strategy to address diversity and equality” and looking at the Bodleian Libraries Strategy for 2022-2027  you can see that the drive to improve diversity runs throughout the objectives laid out, as well as being explicitly stated as one of the core Guiding Principles in delivering the strategy.

Pre-dating this strategy, however, is an ongoing project called ‘We are our history’. The project involves several teams working on a variety of key issues related to improving diversity. One aspect of this is metadata, or the information we keep about the items in our collection. This can range from something as simple as the title and author of a work to descriptions of the item, its provenance or even how and when it was printed. With so much information to consider there are many ways in which we need to pay mind to the language we’re using and how we’re using it. As Richard puts it: “is our metadata fit for purpose, and how do we change that?”

Another aspect that Richard mentions is “How do we diversify the collecting of books?” The Bodleian libraries are of course one of six legal deposit libraries in the UK, meaning that we are entitled to a copy of every book published here. But as Richard points out, “we’re one of the great libraries for the study of Sub-Saharan Africa – are we buying books from African publishers, are we supporting the book trade in Africa? Or are we just buying books because it’s easier and cheaper to do it from library suppliers in the UK?” Being aware of where we source our collections and the potential biases that might entail is crucial to ensuring we have a strong and diverse body of knowledge available to our readers.

A large black sign lists the exhibition title. Attached to it is a strip of Union Jack bunting that connect to one of the exhibits. There is a display case on the wall behind with books and labels and a small interactive screen tucked next to the entrance sign.
Part of the “These Things Matter” Exhibition at the Weston Library

But it’s important also to consider how we present that knowledge to the wider public, to “look at our exhibitions” as Richard explains. We’re sat with him in the main hall of the Weston library and he gestures behind him, “as you can see here at the moment”. Currently the newest exhibition at the Weston is ‘These Things Matter’, a fantastic collaboration between the Museum of Colour, the Bodleian, and Fusion Arts. The exhibition examines items from the Bodleian’s collection that illustrate the horrific legacy of colonialism and slavery, and invites seven artists to interpret and respond to the material in a variety of mediums, including sound, art installations and digital displays.

Beyond even the collections, however, we also need to think about our staff. Richard points out that biases can creep in “even in how we advertise our jobs”. He wants to strive for job postings that are “easy for people who might not have thought about working at the Bodleian – from communities who do not usually send their members to work in university libraries.” Unless we are able to employ a diverse staff, these projects become more difficult to carry out, and less impactful.

“It’s got to be part of our everyday business”

Whilst all these initiatives under the ‘We are our history’ project are fundamental to addressing these issues of accessibility, Richard warns against becoming too complacent. “Funding has allowed us to get a project manager to help co-ordinate that but really, it’s for my senior colleagues in the library to take the responsibility for that. So, it can’t just stop when the funding for the project has run out. It’s got to be part of our everyday business.” Until we make accessibility and diversity as intrinsic to libraries as the books themselves we cannot really say we have made true progress. And as Richard rightly points out, “that project’s really looking most at race and ethnicity but there’s also gender, equality, sexuality, even disability to think about.” Libraries are meant to protect and preserve information to be accessed by everybody, and unless we consider the different needs of some of the myriad groups who, arguably have greater reason than many to make use of our services, we’re falling short of the basic requirements of the profession.

Opening Doors: The Journey to Bodley’s Librarian

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OPENING DOORS WITH RICHARD OVENDEN BLOG SERIES:

Richard Ovenden is the Bodleian’s 25th Librarian and has been in this position since 2014. In addition to being Bodley’s Librarian, Richard holds several professional roles including Head of Gardens, Libraries & Museums, President of the Digital Preservation Coalition, Director of the Bodleian’s Centre for the Study of the Book, Board Member of the Council on Library and Information Resources as well as a Member of The Academic Advisory Board at Deutsches Literaturarchiv [1]. All in all, a very busy man!

Richard has delivered numerous talks about the delivery of e-content by libraries in the UK and the US, the role of libraries and archives, and the 2018 Tolkien: Maker of Middle Earth exhibition at the Weston [2]. He has also written a number of articles, essays, research reports, and is the author of ‘Burning the Books: A History of Knowledge Under Attack’ [3], which was shortlisted for the 2021 Wolfson History Prize.

Last year a few of us trainees had the very exciting opportunity to speak with Richard Ovenden at the Weston Café over tea (and delicious cakes). Throughout the next few weeks, we will be sharing what we discussed in a series of blog posts, beginning with Richard Ovenden’s journey to Bodley’s Librarian – his interest in librarianship and where it came from

[1] https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/about/media/richard-ovenden-head-of-glam

[2] https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/f/n28kah/oxfaleph021143627

[3] https://www.balliol.ox.ac.uk/richard-ovenden-0

Opening Doors: The Journey to Bodley’s Librarian

This is Part I of our four-part series on our interview with Richard Ovenden.
For information about how libraries and the Bodleian itself aim to tackle issues of accessibility, please see Part II.
For a discussion of the role of libraries moving forward into the digital age, please see Part III.
For a look at how various libraries are able to collaborate and serve their individual communities, please see Part IV.

After settling down with our beverages and cakes, we asked Richard how his journey into libraries began.

A red brock building sits at the corner of two streets. It has large paned windows on three floors and the college crest carved in stone on the ground floor. Further terraced houses continue up a slight hill to the right along a tarmacked road with a few braches of a tree poking out from the far right. To the left a cobbled road continues down perpendicular to the other.
St Chad’s College Durham, where Richard Ovenden began his library career

For him, it started early, “being taken to my public library with my mum when I was about three. So, borrowing books from one of my public libraries, and then, when I was a teenager, going by myself and reading.” This kind of memory may be familiar to many, but over the years, Richard made the change from reader to staff member after becoming a student librarian at his college library in Durham. The role was fairly typical, “mainly tidying – nothing very exciting”. But it was in his second year there when an opportunity arose that seems to have lit a spark in the young Richard Ovenden. The construction of a new college bar meant that he was offered the chance to move the secondary sequence “which was basically a basement room full of mouldering books” and told that if he stayed over the summer holidays he would be paid for his trouble. As Richard recalls, “this was great. I was the first from my family to go to university so my parents thought this was great as I was being paid.”

 

“For the first time, I could see myself doing a job.”

Whilst working on this book move, Richard came across some early books, “15th century things”. Not knowing what to do with them he went over to the University Library “to ask someone some advice – literally walking up to the enquiry desk”.  The staff there “pointed to this door that had a brass plaque on it, which said: ‘Keeper of Rare Books’, which I thought was quite cool. There was a wonderful holder of the office called Beth Rainey, and she was incredibly kind and generous and patient and helpful, and I thought – wow, this is really good. For the first time, I could see myself doing a job.” After this revelation, he then stayed on as a trainee librarian at Durham with three others. “We moved around different departments of the university library and then went to library school”. For Richard, the event that really shaped his future in libraries “was really that moment – becoming a student librarian and meeting lots of serious professional librarians.”

After leaving the traineeship at Durham, Richard’s career progressed through a number of library jobs. Notably, at one point he became a member of what is now ‘The Rare Book and Special Collections Group of CILIP’ a title equally as impressive to impressionable young graduate trainees as the grand ‘Keeper of Rare Books’ must have been to Richard. But through all of his inspiring career moves, he credits his colleagues as being key mentors who were instrumental in his path towards becoming Bodley’s Librarian.

Whilst he was a member of the special collections group at CILIP, the chair of that same committee, Barry Bloomfield, “was a very senior figure in librarianship. He was just, again, very kind and helpful.” Another key figure in Richard’s early career was Ian Mowat, Chief Librarian at Edinburgh University Library. “He was a fantastic leader,” Richard reminisced. “Just working with him for four years, I learnt a huge amount. Not that he taught me but just watching him – I absorbed it.” After Ian Mowat died young, Richard felt the need to move on. “I couldn’t think of staying there and not working with him. So, I came to Oxford.” Whilst there Richard had the opportunity to work under his two predecessors in the role of Bodley’s Librarian. First was Reg Carr, who was instrumental in the integration of the departmental libraries at the Bodleian. Richard recalls that he “was also very involved in digital things and JISC – in the old days of JISC. So, he was great.” Then Richard’s direct predecessor Sarah Thomas “was a very different character, and I learnt a huge amount from her – I worked very closely with her. So, that was like a masterclass.”

“The variety of libraries continues to be a source of joy and wonder.”

Part of the strength of Richard’s career history is not only in the calibre of colleagues he has had the pleasure of working with

A large Elizabethan house with grey stone walls and a red tiled roof sits in golden afternoon sunlight. The lawns surrounding the house are green and dotted with snowdrops.
Chawton House, containing a library focussed on early women writers thanks to its connection with Jane Austen

over the years, but also the sheer variety of roles he has undertaken. In Richard’s own words, “the older I get, and the more I look across the profession, I think the variety of libraries continues to be a source of joy and wonder.” Obviously he has a strong background in academic libraries, and he admits, “I’ve worked in university libraries most of my career” but as mentioned above he also has experience “in National Libraries and in parliamentary libraries” as well as being “involved in various ways with other special libraries as a trustee, like at the Chawton House Library which is for Rural Studies and has rural literature.”

Richard’s opinion is that “it’s good to be involved with all those different aspects because there are commonalities between them all, but their variety is partly what makes life interesting.” Beyond just keeping the spice in life however, he also makes the point that “they all serve their communities differently,” a sentiment which rings true for many of us in the library world.

We finished our interview by asking Richard Ovenden if he had any final pieces of advice for those looking to pursue a career in Librarianship. Ever the generous boss, he gave us two: Firstly, “just try and visit and talk to as many libraries and archives as possible. Just seeing the work of a diverse range and talking to professionals of a diverse range is just really good.” And finally, “your network – your own network. My network has in the past and continues to sustain me in different ways. I utilise it to ask questions and see who I can get to come and speak and see who I can connect my new colleague with to help him or her and the problem that they’re trying to solve. So that network that you’re building now – think about it as you are doing it. Collect people’s business cards, capture their profiles in your contacts lists, follow them on social media, go on LinkedIn – it’s really, really important. Nurture it and curate it and stay in touch with each other.”

Our hope is that the advice and information provided by this blog will help those of you out there who are also interested in pursuing a career in Librarianship and can serve in some small way to kickstart your own network of information and contacts. Anyone who is interested in connecting with other people at the beginning of a career in Libraries should check out the ECLAIR (Early Career Library & Information Resource) Community.

 

A Day in the Life at the History Faculty Library

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08:42-9:00 – Opening

The workday at the HFL starts at an oddly specific time, we get 18 minutes in the morning to ensure we have time to open up the library before 9:00. We might be asked to open upper camera, lower camera or the upper gladstone link. Today we’re a little short on staff so I tackle both lower and upper camera. I do a sweep of the rooms making sure all the computers, printers, and lights are switched on, and the library is ready for readers to use.

09:00-10:10 – Lapse

A circular bay of half-height shelves sits in the centre of the library. Above them the many windows of the Radcliffe Camera can be seen, flanked on either side by tall bookshelves stretching up to a decorated vaulted ceiling.
Self-collect shelves at the Radcliffe Camera

This morning I’m assigned to the “lapse list.” This is the list of items that readers have ordered up from the BSF that need to be sent back because their loan period is over. These items don’t leave the library and instead sit on our “self-collect shelves” so it’s the responsibility of the staff, not the readers, to return the books on time.

I print off the list. (This is not always a simple business, there are certain printers at the HFL with which I have a longstanding grudge.) Then, with the list and pencil in one hand and a book trolley in the other I make a start on the list.

The lapse is actually one of my favourite tasks as it gives me an opportunity to gain a little insight into our readers through their choice in literature. Some of my current favourite readers are the person who had a selection of cookery books from various cultures. The reader whose shelf is always filled with books on fairies, and the various readers with fantastic taste in comics. We’ve had some going through the Sandman series whilst another is making their way through Jane Foster’s run as Thor.

With all the books collected onto my trolley. I bring them back to the staff bay and scan them out ready to be returned to the BSF. Normally I would place them in our blue crates called ‘totes,’ but the only ones we have are full so instead I pile them up and let my manager know we might need to request some more crates.

10:10-10:30 – Break

It’s time for my break! First, I head to the staff common room to see if my card is working on the door yet. For some reason, this morning it wasn’t playing ball, but it works fine now so I pop inside and place my lunch in the fridge. Next, I grab a seat and send off a text to my sister who’s asking for some advice. I check the time. I have 10 minutes left, normally not enough time to read a chapter but my book at the moment is “Only on the weekends” by David Atta and written in verse so I settle down and have a quick read.

A view looking down a large hall with a glass display case against the left hand wall. The ceilings are arched and vaulted and the far wall has a large arched window looking out onto a tree. Below the window is a staff desk with people entering and exiting the library.
The view from the Proscholium

10:30-12:00 – Proscholium

It’s time for my shift on the Proscholium, the entrance to the Bodleian library. This week we have some construction work taking place on the north staircase so only 100 people (staff and readers) can be in the old Bodleian at once. For that reason, even I won’t be going above the ground floor of the Bodleian this week as technically I’m Radcliffe Camera staff. I can still man the entrance on the ground floor however, so for the next hour and a half, my job is to direct people to the reader entrance on the South staircase, and check passes for people who need to use the facilities on this staircase.

It certainly makes for an interesting shift on the Prosch as not everyone is entirely happy about the temporary rules and it’s tough keeping track of who should be where when, but I still have a little time to do some work on this post, a little admin for the trainee twitter, and work on my trainee project (at the moment that means sorting through some survey results)

12:00-13:00 – Lunch

Today I get the luxury of choosing whether to take my lunch at 12:00 or at 13:00 as I’m not scheduled for anything else until 14:00. Never known to be patient, I opt for the earlier choice and pop back into the staff common room to eat. After I finish my meal (last nights’ leftovers) I pack up my things and head out to Blackwell’s, conveniently found just a minutes’ walk from the Bod. I’m here to pick up a Japanese cookbook I’ve had my eye on. I collect the book, flash my staff card for that sweet 15% Bodleian staff discount and pay using one of my Christmas presents this year – a book token. It’s nice being able to run errands like this in my lunch break since the Bodleian is so close to the centre of town.

13:00-14:00 – Shelving

A bookshelf neatly packed with rows of books, all the books have their spines facing out to the viewer and each shelf has a small gap on the right hand side where a book-end is placed to leave space for new acquisitions.
Happy shelf
A bookshelf stuffed full of books, many of them are sitting with their spines to the ceiling to make space for others to lie horizontally on top of them.
Sad shelf

I return to the library and decide to spend my time until my shift on the Radcliffe Camera reception desk doing some shelving. During term we employ a team of dedicated shelvers to do this for us, but since reader numbers are much lower during the vacation, the everyday staff take up that burden.

Shelving is one of the most satisfying jobs a trainee can do in my humble opinion. There’s something soothing about putting books back in their rightful place! That’s not all there is to shelving however, there’s also a lot of making sure that shelves are neat and tidy, and books aren’t being damaged by the way we store them. Sometimes we might need to move a whole shelf or more of books to ensure there’s space where we need it.

14:00-15:30 – Reception

My second desk shift of the day, this time at the entrance to the Radcliffe Camera. With the Old Bod so restricted, extra tours are running through the Radcliffe Camera this week so I keep an eye out for large groups that need waving through. Other than that, however, reception shifts are often fairly peaceful, especially at this time of year. The most common issues to look out for are tourists trying to access the building and university members lending their cards to other people.

The Radcliffe Camera is a gorgeous building, so I do understand people’s desire to come and take a peek, but as it’s a working library we have to be strict about who can and cannot enter the building. Technically speaking, tourists shouldn’t even be coming past the gates outside, so I don’t feel quite so bad when I turn them away and I try to let them know about the guided tours they can book onto instead.

15:30-15:50 – Break

As my relief arrives at reception, I get to go on my second break of the day. It’s looking pretty miserable outside, so I decide to hunker down in a cosy corner and make some more progress with my book.

15:50-16:15 – Processing

I don’t have any set tasks for this afternoon so it’s up to me what I spend my time doing. I start by checking to see if there’s any book processing to do. There are two books on the shelf so I set about gathering the materials needed to process them. I know processing has been discussed many times on this blog, but as a quick recap: processing is everything we do to books we’ve purchased to make them ready to go on our shelves. This includes stickers, shelfmarks, tattle-tape and coverlon or jacket covers.

Four blue plastic crates are stacked two by two, with dollies at the bottom in front of a bookshelf. All the boxes are closed except for the top one closest to the viewer which has it's flaps hanging open to show an empty interior.
New totes!

16:15-16:30 – Lapse (Part II)

I spot that with this afternoon’s delivery we received a whole set of new crates! I spend 15 minutes placing the books from this morning’s lapse list carefully into their new blue homes.

16:30-17:00 – Admin

For the last hour before home, I spend my time on the odd background tasks one tends to accumulate. I check my emails, write and edit this post, and then return to the spreadsheet I’m working on for my graduate trainee project. Time flies by and before I know it, it’s…

17:00 – Home

As the bells of St Mary’s start their hourly chime I log off, pack up, and head out. The evening team arrived about 15 minutes ago, so they’re primed and ready to go. With a quick wave to any colleagues still in the building I pop out to the High Street, ready to wait for my bus home.

 

 

 

 

The Life Cycle of a BSF Book

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On Wednesday 26th October the 22-23 Trainees had their annual Book Storage Facility Tour. As this blog has seen a good 12 years of posts about the facility (we’ve been visiting since its grand opening in 2010) this year we thought we might do something a little different. Rather than wax lyrical on its 11m tall shelves (which would stretch 153 miles end to end) and its incredible collection of around 12 million items, we thought we’d start a little smaller and look at the life cycle of a single, solitary BSF book.

Ingenious Ingesting

White cardboard boxes are splayed open on a workbench, the top box is being held by a woman in a high-vis jacket to show the viewer.
Boxes for books

New books first arrive at the BSF through the Delivery Room and then progress onto the Processing Floor to undergo the process of ingestion. No, this has nothing to do with any bodily functions (thankfully), instead it’s the term we use to describe an item being welcomed into the Bodleian’s collections. For our book, this means first being given an all-important barcode. Barcodes are to Librarians what ear tags are to animal conservationists, we use them to track the movements of our respective objects of study. Without this barcode it would be impossible to find the item once it disappeared onto the near endless shelves of the BSF. Barcodes are assigned to books based on how they were acquired, barcodes starting with a number 7 are legal deposit items, and non-legal deposit books will start with either a 6 or 3.

Now that our book has a barcode attached to it, its height is measured, and it’s placed into a special paper box with other books of the same size. Our book gets only the best as this box is made of special acid-free paper sourced from Germany. The handle is also a specially made plastic, tested thoroughly to ensure that it won’t melt in a fire. The BSF has thousands of these incredible boxes across the site, and its one poor person’s task to take the flat nets and build them up into boxes. I’m told it’s one of the riskier jobs on the rota given the likelihood of vicious and painful paper cuts.

With our book safely nestled in its new home it’s time to go through some more scanning. Having already had a barcode stuck to its front cover and scanned into the system; the book now has its barcode scanned again to attach it to the barcode of the box it’s sitting in. It goes through this process not once, but twice, to ensure it’s not missed the first-time round. This method of grouping books into boxes based on their height rather than their contents may seem to be a textbook case of judging a book by its cover, but I can assure you that the BSF isn’t organising its books this way just to fit in with the latest BookTok trends. There is a logic to this madness.

Organising the books by height, as some storage-savvy librarians may already have guessed, is the most efficient way to

Tall industrial shelves extend to the ceiling with books on the various shelves, a forklift/cherrypicker runs between the two shelves.
BSF shelves and cherrypicker

make use of the space. Rather than one shelf accommodating books ranging in size from the tiny ‘Old King Cole’ (clocking in at a miniscule 0.9mm) to the unwieldy ‘Birds of America’ (an impressive 1×0.72m in size), the shelves at the BSF maximise their use of space and ensure no large gaps are left from having to accommodate books of diverse sizes. A further benefit to mixing up the collections this way, is that should the unthinkable ever happen and disaster strike, causing damage to some of the books, you’re less likely to lose an entire curated collection all at once. Happily, this is not something the BSF has ever really had to worry about, as it has a stellar record on the safety and well-being of the books in its care (12 years and no major incidents!)

So, it is with great care that various boxes of books are loaded up onto one of the building’s many forklift/cherry-picker hybrids and chauffeured into their new position atop one of the many towering shelves inside the BSF. Our books travel in style as the machine they are transported on is carefully designed to assure a smooth ride between the very narrow aisles of the BSF. The floor is laced with a magnetic wire that guides the machine with pin-point accuracy between the shelves to ensure there are no unfortunate accidents á la Rachel Weisz in her ground-breaking role as Evelyn Carnahan in The Mummy. Once our book has arrived safely in its place it is scanned once more to connect it with the barcode number for its specific shelf, then it goes into a cosy hibernation, waiting quietly for a wandering reader to stumble across its SOLO (Search Oxford Libraries Online) record and make a request.

Daring Deliveries

When this occurs, it’s time for our book to spring back to life. Its name will make a list of VIP books for collection, generated 6 times a day. If it makes that list before 10:30 it will likely be delivered the same day, any later and turnaround extends into the next day. Once the list has been picked, the book makes a return journey via cherry picker back to the Processing Floor where it is packaged into a special blue tote (fancy librarian name for a box)

A pile of books is neatly stacked inside a blue plastic box
Books in boxes

labelled with the name of the library where our reader wishes to receive it. That tote is then loaded onto a van (which runs this route twice a day) and then starts this mass migration of books from Swindon into Oxford. The van deposits the books at Osney where they are sorted into two further vans with different routes. Regardless of which route they take, our books will arrive at the library in good time for the reader to access them for whatever essay, tutorial or exam they might be taking part in.

Before the reader can access the book however, they need to know it is there – that’s where we librarians come in. At the Radcliffe Camera and the Old Bodleian, we receive deliveries sometimes as often as twice a day, although for most other libraries the frequency is a little slower. When those deliveries arrive, we must safely guide the delivery van into place, then carry all the boxes back and forth (being careful not to mix books returning with books arriving). The totes are carefully packaged so as not to be too heavy to carry but many are still hefty, clocking in at roughly 10-15kg each when full. Once the delivery is unpackaged, we gently scan each book and check it is correctly tagged for its reader to find with a Self-Collect slip, and then shelve it accordingly.

Once its reading period is over, the librarians will remove it from the shelves and begin the whole migration process in reverse. Upon their arrival back at the BSF, the books are sorted according to their barcode numbers, packaged back into the correct boxes, and returned to hibernation to await their next adventure.

Scrutable Scanning

A book rests the base of a machine which has a central pole extending from the back of the base up to house a scanning light above the book. There is also a glass plate that can be pulled down over the book, and various button on the base.
A BookEye scanner

Another important aspect of the BSF book life cycle is scanning. For books that cannot undertake the twice daily migration another option is available, as the BSF has been offering a ‘Scan and Deliver’ service (clearly named for all the Adam and the Ants fans out there) since 2012. Once again, our book will be placed on a special list, picked from the shelves according to the barcodes listed for its location and taken to a special room inside the BSF designed entirely to accommodate the massive amounts of scanning that takes place. The BSF is the most efficient of all the libraries’ locations in terms of scanning, and they are proud to note that they average around 45,000 pages scanned a month. It’s no doubt then that the staff in charge of scanning at the BSF are highly skilled at handling these books.

When scanning commences, each item is carefully lifted from its place on the scanning shelf and laid to rest in a special BookEye scanner. These scanners are specially designed to work with the book’s physiology and allow it to be scanned without damaging its spine or any other vital organs such as pages or binding. The book is then pressed gently underneath a sheet of glass and a bright light runs across it, logging every curve and line of the text within. The pages of the book are delicately turned, and the process repeated for every required page. A skilled scanner can complete an entire chapter without distressing the book at all. Once all the requisite information is recorded the book is lovingly returned to its nest in the bowels of the BSF.

Dastardly Dangers

So far you can see that the books within the BSF are incredibly well cared for and face little in the way of existential threats. In fact, many of the natural predators of the book are managed by the BSF in such a way that they pose little to no threat at all.

A large red pipe connected to multiple smaller pipes with levers and gauges
Pipes for the sprinkler system

One of the most prescient threats to the lives of our books is the risk of fire. Thankfully the BSF has ensured our books are safe from harm in that respect, they’re kept safe by massive 4-hour fire walls (and 2-hour fire doors) to minimise the risk of fire spreading from one book settlement to the next. There’s also an incredibly sensitive air sampling system connected to the building’s sprinklers and two massive tanks of water ready to extinguish any flame the moment it sputters to life. Despite its sensitivity, the sprinkler system has only ever had one false alarm in 12 years. The poor books caught in the ensuing deluge were diligently dried out by an outside firm and then returned happily to their respective nests in the store (although a few items still have visible watermarks from the incident).

Another potential danger to our books is pests. Many a librarian has known the horror of leafing through the pages of a book, only to find they have been nibbled on by a parasitic visitor. However, thankfully, conditions at the BSF are such that they discourage other forms of life from outstaying their welcome. The rooms are temperature controlled to a perfect 18°C and the lack of moisture and other food sources mean that any adventurous animals that might find their way in, such as woodlice or flies, often die off fairly quickly in an environment that is perfectly suited for nourishing books but hostile to pretty much everything else. This being said, pest control still makes a visit to the BSF every 5 weeks or so just to ensure no intrepid insects have braved the harsh conditions to gorge on the juicy pulp of book paper.

Thanks to these careful measures, the life expectancy for books at the BSF is long and it’s rare for books to die of unnatural causes under their care, so we can rest easy in the knowledge that the books under that big warehouse roof will have a long and happy life.

 

A long grey warehouse made up of a main chamber with a metal and concrete exterior and a smaller side chamber with a wood panelled front entrance.
The BSF (Book Storage Facility)

 

Database Spotlight: Black History Month

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Although Black History month has now come to an end, we wanted to highlight some of our resources that are available year-round regarding the work of people of colour. This is also a way to kick-start a series of blog posts we intend to write shining a spotlight on some of our favourite lesser-known databases available to staff and students at the University.

A lot of work goes into creating and curating collections of resources like these, and they can often prove invaluable in helping to better direct and inform research. Part of our job as Graduate Trainees is learning more about what collections our readers have access to, so that we can signpost them to readers in need!

 

African Writers Series

A South-African man with wrinkled skin and closely cropped afro-textured black and grey hair wearing a suit.
Nelson Mandela
  • About: Here you can read the full text of over 250 works of fiction, poetry, drama and non-fictional prose published by Heinemann’s African Writers Series. Heinemann’s has an over 40-year history in publishing postcolonial writings by prominent African authors, including important figures such as Ama Ata Aidoo, Steve Biko, Buchi Emecheta, Nadine Gordimer, Bessie Head, Doris Lessing, Nelson Mandela, Dambudzo Marechera, Christopher Okigbo, Okot p’Bitek and Tayeb Salih.
  • Where can you find it? You can access the database here OR go to SOLO > Databases A-Z (under useful links tab on SOLO’s homepage) > All databases are listed in alphabetical order – you can scroll down until you find the database, or you can use the little search box (top right-hand corner) which will allow you to search for specific databases!

Black Authors 1556-1922

An African-American man with naturally styled black and grey hair and a goatee and moustache. He is wearing a suit.
Frederick Douglas
  • About: Curators of the Afro-Americana Imprints collection created the database ‘Black Authors 1556-1922’ using resources from the Library Company of Philadelphia; a library that specialises in 17th-19th century American history research. The database has over 550 works written by Black authors, including fiction, poems, play, sheet music as well as biographies, cookbooks, letters, sermons and more.
  • Where can you find it? You can access the database here OR go to SOLO > Databases A-Z (under useful links tab on SOLO’s homepage) > All databases are listed in alphabetical order – you can scroll down until you find the database, or you can use the little search box (top right-hand corner) which will allow you to search for specific databases!

Black Drama, Third Edition

A black and white photo of author Zora Neale Hurston. She wears a black hat and an embroidered dress and smiles at something off-camera.
Zora Neale Hurston
  • About: Here you can find (and read in full!) over 1,700 plays written by a wide variety of playwrights from America, the Caribbean or Africa in the mid-19th century. This collection comprises of many works that are out of print or that are normally very difficult to find. You can browse the collection by title, playwrights, genres or subjects.
  • Where can you find it? You can access the database here OR go to SOLO > Databases A-Z (under useful links tab on SOLO’s homepage) > All databases are listed in alphabetical order – you can scroll down until you find the database, or you can use the little search box (top right-hand corner) which will allow you to search for specific databases!

Black Studies Centre

A black and white image of a young black boy carrying a bag of newspapers over his shoulder, he holds one in his hand with the title "Chicago Defender".
Boy selling the Chicago Defender
  • About: This digital collection of primary and secondary sources combines several key resources that record and expound on Black experiences across history. It includes scholarly essays, articles, indexes, and the historical full-text of one of the most influential black newspapers in the US, The Chicago Defender.
  • Where can you find it? You can access the database here OR go to SOLO > Databases A-Z (under useful links tab on SOLO’s homepage) > All databases are listed in alphabetical order – you can scroll down until you find the database, or you can use the little search box (top right-hand corner) which will allow you to search for specific databases!

Black Thought and Culture

A black and white photo of activist Assata Shakur. She wears a plaid shirt and has her hair in dreadlocks tied into ponytails. She smiles off-camera and gestures with her hands close to her face.
Assata Shakur
  • About: This incredible collection contains approximately 100,000 pages of non-fiction writings by major American black leaders – teachers, artists, politicians, religious leaders, athletes, war veterans, entertainers, and other figures – covering 250 years of history. Much of the material in this collection was previously inaccessible but is now presented in one easy to access and searchable database.
  • Where can you find it? You can access the database here OR go to SOLO > Databases A-Z (under useful links tab on SOLO’s homepage) > All databases are listed in alphabetical order – you can scroll down until you find the database, or you can use the little search box (top right-hand corner) which will allow you to search for specific databases!

Oxford African America Studies Center

A young light-skinned African-American woman, with bouffant styled hair and a double ribbon headband across her forehead; she is wearing drop earrings.
Ernestine Jessie Covington Dent
  • About: The Oxford African American Studies Center is an incredible resource for African histories, encyclopaedias, and biographies. With over 10,000 articles it is one of the most comprehensive collections of scholarship on the lives and events shaping African and African-American history and culture.
  • Where can you find it? You can access the database here OR go to SOLO > Databases A-Z (under useful links tab on SOLO’s homepage) > All databases are listed in alphabetical order – you can scroll down until you find the database, or you can use the little search box (top right-hand corner) which will allow you to search for specific databases!

 

Alice Shepherd, Radcliffe Camera

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Hello, my name is Alice and I’m this year’s trainee for the History Faculty Library, more commonly referred to as the Radcliffe Camera (or Rad Cam).

An external view of the Radcliffe camera showing the staff entrance
The Radcliffe Camera
A view of a shared desk with chairs for readers running down towards a large window with bookshelves on either side. There is an ornate stone ceiling above.
Lower Camera desks

Because the Radcliffe Camera is so close to the Old Bodleian, some staff here work across both sites. So, I can often be seen hanging around with Charlie, the Old Bodleian trainee for this year!

As one of our more historic and beautiful libraries, the Radcliffe Camera is almost always busy. Even outside of term-time we have a steady flow of dedicated readers which means that no matter the time of year there’s plenty to be done. So far, my days have consisted mainly of:

  • Desk work – helping readers to enter the library and borrow books.
  • Scanning – finding and digitising texts for readers to reference remotely.
  • Self-collect – adding and removing books from our self-collect shelves for readers to reference in the library.
  • Bankspersoning – guiding the van as it arrives for its daily deliveries from the off-site store in Swindon then sorting all the new books.
  • Book processing – taking new books and working all
    Two desks sit next to a balustrade looking over the library floor. The gallery opposite has bookshelves lining the walls and large windows line a domed roof above.
    Upper Camera desks
    A domed roof with blue and white mouldings in geometric patterns studded with gold centrepieces. Around it are a row of windows and then large arches below that.
    Upper Camera ceiling

    kinds of magic on them to get them ready to be put on our shelves and lent to readers.

  • Shelving – making sure our books go back where they belong so all our readers can find them.
  • Training – the Graduate Trainee Scheme provides regular training sessions to help us all become familiar with the many aspects of librarianship.

As someone with no prior library experience it has been a bit of a steep learning curve but all my colleagues at the Radcliffe Camera and the trainees from other libraries have been amazingly patient and kind in helping me understand the ins and outs of working as a librarian!

Although I have no prior library experience, Oxford itself isn’t new to me. I studied here back in

A basement room with armchairs and tables for working dotted about surrounded by shelves.
The Gladstone Link

2016 as an undergraduate law student so I have a basic familiarity with at least the location of some of the Bodleian’s key libraries. After graduating I realised that a career in law wasn’t really for me, so I took up some part time work at a pub. Then of course Covid hit, and I decided to up sticks and move halfway across the world to Japan to teach English (we all cope in different ways)! While I was out there, I had the chance to self-reflect a little and realised that Librarianship was something I wanted to have a shot at, and that’s how I ended up back in Oxford working at (in my humble opinion) one of the world’s biggest and most beautiful libraries!