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A Day in The Life

A Day in the Life at the English Faculty Library

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A bust of J.R.R. Tolkein, on a wooden plinth
The (rather stern) bust of Tolkein surveying the first floor

8.40 (ish!) – 8.50 : Opening up

Most days I get to the library by 8.40am to start opening everything up. But as I get the train into Oxford (and even when not on strike, they’re not always the most punctual), it does vary quite a bit – it can be anywhere from 8.20am to 8.45am!

The first job of the day is to go around turning lights on, unlocking the computer room, and scooping up any books left on tables or trolleys for re-shelving. This is a nice job as the EFL is basically a circle, so there’s a satisfying ‘opening up’ loop starting and finishing at the office.

 

8.50 – 9.20 : Lapse list

With the library waking up, I make a start on the lapse list. This is the list of books from the Collections Storage Facility (CSF) which readers have finished with and are ready to be sent back. I check the list and pick the books off the self-collect shelf before we open the doors at 9am, just to make sure the books aren’t accidentally taken back into the reading room by eager readers! I then take the books into the office to scan and box them up in the blue totes we trainees talk so much about, and leave them downstairs ready for the van to collect this afternoon.

 

Wooden shelves with alphabetical markers
The self-collect shelves at the EFL

9.20 – 9.45 : Reading room shelf check

Once a week I also print a list of everything that’s supposed to be on the self-collect shelves and check everything is where it should be. As everyone starts ordering books for the start of term, it’s getting to be quite a long list! Fortunately, I’m yet to encounter a permanently-lost book, but there are a couple of reasons why a book that’s supposed to be on the shelf isn’t there. The most common reason is someone is using it in the library, which is why the first step in any book hunt is checking whether it’s magically come back after a couple of hours! Another possibility is that the book was sent back to the CSF without being scanned out properly, in which case it will be ‘found’ when it’s scanned by the offsite team. And although it’s rare, occasionally a reader will take home a book that’s meant to stay in the library. In these cases, a gentle email is all that’s needed to get the book returned safe and sound!

 

 

Wooden shelf with 9 journals and three newspapers displayed on it
The new journals display

9.45 – 10.30 : Journals and periodicals

The next job for the morning is all things journals and periodicals. Although lots of journals are available online, we still get quite a few print journals delivered regularly to the library, and there are a couple of things I need to do.

The first job is to process any new journals that have arrived and get them out onto the shelves. Many titles trickle in slowly, published once a quarter or even once a year, but newspapers and reviews like Times Literary Supplement, London Review of Books and New York Review of Books arrive weekly or fortnightly, so there’s always something new each week.

Processing new journals is a job I tend to do in batches, rather than as each arrives. There are a few waiting today, so I mark them as arrived on our spreadsheet and check them in on the Library Management System, Aleph. Then they’re stamped and stickered before I put them out on the new journals display. I swap the old ones for the newer arrivals and take the older ones to start their new lives on the main periodical shelves.

With the new journals dealt with, I go back to the spreadsheet and check whether we’ve received everything we’re expecting. Because of the pandemic many journals delayed their publication schedules and are still catching up, so knowing when to make a claim for a missing journal is more of an art than a science. There’s only one outstanding today, so I submit a claim to the publisher and mark the date on the spreadsheet.

The last journals job is to check if any titles have been used in the library. There’s a shelf in the office where journals that readers have used are placed before they’re re-shelved, and I use a spreadsheet to record which titles have been consulted. That way, when we’re looking for more shelf space, we can see which titles are popular and which ones perhaps aren’t used so much and could be stored offsite.

 

10.30 – 10.50 : Break time!

With the journals done, I put the kettle on and have a quick break. Usually I’d get my book out but one of my new year resolutions is to brush up my French, so I spend some quality time with Duolingo.

 

10.50 – 11.30 : Scanning (and a brief interruption)

Next up is scan requests. The Bodleian offers a ‘scan and deliver’ service through which readers can request one chapter or 5% of a book to be scanned and sent to them (the limits are set out in copyright law). Each library does it slightly differently, but at the EFL we’re each rota’d a couple of mornings or afternoons during the week to keep an eye on the scan requests, and this morning it’s my turn.

When a request comes in, I first check to make sure we can complete the scan – this means checking whether it’s allowed under copyright law and checking that the book is actually in the library! If everything’s ok then I collect the book off the shelf and have a quick flick through the requested chapter to make sure there aren’t any (or at least, not too many) scribblings and markings on it. Most of the time there aren’t any, but sometimes it looks like readers have written their entire essay in the margins! The book I’m scanning today thankfully doesn’t have any extra writing in it, so I take it to the PCAS (Print, Copy and Scan) machine to scan the chapter. With that done, it’s back to the computer for a little editing to make sure the scan is of a good quality, and then I send it off to the reader.

It depends a little on how long the chapter is, but usually it takes 20 or 30 minutes from opening a request to sending it to the reader. Today, however, I had a brief interruption as a reader wanted to use the Turville-Petre Room. Also known as the TP Room and/or the Icelandic Room, it’s not actually in the library itself but downstairs near the Faculty offices. To access it, readers hand in their card at the enquiry desk and receive a temporary access card in return. As this is the first time today that a reader has asked to use the room, I pop downstairs to unlock it for them before returning to the scanning.

A long desk with 9 chairs around it, and books in cages around the sides of the room
The Turville-Petre Room

 

11.30 : Count

I finish the scanning just in time to do a quick headcount of how many people are in the library. We do counts four times a day, to keep track of when our busiest periods are. The 11.30 count is always my job, so I get to have a walk around the library while trying to remember that readers find it a little off-putting if I count out loud!

 

11.35 – 12.30 : New books

Now on to one of my favourite jobs: processing the new books. Just like with the journals, I tend to wait until there are a handful to do in one go. There are four waiting today, so I make a start. Each book gets an EFL bookplate on the first page and a yellow sticker on the cover, as well as stamps inside and around the edge. Then I add tattle-tape – the magnetic strip that sits in the book’s spine and makes the loud beeping noise if someone forgets to check a book out before leaving (or, more often, if I forget to de-sensitise it!). With that done, each book gets a final sticker on the spine for the shelf mark. It sounds like a lot, but I quickly get into the rhythm of it and the books fly by!

The final job to make the books shelf-ready is to cover them. Paperbacks get sticky-back plastic, and hardcover dust jackets get little plastic pockets to sit in. But the easiest ones are the hardcovers without dust jackets – they just need a protective sticker over the shelf mark and they’re ready to go!

There’s a little more to do before the books go out on the shelf, but first it’s …

 

12.30 : Lunchtime

The EFL is in the St Cross Building, which is a bit further out from the shops than some of the other libraries (looking at you, Old Bod!). But that’s ok – I always like having a little walk at lunchtime. If I’ve remembered to bring a packed lunch, I’ll often stop at the church yard near the library to eat and, if the weather’s nice, I might stay a while to read a book. It’s a little chilly today though, so I pop in to Pret (I definitely get good value out of the coffee subscription) before heading back to the library.

 

Four blue crates stacked on top of each other. 'BSF' is written in white on the side of the top box
Blue totes patiently waiting to make their way back to the CSF (formerly BSF)

13.30 – 14.00 : Delivery

While I was out, the delivery from the CSF (Collections Storage Facility) arrived, so I head down in the lift to pick it up. We usually get one or two totes delivered each day, with a range of different items in them:

  • Bodleian books from offsite: these go out on the self-collect shelves for readers to pick up and use in the library.
  • EFL books from offsite: to keep our shelves from getting too crowded, some of the EFL books that aren’t used very often are kept offsite. Readers can place requests, then pick them up from the hold shelf behind the enquiry desk.
  • Transfers from other libraries: sometimes, if a reader places a request on a book from the offsite store while it’s being consulted at other libraries, it will be sent straight to the EFL rather than going back to the CSF first, so the reader gets their book quicker!
  • Returns from ARACU: ARACU is the Accessible Resources Acquisition and Creation Unit, and they sometimes ask us to send them a book so they can make a high-quality, accessible scan for a reader with specific access needs. When they’ve finished, they send the book back to us in the delivery.
  • New books: before they arrive at the EFL, new books are processed by the Acquisitions team then sent on to us with the delivery.

To help me keep track of which books need to go where, I start by sorting them into piles and work my way through them. It’s quite satisfying to get to the end of a stack of books!

 

14.00 to 14.40 : Shelving

With the delivery done, I’ve got time to do a spot of shelving. During term-time we have shelvers who help us keep on top of it, but as we’re still in the vacation we each do a bit when we’ve got time. It’s also a nice excuse to get up from behind the computer!

While the main goal of shelving is to get books back on the shelf (obviously!), I also take some time to tidy and straighten up the shelves and move books around if there isn’t quite enough space for them. If there are any real problem areas that would require moving a lot of books or that would need some planning, I make a note to pass on to my supervisor so we can dedicate some time to finding a bit more space for everything.

 

14.40 – 15.00 : Break

With all the books away, I have my second tea break. Now that I’ve satisfied the green language-learning owl for another day, I spend a happy 20 minutes reading my book.

 

15.00 – 17.00 : Desk shift

A rubber duck dressed as William Shakespeare sitting next to the computer on the enquiry desk
Bill keeping an eye on things from the enquiry desk

Last up today, I’ve got a desk shift. I spend two hours each day on the desk and, because there aren’t any self-issue machines at the EFL (I guess it’s something to do with the 1960s and their love of concrete!), there are usually quite a few loans and returns as well as other enquiries from readers. Today though, as it’s still just-about vacation rather than term time, the desk is quite quiet.

But there’s plenty to do during a quiet desk shift! I start by finishing up the new books I was processing earlier. Now that they’re all stickered, stamped and wrapped up in their cosy new jackets, all that’s left is to add them to the EFL’s LibraryThing. While all our books do of course appear on the main Oxford catalogue, SOLO, here at the EFL we also put our new books on LibraryThing so they can be found more easily. That done, everything’s ready to go out on the new books display!

I also have time to get on with some of the projects I’m working on. I’ve been going through reading lists and putting them online via ORLO (the imaginatively-named Oxford Reading Lists Online), so students can clearly see what they need to read for each class and where to find it in the library. This helps students, but going through the lists also helps the English Subject Librarian see where there might be gaps in our collection and which books we need to order.

I finish up the latest list I’ve been working on with half an hour of my shift left. That leaves just enough time to update the EFL’s Twitter to highlight our latest blog post, and finish writing up my day here!

At 4.45pm I ring the closing bell to let readers know they’ve got 15 minutes left and start tidying up the enquiry desk. There are always last-minute loans and returns but, as most readers have headed home already, I tidy desks and tuck in chairs while keeping an eye on the enquiry desk.

 

17:10 : Homeward

At 5pm I ring the closing bell again and the last few readers make their way out. I wash up my tea mug and collect my bag and coat. Most of us leave at the same time and walk together towards bus stops and the train station – it’s a nice sociable way to end the day!

A Day in the Life at the Bodleian Law Library

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08.00 Cycle to Work

I cycle to work and catch the glorious sunrise being reflected on the River Thames as I pedal over Folly Bridge and then past Christ Church and the beautifully illuminated Radcliffe Camera.

 

08.30 Opening

I start my day by checking each floor for any shelving. I also check the carrels on the third floor for any lost property, unplugged computers, or to move any chairs that have mysteriously meandered and found their way into other carrels overnight.

The Radcliffe Camera being illuminated a beautiful golden colour by the rising sun.
The Radcliffe Camera
View of the River Thames passing underneath Folly Bridge in Oxford
The view from Folly Bridge

Once the shelving is completed, I head back down to the second floor for my first shift at the Enquiry Desk with a lonely phone charger that I found in one of the carrels. After updating the missing property book (hoping that the charger will be reunited with its owner later on), logging in to my computer and saying good morning to colleagues on Teams, I collect the keys to open the library and let in the eager readers waiting outside.

 

9.00 Enquiry Desk

Top of my list today is to finish making the ‘New Publications by Oxford Authors’ display which lives on the second floor of the library and showcases a list of books written or edited by law faculty members. I make sure that the document is neatly presented with photos of the new book, the author, sometimes a QR code for books that are only accessible online, and a little biography of the author. I hope to print and laminate these pages later on today so that I might put the display up before I go home for the Christmas break.

For the rest of my time at the Enquiry Desk I work through a couple of boxes I picked up from Official Papers on the ground floor, barcoding items that do not have barcodes. I also work on some reading lists – reviewing online reading lists to see if links to e-books are working, and to see if the Bodleian Law Library has the latest edition books. Every now and then I am also approached by a reader who would like to see a book from the Reserve Collection (which is kept behind the desk) or needs directions to find the PCAS (printing, photocopying and scanning) machines, or a specific book in the library, or the water fountains in the building or the bathroom.

 

11.00 Break

Usually, I sit with my book in the staff room and have a snack. Today, however, I hurriedly make my way out of the library and speed-walk to Blackwell’s where I pick up a signed copy of the much talked about Babel by R.F Kuang.

 

11.20 Books, journals and more books!

Back at the library (with my new prized possession – the signed Babel!), I check the shelves in the WIP (work-in-progress) room that are my responsibility. These are the shelves that have donated or purchased books waiting to be processed, or books awaiting labelling. Processing involves updating our book statistics spreadsheet (marking down how many purchased, donated or legal deposit books we have received), edge-stamping the books, stamping the donated and purchased books with the appropriate stamps, tattling, labelling the books that are in need of labels, and then returning the books to the cataloguing shelves or the shelves for books waiting for their labels to be checked.

I also need to check the shelf in the WIP room where the journals for the ‘New Journals Display’ sit. I collect the journals and go through each one to find or create corresponding QR codes, and then laminate them. Using QR codes means that readers can access journals online with greater ease. This is one of my weekly tasks, and I will be putting up the display tomorrow.

The last shelves I need to check are the ones on my trolley. A collection of books have recently been donated to the Law Library. I process, download bibliographic records and create gift orders for these books in preparation to pass them on to a colleague so that they can be properly catalogued and then returned to me for labelling at some later date.

An imaged of the Bookeye Scanner
The Bookeye Scanner

 

12.40 Scanning

Readers can request scans of certain pages or chapters in books, just as long as their requests fall under copyright law. It’s important to keep on top of the scan requests to make sure that there is not too much of a build-up later on. Armed with information about which books and which pages need to be scanned, I make my way to the small room in the library where the Bookeye Scanner lives. Once the scan is completed, I check for missing pages, fill in our spreadsheet of completed scans, and then send the scan to the appropriate reader.

 

1.30 Lunch

Lunchtime! Usually, I would try to sit outside but since it’s drizzling I decide to sit in the warm indoors and continue reading my newest bibliomystery.

 

2.30 VBD Books

Every week on a Thursday, the VBD (Virtual Book Display) books arrive at the Law Library – usually at 2.15pm on the dot! These are a selection of law-relevant legal deposit books that are chosen by the Information Resources Librarian. Once the books have been unpacked and brought back up to Information Resources, a number of spreadsheets need to be updated, and then the VBD books need to be processed. The size of the VBD book deliveries varies – sometimes there can be as few as five books and other times there can be over seventy!

A large white and red trolley with its three shelves filled by VBD books.
VBD books

 

3.40 Break

I take a later break today because I find this keeps my energy up for the 5-7 evening shift.

 

4.00 Printing, Laminating and Book Processing

I print off and laminate the ‘New Publications by Oxford Authors’. I also fit in a bit of end-of-day book processing since there are some books on my desk that I need to expedite. This just means that the books need to be quickly processed (counted, stamped, tattled and labelled) usually for a scan, a reader, or so that the books can be shelved in the Reserve Collection.

 

4.45 Enquiry Desk Shift and MOYS

For avid readers of the blog, you might already be aware that the Law Library is undergoing a very large re-classification project. Essentially, we are re-classifying books from an old in-house classification system to MOYS – a classification system specifically designed to organise legal materials. With my sheet of 32 titles in hand, I head upstairs to the Jurisprudence section of the library and swap a shelf and a half worth of books with a small piece of paper telling readers where the books have disappeared off to.

I have an evening shift from 5-7 on Thursdays so, with my trolley, I head to the Enquiry Desk and work through the books I have temporarily taken from the shelves. I end my evening duty shift by ringing the library bell one final time to warn any straggling readers that the library is closing.

 

7.00 Home

I head home – looking forward to finishing the last episode of the new season of His Dark Materials.

A Day in the Life at Christ Church Library

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7:45 Arrive in Style

My day starts with a cycle into work and a quick change into library-suitable attire. Turtlenecks feature heavily.

A photograph of the back wall of Tom quadrangle, featuring the cathedral spire. The sky is dusky with soft pinks and blues.
Christ Church’s Tom Quad in the early morning

 

8:00 Doors open

While the library is still pretty quiet I’ll see to turning on lights, printers and our self-checkout kiosk, straightening everything out and tidying away any books left out from the night before.

The library is open until 1am so I’ll also check the evening staff’s notebook to see if there’s anything they recorded that needs following up!

 

8: 15 Master of Tree Management

Over the festive period we have had a Christmas tree in the entrance hall of the library – it’s both an honour and a privilege to keep it fed and watered (well, mostly just watered). This task is one of my favourites. I do end up wearing quite a lot of pine needles, but I have simply made sure to plan outfits that go well with green accessories.

 

9:00 Enquiry desk

A staple of the job! This involves monitoring the library email for any updates for Aleph, our catalouging and circulation programme, overdue reminders, or people getting in touch about consulting books from our special collections. Must avoid spending too long looking at emails from Sotheby’s. That way madness lies, along with fantasising about a life in which I frequently buy rare vases at auction and cultivate my collection of modern art.

The desk is also a site for processing books and helping readers with any questions they might have. I secretly thrill at opportunities to find books for readers or, even better, use the ladders in our reading rooms when readers don’t fancy risking the climb. Talk about high-octane…

 

Picture taken from inside of a window. Looks out onto a stone tower. The sky is grey.
A slightly dreary sky behind a lovely view – the window of our tearoom

 

 

11:00 Tea!

A corner stone of both life and the working day. I am blessed with some charming colleagues so tea often comes with both biscuits and a chat.

On sunnier days this room can be something of a suntrap! Such glorious weather feels a bit far away at the moment though…

I have noted a direct correlation between my degree of reclination on the tea-room sofa and time worked here. Some could argue I am getting a bit too comfortable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

11:15 Reclassification

One of the projects I’m working on here at Christ Church is a reclassification system overhaul. This consists of updating the shelf marks on our books from an in house roman numeral system to the more widely used Library of Congress system. A shelf mark is the notation on a book which tells you where it belongs – like library coordinates!

 

Right now, books will go back on the shelf where they came from when I’ve updated the shelf mark in the book and on our cataloguing system. I’m looking forward to the point when everything comes off the shelf for a reorganisation of biblical proportions.

I’m currently working on the linguistics part of our collection and finding some intriguing titles on my travels.

 

 

13:00 Lunch

Words cannot express the beauty of the lunches at the staff canteen here. Bliss.

Sometimes followed by brisk stroll around Christ Church meadow in order to keep feast-induced sleepiness at bay.

 

14:00 Orangery

Afternoons when I’m not on the desk can take many forms, but one project I’m chipping away at is a reshelving job in one of our storage spaces, called the Orangery. Now filled with books instead of oranges trees, it makes for a satisfying mission of putting the world to rights one book at a time where things have been mis-shelved in the past. Once again, I encounter many a delightful tome and have been enjoying collecting eccentric titles and beautiful cover foilings in my camera roll.

 

 

16:00 Home

Finishing just before sunset in the winter is a blessing to be sure – from here I will slink off to enjoy the delights of Oxford at dusk which are many and varied, much like the delights of the Christ Church library!

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.

 

 

 

 

A Day in the Life (Social Science Library) 2.0

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08:00

Walk to work! The sense of excitement and looking forward to the day ahead usually hits when I come onto Broad Street and walk past the beautiful Bodleian and the Weston libraries.

 

08:45Photo of a long corridor of grey bookshelves along a grey carpet with a safety ladder in the middle.

Opening up time. I do this once a week with another colleague. I like to arrive first when the library is creepily empty and still, a good setting for a murder mystery novel…I turn on the self-issue machines and printers, login to the front desk computers, check the study carrel bookings and open/close them as required. After deleting any expired holds and dragging in the overnight returns box from reception, it’s time to declare the library open by activating the automatic doors.

 

9:00 – 09:15

Emails. The SSL graduate trainee is responsible for managing the main SSL queries inbox. We often get requests to book discussion rooms and study carrels, loan books to ARACU, and remotely extend loans to students overseas who are unable to return them. Occasionally, we receive emails from authors and publishers asking if we might like to buy their books – these get forwarded to the SSL Orders team or appropriate subject librarian, but not before I have admired their bold self-advertising skills!

 

09:15 – 10:00

Book processing. The workroom at the SSL is dominated by a massive shelf of books in various states of processing, several of which are assigned to the trainee. One is exclusively for labels which are wrong or have rubbed off and need replacing. There is also a ‘low priority’ and ‘high priority’ processing shelf for books which require tattle taping, stamping and plating.

In terms of cataloguing, the ‘full processing of holdings work required’ shelf involves adding the shelf mark, location, status, hardback or paperback and reading list code (if required) to the Aleph record before bringing the item into circulation. We also have a ‘processing Bodleian Outhoused’ shelf for books selected by subject consultants for housing in the SSL while they are of current interest to researchers. The SSL is taking part in a pilot scheme where new selections can be borrowed, so these require an additional cataloguing note to indicate them as part of the pilot.

 

10:00 – 11:00Photo of a large book shelf with books inside, and several processing trolleys in front

Issue desk! AKA processing returns, loaning books and equipment, handing out items from the stack and answering reader queries. At around 2pm, the new stack requests from the BSL are delivered – these require ‘checking in’ and ordering alphabetically on the shelves behind. You’ve also got to watch out for readers bringing drinks that are not in a KeepCup and deploy a stern stare now and then to keep the noise down.

 

11:00 – 11:20

A snack and a read on the comfy sofas of our staff break area.

 

11:20 – 12:30

Scan & Deliver. Due to staff illness, I have been helping with the fetching and scanning process of our Scan & Deliver service. Normally, I work on the ‘Deliver’ element, which I will explain later. I locate the items in the library which have been requested before using ‘Hex’, our super bookeye scanner, to create the scans. After a little editing, they are ready to go.

 

12:30 – 13:30

Lunch. The SSL is only a few minutes’ walk away from University Parks. Usually, I will take my lunch down there and have a walk (or a tiptoe when passing the local geese, as they always seem ready for violence). If the weather isn’t very nice, I might have a coffee at the Missing Been café in the St Cross Building up the road or the Weston, a bit further afield.

 

13:30 – 14:30wwe

Another issue desk shift (the graduate trainee will typically have 2 or 3 hourly shifts a day).

 

14:30

The post tray on the issue desk is usually brimming with parcels and letters by this time. I do my best to figure out what everything is and who it needs to go to. An added challenge is opening any packaging very carefully so that it can be re-used.

 

14:35 – 15:30

Scanning triage. This is the ‘Deliver’ part of the ‘Scan & Deliver’ service I mentioned earlier. I login to ‘Request Tracker’ and send off any scans that have been completed. I then triage new requests by checking that they fall under copyright law (readers can only request 5% or below of the total page count of the volume a book, or a single chapter) and that there are no alternative online resources on SOLO. The request can then be added to our ‘Fetching List’, for the scanning team to locate and scan on ‘Hex’.

 

Photo of a line of study desks with purple dividers between them. In the background, grey bookshelves full of library material.15:30 – 16:00

Missing book search. I wander sadly through the library looking for all the books on our ‘Missing Bookings’ list in the hope they have somehow made their way back to the shelf. One in particular, ‘The Mushroom at the End of the World’, has haunted me for a long time (if anyone has it at their library, please send it back!). I also get creative in terms of thinking how someone might have misinterpreted the shelf mark. I have an extremely low success rate, but it’s still quite fun…

 

16:00 – 16:20

Another break time. Usually a nap with my eyes open at this stage in the day.

 

16:20 – 16:30

A quick desk tidy, as it has started disappearing underneath tattle tape backing, chopped up bits of label and processing notes. A major part of the SSL work ethic is re-using everything that can possibly be re-used. You therefore have to have a long hard think before throwing anything into the recycling bin.

 

16:30 – 17:30

Projects. I am working on a number of projects currently. As part of the Technical Services team, I am ‘weeding’ books that need to be withdrawn or sent to the BSF, and converting hardly used Short Loans and Library Use Only material into Normal Loan. I am also working on another project to increase the accessibility of our resources by converting thousands of short loans into normal loans.

 

17:30

Home!

 

 

A Day in the Life (St Antony’s College Library)

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*Posted on behalf of Eleanor Winterbottom, the Library Apprentice at St Antony’s College Library*

Thursday 10th March 2022

Although I may not be a graduate library trainee, as a library apprentice my average working day is very similar to the graduate trainees in terms of structure and daily tasks. However, if you have read the other “Day-in-the-life” blogs you will understand by now that every college in Oxford is unique in its own little ways, and each library has its own system and “house-rules” that it applies in practice. Here is a day in my life as an apprentice library assistant at St Antony’s College.

9:00 – 9:30

St Antony’s College Library is open 24/7, so Aimee (the Librarian) and I never have to really “open-up” the library in the mornings. Usually when I arrive by 9:00 there are already some eager readers sat at their desks! I do though have a list of preparatory tasks that I complete each morning. If I am in before Aimee I will turn on the lights in the library office and open the blinds, before making my way down to the basement stacks to make sure the lights are all working and that no one has gotten themselves stuck between the book stacks (luckily this hasn’t happened on my rounds yet!) I will then walk the library and the Gulbenkian Reading Room (a study space which is also open 24/7), making sure there is enough ventilation, tidying desks and chairs and checking that there are no personal belongings left lying around, before collecting any books from the returns box. When Aimee arrives I will have a chat with her about any meetings, events or visitors we have scheduled during the day, before heading to my desk in the main reading room and writing myself a to-do list.

9:30 – 10:30

The first tasks that I do on any given working day is check and action any emails and go through the daily holdings report to see if any books have been requested by readers. There are no new holdings requests today, so I don’t need to worry about that. I then process all the returns, flicking through each book to check for bookmarks and put them on the trolley ready for shelving. Today is the due date for books currently out on loan so I have a lot to get through!

Four shelves of the New Book display, with books placed on stands so that you can see the front covers
The New Books display

10:30 – 11:30

Once I’ve finished the returns I get cracking on with any other tasks that need doing. Today I have a small pile of new books leftover from the day before that need to be processed, so I attach them to the correct bibliographic records on Aleph, choose an appropriate Library of Congress class mark for them (which can take a while when every library classifies something differently!) and stamp them before adding a spine label and putting them on the shelving trolley, while adding a couple to our New Books Display. The maps of the college that we have on the issue desk are a bit crumpled and one has some water damage, so I recycle them and replace them with new ones, and I remove any out of date posters and notices from the notice board.

11:30 – 12:30

Two sets of six shelves, filled with the library literature collection
The literature collection

I am usually working on a long-term project that I do alongside my daily tasks. My current project is going through the library’s literature section and adding them to the library catalogue. This section has not been a priority in the past, as literature is not really a subject covered at St Antony’s, but it would still be useful for the collection to be on the catalogue so that the students are aware it is there if they are interested. While working on this project we receive an email from the KB Chen China Centre Library, who are interested in acquiring some of our journals that are up for donation. The project I completed in Michaelmas term was going through all of our physical journals and periodicals and checking to see which ones are fully available online and in other libraries, so that we can consider donating them to make space for resources that are more likely to be of use to our students. I head down to the basement stacks to select the requested journals and email the CCL to let them know I will bring them round in the afternoon.

12:30 – 13:30

Lunch time! St Antony’s has a communal dining hall so staff, students, fellows and faculty all sit together. The noise is a strangely refreshing break from the quietness of the library, and it’s a good chance to catch up with colleagues over a plate of delicious hot food. As St Antony’s is a particularly international college the food reflects this, and we are lucky to get a choice between three hot meals of varying cuisine, sides, salad and fresh fruit! Before heading back to the library I pop into the lodge to check if any post has been delivered. No book deliveries today, but we do have some new journals that will need to go on display.

13:30 – 14:30

After lunch I head over to the KB Chen China Centre Library with the requested journals. This is my first time visiting this particular Bodleian library, so Minh, the librarian, kindly gives me a guided tour! When I return to St Antony’s I process the new journals and add them to the display in the main reading room. We insert pink slips into the latest edition, asking people to note when they use the journals so we can collect the data for our statistics. I take the opportunity to check if any new usages have been added and add the data to the statistics.

A view of the library from behind the desk, which shows a collection of newspapers, a roll of barcodes, stamps and ink pads, the computer and the library shelves in the background
My desk in the main reading room

14:30 – 17:00

As there are no new books to be processed and it is a quiet afternoon, I spend the last couple of hours of my shift doing work for my apprenticeship. This involves a number of different things, including working on my written assignments, writing up my reflective logs on my progress and what I have learnt so far, as well as reading and research. I do this at my desk in the main reading room, so I am always juggling this with enquiries from readers who need help with printing, finding specific texts or greeting and having a quick chat with our regulars! At 5pm my work day is finished, and I pack up my desk, say goodbye to Aimee (who always works later than she should!) and head home. I’m looking forward to tomorrow where I will be meeting the graduate trainees after work at G&D’s for ice-cream!

A Day in the Life (Bodleian Law Library)

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Looking down on the law library's main reading room - there are rows of large wooden desks, with bookshelves in the background. This photo was taken earlier in the year, so some areas are blocked off with red and white tape due to Covid restrictions.

If you’re familiar with this blog, you’ve probably gathered by now that there are two Law trainees. Law is a large library, with a team working in three subsections: Academic Services (where Josie is based), Information Resources (where Jess is based), and Official Papers (technically a separate collection housed within the library, with a small team of its own). Although we share some tasks and both spend time out on the enquiry desk, there are some general differences between the two positions – the IR trainee is generally surrounded by various stages of book processing, while the AS trainee shares an office with the librarians responsible for delivering the LRMSP, an undergraduate legal research course. With that in mind, here are two days in the life at the LawBod!

8.45

Josie: I arrive at the library and make my way up to my office on the second floor, opening any windows I pass along the way. Depending on who’s already here, there may be some reshelving to do as well – although restrictions have eased a lot since the start of our traineeship, we still have some variable working patterns going on, so the division of opening-up duties changes from day to day.

Jess: I pack my things away in my locker, hanging up my coat and heading out to open some of the Law Library’s many windows. I keep an eye out for any shelving before heading up (or down) to the Information Resources office.

9.00

Josie: The first thing I do after catching up on emails and messages is check the scan request queues. Although I’m not involved in triaging requests for the library, I do a lot of the scanning, so it’s useful to know if much will come my way later in the day. Beyond this point, the shape of my day is largely determined by my fluctuating ability to sit still and focus on spreadsheets. I really appreciate being able to manage my own time here – I work on a variety of long-term projects, so once I’ve accounted for things like meetings and desk shifts, I can play it by ear and go wherever I’ll be most productive for the next while.

Jess: I clear any new emails and Teams messages, checking to see how much is on each of the shelves in the WIP (work-in-progress) room I have responsibility for, as well as the enquiry desk rota, before drawing up a schedule of tasks for the day.

9.10

Josie: I’m currently working through a trolley of jurisprudence books, part of our ongoing reclassification project. This is a good task to fill an hour or so, as there’s only so much legal philosophy I can google or translate my way through before everything starts turning to word soup.

Jess: Schedule in hand, I start the day by gathering up any books ready for labelling on the designated shelf. We have two different labels types, depending on whether a book is likely to be reclassified in the somewhat near future (more on that later) or not. I fill in the shelfmarks for the new books before printing two sheets of labels. I affix each new label to the relevant spine or the front cover if a shelfmark is particularly long (looking at you EuroComm) or a book is particularly short. Any shelfmark we expect to be correct for some time has a label protector placed over it to keep it legible for years of readers to come. These then go on yet another shelf where someone from Academic Services checks them in order to catch the (hopefully occasional) errors that seep in despite my best efforts. They are then shelved for our readers to find.

10.00

Josie: Every Monday the AS staff have a short meeting over Teams, catching everyone up on the past week’s activities and giving a heads-up for any upcoming absences or unusual occurrences. I take minutes for these and upload them to the Teams channel shortly afterwards. Once a month, I go straight from this to taking minutes for the Bodleian’s ORLO Operations Group meeting, which lasts through to lunchtime and involves many more acronyms. (ORLO = Oxford Reading Lists Online, interactive reading lists which link directly to access points for online resources). 

Jess: We usually have the Law Library staff meeting on a Thursday, where Helen Garner – the fabled Law Librarian – updates us on all the relevant changes and goings-on in both our own library and the Bodleian at large. This year, there has been plenty of information about the various changing COVID procedures and restrictions as well as questions around journals, online resources, and more. 

10.45

Josie: I keep working on the jurisprudence books for now, as I’ll be going over my suggested new shelf marks with the IR librarian tomorrow. However, being part of AS means that it’s not unusual for someone to drop by the office or message me on Teams with a quick job to do instead – getting ahead on admin for next term’s LRMSP sessions, fixing glitchy columns in the tea room budget spreadsheet, and testing out new hiring or induction materials are all part of a day’s work.

Jess: A quick stop for tea and a book. At present, I’m (very happily) weighed down with the tome that is Shamsur Rahman Faruqi’s The Mirror of Beauty. 

11.05

The Bookeye scanner and a computer sit on a wooden desk. There is a large journal resting on the scanner, and a scanned image on the computer screen.
The Bookeye scanner (and an unusually large journal)

Josie: There are few scan requests ready and waiting, so I make a note of the details and go searching for books. Most issues get ironed out by the triage team, but a little detective work is occasionally needed – I once spent most of a desk shift using an incomplete citation to track down a Scottish law report from 1807!

We’re lucky to have a high-tech Bookeye scanner, which can split double pages, crop messy edges, and automatically makes files OCR accessible. Once the scans are done, I use a PDF editor to double-check for missing pages and reduce the file size, then fill in our record of completed scans and add the file to our repository in case it’s requested again. When the same scan is requested by multiple people, it’s often related to a particular course, so it’s useful to already have a good-quality scan that can be sent out again or potentially go straight onto ORLO or LB4S (LawBod 4 Students – more on that later).

Jess: I take an hour to complete various smaller tasks that need managing around the office. I stamp, add security, and label any books that have arrived via purchase or donation – often much smaller than our copyright deliveries. I print some new bookplates for our generous series of donations from the Supreme Court of Korea, which have their own unique design and are possibly the only thing I print in colour. I check up on the status of books that have not arrived from previous copyright deliveries, making sure they are still on their way to us and haven’t ended up at the BSF. I fix any incorrect labels, and make new ones for books that have been spotted with theirs peeled off. 

12.00

Josie: I’ll be on desk at one, so – depending on how long the scans take, and how many times the PDF editor crashes in the process – I aim to take my lunch at around noon. It’s easy to spend the whole day inside, so I’m making more of an effort to take my book and lunch outside as the weather improves.

Jess: Since Thursday is Josie’s day at the SBS, I gather up the day’s scan requests so far to avoid them returning to a large stack.

1.00

Josie: Time for my desk shift! Most enquiries tend to be about navigating the library, although as we’re currently in a vacation period, the number of students in search of PCAS machines and reading list materials has somewhat decreased. I give a quick summary of the library’s layout to a visiting researcher, direct someone asking about Ted Hughes across the building to the English Faculty Library, and take another reader down to the ground floor to help them find a report in the Official Papers collection.

Jess: Thursday afternoons often hold cataloguing lessons. I’m learning to create basic records for a variety of items, known as Minimal Level Records. These records contain key information about the item’s title, author, publisher etc., allowing it to be located by any reader looking specifically for that item, or items by that author, but miss a lot of the detail in a full record (such as Library of Congress subjects) that are helpful for resource discovery when researching. However, they are an ideal place to start learning to catalogue! I create new records for a small stack of Official Papers material; going through the first few record creations in detail with Tanya before leaving me to finish the rest of the stack without supervision to check for errors later (is this homework?). 

2.00

Josie: Between enquiries, my usual desk task is an LB4S checking project. Since it’s important that law students learn to find their own resources, a lot of the undergraduate courses don’t get ORLO lists. However, we still need a way to supply digitised versions of required readings that aren’t widely accessible (the Law Quarterly Review, for example, has a 35-year gap in its online provision), so there’s a designated LB4S section on each course’s Canvas site. Since it’s been a chaotic couple of years for online resource provision, my job is to work through each course and make sure that everything is in order on the copyright side of things, as well as generally tidying up the pages and checking for any resources that have become available online since being uploaded.

A kickstool and trolley filled with books sits between aisles of rolling shelving. Some of the shelves are full, some are empty.
Moving books in the rolling stacks

Jess: A late lunch today, as I find that keeps my energy up for my evening shift. I occasionally drop by the EFL, just a staircase away, in order to exchange my poetry reads. 

3.00

Josie: After desk, I take a tea break and check the post room for blue BSF crates before deciding how to spend the afternoon. It’s been a few days since I got round to one of my other ongoing tasks, so I find an empty trolley on the ground floor and start moving some books. As a legal deposit library, we keep all the up-to-date publications on the upper floors, but also hoard superseded editions and early journals down in the rolling stacks. Inevitably, there are some overcrowding issues, so we’re working through a several-step plan to get what space we have into a more useful location. There’s something very satisfying about closing up the shelf space left for a report series we haven’t received in hard copy since the mid-2010s, but metal shelving is unforgiving of clumsiness – the clanging occasionally attracts a lost reader.

A trolley full of new Law books. Each book has a different-coloured paper slip inserted.
VBD books, ready to be processed

Jess: Usually by this point of the day, the post has arrived! The ‘Virtual Book Display’ is a list of all the legal deposit books the Bodleian has received that week, and Felicity, head of all things in Information Resources, selects the law-relevant titles that then arrive on a Thursday. I record which ones have arrived using a traffic light system on my spreadsheet, having a weekly check of any missing titles to see if they have found their way to another library or the BSF – and sometimes the shelves! Each book receives stamps and security measures before being placed on the designated VBD shelf where the library’s cataloguers – Tanya and Rebecca – pick them up. Whilst the size of this delivery varies week-on-week, it’s usually sizeable – I often process several hundred books a term!

4.30

Josie: Law books tend to be heavy, so I’m careful to leave off the book moving before overdoing it. For the last part of the day, I head back to the office and clear up any leftover tasks – shelving in the main reading room, another scan or two, or working on a blog post like this one.

Jess: Break time! I devour a quick chapter of my book and a fortifying snack. 

4.50

Jess: I tie up any loose ends at my desk before prepping my trolley for my evening desk shift.

5.00

Josie: Once a week I stay on for an evening shift, but not today! I finish off whatever I’m currently working on, make a quick note of anything I ought to prioritise tomorrow, then sign off for the day and head home.

Jess: Late shifts are shared out between members of library staff, and Thursday is my anointed day. There are often fewer reader enquiries at this hour, so I head to the Jurisprudence section to pick up the thirty-two titles on my sheet. My temporary stealing of books from the shelves is part of the MOYS reclassification project – the library is changing over from its old shelfmark style to a new one (MOYS, hence the name) which is a Library of Congress style system designed specifically for law books. I check over tables of contents, introductions, and skim over a few chapters to get a sense of which shelfmark is right, going outside of jurisprudence where needed – and if a book is particularly opaque, I’ll dig further. The library has many foreign language holdings, so I also have a bookstand at the ready to use DeepL to supplement my language skills –French, German, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese are most common, with some surprises! I keep a running Word document with various keywords in an attempt to improve my language skills and I like to think I am starting to get a foothold in my incredibly specific vocabulary – I cannot tell you what the verb for ‘to eat’ is in German, but I can recognise the word for ‘constitution’ about 50% of the time…

7.00

Jess: Time to go home! As my longest day of the week, I usually reward myself with pizza – and get my hours back in exchange by way of an early 3PM finish on Tuesdays.

A page of of circular test stamps, with the words 'Bodleian Law Library', various dates from September 2021, and a letter P for Purchased Copy in the centre,

 

A Day in the Life (Pembroke College Library)

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A Day in the life

Today is a Thursday and it’s Easter vacation and we only have a few readers in.

This means the librarian and I can tackle projects which we cannot do during term time, such as devising weeding strategies for overcrowded subject sections, addressing inclusivity in our collections, reclassifying, collection stocktakes, special collections research etc.

Hopefully this day in the life offers a glimpse into the variety that comes with being a college trainee, and also what trainees can get up to in vacation time since this is often not mentioned on the blog.

8.25 am

Arrive at Pembroke. I say hello to the porters and pass by the bust of William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, who also stands guard in the Bodleian’s quad. Escaping William Herbert, I walk through Old Quad and to the library. I set up base camp for the day in my office which I share with Laura, the college librarian. On Thursdays and Fridays, I say hello to the college archivist who lives next door in the library building. Since, Thursday is today, I say hello to the archivist.

William Herbert was lovingly restored by our archivist  Photo credit: Pembroke College, University of Oxford

8.30am – My day starts

8.30 – 8:40am

I start by looking at my emails (personal and library inbox) and the shared library and archives outlook calendar. We have a conservator visiting in the afternoon. I answer emails and flag complex emails which require more thought, such as missing book claims or special collections queries.

If today were a Friday, I would gather the temperature and humidity data from the Tiny Tag data loggers that are placed in our rare books room and stack. I would download their data and record them in a folder and then analyse trends in temperature and humidity.

8:40 – 8:55am

I tidy the reservations shelf and download an Aleph recalls report and update circulation. I refill the library’s printer.

8:55-9:30am

Shelving …

Depending on the time of term, I can walk into the library met by mountains of books, so I time manage accordingly.

Today, I am met by only a fair few books. I check in these books on Aleph and place them aside to shelve immediately after.

It is good to get shelving done before the majority of students arrive. Although, it’s important to remember that shelving is a continuous task and to not let it dictate your working day. As I shelve, I am often met by stray books which I re-shelve.

9:30-10:30am

I check the library’s pigeon hole for post and deliveries. Two boxes stare at me. This means one thing – book deliveries, and processing. This can be a lengthy process.

I attempt to open the parcels neatly, I fail. I discard a now tattered cardboard box in the recycling bin. I cross reference these books with our budget spreadsheet. I check to see if any of the book deliveries are requests and will process these books first. This often leads to mysterious cataloguing encounters which are best worked through with coffee. Today, however, I only have a few requested books to process, some for fellows and some for students.

One requested book is about the symbolism of the colour green in art history. As an art history graduate, I am obviously distracted by the book. But, I resist from reading and process promptly and inform the student that it is ready for borrowing. I place the book on our reservations shelf.

I update the budget and file the delivery invoices.

10.30 -11.00am

Planning the afternoon, ahead!

Completing the essential library duties, and because it is vacation time, I now have freedom to plan my day in accordance to my individual trainee project and ongoing projects be this: stocktakes, collections management & development, reclassification, preparing displays etc. Often, I reserve afternoons to do my homework for the Bodleian Cataloguer training.

I often plan to do a little task of my trainee project every few days. This approach also works well with large projects.

11.00-11.40am … John Hall

Photo credit: Pembroke College, University of Oxford

Planning project work, I suddenly remember seeing a portrait in college of the individual that my trainee project is revolved around. It’s almost as if the portrait haunts me.

I then find the portrait of John Hall on Art UK. Hall’s serious stare reminds me to crack on exploring his collection. I don’t argue, and dutifully contemplate my trainee project.

My trainee project sees me investigate and manage the Right Reverend John Hall’s (Bishop of Bristol and Master of Pembroke, 1664–1710) book collection. The collection has not been looked at in decades, so I am the lucky person to manage and research it!

At the beginning of Hilary Term, I started to ask myself: In our stack, do we have the Hall collection that our card catalogues from the 1970s recall that we have, and do we have what John Hall’s 1709 catalogue records? Also, some of Hall’s book have remnants of a chain which makes me question whether Pembroke once had a chained library. I contemplate these questions. Getting to know Hall is fun, he is an interesting character who paid for the completion of Old Quad and his lodgings, which is now the Samuel Johnson Building. The cobbles on Pembroke Square still show the path from the front door of Hall’s Lodgings to St Aldates church. This path is smoother than the cobbles to

ensure that Hall didn’t trip whilst walking to church.

I evaluate the progress I have made so far, asking how far I have come to solve these questions, whilst examining, with fresh eyes, my excel database that I have made, and what I am to do with this moving forwards.

11.40-11.55am

A fellow comes by the office with their new book. It’s about interpreters in 16th century China and relationships between China and Britain. I then answer emails.

12.00-1.00pm

Lunch in hall! A nice moment to eat with the entire college staff across all departments.

1.00-3.00pm … Special collections! Rare books, Samuel Johnson, French clocks and knife boxes 

It’s Easter vacation and the few readers we had in the morning have now trickled out. In this afternoon of quietness, I assist the librarian and archivist with our special collections. Typically afternoons during term would consist of more shelving, book processing and be mostly reader services orientated. However, today is rather different.

I help the librarian with attempting to identify strange glitter-like markings which we find in one of our rare books. Is it recent graffiti, or ink that has changed colour over time? New College Notes 10 (2018), no. 6 helps us to figure out what is at play. It turns out we unexpectedly found traces of ‘pounce’. (I will let you read New College’s brilliant article to discover what pounce is). I later assist Amanda, the archivist, to photograph the conditions of Samuel Johnson’s writing desk, a French late 19th century Louis XV style clock and George III mahogany and tulipwood banded knife boxes. The furniture conservator arrives and I have a nice chat with them about his work. I worked with the Furniture History Society during my master’s, so it’s fun to be able to apply what I learnt during that time.

A highlight of my traineeship has been understanding and exploring what collections work is, and can be.

3:00-3.15pm

I tidy my office and sort out the towering stacks of old journals. They are economics and biology journals, but the odd British history journal catches my eye.

In the spirit of tidying, I then organise a pile of donations. I give them a new home, a.k.a one of my empty shelves. This donation consists of a bunch of Lord of the Rings, and Middle Earth related books. I then draw Gandalf to accompany their new home, next to my desk.

“You shall not pass!”: Gandalf protecting the donation

Earlier on in Hilary, I showcased our collection of Tolkien letters to Sophie, the trainee at the EFL. It’s always nice to find yourself working with Tolkien related material.

3.15-3.30pm

This term, I have been handed the reigns of purchasing acquisitions. I order a list of requested books for students and fellows. I update the budget accordingly.

3.30-3.45pm … I set a test for myself – “can I find these objects?”

In moments of peace, which is a world away from the busy Michaelmas term, I sometimes reserve a small moment of the week to have a general explore of the stack.

This may seem an odd thing to do, but I find that practising the ability to locate objects deep down in stacks, not only familiarises myself with Pembroke’s collections (which is handy for enquiries) but it makes me more efficient at collections work. After all, being able to locate objects and information is a skill. Plus, it’s fun!

I scan through the special collection catalogues. I jot down interesting rare books and objects making note of their classification and then head down to the stack to find them. I once found a 19th century judge’s wig.

Today, I locate a collection of military medals, including an OBE awarded to a “college servant”; his medal is paired with “his licence to occupy a College room”. I jot down his name to find in The Gazette (this is where the king’s/queen’s New Year and Birthday honours lists are published) to research at a later date.

3.45-4.35pm

I read the new module of my cataloguing training and take notes. I plan how to approach the practical elements which I will do tomorrow. I find cataloguing rewarding work – making information discoverable and accessible is hugely fulfilling.

4.35-5.00pm

I finish my remaining admin. There are no new books to shelve, so I catch up with my emails. I then do a final sweep of the reading rooms and tidy up. I jot down tasks to do tomorrow.

5.00pm

Home time!

 

 

 

 

A Day in the Life (Sackler Library)

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The outside of the Sackler Library

The Sackler Library is a five-floor tall hub for multiple humanities subjects: archaeology and the ancient world, art and architectural history. It is also known as one of the principal research libraries within the Bodleian family. In other words, if you work here, there is always something to do!

Trainee life is incredibly varied – I attend weekly training sessions with my cohort, swap libraries with my fellow Taylorian counterpart, or work on my project with the library’s former Art & Architecture Librarian. However, for this ‘Day in the Life’, I will be documenting a more typical day at the library and the important tasks that keep it functioning.

8:45 – Arrival

I arrive at the Sackler Library after – very thankfully – a walk through Oxford in the sunshine! On my way in, I’ll check our book display table and make sure everything is neat and presentable. Once I’ve settled down at my desk, I will sign in on teams and check any emails which have come through. Generally, I will set some rough objectives for the day, and plan how to fit these in alongside my duties. Sometimes I’ll check in with my colleagues, which is the best way to start the day.

9:00 – Book processing and classifying

I first decide to look over some “problem books” set aside by my colleagues during processing. This normally means there is an issue with their ALEPH record (ALEPH is the library’s current cataloguing system: it contains information about the book’s contents and how it might be stored in a library). For example, occasionally these books will be missing a shelfmark, be allocated to an incorrect floor, or the physical book will be labelled differently to its online record.

At the Sackler, we have a range of shelfmarks; there are several in-house systems, as well as the more common Library of Congress Classification which marks most of our Art & Architecture books. Given this mix, it’s very important to double check books when they arrive here. Today I was looking at books with incorrect shelfmarks.

A taster of some of the current shelfmarks held in the Sackler Library (March 2022)

One fun thing about being the Sackler trainee is that I also get to work once a week at the Nizami Ganjavi Library (NGL), just down the road from the Sackler. Here, we’ve been working on a big reclassification project. My supervisor there has been kind enough to teach me how to either find, or manually work out, Library of Congress shelfmarks. This is something which – after six months of library work – brings me a lot of satisfaction and joy. It’s a bit like learning a new language or understanding a code. This means I can identify LCC shelfmarks, and add them to our Sackler books when they are missing!

Once I had updated the records on ALEPH to have the correct shelfmark, I then print new labels and write the new code inside. Some of the books are reader requests, so I’ll get in touch and let them know that they are ready for their consultation. The others are placed on a shelf, ready to go on our New Book Display every Monday. Here, readers can explore new titles in the Library, which they may not otherwise think of consulting.

Our New Book Display for Art and Architecture books

9:30 – Lapse list

Next, I move on to the lapse list. These are BSF (offsite book storage facility) books with expired loans, so they need scanning through ALEPH (which also, handily, is our circulation system) and packed up in crates. The Sackler Library gets a lot of books from the BSF, probably because of the library’s size and how central it is. Often I’ll listen to a podcast whilst I work through this.

10:00 – Morning break

Break time! This morning I pop to the staff room and make a coffee. For me, its really important to take a break from my desk to give my mind space to focus on something different.

10:20 – Post

Donations sent through the post, with a donations flag at the top

One of my trainee duties is looking at the library’s post. We get a range of things sent to us, from journals to donated books. Today I look at my favourite part, our donations: for example, books sent to us from Art Galleries which might be added to our collections.

Once I have unboxed them, I check if books are held at either the Sackler or Bodleian library, or we have a legal deposit copy. This can take some time as I often need to translate titles to get more information – and it’s easy to get engrossed looking at some of the art books’ beautiful images! Once I’ve looked at whether there are other copies of the book, I fill out a ‘donations flag’. These books then need to go to the relevant subject librarian, who will decide what to do with them next.

11:15 – Long office

Once I have filled out all the donation information, I take the post upstairs to the Sackler’s ‘long office’. This is where the subject librarian shelves are held. With the help of our little ladder (indeed, working in libraries is a fast cure for any fear of heights you might have), I place the books accordingly, and then pick up more post on my way down to look at over the next few days.

11:30 – Problem-solving

Once I have returned to my office desk, I meet with our senior library assistant to discuss what to do with donations which are less relevant to the Sackler’s subject areas. I email relevant libraries which the books may be of interest to, and write out a rough plan for the rest of the afternoon.

Another donation from the post

12:00 – Lunch

For lunch, I always go outside to stretch my legs. The Sackler is in the centre of Oxford, so I am never without beautiful walks and things to see. Sometimes, I’ll meet my friends for coffee – Saint Michael’s Street down the road is home to some of the best cafés, which is a bonus of the Sackler’s location!

New journals at the Sackler Library

13:00 – Journals

Whilst I wait for the afternoon’s delivery, I process new journals. As I mentioned, the Sackler holds a variety of subjects. This means we hold a lot of journals, which each need checking when they arrive. Like the books, I check ALEPH records , label those which are confined, and write the shelfmark on our special journal stickers.

Delivery crates from the Book Storage Facility (BSF)

13:30- BSF Delivery

The delivery arrives, stacked five crates high. This contains books from the Bodleian’s offsite storage facility, which readers can order to consult within the Sackler Library. Each book needs to be scanned through, and given a flag with the conditions of the loan on them. Given the size of the day’s delivery (a few inches shorter than your average library assistant), this takes some time. I pop on another podcast to have on in the background, and get to work. Once the books are scanned in, they go on our ‘self collect shelves’ for readers to find.

After this, I tidy up the workroom arrange new books to be processed for the following day.

14:40 – Afternoon break

Coffee time again before my desk shift for the rest of the day.

15:00 – Desk duty

At the Sackler Library issue desk, we circulate books and answer reader enquiries. Sometimes readers struggle to find books, have questions about their hold requests, or need their Bod card registering. For the first, I am always happy to help; the Sackler reading rooms are circular, which makes it trickier to navigate if you don’t know the library well. It definitely took me several weeks to get used to the set-up!

The Issue Desk is quieter at present, given that many readers have left Oxford for Easter break. I use my time to research books for future displays, create graphics for the Trainee twitter account, or process more journals. I like working on desk as it mixes tasks with reader interaction, providing a steady flow of library work for remaining afternoon.

The current Ukraine display at the Sackler Library which I have been working on

5:00 – End of the day

Home time! I hand over the desk to the evening team and head out. Springtime is upon us, and walking through Oxford in the setting sun is the best way to unwind from work.

[NB the Sackler Library has now been renamed to the Art, Archaeology and Ancient World Library]

A Day in the Life (Old Bodleian Library)

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As the trainee for the Old Bodleian, I am privileged with the unique experience of working in one of the biggest, and most well-known, academic libraries in Oxford. With so many collections held within one library, navigating this beautiful building can prove complex, but it definitely makes my role interesting!

A view of the entrance, featuring a statue of the Earl of Pembroke
The main entrance into the Old Bodleian Library

Working as part of a relatively small team in such a large library, I am typically based across multiple reading rooms within a single day, which allows me to complete a variety of different library tasks. This academic year, the Old Bodleian and the Radcliffe Camera have started to merge duties (as we work within one complex), so a lot of roles are shared across the two libraries. To coordinate these responsibilities and work cohesively as a team, our work day is organised by a site wide rota, which I find hugely beneficial.

Today I am based solely in the Old Bodleian side of the building, but for insight into some of my duties in the Radcliffe Camera (namely work on the reception desk, circulation desk and scanning), take a look at this blog post from the History Faculty trainee: A Day in the Life (History Faculty Library) | Oxford Libraries Graduate Trainees.

8:42 – Arrive and open up

I arrive at the Old Bodleian, lock my bike up and head in to start opening up my designated reading room. Everyone is responsible for preparing a specific room in the morning, which changes on a weekly basis. This morning I am opening up the Upper Reading Room, which involves opening the windows, switching on the computers and PCAS (Printing, Copying and Scanning) machine, spacing out the ladders evenly around the room, shelving material from the previous day and completing the lapse list.

3 piles of 4 blue book totes
Transit boxes filled and ready to be collected

The lapse list is an automated list of all the books due to be returned to their permanent location at the offsite storage facility. In the morning, we print off the list and then navigate the Self-Collect bays, collecting overdue items and piling them on to a trolley to be scanned. Once all the books have been collected, we scan them into Aleph (our internal circulation system), which removes the item from the reader’s account and marks the item as in transit.

We then send the trolleys of in transit books down in the lift to the delivery room, to be packaged into transit boxes by another member of staff.

9:00 – Main Enquiry Desk

As readers start to arrive, I am situated at the Main Enquiry Desk, in the Lower Reading Room. My role at this desk is to answer enquiries in person, by phone and via email. The Main Enquiry Desk is aptly named, as we receive all enquiries concerning the Bodleian Libraries, which can lead to some interesting and complex questions. Enquiries on the phone/by email can range from requesting guidance on how to gain admission to the library, suggestions of resources for purchase, issues with accessing SOLO and requests for help to navigate online databases, all the way through to tracking down obscure titles and ordering material in advance of a visit. It feels extremely satisfying to resolve an issue, though it is sometimes best to forward the email on to a more informed department, or ask a colleague for their opinion. In person, enquiries typically revolve around navigation (finding and ordering books, locating open shelf material, using the self-collect bays), or technical issues (resetting passwords, using PCAS machines, connecting to the WiFi).

The Main Enquiry Desk in the left hand corner, with a view of the reference shelves, computers and self collect bays
The Main Enquiry Desk in the Reference Room

Alongside answering enquiries, this morning I am scheduled to complete Library Triaging, which I can complete at my desk and is a crucial part of the Scan and Deliver service offered by the Bodleian Libraries. Scan requests are first sorted by a Central Triage team member, who checks that the request is within copyright and not available elsewhere, before sending the request through to the specific library that holds a copy of the book. The Library Triage team member (my role today) then checks to ensure that their library is able to fulfil the request, before sending the request into the scanning queue. Although this process sounds complicated, it allows requests to be streamlined and actioned as quickly as possible.

 

10:10 – Break

For my morning break, I typically head down to the Reader Common Room, where I can sit and read my book, or complete my Duolingo learning for the day!

 

Three shelves of books in the Interlibrary Loan cupboard
The Interlibrary Loan cupboard

10:30 – Main Enquiry Desk

En route back to the desk, I check the noticeboards in the stairways. I am responsible for keeping them up-to-date and organised, so once a week I make sure to remove old posters and add new notices, as required.

Back at the desk, I continue to respond to enquiries in the inbox, sort out Library Scan and Deliver requests and resolve reader issues. Today, we have a larger number of Interlibrary Loans than usual, so I spend some time organising the cupboard so that items are easy to locate. As these books are on loan to us from another academic institution, we take extra care to ensure that these materials are looked after, and that readers are aware of the restrictions associated with consulting these items.

When the desk is quieter, I am able to work on one of my background tasks. Today I am using some rare free time to work on updating the library directory, which allows us to contact relevant individuals and departments as required. It is important that this list is kept up to date, to reflect current departmental breakdowns.

 

The reception desk
The reception desk

12:00 – Proscholium

My last shift before lunch is on the North Proscholium. Essentially a fancy word for reception area, this task involves sitting at the front desk and greeting people as they enter the library. I always enjoy the opportunity to interact with readers, and this is often the stage where you find students looking slightly lost, so it is a good time to reassure them that the Bod isn’t quite as intimidating as it first seems!

 

13:00 – Lunch

Oxford city centre is an excellent location for lunch, with a multitude of cafes and tea shops to peruse. Typically, I will bring my own lunch and find a pretty spot to sit in (slightly challenging during the winter months when it is tempting to stay inside), however once a week, the History Faculty trainee and I meet up to try out one of the cafes that we have spotted. A favourite haunt is the Covered Market, conveniently located and sporting a variety of delicious cuisines.

 

14:00 – Book Delivery

Delivery van parked in the Old School Quad, pulled up to the delivery bay
Delivery van parked in the Old School Quad

In the afternoon, the book delivery van arrives from the BSF, bringing all of the requested items from offsite storage. In order to prepare for its arrival, I pick up the gate key from security and head to the delivery room to put on my hi-vis jacket. After finding my colleague, we head onto Catte Street to meet the delivery van and lead them into Radcliffe Square. We unload and reload the books for the Radcliffe Camera first, before returning to the Old Bodleian to guide the van into the Old School Quad (making sure to avoid the tourists)! The Old Bodleian receives about 65% of the books ordered from the BSF (Book Storage Facility), so we are kept very busy, with between ten and twenty boxes of books to process per delivery. Once all the books have been scanned into Aleph and assigned to the reader, we organise the books alphabetically on the trolley and send them up in the lift to be placed on the Self-Collect bays, ready for the readers to consult.

 

15:10 – Break

I typically take my afternoon break back in the common room, or if I’m feeling particularly adventurous, a trip over to Blackwell’s to browse the latest additions (the staff discount doesn’t hurt)!

A view down the length of the Upper Reading Room, including the shelves, desks, computers and beautiful pink ceiling
Upper Reading Room

 

15:30 – URR and off desk tasks

To end the afternoon, I am based back in the Upper Reading Room. As well as providing general help to readers, typical tasks carried out in this space include processing new books and periodicals, carrying out stock checks, supporting readers with tech/PCAS issues, the provision of equipment, and helping with the navigation of collections. When I am not scheduled for anything specific, I tend to use this time to complete my own library projects. As it is not too busy today, and my colleagues are happy for me to remove myself from the Reading Room, I head down to the Lower Gladstone Link, to spend time relabelling the high demand collection, which I find extremely therapeutic after a busy day.

 

17:00 – Finish up and head home

My work day finishes at 5pm, but there is no need for a closing routine as the Old Bodleian Library is open till 9pm, so I hand off to the evening team and get ready to head home … or to meet the trainees for some much-needed ice cream!