Hello! I’m Catherine, one of the trainees at the Taylor Institution Library this year. Having studied German and Dutch as my undergraduate degree, I immediately felt at home in the Taylor – helped not only by some familiar titles among the books, but also by the friendly atmosphere of the library and a very warm welcome to the team by my colleagues.
The first few weeks of my traineeship were spent generally getting to grips with the basics of day to day library life, and learning the locations of books within the library. I also quickly learnt that as the Taylor Institution is somewhat of a maze, the question “where would I find this book?” is not as straightforward to answer as it might first appear!
What is now the Taylor Institution Library originated as two separate libraries – the Taylor Institution Library (also known as the Main Taylor) and the Modern Languages Faculty Library. Although these no longer exist as separate libraries, a distinction remains between the collections that each library represented – the Main Taylor is now the Research Collection, and the MLF the Teaching Collection. The Research Collection now houses the Enquiry Desk, and the Teaching Collection the Issue Desk.
As there are two trainees at the Taylor (my fellow trainee, Rachel, has recently posted about her trip to the Houses of Parliament) and two desks, we have the opportunity to experience both collections of the Library and the differing tasks of each desk. During the first term I was working at the Enquiry Desk, which involved answering more detailed enquiries, fetching books, and processing the books that come in from offsite storage. This term I have been based at the Issue Desk, which incorporates many of the more ‘traditional’ library related tasks such as issuing and returning books (amongst other things!)
Having now completed over half of the traineeship I can say that I am thoroughly enjoying my time in the Taylor, and I’m looking forward to seeing what the next 6 months will bring!
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