While our blog has been all quiet on the Weston Front for some time now, we, the trainees of 2023-24, would like to bid a heartfelt goodbye to all our readers; we’re confident that there must be at least one of you! (hi mum).
As we prepare to leave, we are all feeling emotional: proud of what we’ve achieved, sad that our traineeship has come to an end, and yet excited to move onto the next stage of our lives. Many of us are staying with the Bodleian and University Colleges, some of us are going back to university, and others have already moved on to new roles!
We owe a massive thank you to the organisers, speakers, caterers, trainers, supervisors, former trainees, etc. without whom our traineeship would not have happened. I am sure that, for some of us, this farewell does not signify the end of our involvement in the traineeship, just a switch of perspective.
As we leave, a fresh batch of shiny new trainees are stepping into their new roles – well done all of you, you should be immensely proud of yourselves!
We wish them all the best of luck and every success.
After a very delicious selection of sandwiches, it was time to hear from the last few trainees yet to present. We heard from Xanthe, whose project was all about cataloguing grey literature; Fran, who in a similar vein was tidying up a collection of anthropological material; Clara, who was helping people navigate their way round the labyrinth that is the Taylor Institution Library; and Anna, who did a deep dive into the Sainsbury Library’s collections, and how to make them more accessible to readers. More on these projects below!
After these interesting presentations, we heard from Ant Brewerton, Associate Director for Academic Library Services, and Keeper of Collections. He gave a great speech congratulating us on our work!
Well done to all the trainees and especially to Clara, Anna, and Connie, for organising the day, which was a massive success.
Xanthe Malcolm- HML Grey Literature : Recording an uncatalogued collection at the History of Medicine Library for ingest into the CSF
The ‘Cupboard of Doom’ at the HML- AKA, the manuscript room
By Elena Trowsdale
In anticipation of many humanities collections moving to the Schwartzman centre, Xanthe’s project focused on the ‘History of Medicine Library’ and its ‘grey literature’. Grey literature is a term which encompasses material produced outside traditional commercial or academic publishing. The manuscript room at the HML library is full of these tricky items, most of which are undiscoverable as they have not been catalogued. Xanthe’s goal was: to move unique items from the Manuscript Room to the CSF; make these items discoverable on SOLO so they can be used by readers; and describe the collection on the HML LibGuide.
The starting point was that half the room had been roughly listed, and half only had ‘unique items’ detailed in a spreadsheet. Xanthe consulted wit
h the CR&D team and was given an optimised spreadsheet to record all the information of the uncatalogued material without the need for cataloguing training. This was an excellent, efficient idea which I believe was successful in its aim.
To obtain accurate data, Xanthe spent one afternoon a week at the HML barcoding, measuring items and taking lots of pictures. She was very well prepared and speedy at this task because of her excellent planning and efficiency. Many items were in boxes, which she listed at box level and with individual item information.
She achieved a lot of progress and has made sure the work can continue. Her current progress at time of presenting included: recording 161 monograph titles and 39 serial titles; ensuring the vast majority of the pre-marked “unique” items were ready to send to CSF; creating a handlist of everything currently recorded; creating the initial draft of the LibGuide; and arranging the right-hand shelves by area. She is currently continuing the work she has planned and is ready to hand over [two words when not used as a noun].
I was extremely impressed with Xanthe’s work and her presentation, as were (in my opinion) the captive audience of librarians. I am sure they could all relate to her organisational aims, and the immense complexity of the material she was dealing with.
Fran Allen- Tidying up the Tylor
By Anna Roberts
Fran’s project work had two parts: the first being very technical, record and catalogue focussed; the second involving her creative and graphic design skills!
Firstly, Fran joined in with the ongoing journey (some may say saga!) of tidying up the Tylor library. She explained that the Tylor collection houses materials for social and cultural anthropology. It used to be the Anthropology departmental library housed at the institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, set up by Sir Edward Burnett Tylor.
The Tylor collection was moved two years ago to the Social Sciences Library but with 20135 item records this turned out be a messy task!
To describe the journey using numbers, Fran designed a lovely
flowchart. In total the Tylor had 20135 item records, of these many were sent to the CSF or SSL, some were dummy/ expected serials for cancelled subscriptions, but still approximately 1000 item records were unaccounted for.
This is where Fran entered the world of the Tylor items. Fran did a fantastic job investigating these unaccounted records. She had to use her SOLO searching techniques and ALMA skills to find items and go through records. Often, these items were in a grey archive box and not missing. Wahey! Fran could delete the individual item records and tick as sorted. She also deleted 500 item records as miscellaneous. This was clearly a time-consuming process, but Fran managed to account for 89% of the unaccounted items which was very impressive!
One of Fran’s book displays, this one focussing on ‘Winter Wellbeing’
The second part of Fran’s presentation focussed on all the many book displays that she curated throughout the year. These had themes marking different months like Disability History and Women’s History Month, as well as seasonal ones like Winter Wellbeing and Spring Books (for which she handcrafted cute paper daffodils). A particularly fun theme was Ghoulish Reads, featuring Slime: A natural history, The Economic Horror, and Zombie Economics. Of course, being the SLL library trainee meant she highlighted the General Election with a book display, cunningly avoiding party affiliations by using a “neutral” teal colour.
Fran enhanced these displays by designing lovely posters and, perhaps most importantly for avid readers, bookmarks to match the theme! This included a designing ghoul bookmarks for her ghoulish reads… I wonder if she has any spare.
Clara Oxley- Wayfinding at the Taylor Institution Library
By Erin Minogue
In the final section of the day, Clara described her project which centered around improving wayfinding at the Taylor Institution Library (also referred to as the Taylorian).
To explain how the project came about, Clara began by providing some details about the design of the Taylor Institution Library. Evolving over the 19th and 20th centuries, the library incorporates two buildings designed at different times (the first part built in the 1840s, and the second part in the 1930s). This history has led to several design quirks, notably the uneven floors in different sections of the building, leading to a confusing enumeration of levels of the building.
As well as several staircases, the Taylorian also boasts rooms that are only accessible by winding through a series of rooms and descending a specific staircase, and similarly named reading rooms in opposite parts of the building. The user experience, for a reader unfamiliar with the building, is disorientating to say the least. But, luckily for Taylorian readers, Clara was on hand to design a project which aimed to: utilise user experience to gain an idea of what students need to navigate the library, identify issues, and then feed these findings back into changes that could tackle these issues.
Clara aimed to investigate different SOLO record location descriptions and how navigational aids help or hinder student journeys around the library.
Trail signs designed by Clara
To achieve this, Clara designed a series of trail signs which would point to different locations around the library, decided on standardized names for different locations and then tested these changes by running ‘treasure hunts’ around the library with student participants .
I particularly enjoyed hearing about Clara’s ‘Russian Doll’ inspired method to improving SOLO location descriptions. Clara’s method aimed to help readers locate an item by providing location details on a macro level and then providing more specific details – the specific floor, the specific room and then lastly, shelfmark information. This, however, was not as simple as it sounded; the third floor of the Teaching Collection on the St Giles’ side of the building doesn’t, of course, line up with the third floor of the Beaumont Street side of the building – why would it? However, with improved trail signs and more detailed location information on SOLO records, Clara began her ‘treasure hunts’ with student participants. Students were tasked with finding items in different areas of the library while Clara noted anything that helped or hindered them with navigating the library. The findings were particularly interesting – even comments such as “[n]ow I’m confused” helped to give a greater insight into how readers interact with the Taylorian.
The findings of Clara’s project pointed to the utility of trail signs around the library, suggesting the need for these and the desire to perhaps increase them. Most readers agreed it would be helpful to differentiate the staircases with different names and that the name 3rd Floor rather than ‘upper’ stack was helpful. Ultimately Clara’s project placed user experience at the heart of her considerations in making the Taylorian more navigable and has produced excellent findings which can be built on in the future.
Anna Roberts- A Spotlight on the Sainsbury Library Collections and Faculty Books
By Jess Hodgkinson
Focussing on the Sainsbury Library’s collections, Anna’s trainee project took a three-pronged approach to enhancing the library’s provision for readers.
Anna’s pie-chart showing the global diversity of books in the library
The first aspect of the project entailed creating a plan for weeding the Sainsbury Library’s annexe, which houses its general-purpose business collection. Using the library management software’s (ALMA) analytics function, Anna generated inventory item reports which she exported to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Anna filtered the spreadsheet by publication date and number of loans to identify little-used and outdated books which could be removed from circulation, thus freeing up space for new acquisitions.
The second, and main, focus of Anna’s project assessed the global diversity of the Sainsbury Library’s collection housed at the Saïd Business School’s Egrove Park site. Inspired by the Building Global Collections workshop she attended, Anna set out to investigate what proportion of these books were on the topic of international business, or focussed on business practices outside of the UK and USA. Using key terms derived from the London Business School’s categorisation scheme and Library of Congress subject headings, Anna searched the collection for relevant titles. Anna identified that only 11% of the collection has an international topic and that, among these books, cross-cultural management studies were the most common. Based on these findings, Anna proposed in her presentation that future acquisitions should include more books about geographical areas currently under-represented within the collection, including, for example, North Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Anna also highlighted the importance of purchasing books written from perspectives other than those of British and American authors, especially regarding topics such as globalisation and social responsibility.
The third, and final, aspect of Anna’s trainee project saw her create an inventory of monograph books and chapters in edited collections authored by academics from the University’s Business & Management school. Responding to a reader’s request for such a list, Anna used code designed by a colleague to match a register of faculty members with inventory item reports from ALMA, creating a list of faculty publications. Given the scale of the task, Anna chose to focus on two research areas—international business and major programme management.
Anna intends to expand and update the list of faculty publications, and continue to contribute to weeding, auditing, and enhancing the Sainsbury Library’s collections as she transitions into her exciting new role as the Collections & Instructional Materials Assistant. She will undoubtedly continue to be an asset to the library team!
The second part of the 2023/24 Trainee Showcase comprised of presentations by Leah Brown (English Faculty Library), Sorrel Fenelon (St John’s College Library), and Erin Minogue (Bodleian Art, Archaeology and Ancient World Library). The projects ranged from a deep-dive into the offprints owned by a renowned professor, work to widen access to special collections, and an investigation into how social media and digital outreach can work to highlight collections and engage audiences.
Leah Brown: A Sérprent Saga: Professor Turville-Petre and his Literary Network
By Clara Oxley
Offprints from Turville-Petre’s collection in archive folders.
Leah’s trainee project was a fascinating deep dive into the offprints of Professor Turville-Petre, a prominent Oxford scholar in Old Norse-Icelandic Studies who, as a student at Christ Church, was tutored by none other than J. R. R. Tolkien himself. When Turville-Petre died in 1978, he donated his entire library to the English Faculty Library. This, along with the rest of the EFL, will be moved to the Schwartzman Building in 2025 (a fact which motivated this project to begin with).
For anyone unsure of what an offprint was, Leah began by helpfully describing it as a ‘printing of a single piece of work that is part of a larger body,’ such as an article from a periodical. On top of exploring his offprints, another aim of the project was to create a handlist of them and store the items carefully to ensure that they were protected and conserved. This was because the off-prints were originally stored in magazine files, something which might have sent any conservationist into a frenzy.
To reduce damage to the items and make the collection more accessible, Leah created a spreadsheet detailing each Turville-Petre offprint. These details included, but were not limited to, author details, publication information, as well as language. Leah also paid close attention to the contents and notes that he made in the margins of the off-prints, which gave a unique insight into the way his relationships with colleagues changed over the years; something Leah went on to explore in more depth. Once the helpful handlist was completed, Leah moved the offprints to conservation boxes, and a quiet sigh of relief was heard from the conservation community across the country.
Next, Leah’s deep-dive into the contents and contexts of the offprints proved to be effective in bringing Turville-Petre to life, letting us catch a glimpse of his personality and work style. By exploring the historical context, as well as his academic engagements, correspondences and notes, Leah painted an image of a man who was clearly very academically driven, yet also dedicated to and supportive of his colleagues. These colleagues included the first woman to be Professor of Old Norse at the University of Oslo, Professor Anne Holtsmark, with whom he remained in correspondence for over 30 years. Furthermore, Leah’s inclusion of items in which he conveyed personality beyond the academic rigour of his work really helped humanise this great scholar. We particularly liked his artistic endeavours, such as the doodle of a Viking in his lecture notes. It’s always reassuring to learn that even the brightest can lose focus from time to time!
From Leah’s presentation, we learnt about a truly fascinating man who dedicated his life to Norse studies. So much so, that the Prime Minister of Iceland award him with the Grand Knight’s Cross of the Order of the Falcon.
A touching addition to the presentation was the inclusion of correspondences Leah had had with those who remembered Turville-Petre with fondness and respect. This included a former pupil of his, who recalled how, ‘Gabriel was, in his own way, as much of a teacher as a scholar and researcher, and a devoted teacher at that.’
Before completing her traineeship, Leah informed us that she will be creating box level records for the new offprint boxes, making the items accessible for all and ensuring that Turville-Petre and his legacy is kept alive for future scholarly endeavours.
Sorrel Fenelon: Widening Access to Special Collections at St John’s College
By Connie Hubbard
You might think that St John’s College, who have a special collection of manuscripts, would be overly protective of their collection. Sorrel, however, made increasing access and interest in early manuscripts her goal. Not an easy task.
To prepare, Sorrel shadowed school tours run by the Public Engagement team at the Weston Library, learning and magpieing tour-guiding techniques. She then began planning a tour for sixth form students visiting St John’s College as part of the Inspire programme. This initiative is a free, two year course for pupils from non-selective state schools, which includes a research presentation day onsite at St John’s. As part of this day, Sorrel planned a special collections visit, complete with a tour of the old library, and a session getting up close to an array of rare works. Sorrel had a brainwave while planning the event and, before the students arrived, she asked each what interested them and created the exhibition based on their answers. Talk about customer service!
On the big day, eighteen eager pupils got to see and interact with six items, including: a letter written by Jane Austen; Peter Apianus’ Astronomicum Caesareum* illustrated with a beautiful dragon, and an 18th-century autograph book which also housed a tapeworm – gross, but when entertaining teenagers, disgust is usually a safe bet. The chosen items highlighted the breadth of St John’s Special Collections with works from a range of time periods and in a range of languages, with different quirks.
Sorrel presenting her trainee project on Widening Access to Special Collections at St John’s College.
As with any ambitious project, Sorrel experienced complications. The most notable being that a condition check of the items revealed the Astronicum Caesureum would have been too fragile to move across college to the room booked for the event. Luckily Sorrel had been unreasonably organised and had a backup; a stunningly illustrated atlas. Crisis averted!
During Sorrel’s showcase presentation, she shared with us, not only her positive feedback from the College Access team and the students themselves, but suggested improvements, for example: to include more STEM subject manuscripts (though she noted the Astronomicum, gone AWOL, would have remedied this somewhat).
If that weren’t enough, Sorrel has also been working on a database of the John Rose letters, picking up where a previous trainee left off.
*an instrument for predicting the occurrence of solar and lunar eclipses.
Erin Minogue: Developing a social media presence for the Art, Archaeology and Ancient World Library
By Xanthe Malcolm
Wrapping up the morning session, Erin told us all about the process of establishing an X (formerly known as Twitter) account for the Art, Archaeology and Ancient World Library.
Erin began her presentation with a discussion of how she had chosen her project – which translated neatly into some tips for those trainees from next year’s cohort who were in the audience. For example, she knew from the start that she wanted something with a tangible outcome, which would be useful to the library, and have potential for continuity in the future. Marrying all that with her personal interest in outreach and increasing access to the library’s collections led her to the decision to develop a social media account.
Walking us through the timeline of her project, Erin started with her research into existing library social media accounts. This helped her to develop her initial thoughts on the aims of creating this account: who the target audience would be; what sort of content would meet the needs of the diverse groups within that target audience – from current readers to prospective students, and the local community to a broader audience who might have an interest in the library’s collections; and which platform to choose.
A screenshot of the Bodleian Art Library’s new X profile.
Having established the purpose of the account, Erin then made formal proposals to her own library and the central Communications team for the Bodleian. She also began work on branding for the account. We heard about how she had decided on a colour scheme that would be cohesive with the central Bodleian X account and her library’s blog, as well as the importance of finding high resolution images and the difficulties of fitting the words “Art, Archaeology and Ancient World Library” into a profile picture!
All Erin’s hard work paid off on launch day. With some carefully crafted initial posts and a takeover of the central Bodleian X account to harness the power of their huge pool of followers, she was able to surpass her target of 100 followers by the end of the first day.
Since then, the account has gone from strength to strength. Erin gave examples of how she ensures she continues to meet the account’s aims of highlighting the collections, providing reader service updates, improving the accessibility of the building and engaging with readers and visitors (for example, by linking posts to exhibitions at the Ashmolean). She also talked us through how she has planned to ensure the continuity of the account after the end of the year.
Erin rounded off her presentation by talking us through some of her personal highlights from the year – a fantastic reminder of the wide range of opportunities open to trainees who are keen to get involved.
And if you haven’t done so yet, go and follow @BodArtLib on X!
Among the many fantastic opportunities afforded to Graduate Trainee Library Assistants based in Bodleian and Oxford College Libraries is the chance to design and undertake a project. Undoubtably one of the highlights of the year, the annual Graduate Trainee Showcase provides the opportunity for each trainee to present their project to an audience from across the Oxford libraries. The 2024 Showcase, superbly organised by Anna, Clara, and Connie, was a resounding success. The huge variety of projects presented reflected both the trainee’s diverse interests and expertise, and the varied aims and priorities of the different libraries in which they have been based.
This blog post is the first in a series dedicated to this year’s Graduate Trainee Showcase. The blog posts contain descriptions of all the different projects, each written by another trainee. We’ll be kicking off here with the morning session of presentations made by Lara (Bodleian Law Library), Elena (All Souls College Library), Nia (Old Bodleian Library), and Jess (New College Library).
Lara Hatwell: ‘O Stranger from England, why stand ye aghast?’: Exploring the Law Library’s Northern Ireland Collection
By Leah Brown
Taking on the task of opening this years’ Trainee Showcase, Lara couldn’t have done a better job!
Lara’s project focused on the Northern Irish collections held at the Law Library. Having observed that there’s often a sense of horror around looking at Northern Ireland’s past, Lara wanted to reframe this. This is reflected in the title of her project; ‘O stranger from England, why stand ye aghast?’ is a line from Ballad to a Traditional Refrain by the Northern Irish writer and historian, Maurice James Waldron Craig (d. 2011).
Lara’s piece on the Law Library blog.
Lara began by working through the Bodleian Law Library LibGuide on Northern Ireland and fleshing it out as she went, including keeping it up-to-date with current political events—something quite unique to the Law Library! After immersing herself in the LibGuide and collating all of this information, which was no mean feat, Lara was also able to write a longform blogpost for the Bodleian Law Library Blog. It covers Northern Ireland’s relationship with British politics, particularly in the decriminalisation of homosexuality in the 1980s and the legalisation of abortion in Northern Ireland in 2018. Both of these laws were passed much earlier in England, Scotland, and Wales in 1967, but Northern Ireland was left out of the legislation. They were forced to bring the matter to the European Court of Human Rights and the UK Supreme Court respectively, while the UK government tried to wash its hands of the whole affair. Lara’s blog is a truly interesting read on the complicated political relationship that Northern Ireland, Europe, and Britain share, so I highly recommend you click through and take a look!
With this under her belt, Lara created promotional material for Northern Irish resources for the Thesis Fair, which then led to the opportunity to help with individual sessions on Northern Ireland with students. As a part of this, Lara created a guide on the resources held by the Bodleian, including highlighting the huge collection of papers that can’t be found anywhere else, many of which are now out of print. She was also able to shine a spotlight on the Conflict and Politics in Northern Ireland (CAIN) Archive, which she discovered was not included on Databases A-Z. It contains a huge amount of information on deaths relating to the Troubles all the way up to 2001 and is very community-focussed, which Lara mentioned is why she particularly likes it as a resource. Lara is currently working on a short bio of the site before Official Papers will make a claim for its addition to Databases A-Z, so watch this space!
So, what’s next? Well, before the traineeship is over Lara aims to write further blog posts particularly focussing on acquisitions based around Northern Ireland. She will also be writing a longform piece on Lady Justice and ‘how justice as a wider concept has been imagined’, so do keep an eye out for those over here.
Elena Trowsdale: The Importance of Cataloguing: A Multi-strand Exploration of Searchable Catalogues as the Backbone of Librarianship
By Nia Everitt
Elena’s project was all about the importance of cataloguing, which many library staff (and shoppers at Argos, probably) can attest to. At All Souls College Library, where Elena is the trainee, cataloguing takes many different forms. Elena researched all of these and suggested some great improvements that could be made!
All Souls Library has got some super interesting digital projects and outreach initiatives coming up, so Elena’s project sought to promote these by taking a look at the role that cataloguing plays/will play, as well as researching historical librarianship (blowing the dust off card catalogues) and looking ahead to future cataloguing projects.
Elena got started with creating a comprehensive list of pamphlets held at All Souls in the GZ classification series, including details about shelfmark and reference information, as well as logging whether it is currently catalogued or not. In doing so, Elena laid the foundations for cataloguers to fully record and describe these items on formal databases, saving them time in the future!
Rather excitingly, All Souls is currently in the midst of re-cataloguing their archive, and so Elena also got to assist with this. Crosschecking the existing archives catalogue, she created a machine-operable spreadsheet, up to professional standards. Again, she’s reduced the timeframe quite a bit for these details to be uploaded to Expexio, the archival database platform, although doing so will still require professional input.
Then Elena conducted a survey to see what library staff actually think about cataloguing. The survey results were very interesting. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the biggest change to cataloguing that staff have noticed is a switch to online systems. Many also noted that, in the wider academic world, cataloguing is not regarded highly enough. This disregard for cataloguing is frustrating because, as staff observed, it is a job that requires a lot of skill. One colleague remarked that ‘having worked for 39 years in Oxford University libraries, I fear I am still an inadequate cataloguer’. Survey respondents also highlighted the political aspect of cataloguing, noting that some subject headings seem inadequate in a rapidly developing society, and that accessibility is becoming more and more prevalent.
Images generated by AI in response to prompts about online and paper catalogues.
Elena also incorporated AI into her survey! Images generated when online catalogues, like SOLO, were mentioned, included a happy cat holding a book, ants climbing a bookshelf, and a rather severe looking octopus. Images generated when paper catalogues were mentioned were a grumpy cat with no book, a rather old clock, and a very idyllic, mountainous landscape. Make of that what you will!
The final aspect of Elena’s cataloguing project was an exhibition about legacy catalogues, investigating past librarianship methods. The All Souls Library catalogues dating to c. 1635–c. 1756 had a very basic style, and seemed optimised for use at the time as they were arranged by the authors’ last names. Elena also charted the cataloguing methods for one item, ‘A Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft’. Her findings were that paper catalogues needed to be physically handled for information, whereas on SOLO, everyone has access to the same information, improving accessibility. The number of catalogue records and amount of information for this one item also suggested scope for interoperability, such as linking between current catalogues, transcriptions, and more!
Elena’s hopes for the future of cataloguing include: more training for all library positions, increased funding, opportunities for technical experimentation, investment in learning, and well-supported digital tools. With advocates like Elena, the future of library cataloguing certainly seems exciting.
Nia Everitt: A Wellbeing Collection for The Bodleian Old Library and Radcliffe Camera
By Fran Allen
Choose Your Own Adventure: Graduate Trainee Library Assistant Project.
You are Nia, a Graduate Trainee Library Assistant at the Bodleian Libraries who is completing a project as part of their trainee year.
To choose the Wellbeing Collection project, turn to section 7. To choose Alien Communication, turn to section 51.
Section 7. Inspired by your own time at university during the Covid-19 pandemic, you choose to create a wellbeing collection for the Old Bodleian. Wellbeing collections and spaces are becoming more common in libraries due to both an increase in the number of students reporting negative mental health experiences, and a recognition of the role academic libraries play in supporting a student’s mental health whilst at university. There are already a number of wellbeing initiatives within the Bodleian Libraries and you have visited nearly all of them for inspiration.
To start with a local needs assessment, turn to section 39. To search the internet for pictures of cats, turn to section 84.
Section 39. You start the process with a local needs assessment to see what services are already provided, and which aren’t appropriate (e.g., medical advice). Through this process you identify two areas of focus for the collection.
To choose wellbeing resources and reading for pleasure, turn to section 19. To choose fashion advice and scone recipes, turn to section 32.
Section 19. The initial stages of the project have successfully identified two main areas for the collection to focus on—wellbeing resources and reading for pleasure. Unfortunately, there is no budget for this pilot project so you will have to be resourceful when sourcing books.
To make all the books yourself in your breaktimes, turn to section 11. To access the enormous resources of the CSF, turn to section 2.
Section 2. Due to the Bodleian Library’s standing as a legal deposit library there is a wealth of non-academic texts available to any Bodleian reader via the CSF. These items are, however, predominantly Library Use Only so can’t be taken out of the library on loan. You choose a selection of shorter texts that can be read quickly or flicked through in order to make the collection more engaging and accessible.
How do you choose to record this information?
To create a series of tables, turn to section 44. To whisper them into a colleague’s ear, turn to section 63.
Section 44. You create a series of tables that contain all the relevant information for the chosen titles. In order to ensure the collection can be easily maintained by colleagues after you have finished your traineeship, you include all the information required to request them from the CSF as well as costs so that if funds are available in the future they can be purchased. You are almost ready to assemble your collection and locate a small bookcase from the Duke Humphrey’s library for the display.
The Old Bodleian wellbeing collection.
Where are you going to place the bookshelf?
To tuck the bookshelf under the arm of Bodley’s statue in the quad, turn to section 43. To place the bookshelf on a bright and accessible stairwell, turn to section 74.
Section 74. You choose a bright and accessible staircase for the physical location for the collection. It is outside of the reading room environment but still within the library.
How will you advertise the collection?
To create a series of bright posters and bookmarks, turn to section 29. To take out small weekly adverts in Oxford Mail, turn to section 9.
Section 29. Using Canva you create a series of colourful, eye-catching posters and bookmarks which introduce the new collection to library users. You also signpost other available support such as the Counselling Service.
Congratulations! Your Wellbeing Collection is in place and is available for all Old Bodleian Library readers to access.
Jessica Hodgkinson: Mythical and Monstrous: Promoting Special Collections at New College Library
By Connie Hubbard
New College Library is home to a large collection of beautiful manuscripts and rare printed books which Jess made it her mission to further promote. She wanted to help provide access to special collections items and encourage people to engage with them, hoping to advance our knowledge about these books and manuscripts along the way.
Jess decided to focus in the main on curating an exhibition. She thought of a very cool theme for this—monsters and mythical creatures. Jess explained that she wanted to pick a topic which lots of people would be interested in.
Jess at the Mythical and Monstrous exhibition.
To find items to include in her exhibition, and to research their origins and significance, Jess scoured SOLO and the shelves, compiling an extensive list of fantastic, and fantastical, books to display. These included, for example, a sixteenth-century atlas illustrated throughout with mythical creatures, such as mermaids with buttocks (!), a fourteenth-century copy of the Book of Revelation full of monstrous miniatures like the horse-locusts of the apocalypse, and a thirteenth-century copy of Homer’s Illiad which has a drawing of the chimera added in the margins.
Of course, an exhibition would not be an exhibition without a few goodies to go with it. Jess designed postcards and bookmarks using images of the most remarkable illustrations, featuring dragons, a blemmy (a humanoid creature with its face in its torso), and other fantastical beings. To advertise her exhibition, Jess designed a poster which other trainees very kindly displayed in their libraries, sent out emails, and posted on social media.
Jess’ exhibition, entitled Mythical and Monstrous: Fantastical Creatures at New College Library, was a huge success. It ran on two separate occasions and welcomed over 200 visitors.
In addition to the exhibition, Jess also wrote a piece for New College Notes, the scholarly e-journal of New College, Oxford. The article is about New College, MS 287 which was written for King Henry VIII and presented to him as a gift on New Year’s Day 1515. Jess included this manuscript in her Mythical and Monstrous exhibition because it contains a doodle of Pegasus, the winged horse-god of Greek myth, on the first page. Studying the book closely, Jess also discovered something scratched into the margins of another page which had never been noticed before. John Barrett, technical lead of the Bodleian Libraries’ ARCHiOx (Analysing and Recording Cultural Heritage in Oxford) project, was able to make a recording of the addition, revealing it in even greater detail. Jess and her colleagues now believe that the addition could contain the Henry VIII’s name! If you’d like to read more about this exciting discovery, check out Jess’ piece for New College Notes, which is freely available online to everyone.
Keep an eye out for the final output of Jess’ project, a video about New College, MS 255 for the library’s Curator’s Choice series, in the coming weeks! Jess will be continuing her work with special collections at New College Library as she transitions in to her new role as the Special Collections Curatorial Assistant in September.
I’m out the door and on my bike. I’m lucky enough to have a genuinely enjoyable ten-minute cycle to work in the mornings, which is a great way to start the day.
08:40
I arrive at the Rad Cam. After putting my things away, I start the opening routine for the Lower Camera – this involves opening windows, turning on computers and PCAS machines, shelving, and making sure work spaces are tidy for readers. This morning I find a sports bra on one of the radiators, which I put in lost property!
Lapsed books in their boxes ready to head back to the CSF
08:55
Using Alma, the library management system software, I create today’s lapse list: a spreadsheet with details of self-collect books which are due to be returned to the CSF. By the time doors open to readers at 9am, I’m starting to collect these lapsed books onto a trolley. Once I’ve finished, I return them all on Alma and then box them up to be taken back to the CSF this afternoon on the delivery van.
09:30
There weren’t too many books on the lapse list today, so I have time for a background task. I find a few books whose shelf mark
labels are beginning to fade, and print and attach new labels.
10:15
Break time – a cup of tea and a couple of biscuits in the reader common room, while listening to a podcast.
Relabelling books – before and after!
10:35
I’m on fetching duty now. This means I’m collecting books from around the Rad Cam and Old Bod which have been requested for scanning by readers. Today this takes me into the Duke Humphrey’s Library, the very oldest part of the library, which is always exciting! Then, I identify the sections that need scanning and put in bookmarks ready for my colleague who will be scanning them this afternoon.
11:30
I decide to do some shelving. Maybe not the most exciting part of working in a library, but always satisfying!
12:00
Today I have the early (12pm) lunch slot. It’s lovely weather so I head along to the Botanic Gardens (free entry is a great perk of the job) to eat my packed lunch. I take a book and enjoy sitting and reading in the sunshine.
13:00
I’m back at the Rad Cam, and have an hour slot on the reception desk. It’s an extremely quiet shift – I issue books to one reader, give a couple of tourists directions to the Old Bod, and send a reader who has forgotten her card to Admissions.
Inputting metadata to the spreadsheet
14:00
I get on with some project work. My project covers a collection of uncatalogued materials at the History of Science and Medicine Library – the aim is to identify items that are unique across the Bodleian and record their metadata so that they can be added to the library catalogue and ingested. When I was there this week, I took photos of some of the items, so this afternoon I use these photos to finish entering the details of these items into a spreadsheet created by the Resource Description department.
14:30
Break time – after sitting to work on a computer it’s time to stretch my legs, so I put on a podcast and go for a short walk.
14:50
An email has come in from ARACU (Accessible Resources Unit) requesting a book for them to scan for a student. I fetch the book, issue it on Alma, and box it up to send to ARACU on the delivery van. Then I get on with some more shelving, starting with the Upper Camera and working my way down to the Lower Gladstone Link.
15:30
It’s my final desk shift of the day – this time I’m on the circulation desk in the Rad Cam. I help a couple of readers connect to the internet, and take a student down to the Gladstone Link to locate a book in the tricky Nicholson sequence. I issue and return books, provide directions to the toilets, and answer questions about loan periods and shelf marks. It’s always nice to be able to help readers out – definitely a rewarding part of the job!
17:00
It’s the end of my working day. I’m off to the gym (another perk of the job is discounted membership at Iffley Road Sports Centre) and then home!
8:25 My journey to work begins with a, thankfully, short walk into work. This morning I am rather precariously carrying two cakes which I have made for a work party.
8:50 After making my way into work, my morning begins by unloading the dishwasher. We do this on a rota and this morning is my turn. Alongside the dishwasher, I make the morning’s pot of coffee, which is very much needed. After that’s finished, I head up to my desk, where I sort through my emails and send off a few scans which I didn’t get round to yesterday afternoon.
Shelves for books to be labelled.
9:30 I take a few books that I have now finished with from my desk and head upstairs to reshelve them. Our lift is currently out of order so I am finding that I am climbing many, many more stairs than usual.
Returning to the workroom, I check to see if there any any books on the shelves I have responsibility for. Books for me are any ones which need processed, labelled or sent out to the floor. I collect any for me and bring them to my desk, where I work through them all. After finishing, I drop the books up to Academic Services for shelving, in a series of journeys which take much longer than normal (broken lift + manual handling training = frustratingly slow book moving process).
10:30 Tea party!! I head down to the staff room as we say goodbye to one of our colleagues, whose last day is today. We have some snacks, some cake and hand over a goodbye gift.
11:15 More scanning to do now. Accompanied by a list of all the requests, I gather up the books required and head to the scanning room. Our scanning room is a very small, out of the way room in the library, but it has a fantastic big window which looks out over the New College sports grounds. Unfortunately, today the scans are not as simple as I would like. A reader has requested a set of pages which don’t appear to make much sense, starting on the last page of one chapter and finishing mid subsection of the next chapter. I send a message to the Scan & Deliver triage team, who will confirm with the reader what exactly they want. Another scan is for a book which does not appear on the shelf. Thankfully, it has not travelled far, only to the shelf below. I decide to stay and tidy up these shelves while I’m here, as I’ve found a couple books in the wrong sequence. This is quite a satisfying task, but one that at least I, can only do for so long, before the dust generated from moving all the books makes me start sneezing uncontrollably.
12:45 I send off the completed scans and head downstairs to sort today’s post.
Today’s haul!
We receive a range of items in the post, mostly journals and purchased books, but sometimes mysteriously packaged parcels with donated books, sent by either the author or publisher. We also receive post for Official Papers, which may be Statutory Instruments or Acts published by the UK governments or documents from intergovernmental organisations, such as the United Nations. After collating and stamping any invoices and packing slips, all the post is brought up to the Information Resources Workroom where I sort it onto its respective shelves. Journals and books all have different shelves depending on whether they are purchased, donated or copyright material.
13:15 Lunchtime! I now have an hour for lunch, so I make myself up a bagel and have a cup of tea. I have a number of books on the go currently, as I read different books depending on what mood I’m in, but today I have only a few chapters left of Agatha Christie’s The Secret of Chimneys and I am determined to find out if I have guessed the murderer correctly. Tonight, I’m on the evening shift until 7pm, so I head outside for a short walk to stretch my legs and get some sunshine before heading back to work.
Official Papers post ready to be shelved.
14:15 It is now time to process the pile of Official Papers post which has been slowly building over the past couple of weeks. All the post has to be stamped with the correct date and type of stamp (C for copyright, P for purchased and D for donated), before being counted, noted down and shelved. It is a long process, but the upside is that there are some very interesting documents to read through. Today, I process 77 pamphlets and 8 Acts and Explanatory Notes.
16:00 I head downstairs for a break, grabbing a cup of coffee and the final one of my sister’s hot cross buns, which she had sent back with me when I visited home last weekend.
16:15 By now, the VBD books have arrived. The VBD stands for Virtual Book Display, and every week the Information Resources Librarian sends me over a spreadsheet with the picks for the Law Library. This week there are not too many, so only two runs up and down the stairs. Once at my desk, I have to check the books off on my spreadsheet, process them and send them to the copyright shelves for cataloguing. I also take this time to track down any missing VBD books from previous weeks, looking to see where they have got to.
16:45 I head down to Official Papers to grab some boxes of material to be barcoded and then head up to the desk for my 5pm evening shift. While on the desk, I answer queries from readers and give (hopefully useful and easy-to-follow) directions.
Home Office Research study from 1975 on homicide statistics.
When my attention is not required by readers, I work through barcoding the OP material. Currently I am working through series from the Home Office, which includes some very interesting reads, such as Absconding from Open Prisons and Homicide in Britain, 1967 – 1971.
17:30 Time for the count. I grab the clipboard and head round the library to count the number of readers inside.
17:45 Mental maths done, I return to barcoding. When finished, I begin work on this blog post!
18:40 I ring the first bell to alert readers we will be closing soon. The bell is very loud and always makes unsuspecting readers jump (readers – I’m sorry!!).
18:50 Second bell.
19:00 The bell is rung for the final time to signify the library is closed. We switch the lights off and I drop my work to my desk before heading to the staffroom. Both cakes are finished and someone has kindly washed my plates, so I pack up them into my bag and head off to enjoy the rest of the sunshine!
Whilst sipping tea from my KeepCup on the bus, and glaring at the traffic ahead, I email my supervisor because I think I may be a little late!
09:03
I arrive in the library. My opening shift is made a lot quicker and easier because my supervisor starts work a bit earlier than everybody else. This means she usually does most of the opening up. However, if she is not starting early then these are some of the tasks that we do: folding up blankets on our blanket shelf, returning books on the library system that were in our library return box, walk around the library floors turning the lights on and tidying up the desks and chairs (students and staff at the school can use the library outside of staffed hours), check and replenish paper levels in the printer, and check our IT equipment loan folder. The library is embedded within the Saïd Business School which means the building is already set up before staff come in and business students can still use our library after we go home too!
09:10
We had a mystery wire on our enquiry desk this morning which may have been lost property, but it does look like some of the HDMI cables that are connected to our docking stations. So, I went to investigate whether there were any missing cables.
The PC area cables and wires in our lower reading room were a complete mess like vines all curled up together. So, I decided to tidy the area up a bit.
09:20
Part of desk duty is to monitor our library email inbox. So, I checked the enquiries that we had. Usually, they will involve a mixture of readers asking for business-related research help, some asking for help accessing library resources both online and offline, and others will be requesting access to databases. Some of our databases require staff to create accounts for students, others have a limited number of IDs that we issue to students for a set number of days. Due to high demand, there is often a waiting list for these IDs.
We also welcome and grant access to library visitors, usually non-Saïd Business School students, occasionally others, into the library. Reception rings us to say that a visitor is here and wants to use the library. Often the visitor is already racing up the stairs so you must get an access card ready and hopefully meet them at the door before anyone else enters and leaves-otherwise the visitor will be trapped in the library!
09:30
As the library was quiet, armed with blue tack, a pen and sticky notes I went around our PCs checking if they had the ‘how to log in’ labels on the monitors. I re-tacked some of them and recorded the number that didn’t have any and the docking stations that require their docking labels too. I plan to update those without another day.
09:50
My colleague, who also works at the library’s Egrove site, gave me a book which had been requested for scanning. Egrove Park is the location for the business school’s Executive Education services, which includes some residential courses. We have a small collection of roughly 955 books which can be borrowed by users at Egrove and by members of the university.
I check ALMA for any other requests to triage and fulfill. I then wrote a post-it note for the part to be scanned and placed the book on my desk in the office.
I also checked the SBS intranet to keep up to date with news within the school. I read an article giving the Dean’s message about International Women’s Day (IWD) the next day. Internal communications were also requesting staff to send along a picture and a couple of words for IWD. I created a book display for IWD and a window display for the Oxford Africa Business Forum. As I was planning to write a blog post about my book display, I decided that I would also send a picture and some words along for this. You can read the blog post ‘Celebrating in True Library Fashion’ and see a list of the books on our Sainsbury Library News page.
A picture of part of the bakery display that the catering put on for Valentine’s Day
11:00
My colleague who was covering my 20-minute morning break came along to cover. I went to the school’s café/common room to help myself to a free tea in my KeepCup. Staff at the school get subsidized food at the common room and dining hall which means a 50% – 60% discount on cakes, pastries, cheesecakes, and whatever other delights the café and catering team rustles up! I go to the tea stand where there are free teabags and an urn of hot water. I listened to some music and relaxed for a bit.
11:20
Back on desk duty after my break.
My colleague asked someone on site to check Harvard Business Review on SOLO as it appeared to have disappeared. I took a look and indeed it was an empty page. Whilst I was testing a different browser, I also assisted some readers with in-person enquiries and welcomed visitors in.
As part of my SOLO investigation, I tried searching in Journal Search and Harvard Business Review and came up with no results. I then tried searching for other journals, same result. I then tried searching with filters and nothing was appearing! Something was wrong! I then compiled an email for OLIS help with screenshots to report the problem. It is always useful to include precise information about the browser and what you are doing when asking for assistance. The team sent out an email to the library mailing list to inform all the libraries and staff that SOLO was experiencing problems, and they thanked our team for reporting it.
In a lovely gesture, a reader whom I had assisted with printing came to the desk especially to say thank you for my help before leaving. This is always very appreciated.
12:30
Journal search is back up! We are lucky to have a fantastic OLIS team who work hard, often in the background, to make sure the Bodleian Library keeps running! A few of my colleagues on site were in a meeting whilst all this happened and didn’t even know that there had been a problem.
Oxfordshire Blue and Mushroom tart, plus salad! -Keeping us healthy
13:00Lunch break
My colleague for the afternoon comes to enquiry desk to changeover. It often seems to be the case that the phone starts ringing, someone wants to borrow IT equipment and something else pops up right when you are transferring. Anyway, I greeted the visitor and then went for lunch, leaving things in my colleague’s hands.
For lunch, I went to the school’s dining room and got an Oxfordshire Blue Cheese and mushroom tart plus the ambient salads that the kitchen provides- very yummy! Staff can get a good quality hot meal or ambient meal for around £2.50 each day- what a bargain! I listened to some music whilst eating and then read my book outside sitting on the school’s amphitheatre steps because it was finally sunny (if a bit chilly though).
14:00
I had a few plans about what I wanted to do like completing the scan and deliver request and completing my blog post. I recently discovered ‘Bodley and the bookworms- Scan and deliver video which I can’t get out of my head when I hear or read‘scan and deliver’. I decided to focus on finishing my blog post as this was more time sensitive. It is often the case as a trainee that you will be juggling a few tasks at a time and that you may be producing blog posts or book displays to mark different events/themes in the year, either local to your library or subject, nationally or internationally. So far, I have done Business of AI, Financial Times ‘Book of the Year’ displays and now IWD and Business in Africa. I will consult with members of the team about future displays.
Blue crates and archive boxes-took me four trips!
15:00
I go to cover my colleague’s afternoon tea break. Just as I arrive on desk a reader who is doing Futures Library research informs us there should be more blue crates here for her. She has gone through most, if not all now, of the Pierre Wack library! So, I popped downstairs to check if the Bod book van had arrived yet. The van had arrived, delivering 10 blue boxes/totes plus an oversized archive box- I think this was a record for our library (or at least for me!) although I know that is a tiny delivery in comparison with some of the other libraries. I ended up taking three trips in the lift to bring everything up. It was quite intriguing see some of what is inside the archive boxes- VHS tapes, cassettes, a briefcase folder. My colleague and I scanned in the archive boxes, including an oversized one with a briefcase in it and then my colleague finally went on his tea break.
15:30
A colleague who assisted with putting the book display up and organising kindly offered to be in a photo for the book display for IWD- I was very grateful that she was willing to be in it too! With the photo taken I then finished the blog post for IWD and the Africa Business Forum display and then edited the IWD part slightly to share it with the Saïd Business Schools Internal Communications Team. They very kindly added a bit of context to the library and created an article on Atrium to share with colleagues at the school.
15:45
I went for my afternoon tea break and once again got a tea from the tea station in the school’s common room. I also browsed the pastries and cakes but decided to skip it- they are always very tempting though!
16:05
I caught up on some emails and my to do list.
16:20
Sainsbury Library is currently running an assessment activity concerning where students are sitting and the noise levels of the reading room. We have a board and stickers for students to pick what they are in the library to do and where on our library map, they would prefer to sit to do that. We were also doing some observations in the afternoons where two of us walk around the library and noting where people were sitting and what they were doing e.g. group study, silent study. That afternoon I was doing the observation. Students sometimes looked at us a bit quizzically as we walked around and stood observing the tables.
16:40
Our circulation and customer services librarian showed me how the library records teaching statistics are recorded (this is sessions where staff members have delivered inductions, consultations, and lectures) and SCONUL counts (the SCONUL homepage has a picture of my old library so had to include a link!). Sconul counts are when we, along with other libraries, count the number of readers in the library at a specific time and date. Our circulation librarian is responsible in our library for recording these statistics this and it was good to see what is recorded, why it is recorded and how it is recorded. I have found that there are often opportunities in my day to observe and learn from other staff members about different tasks they do, even if I am not going to be specifically assisting them.
Books I need to sort out
16:55
I write a note in my notebook about some of the ‘book stuff’ I need to do: process new books, complete a scan, and a a plastic cover to the dust jacket. Here is a visual picture of it:
17:00
I head to the train station to wait for a bus home!
7:45: I hop on the bus to town, and get some reading in on my way. I am currently reading Femina by Janina Ramirez, after hearing her interesting insights on the women who embroidered the Bayeux Tapestry, on the history podcast ‘You’re Dead to Me’ with Greg Jenner. I’m really enjoying it and finding it very accessible, as someone who has never really been drawn to that period of history (cue the scandalised gasps from Oxford medievalists).
8:15: With an uncharacteristic lack of traffic on the way to work, I arrive in town in time to head to Black Sheep and get myself a coffee. I like Black Sheep because the coffee is STRONG.
8:42: I arrive at work. This week I have been rota’ed to open up the Duke Humfrey’s Library, which is always a nice space to begin my day in. I am greeted by the grotesques that decorate the walls, including these cheeky chaps, who are displaying two different degrees of excitement that it’s Friday:
TGIF!This guy has seen some things…
Opening up this reading room includes reshelving, turning on the lights, and opening the blinds.
8:55: With the Duke Humfrey’s Library ready for readers, I head downstairs to the Main Enquiry Desk where I will be spending the morning answering enquiries.
This morning, I am expecting the arrival of some books from the Just Williamseries, for an advance order request for someone who does not yet have their reader card. Because these are early editions, I want to check their condition to confirm that they can be read in the Old Library and don’t need to be flagged up with my colleagues in Rare Books.
The books arrive, and they’re in fine condition, so I give the self-collect slips a temporary ID, change their due date, and notify the reader that they are ready to be viewed.
12:00: Lunchtime. I wolf down a very basic sandwich I cobbled together whilst half asleep this morning, wondering what my housemate, who works in Christ Church library and who is provided an amazing dinner by the college, is probably enjoying at that very same time…
13:00: After lunch I’m stationed at the circulation desk in the Radcliffe Camera for an hour. Working on this desk means I issue books, collect returns, help people connect to Wi-Fi or to locate a book. There’s always loads of people to help here so I really enjoy it!
14:00: I head back over to the Old Bod to get some work done for my trainee project. I’m finding books from offsite storage and assessing whether they’d be suitable for a temporary wellbeing collection in the Bodleian. Today I am looking at some Choose Your Own Adventure books. One is outstandingly and straightforwardly titled You Are a Shark. I’m sure this is what Shakespeare had in mind when he wrote that “brevity is the soul of wit”.
15:30: After my afternoon break, I’m sat on the Proscholium (entrance to the Old Library) where I am writing this blog post whilst keeping one beady eye out for readers entering the library. It can get cold in this part of the building, but I have a small and handy heater that is at the very least keeping my knees adequately warm.
17:00: My workday is done, so I say hello and goodbye to the evening staff member who is taking over for me on the Proscholium. This evening, I am heading to the cinema with my housemates. One fantastic thing about Oxford is the number of cinemas there are with various showings, if only to aid me in updating my Letterboxd account.
My working week starts at 09:30 on a Monday morning. This is glorious as my fellow trainees have to start at 09:00 or earlier, mwah ha ha ha.
Coming in early often means I open the library: unlocking, turning on the lights and emptying the dehumidifiers (and, after 6 months, I still haven’t mastered the art of pouring the water from our leaky dehumidifier without spills).
Having opened up, I am often on shift at the reception desk (I have one shift a day). This means that I get to meet lots of lovely people – some members, some not.
There are six staff members in the library: the Librarian-in-Charge, the Deputy Librarian, the Assistant Librarian, me (the Trainee), the Archivist, and Helga (the library printer, who works very hard). The Union has more than just library staff, but the team is still very small and you get to know everyone; the Bar staff even know my lunch order before I say it (despite me definitely not having a coronation chicken sandwich almost every day for the past six months).
Mondays are fantastic; I take minutes at our Library Committee meetings. These are chaired by the Librarian, who is a student. They decide which books will be withdrawn and which will be purchased. Our Library’s collection is thus entirely dictated by the needs and wants of members and booklists are often a little peculiar as a result.
On Tuesdays my cup runneth over; I come in late (for the evening shift, not because I have given up on punctuality by Tuesday), and do research for our displays, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. This also tends to be the day on which I do the most research for my project (which will eventually be posted on the library website).
Wednesdays are usually training days for all Trainee Librarians – here you’ll learn to use ALMA, learn the nitty gritty elements of librarianship and visit other libraries (inside and outside Oxford).
Thursdays at the Union are great; this is ‘Brew and Biscuits’ day, on which all staff, and sometimes student officers (President, Librarian and Treasurer), meet for an hour, first for business, and then a social chat (usually about rugby, at which point anyone who doesn’t watch it is bored rigid). The possession of a brew (tea, coffee, or hot chocolate) and the consumption of at least one biscuit is rigorously enforced (on pain of death). This is also the day when I leave early to go bouldering.
Fridays are more relaxed, there are no minutes to write, no training to do (usually), and no threat of death for not partaking of the cookies. This is a day when reshelving and book processing are the priority and social media posts get scheduled.
The blog post continues into Saturday! Fear not! At most you’ll only do two Saturdays a term, and you have a late start. Shock horror though… there are no free bar lunches. And on that cliff-hanger, I will leave you.
In honour of International Women’s Day on the 8th March (today incidentally!), I wanted to focus in on one very important woman within libraries – though it should go without saying that there are a whole host of impressive women throughout the field. This person is Enriqueta Rylands, the brains behind Manchester’s John Rylands Library (JRL), contrary to what the name implies! I have always had a soft spot for Rylands, as my family has something of a (some may say tenuous) connection to the library – my great x3 grandfather carved some of the decorative oak panelling within the building – so it has been a pleasure to research more about the endeavour for this blog post.
Though the JRL is now affiliated with the University of Manchester, housing its special collections, it began its life as a public library. It still continues to proudly admit all readers with no need to pay, and encourages them to not only access but to enjoy their special collections – this is specifically to align with Enriqueta’s vision of the library, which we’ll delve into in this blogpost! [1]
Enriqueta invigilating readers and visitors alike. The University of Manchester Library, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 DEED
Just who was Enriqueta Rylands?
Enriqueta Augustina Tennant was born in Cuba in 1843 to a wealthy family thanks to her family’s dealings in sugar and land. However, Enriqueta’s fortunes quickly changed when she was a teenager upon the death of her parents. Unable to claim inheritance in Cuba, she was sent to live in England with members of her deceased father’s family in 1859. [2] Though she was a ‘white creole’ rather than someone with Spanish or Indigenous roots from Cuba, she still faced an uncertain future in England, facing prejudice for her heritage which was made all the worse for her lack of personal wealth. [2]. It was during this period that she became the companion of Martha Rylands, John Rylands’ second wife, and after her death in 1875, Enriqueta became his third wife.
John Rylands was Manchester’s first multi-millionaire and cotton magnate. Upon his death in 1888, he left an estate worth £2,574,922 to Enriqueta (£305 million adjusted for inflation in 2024), which formed the basis of funding for what would become the John Rylands Library – named in tribute to her husband’s memory. [3]. He was a lover of literature, though unable to devote as much time to reading as he would have liked. Instead, he often gifted books to poorer or rural Free Church ministers to help in their studies; Enriqueta could not have thought of a better way to memorialise her husband. [4] Less than a year after his death, plans had been submitted for the construction of the building. Even before this though, Enriqueta and her husband were interested in libraries and collecting – where many point to later acquisitions as the beginning of Enriqueta as a collector, Dr Elizabeth C. Gow makes the point that in 1881 an anonymous cataloguer put together a catalogue for the Rylands’ personal library at their residence in Longford Hall. The creation of the catalogue then ‘reflects the shared endeavour of John and Enriqueta to organise and define the library as a space and collection’ [5]
A Note on the Library’s Links to Slavery
Before we go any further, I feel that it is important to mention that while the John Rylands Library has done immeasurable good for the city of Manchester, the fortune used to create it was built off the backs of enslaved people in the Americas. To read more on this I would recommend taking a look at Dr Natalie Zacek’s article on the matter as part of the Rylands Reflects series, which explores the history of the library and its collections in context with colonisation, racism, and imperialism.
Building the Library
The library itself took over 10 years of careful planning and construction to bring to fruition – much to Enriqueta’s disappointment as initially it was planned to open in 1893 [6]. Deansgate was chosen as the location for the project – now a popular shopping street but then a cramped slum district, surrounded by warehouses, taverns, and slum dwellings, the majority of which were back-to-back with only narrow passages in-between. If there were any spaces between houses they were ruled ‘small and insufficient’! [7] It is not known why specifically she chose this area, though there are several theories for it. It’s suggested that perhaps she chose the site in order to gentrify the area both morally and in appearance – John Rylands himself wanted to ‘make the highest literature accessible to the people’ [8].
A map of Deansgate pre-Rylands from the cited 1880s sanitation report – the star I’ve added marks where Rylands will be! The University of Manchester Library, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 DEED
The architect Enriqueta chose for the job was Basil Champneys – you might be familiar with his work as he designed several Oxbridge buildings including the libraries for both Mansfield College and Somerville College. Enriqueta’s choice of Champneys to helm the design work was in fact inspired by his work at Mansfield, where she was patron to the college.
Enriqueta took an active approach in all facets of the library’s construction, from books to building work, for the duration of the project much to the chagrin of Champneys; she was not afraid to voice her opinion on the architecture and fittings within! For just a taste of this, here’s a small list of some of the feedback she gave:
The statue of Gutenberg for the Reading Room was malproportioned (‘The portraits she has seen show him with a longer beard. Has the photograph exaggerated the length of the right shoe?’) and she demanded it to be adjusted. Rest assured it was! You can even see a close up of them here if you want to double check his work. [6]
Enriqueta wasn’t a fan of the light fittings and radiator grilles that Champneys had designed with ‘none of them being exactly to her mind’. This resulted in her going over Champneys and straight to the manufacturers, telling them to direct all correspondence to her as ‘the architect has nothing to do with this’. [6]
The traceried screens designed by Champneys to go in the Reading Room were nixed even after they were partially constructed, as they were too evocative of the Catholic church when she wanted to ‘avoid anything that gives an ecclesiastical appearance to the building’. Not only did Enriqueta foot the cost of modifying the screens, the craftsmen billed her for the time and materials used for the initial design too. [6]
(You can find a whole timeline of the construction, including the changes that Enriqueta requested, in the cited article’s appendix.)
If you’re wondering how Champneys took this, well, he had to yield in the end. However, that didn’t stop him from voicing his frustrations in a letter to William Linnell, advisor to Enriqueta, saying ‘I have taken a pride in the building and spared neither thought nor labour, nor, what has cost me far more, patience and humiliation, to make it worthy of Mrs Rylands’ intention.’ [9]. Enriqueta had a specific vision in mind, and she wasn’t going to give it up for anyone – and certainly not for the architect of all people(!) Despite all this strife during construction, the building itself was incredibly modern and forward-thinking. The library was one of the first buildings in Manchester to use electricity to power the lighting and it was generated from inside the building itself (motivated by fire safety after one of Rylands’ warehouses burnt down due to gas lighting) [3]. There were also complex filtration systems installed at Enriqueta’s behest to keep the air, and thus the books, clean from the industrial atmosphere outside.
The library’s Reading Room! kaysgeog, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 DEED
Aside from the building itself, Enriqueta was also heavily involved with the acquisition of its contents. Initially, she began collecting modern reference works for the library in 1890, markedly more utilitarian and middle class compared to other bibliophiles’ collections. Upon the advice of Dr Samuel Gosnell Green, though, she moved into acquiring Special Collections and first editions in 1891, in particular Early English Bibles [5]. Acting on this advice and expanding her search to include rare books and manuscripts set the stage for the later acquisitions and changed the trajectory of the library entirely.
It was in 1892 when a watershed moment happened, the acquisition of the Althorp Library. The Althorp library had previously belonged to the Spencer family (yes, of Princess Di fame), with George John, 2nd Earl Spencer, cultivating the collection over 40 years. He ‘was not satisfied to merely have the best books, he was intent upon having the finest copies procurable of the best books’ [10]. This was supplemented by the fact that the core of this library came from the Reviczky Collection. The Reviczky Collection previously belonged to Hungarian nobleman Count Reviczky and was filled to the brim with Greek and Latin classic literature in tiptop condition – he famously disliked any manuscript notes and marginalia, resulting in an overall pretty pristine collection [10]. Upon the Spencer family going through a difficult period, the 5th Earl Spencer, John, looked to sell off some of the library – and here is where Enriqueta comes in. Poor luck for the Spencers was great luck for the burgeoning library, the sale being described by Dr Green as ‘a most stupendous piece of news’ [11].
Despite Enriqueta ordering the stop of all acquisitions in order to secure the Althorp Library, there was a very real prospect that the Althorp library could have been separated piecemeal and shipped off to (gasp!) America, much to the horror of bibliophiles all over England. Lucky for them then that Enriqueta bought nearly the entire library (40,000 volumes) for £210,000, barely a month after the intention to sell was announced [5]. There was a real sense of relief around this – the fact that she bought the library and ‘saved [it] for the nation’ from the “dreadful” fate of crossing the pond was repeated like a mantra when it came to talking about Rylands – from being mentioned in Enriqueta’s Freedom of the City scroll (we’ll get to that) to contemporary accounts, such as from her trusted librarian Henry Guppy who described keeping the Althorp Library in England as ‘an exceptional service’. [10] The acquisition of the Althorp Library catapulted Rylands beyond its original scope as a predominantly theological library into a multitude of different disciplines [10]. However, I feel it’s important to mention that, despite all this praise in the wake of the completion of the library, in order to bid on the Althorp Collection, she had to don the disguise of an anonymous ‘English gentleman’ [12]. Once it was discovered that she was the anonymous buyer, the opinion pieces came out of the woodwork. For some, the very idea that Mancunians might potentially have access to the collections was met with derision and insult, particularly from weekly gossip newspaper Modern Society in this rant sprinkled with antisemitism: [13]
The University of Manchester Library, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 DEED
“we see the purchase of the Althorp library by Mrs. Rylands is confirmed, but not the gift of it to Manchester. We trust this magnificent collection will not go to that dirty, uncomfortable city. What do unsavoury Greek shent-per-shenters and uncultivated boors want with a library, and such a one? Besides, they have not enough light to read by, and the books they already have are wretchedly kept.” [14]
Unfortunately for them, that is exactly was Enriqueta intended to do, wanting to lift her adopted city out of its reputation as only good for industry. Luckily, other publications such as The Spectator were more supportive of her endeavour, saying:
“We are glad that Manchester rather than London is to get Lord Spencer’s books, for we dislike the centralisation of all the great treasures in the Capital. The more great pictures and great libraries there are in the provincial towns the better.” [15]
Enriqueta stayed heavily involved even once she had relinquished a bit of control to Dr Green’s son, J. Arnold Green: she was still double checking her purchases against invoices and handlists to make sure that nothing was amiss and her money was being spent in the way she intended. [5]
The library was opened to the public on January 1st, 1900 – a very auspicious start.
The beautiful ‘Freedom of the City of Manchester’ scroll given to Enriqueta. The University of Manchester Library, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 DEED
The Aftermath and Future
Enriqueta’s hard work in the planning and creation of Rylands didn’t go unnoticed once building work was finished and library was opened. For one, the Lord Mayor of Manchester presented her with the Freedom of the City of Manchester for ‘the generous manner in which she had founded and dedicated to the public, and enshrined in a beautiful and costly edifice, a noble library for the promotion of study and the pursuit of learning’ [16]. Later, in 1902, she was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Letters from Owens College (which would eventually become the University of Manchester) as she ‘with splendid munificence has gathered in Manchester a magnificent library, as the most fitting memorial of one who cared much that the best books should be accessible to all’. [4]. The awarding chancellor was actually Earl Spencer – the very same she bought the Althorp library from!
Much like Oxford’s own Bodley, Enriqueta knew that she couldn’t simply put money in at the start and leave it to grow on its own – a consistent flow of cash was needed to ensure the longevity of the institution [17]. She endowed library with an annual income for maintenance, and if any collections became available that might suit the library but were outside of its budget, Enriqueta circumvented this by buying and donated them [4]. The sale of the 26th Earl of Crawford’s manuscript collections in 1901 is a great example of this, amounting to 6,000 volumes for a price of £155,000. Not only that, she paid for the cataloguing so that the collection could actually enter circulation and be used once it made its way to Rylands after her death. [4]. Her final gift was the entirety of her and her husband’s personal library from their residence at Longford Hall, bequeathed in 1903, and transferred upon her death in 1908.
This work carried on after her death, the board of trustees clearly taking on-board the intentions that Enriqueta had for the library and her legacy – which as we touched upon continue to this day. The governors strove to ‘make it an efficient working library for students […] so as to excite and diffuse a love of learning’ whilst also ‘[giving] the general public […] opportunities for forming some idea of the scope and character of the collections, and of the possibility of usefulness which the library offers’ [4] In this vein, they provided exhibitions on the collections, had a series of public lectures from 1901, and offered bibliographic demonstrations to those from local students, colleges, and craftsmen [4].
Wrapping Up
A truly philanthropic gesture, rather than hiding the library behind a ‘pay wall’ or the mists of academia, Rylands opened it to the public for their use at a time when Manchester was viewed as “home of the philistine” – this was only 40 years after the publication of Friedrich Engel’s The Condition of the Working Class in England and two years after its publication in English [3]. She could have so easily, with the immense fortune she had garnered, passed off her ideas to a board of trustees and washed her hands of it. Instead, she personally nurtured it for the entirety of the project, and still had an active role once she had stepped back and let the board of trustees take over upon its opening. I’ll finish on this quote from Enriqueta, chastising bibliographer E. Gordon Duff for the catalogue he created for Rylands being inaccessible for general readers – I think it sums up her mission statement for the library, and the sentiment of inclusivity is something that we as trainees should take to heart going into the field:
‘it is my wish that this library shall be of use in the widest sense of the word: for young students as well as for advanced scholars. It is not to be a mere centre for antiquaries and bibliographers, as its rich collection of early printed Books & M.SS. has led many, I find, to believe’. [18]
Citations
[1] “Special Collections.” [n.d.]. John Rylands Research Institute and Library <https://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/rylands/special-collections/>
[2] Gow, Elizabeth. 2020. “Rylands Reflects: Whiter than White? Enriqueta Rylands’s Cuban Roots,” Rylands Blog <https://rylandscollections.com/2020/09/14/whiter-than-white-enriqueta-rylands-cuban-roots>
[3] Farnie, D. A. 1993. John Rylands of Manchester (Manchester, England: John Rylands University Library of Manchester)
[4] Guppy, Henry. 1921. The John Rylands Library, Manchester; A Brief Record of Twenty-One Years’ Work(MCM January MCMXII) (Manchester: The University Press)
[5] Gow, Elizabeth. 2023. Enriqueta Rylands: The Public and Private Collecting of a Nonconformist Bibliophile (Manchester: University of Manchester) <https://pure.manchester.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/274925726/FULL_TEXT.PDF%20p.53>
[6] Hodgson, John. 2012. “Carven Stone and Blazoned Pane’: The Design and Construction of the John Rylands Library,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 89.1 <https://doi.org/10.7227/BJRL.89.1.3>
[7] Bastow, Richard Austin. 1880. Report on the Health of the City of Manchester,1880 (Manchester: Chas Sever)
[8] Letter from Green to Railton, 6 August 1892.
[9] Letter from Basil Champneys to Linnell, 3 August 1897.
[10] Guppy, Henry. 1935. The John Rylands Library, a Brief Record of Its History,1899-1935 (Manchester, England: Manchester University Press)
[11] Letter from Dr Green to Enriqueta Rylands, 17 June 1892.
[12] (anonymously), Ward, Thomas Humphry. 1892. “Sale of the Althorp Library,” The Times, p. 7
[14] Modern Society, 1892. “Cutting from Modern Society” <https://luna.manchester.ac.uk/luna/servlet/detail/lib1~1~1~281756~290625:Cutting-from-Modern-Society?sort=reference_number%2Cpage%2Ccurrent_repository>
[15] 1892. “News of the Week,” The Spectator, p. 3
[16] Manchester City Council. 1899. “Freedom of the City of Manchester” (Manchester City Council) <https://luna.manchester.ac.uk/luna/servlet/detail/lib1~1~1~89196~105074:Freedom-of-the-City-of-Manchester?sort=reference_number%2Cpage%2Ccurrent_repository&qvq=w4s:/what%2FLegal%2Bdocuments;sort:reference_number%2Cpage%2Ccurrent_repository;lc:lib1~1~1&mi=14&trs=15>
[17] “History of the Bodleian.” [n.d.]. Bodleian Libraries <https://visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/plan-your-visit/history-bodleian> [accessed 7 March 2024]
[18] Letter from Enriqueta Rylands to Linnell ‘Re Mr Duff’, 13 April 1896.
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