2024 Trainee Showcase: Part 1

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).

A screenshot of the beginning of a blog post, displaying the title, the first paragraph of the text, and a picture of the Northern Irish parliament buildings at Stormont.
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.

Six AI generated images depicting a cat reading a book, ants climbing a bookshelf, a cartoon octopus, a cat, a cuckoo clock, and a landscape.
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.

Image of shelves containing wellbeing and light-reading books.
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.

An image of a smiling woman in a pink dress stood next to a large poster decorated with fantastical creatures.
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.

Celebrating LGBT+ History Month at the Bodleian Libraries

February is LGBT+ History Month. Across the Bodleian and college libraries, the Graduate Trainees have been hard at work creating displays that showcase a wide array of books which explore and celebrate LGBT+ history.

The Oxford Union Society Library

The Oxford Union Society’s LGBT+ History Month display explores LGBT+ history from across the world.

Homosexuality in ancient Greece is discussed through famous historical figures like Sappho, the romantic poet who is widely believed to have been lesbian (indeed, she lived on the Isle of Lesbos which is where the word “Lesbian” comes from),[1] and Ovid who wrote in his Art of Love that ‘a boy’s love appealed to me less’ – although this was later deliberately mistranslated as ‘a boy’s love appealed to me not at all’.[2] This censorship is not unusual, though amusingly some writers who translated Greek texts would translate the more risqué passages into Latin, thus counterintuitively highlighting the very sections they wanted obscured.[3]

Additionally, ancient Greek literature is used to explore LGBT history: Plato’s Symposium includes a brilliantly varied discussion of the origin of man in which Aristophanes, a comic, suggests that humans used to be two beings fused together, some male and female, others male and male and yet others female and female. These original humans were split in half by the angry gods and that is why we search for our “other half”.[4]

Transsexualism and homosexuality in various parts of Asia are also discussed:

  • In Mesopotamia, the deity of love and war, Ishtar, could be depicted as either male or female depending on what aspect of divinity the artist wished to portray. Ishtar’s male followers were even considered feminine and their sexual identity ‘in some way irregular’.[5]
  • The Hindu deity Lakshminarayan is a combination of two deities: male Vishnu and female Lakshmi. Similarly, the deity Ardhanarishvara represents the goddess Parvati and the god Shiva (who is romantic with Vishnu and even gives birth!).[6]
  • Japanese and Persian cultures are discussed through comparing Japanese samurai, who often had relationships with their pages and juniors and valued male love, with a similar practice in Persian royal courts.[7]

Modern British history, on the other hand, is filled with the poor treatment of LGBT+ people. In the 18th century homosexuality was a capital offence and the word “Molly” was used as a term of abuse towards flamboyant men.[8] In 1895, Oscar Wilde was tried for being gay and imprisoned in Reading gaol,[9] and in 1952 Alan Turing was discovered to be homosexual and charged with ‘gross indecency’ and chemically castrated.[10] Later in the 20th century, homosexuals were interrogated and discharged from the armed forces.[11] In fact, homosexuals were banned from British Armed Forces up until 2000.[12]

LGBT+ history is varied and fascinating. If you’d like to learn more about how it has been celebrated at the Oxford Union, check out the posts about the display for Transgender Awareness Week 2023 on Twitter and Facebook.

[1] R.B. Parkinson. 2013. A little gay history : desire and diversity across the world. 306.766 PAR

[2] Simon LeVay. 2012. Gay, straight, and the reason why : the science of sexual orientation. 155.3 LEV

[3] John Boswell. 1982. Christianity, social tolerance, and homosexuality : gay people in Western Europe from the beginning of the Christian era to the fourteenth century. 306.766 2 BOS

[4] Simon LeVay. 2012.

[5] R.B. Parkinson. 2013.

[6] Ibid

[7] Ibid

[8] Simon LeVay. 2012.

[9] Hugh David. 1997. On queer street : a social history of British homosexuality, 1895-1995. 306.766 DAV.

[10] Andrew Hodges. 1992. Alan Turing : the enigma. 510 HOD.

[11] Edmund Hall. 1995. We can’t even march straight : Homosexuality in the British Armed Forces. 306.766 094 1 HAL.

[12] Ministry of Defence, Cabinet Office, Office for Veterans’ Affairs, The Rt Hon Dr Andrew Murrison MP, The Rt Hon Johnny Mercer MP, The Rt Hon Rishi Sunak MP, and The Rt Hon Ben Wallace MP. 2023. ‘Government apologises to veterans for egregious historic LGBT policy in the Armed Forces: The PM and Defence Secretary apologise to LGBT personnel and veterans impacted by the historic ban.’ Gov.uk. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-apologises-to-veterans-for-egregious-historic-lgbt-policy-in-the-armed-forces

 Connie Hubbard

 

The Taylor Institution Library

A picture showing the Taylor Institution Library’s LGBT+ History Month display.

The study of LGBT+ history is a rapidly growing field in academia. This is reflected in Oxford University’s Centre for Gender, Identity and Subjectivity, as well as the LGBTQ+ History Faculty Network which runs fortnightly seminars and research sessions (@oulgbtqhistory). As for the Taylorian, we have a growing focus on gender and sexuality, not only on our ‘G.GEN’ marked shelves in the Main Reading Room and Research Collection but interspersed throughout our modern language and film collections.

While the official theme for this year’s LGBT+ History Month is ‘Medicine: Under the Scope’, we at the Taylor Library decided to stick to our subject specialisms of modern language and European history while putting together our display. As a result, we have two separate displays, a DVD display in the Teaching Collection and a display of our most recent acquisitions of LGBT+ history books in the Research Collection, to keep up to date with current scholarship.

The displays aim to present examples of the vast array of items the library has, from the history of coming out in Wales (A Little Gay History of Wales) and lesbian desire in nineteenth century Italy (Eccentricity and sameness: discourses on lesbianism and desire between women in Italy, 1860s-1930s), to histories of queerness in medieval French courts (Courtly and queer: deconstruction, desire, and medieval French literature) and anthologies of transgender historical scholarship. They are centred around uncovering lost historical narratives, whether that be because of scholarly neglect until relatively recently, or explicit attempts to erase the voices of those who did not “fit” within the heteronormative historical narrative. To recognise these voices, the display also contains the works of 19th and 20th century LGBT+ writers and artists. These include the likes of Renée Vivien, a lesbian Parisian poet whose childhood friend-turned-lover, Violet Shillito, is often evoked in her works such as this display’s A Crown of Violets. Another example you will find is that of Mário Cesariny, a surrealist artist and poet who left Portugal for the UK to escape persecution for his homosexuality. The Taylor recently held an exhibition of his work, which you can read about here. 

As for our DVD display, this aims to celebrate the impact and contribution of LGBT+ artists in cinema worldwide. The collection on display consists of films that were produced by LGBT+ directors and are a mix of early and more recent productions. From French historical drama such as Portrait of a Lady on Fire to South Korean thriller The Handmaiden, Swedish bildungsroman Show Me Love to Thai romance Tropical Malady, these award-winning productions all explore and celebrate the multifaceted experiences of those in the LGBT+ community. Overall, the displays reflect the purpose of LGBT+ History Month as a whole, to create safe and inclusive spaces for all readers and staff members at the Taylorian.

Reading List: Histoire de la Sexualité by Michel Foucault; The Transgender Studies Reader, ed. by Susan Stryker and Stephen Whittle; Queer Genealogies in Transnational Barcelona, by Natasha Tanna; Derivas Del (Mal)decir, by José Javier Maristany; Queer Square Mile: Queer Short Stories from Wales, ed. by Kirsti Bohata et al.; Un Été Avec Colette, by Antoine Compagnon; Pena Capital by Mário Cesariny; A Crown of Violets, by Renée Vivien (trans. by Samantha Pious); Lesbian Decadence, by Nicole G. Albert; Peripheral Desires: The German Discovery of Sex by Robert Deam Tobin; A Little Gay History of Wales by Daryle Leeworthy; Eccentricity and Sameness, by Charlotte Ross; Public City/Public Sex, by Andrew Israel Ross.

DVD List: Tropical Malady, directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul; Show Me Love, by Lukas Moodysson; Happy Together, by Wong Kar-Wai; Tomboy, by Céline Sciamma; A Fantastic Woman, by Sebastián Lelio; Portrait of a Lady on Fire, by Céline Sciamma; The Handmaiden, by Park Chan-Wook.

Clara Oxley

 

English Faculty Library

This year for LGBT+ month, the EFL has decided to do something a little bit different for its Book Display. Under the capable hands of Sophie, our Reader Services Senior Library Assistant, and in collaboration with the LGBTQ+ Campaign, the EFL put out a call to its readers to help co-curate this month’s display. Our readers were asked to submit their favourite queer book with a short blurb on why they chose it. Needless to say, we were blown away by the response!

10 people took the time out of their day to send in a suggestion, and it was wonderful to see how varied the responses were. Here’s a sample of some of the choices and a taste of why they were chosen:

  • Loveless by Alice Oseman, a contemporary coming-out novel with an aro-ace protagonist. In the anonymous nominee’s words, it’s about ‘the multitude of ways that love can be defined’
  • Ready to Catch him Should he Fall by Neil Bartlett which nominee Jasper described as ‘[capturing] the horror and grief of the 80s AIDS crisis’
  • And (of course) classics such as The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, in which nominee Isaac highlighted how ‘with the lens afforded to a modern queer man, the homosexual repression jumps off the page’.

A full reading list can be found below if you’re interested!

It has been fascinating to see how different the responses are, and to see what exactly our readers are reading in their own words – particularly as queer voices have been (and are still being) silenced. In the spirit of allowing people their own voice, I’ve asked Sophie to write a few words of her own about the display:

“The idea for the collaborative display between the English Faculty Library and the SU LGBTQ+ Campaign was first raised by student reps  earlier this academic year, who expressed an interest in the library having a display for Trans Awareness Week back in November (which we did!). The LGBT+ History Month display was a natural follow-up from this, and couldn’t have been made without the help of the SU LGBTQ+ Campaign, who reached out to their connections and collected suggestions from the student body. This has helped us to create a display where Oxford’s LGBTQ+ community can talk about their history, experiences, and literature in their own words.”

This display will be on at the EFL for the entirety of LGBTQ+ History Month until March 4th 2024, so we highly encourage you to see it in person! If you’re unable to make it to the EFL though, a virtual display will be being posted onto the EFL Blog later this month so do keep an eye out.

Reading List: Gender Trouble by Judith Butler; The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde; Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan le Fanu; After Sappho by Selby Wynn Schwartz; Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier; Hauntings and Other Fantastic Tales by Vernon Lee; Loveless by Alice Oseman; Gallathea by John Lyly; Tales of the City by Armistead Mapuin; Ready to Catch him Should he Fall by Neil Bartlett

Leah Brown

New College Library

A picture showing New College Library’s LGBT+ History Month display.New College Library’s book display for LGBT+ History Month draws from our extensive Gender and Sexuality collection, a section of the library dedicated to books which explore and amplify LGBT+ peoples’ lives, voices, identities, and experiences, both historically and in the present day. I also identified some exciting new titles which we acquired for the library.

In honour of this year’s theme, ‘Medicine – #UnderTheScope’, the display includes books which explore LGBT+ people’s experiences of and contributions to healthcare and medicine. David France’s How to Survive a Plague, which was based on the 2012 documentary he directed of the same name, provides a raw and powerful social and scientific history of AIDS. France spotlights the vital work of activists of all genders who were the driving force behind the development of life-saving drugs for the management of HIV. Also on display is The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes by Zoë Playdon. This book chronicles the life of Scottish nobleman Ewan Forbes, a transgender man, and the 1968 court case regarding the inheritance of his baronetcy. Drawing on the fields of medicine, psychology, biology, and law, Playdon provides the first analysis of this little-known event in LGBT+ history, drawing on records that had been suppressed until very recently.

Other books on display in New College Library this year explore a variety of different aspects of LGBT+ history, reflecting something of the range of different experiences, voices, and identities. Dr Kit Heyam’s monograph Before We Were Trans, for example, moves widely through time and space proposing a broader concept of trans history which encompasses everyone ‘doing fascinating, creative, messy things with gender’. Other books on display include a history of the Stonewall uprising in America and the imposition, repeal, and legacy of Section 28 in Britain, alongside explorations of the culture, history, and science of bisexuality and asexuality.

The display has proved really popular, and readers have borrowed several of the books which we have replaced on the display with others from our collection. There are so many amazing new releases in the field of LGBT+ studies, and I am keen to support in the acquisition of more of these books for the library.

Reading List: David France, How to Survive a Plague: The Story of How Activists and Scientists Tamed AIDS (London: Picador, 2017); Zoë Playdon, The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes: The Transgender Trial that Threatened to Upend the British Establishment (London: Bloomsbury, 2022); Kit Heyam, Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender (London: Basic Books, 2022); Martin B, Duberman, Stonewall: The Definitive Story of the LGBTQ Rights Uprising that Changed America (New York: Plume, 2019); Paul Baker, Outrageous! The Story of Section 28 and Britain’s Battle for LGBT Education (London: Reaktion Books, 2022); Julia Shaw, Bi: The Hidden Culture, History, and Science of Bisexuality (Edinburgh: Canongate, 2023); Angela Chen, Ace: What Asexuality Reveals about Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex (Boston: Beacon Press, 2020).

Jessica Hodgkinson

History Faculty Library

A picture showing the History Faculty Library’s LGBT+ History Month display

At the HFL, a former trainee has put together a display of books covering a wide range of LGBT+ history.

For those keen to delve into this year’s theme of “Under the Scope” and explore how LGBT+ people have experienced and contributed to medicine and healthcare, there are titles such as How to survive a plague: the inside story of how citizens and science tamed AIDS, which tells the story of activists and medics fighting to find a solution to the AIDS crisis.

Looking more broadly at LGBT+ history, there are a number of titles which make a deep dive into British queer history, such as Same-sex sexuality in later medieval English culture, A lesbian history of Britain: love and sex between women since 1500 and Queer voices in post-war Scotland: male homosexuality, religion and society. Or why not venture further from home with Red closet: the hidden history of gay oppression in the USSR or Stonewall: the definitive story of the LGBTQ rights uprising that changed America?

And if you’re not able to come into the Radcliffe Camera in person there is a selection of suggested digital titles, ranging from the broad – such as The Routledge history of queer America – to the highly specific Plane queer: labor, sexuality, and AIDS in the history of male flight attendants.

Reading List:

Tomboys and bachelor girls: a lesbian history of post-war Britain 1945-71

Britannia’s glory: a history of twentieth-century lesbians

Let the record show: a political history of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993

Before AIDS: gay health politics in the 1970s

Before we were trans: a new history of gender

Queer public history: essays on scholarly activism

The shape of sex: nonbinary gender from Genesis to the Renaissance

Same-sex sexuality in later medieval English culture

A little gay history: desire and diversity across the world

Outrageous!: the story of Section 28 and Britain’s battle for LGBT education

Sapphistries: a global history of love between women

Bi: the hidden culture, history and science of bisexuality

Journal of the history of sexuality (Online)

Seeing sodomy in the Middle Ages

GLQ (online)

Xanthe Malcolm

Jessica Hodgkinson, New College Library

Hello! I’m Jess and I’m the Graduate Trainee Library Assistant at New College, Oxford.

Founded by William of Wykeham in 1379, New is one of the oldest constituent colleges of the University of Oxford, and it’s a truly beautiful place to study and work.

Picture of New College Library
New College Library in the sunshine!

I joined the library team at the very end of my doctoral degree; before I submitted in late September, I was putting the finishing touches to my thesis in the evenings after work! Based at the University of Leicester, my PhD research focused on surviving manuscripts commissioned, copied, owned and read by women in early medieval Western Europe. The experiences and opportunities I had during the course of this research, which included travelling to libraries in the UK, France, and Germany to study manuscripts, inspired me to pursue a library career.

For a medievalist, like me, New College Library’s collections are a treasure trove. The college houses almost 400 medieval manuscripts and has retained more manuscripts from its medieval library than any other Oxford or Cambridge college.

I’m excited to work with some of these manuscripts over the coming year. I will be helping to organise exhibitions and facilitate access for researchers, whose work enhances our understanding of collection items. I will also have the chance to do some of my own research into items within the library’s collections and hope to write up my findings for New College Notes, the college’s scholarly e-journal.

It’s amazing to have the opportunity to look at manuscripts like this early-fourteenth century Anglo-Norman Apocalypse (New College Library, MS 65).

I have joined the New College Library team at an exciting time. Last week, an exhibition about Cardinal Reginald Pole (1500 – 1558) opened at Lambeth Palace Library in which manuscripts from New College Library are on display. The exhibition, which runs until mid-December, explores the life of the last Catholic archbishop of Canterbury. Copies of Reformation Cardinal: Reginald Pole in sixteenth-century Italy & England, an edited collection of essays about various aspects of Pole’s life and work published to mark the exhibition, were delivered to the library last week.

I am very much looking forward to my year here at New College Library. I enjoyed meeting the first-year undergraduate students during 0th week and giving induction tours of the library. I’m excited to support New College students in getting the most out of the services and resources we provide and hope to encourage lots of them to access our wonderful special collections!

2023 Trainee Showcase

As a final goodbye from the Trainees of the year 22-23 we thought we’d share with you a look at some of the trainee projects which were presented at the showcase this year! These descriptions, each written by another trainee who viewed the original presentation, are designed to give you a flavour of what our year with the Bodleian and College libraries have been like.

Jenna Ilett: Creating an interactive map of the Nizami Ganjavi Library

By Alice S

Kicking off our Trainee showcase with a bang, Jenna’s presentation hit all the right buttons. With an amusing title and appropriately themed presentation, Jenna talked us through the ins and outs of coding an interactive map, complete with hoverable shelfmark labels!

The inspiration for this project came from a slew of wayfinding projects that have been taking place across the ‘Section 3’ Libraries (which include the Taylor, The Art Archelogy and Ancient World and the Nizami Ganjavi libraries) as well as Jenna’s own background in tech thanks to a GCSE in Computer Science and a module in Web Design during her undergraduate degree.

Using Inkscape, Jenna made the underlying vector graphic for the map itself, working off a previous design, but keeping the styling consistent with maps currently available at the AAAW Library. She used the feedback she received to refine her design before moving on to the coding itself.

The coding was done on a code editor called CodePen which allowed her to keep track of the HTML, CSS and JavaScript code all in one view. Jenna whizzed us through an impressive array of coding tips including running through how she used tooltips to enable the hoverable shelfmarks to display over the appropriate shelves.

Remaining humble throughout, Jenna also treated us to an inside look at her thought processes in the form of increasingly anxious WhatsApp messages she had sent about her project to friends and colleagues, as well as a demonstration of a particular bug that caused her map to flip itself over when zoomed out, both of which earned a hearty chuckle from the audience. But with the amount of skilled work Jenna has put in already, the audience and I are in no doubt that Jenna will soon have the kinks worked out, and the Nizami Ganjavi Library will have a swanky new interactive map!

The most interesting thing I learnt from Jenna’s presentation would probably have to be the benefits of scalable vector graphics. As someone who has all too often fallen foul of the perils of trying to resize images only to be left with a grainy and illegible mess, it’s great to know that using a vector graphic will allow me to scale an image to any size my heart could desire. Through the magic of mathematical graphing it preserves the shape and position of a line so that it can be viewed at any scale. Thanks to Jenna for a fabulous presentation and enlightening me to the wonders of vector graphics!

 

Alice Zamboni: Audio-visual archive of former Prime Minister Edward Heath

By Charlie

The second presentation of the day came from Alice Zamboni, one of the two Digital Archivist trainees based for two years with the Special Collections team at the Weston Library. Alice’s project was concerned with adding the audio-visual material donated by former Conservative Prime Minister Edward (Ted) Heath to our catalogue.

A black and white image of Edward Heath as Prime Minister standing outside of Number 10 Downing Street
Edward Heath outside No.10

As with most of his predecessors and successors in the role of Prime Minister since the Second World War, Ted Heath began his political involvement at Oxford, studying PPE at Balliol College and winning the Presidency of the Oxford Union in 1937. Therefore, it is no surprise that the Bodleian chose to purchase his personal archive in 2011 to add to its collection. Covering mainly the period from the mid-1970s to the early 2000s, Alice related how many of the cassettes and tape reels held information on music and yacht racing connected to the love of European culture which inspired Heath’s drive – and eventual success – to gain admission for the UK in the European Community in 1973.

Most of the material was held in analogue formats so Alice’s first step before cataloguing was to convert them into digital MP3 files. Then, one of the main challenges she faced was that the sheer scale of the material (481 tapes some up to ninety minutes long) meant that not every recording could be listened to in its entirety. An educated assessment on the contents, and how it should be catalogued, had to be made from listening to a portion of each. This allowed some of the material, such as recordings made from radio programmes, to be weeded out of the collection.

Perhaps the most interested thing I learned from Alice’s talk was the broad scope of Heath’s recordings, including some in foreign languages. One interestingly was in Mandarin Chinese, and of a children’s programme on learning languages.

As with most of the trainee projects, there is always more to be done after the showcase and Alice’s next main step is to place the original tapes back into boxes according to how she has catalogued them. An even longer-term plan for ensuring that the archive can be opened to researchers is acquiring the rights for many tapes recorded from musical recitals, for instance, where the copyright is owned by the composer or conductor rather than Heath himself.

 

 

 

Miranda Scarlata: Web archiving and the invasion of Ukraine.

By Jenna

Although the phrase ‘once it’s on the internet, it’s there forever,’ is common, Miranda’s talk highlighted the ephemeral and volatile nature of websites, and the importance of capturing and preserving information from these sites.

Although it would be impossible to capture every single website in existence, there are times when the digital archivists undertake a rapid response project – for example capturing information on Covid-19, or the ongoing war in Ukraine – the latter being the focus of Miranda’s talk.

Soon after the Russian invasion of Ukraine (on the 24th of January 2022), the Digital Archivist team launched a rapid response project to preserve information regarding Ukrainian life and culture, as well as the war itself, which was at risk of being lost. A campaign was launched that asked people to nominate websites that fit certain criteria.

Miranda discussed some of the challenges involved in a project like this. Although 53 sites were nominated, only 21 were deemed viable. Twitter accounts of Ukrainian citizens were also included, and additional news, cultural and war specific sites were crawled, leading to a total of 72 sites. There is a limit on how many sites can be preserved due to the strict data budget, which means that difficult decisions had to be made about what to prioritise. Another added level of complexity was the limited Ukrainian and Russian language skills within the department, which made it difficult to determine types of content and assign metadata tags.

The normal processes when archiving websites involves contacting site owners to obtain permission before beginning the capturing process, but due to the high risk of information loss, site owners were contacted after capturing the sites to gain permission for publication. With the help of a Ukrainian and Russian speaking intern, site owners were contacted, but there was an understandable lack of response given that many of the site owners would have been directly impacted by the war.

Miranda’s talk was a fascinating insight into the world of digital archiving and the challenges within, particularly with the more arduous and intricate rapid response projects, which are hugely important when it comes to capturing important events as they are happening.

The most interesting thing I learnt was that digital archiving involves capturing a functional version of the site that could continue to exist even if the original host site was removed, rather than a static capture, which leads to added complexity when it comes to external links and embedded content.

If you are interested in this project and want to nominate a website for archiving please fil in the nomination form here: BEAM | Nominate for archiving (ox.ac.uk)

 

 

Caitlín Kane: Maleficia: Curating a public exhibition at New College Library

By Alice Z

In her talk on the exhibition that she undertook as her trainee project, Caitlín focused on her experience of organising and curating the exhibition of rare books and manuscripts from the collection at New College. A chance encounter with the New College copy of Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer of Witches), a well-known 15th century treatise about witchcraft, sparked in Caitlin the idea of organising a display of special collections about magic, witchcraft, and astrology.

The Maleficia exhibition at New College

The promotional material devised by Caitlín to advertise the exhibition on social media and in print was what stood out most for its originality and it is clearly something that contributed to making the exhibition a success in terms of visitor numbers. I think the most interesting thing I learned from her talk was how you can create moving graphics using services such as Canva and how these can be used on social media to promote events such as exhibitions.

 

Caitlín reflected on some of the logistical challenges of organising this kind of collection-focused public engagement event, such as the selection of material and collection interpretation. For one thing, identifying relevant material from New College’s collection of manuscripts was more difficult in the absence of an online catalogue. Without the benefits of a neatly catalogued SOLO record to guide her, she was required to rely on previous staff members’ handlists as well as serendipitous browsing of New College’s rare books shelves.

Another aspect of the exhibition she touched upon was the interpretation of the materials. It was important for the labels accompanying the items on display to strike the right balance between content and context. Providing insights into the objects themselves was key, especially as many were texts written in Latin, but so was giving visitors enough background on the early modern philosophical and theological debates underpinning witchcraft.

Caitlin’s work clearly resulted in a fascinating and well-attended exhibition, and she was able to make great advances in increasing awareness of some of the amazing collections held by her library.

 

 

 

Abby Evans: Professor Napier and the English Faculty Library

By Miranda

Abby’s trainee project concerned a fascinating collection of dissertations and offprints gathered by Professor Arthur Napier, a philologist and Professor at Merton College in 1885. Held by the English faculty library, this collection consists of 92 boxes

Three shelves full of dusty grey-blue boxes, each with gilded lettering detailing its number and contents. There are also two modern grey conservation boxes.
The Napier collection at the EFL

containing 1058 items that needed to be reassessed ahead of the library’s move to the new Schwarzman centre for the Humanities in 2025.

Her project showcased the speedy decisions and minute details that must be considered when working at a library as she had only two weeks to determine the content of the collection and assess what material was worthy of making the move to the new building. The process required lots of skimming through documents to understand their content, the deciphering of previous systems from librarians past, and a strong head for organisation!

The collection itself was also able to provide some insight into how the English Faculty used to operate. Many of the materials were annotated with small markings and references to an older organization involving different box numbers and labels.

The collection also surprisingly held works from female authors – a rarity for the time – but their work was clearly well-enough regarded that Professor Napier saw the benefit in collecting and preserving it in his collection.

The most interesting insight the Napier collection provided however is perhaps its demonstration of the of the workings of Royal Mail years gone by. The collection contained several items which bore evidence of travelling through the UK postal system, some which were simply folded up with the address written on the back – no envelope required! Additionally, a simple name and general neighbourhood were enough to get the letter to its intended location, postcodes clearly had yet to hit it off!

Overall, Abby’s talk demonstrated the myriad of small and large details that must be considered when continually maintaining library collections. And the efficiency with which she was able to work through the collection is an example to us all!

 

 

 

Morgan Ashby-Crane: Making Collections More Visible: Displays and Data Cleanup

By Caitlín

At the SSL, Morgan embarked on a mission to improve the visibility of collections, both in making items easier to locate within the library system, and in highlighting diverse voices in the collections.

During awareness months throughout the year they curated book displays which allowed them to improve the circulation and physical accessibility of collections such as those for Black and LGBTQ+ History. For Black History Month, they asked subject librarians to recommend a book with an accompanying caption. Morgan then curated the display, and added QR codes linked to e-resources that the subject librarians recommended. They then collated these into a post on the SSL blog to reach those who couldn’t access the display physically.

The SSL Display for Black History Month

For LGBT+ History month, Morgan organised another pop-up display, but this time the focus was on recommendations from readers in previous years. One of the most interesting ideas I gleaned from Morgan’s presentation was their approach in designing new recommendation slips for readers to fill in and recommend their own books to make sure the displays stayed relevant to reader interests. As books were borrowed and recommendation slips filled in, Morgan was able to track the circulation of items and provide evidence of engagement.

Another way in which Morgan improved accessibility to the collections was in cleaning up data on Aleph, our old library system. Over the past few months, the trainees have been busy helping our libraries prepare for the changeover to a new library system, Alma. With thousands of records being transferred across, a lot of data clean-up has been required to make sure records display correctly in the new system.

Some outdated process statuses, such as AM (Apply Staff – Music), can be left attached to records long after they fall out of use. Other books, that are on the shelves to be loaned, can be left marked as BD (At bindery). To single out any irregularities, Morgan made a collection code report to see if any items stood out as unusual. When items appeared under unusual process statuses, Morgan investigated them further to see if their statuses needed changing.

Similarly, some items without shelfmarks had slipped under the radar, and Morgan set about adding them back to the books’ holdings records. They worked backwards from potential Library of Congress classifications to figure out where the books might be on the shelves and, once they’d identified the physical shelfmark, restored it to the item’s holdings record. These data cleanup tasks will make it easier both for readers in locating the items they need and will help the collections transition smoothly from Aleph to Alma.

 

 

Ruth Holliday: Investigating the Christ Church Library Donors: Research and rabbit holes

By Abby

For her presentation, Ruth discussed her project to research donors to Christ Church’s ‘New Library’, with a particular focus on their links to slavery. The incongruously named New Library was constructed between 1717 and 1772, and over 300 benefactors contributed to the project! Given the time constraints involved, in this presentation Ruth chose to focus on just three:

A blue book with a black and white image of Christ Church Library on the cover, entitled "The Building Accounts of Christ Church Library 1716-1779' it is edited by Jean Cook and John Mason.
The book Ruth used to research the library finances

The first donor Ruth spoke about was Noel Broxholme, a physician and an alumnus of Christ Church, who during his time there was one of the first recipients of the Radcliffe travelling fellowship. This was a grant established by Dr John Radcliffe (a rather omnipresent figure in Oxford) that required medical students to spend years studying medicine in a foreign country. Ruth was able to establish that at one time Doctor Broxholme was paid for his services not in cash, but instead in ‘Mississippi stock’. As one might be able to deduce from the name, this was effectively shares in companies who had strong ties to the slave trade.

The next donor Ruth discussed was George Smallridge, Bishop of Bristol. Again, we have a man whose profession is seemingly at odds with involvement in the trade of human lives. However, as part of his donation for the foundation of the new library he included two lottery tickets. One of the prize options for that lottery was South Sea Stock – more shares with ties to the slave trade. It has proven difficult to determine whether the tickets he donated were, in fact, winning tickets, or whether they were ever cashed in, but once again the foundation of this library has found itself fiscally linked to slavery.

The final donor to feature in Ruth’s presentation was Charles Doulgas, 3rd Duke of Queensbury, whose financial investments included shares in the British Linen Company. Whilst British linen does not ostensibly appear to have clear ties to slavery – being both grown and manufactured domestically by paid labour – there is in fact a significant connection. Whilst cotton was becoming the more popular fabric for textile production in the mid-late eighteenth century, the fabric was seen as too good to be used to clothe the people forced to grow it. As such, linen, in its cheapest and least comfortable format, was exported in droves to be used to clothe the slaves labouring on cotton plantations.

What all these donor case studies in Ruth’s fascinating presentation showed, and probably the most interesting thing I learned, was how enmeshed slavery was in the eighteenth-century economy. Whether in the form of shares received in lieu of payment, shares won as prizes, or as custom to the textile industry it was growing to dominate, Ruth’s project demonstrated that making money in the eighteenth century was almost inextricably tied to slavery.

 

 

 

Rose Zhang: As She Likes It: The Woman who Gatecrashed the Oxford Union

By Morgan

 

Rose’s project and subsequent presentation touched on a captivating aspect of the history of women at Oxford. As the trainee for the Oxford Union, she undertook some first-hand research on an unusual event in the early history of women’s involvement in the Union’s debates.

A Union Poll sparked by the admission of women to the Society

Rose first gave us a summary of the Union’s history. Set up in 1823 (and therefore currently celebrating their bicentenary), The Oxford Union has been famous (and infamous) for its dedication to free speech over the years. As women were only formally admitted to the University itself in 1920, it is unsurprising that they were also barred from entry to the Union debating society. This restriction against women members continued until well into the latter half of the 20th century, although rules had become laxer by this point, allowing women into the debating hall itself, but only in the upper galleries.

By the 1960s, there was increasing pressure from female students who wished to access the main floor of the debating hall, rather than be confined to the gallery, where they were expected to be silent, and could not get a good view of the proceedings. The pressure built to a point in 1961, when two students achieved national press coverage for their successful gate-crashing of the debating chamber, which they did in disguise as men!

Rose gave us a captivating account of the gatecrashing, using newspaper clippings from the time and information from one of the gatecrashes herself, Jenny Grove (now a published journalist), to really bring this moment of Oxford History to life. One of the most interesting things I learned from Rose’s presentation was how library projects can handle, preserve and communicate data that’s less discrete – which tied in well with our keynote talk from Phillip Roberts, especially focussed on how heritage organisations have a power to preserve and convey stories that otherwise might be suppressed or overlooked.

Thankfully, the actions of Jenny grove and her co-conspirator Rose Dugdale were successful in bringing wider attention to the issue, and within two years successive votes won women the right to be full and contributing union members.

Rose’s presentation on this project was interesting not just for such a fascinating bit of history, told with good humour, but also for how it differed to most trainee projects methodologically in using first-hand oral histories to bring context to her library and its collections.

 

 

 

Grace Exley: Creating online exhibitions

By Ruth

One of the later presentations in the day, Grace kept the energy flowing as she discussed her experience creating online exhibitions. The inspiration for Grace’s project was accessibility. While Jesus College puts on termly exhibitions in the Fellows’ Library, not everyone can make it on the day, and having some kind of record of past exhibitions would be beneficial to many.

A screenshot of one of the pages of Grace’s ‘Botanical Books’ Exhibition

Taking the initiative, Grace sought out training on how to curate and manage online exhibitions. She worked her way through a course which introduced her to the platform Omeka. Using Omeka, visitors can scroll through photos of the exhibition items and read captions for each one, making it both a great way to experience exhibitions that you cannot make it to physically, and a way of preserving physical exhibitions in a digital space.

With this new knowledge at her fingertips, Grace set out to organise her own exhibitions that she would subsequently upload to the Jesus College website using the Omeka platform. The books that featured in these exhibitions were selected by Grace from the Fellows’ Library at Jesus College – a stunning 17th century room that holds 11,500 early printed books.

Grace told us about the botany exhibition she curated in Michaelmas term, which featured a first-time find of an inscription in John Parkinson’s Theatrum Botanicum. One of the most interesting things I learned from Grace’s presentation is that this is one of the very few books in the Fellows’ Library to have had its title page inscribed by a female owner, Elizabeth Burghess. From the style of the handwriting, we can tell that the signature is likely to have been penned near to the time of publication, though we don’t know for sure who Elizabeth Burghess was.

We were in a Jesus College lecture theatre for the showcase, and due to running ahead of our schedule we were able to sneak into the Fellows’ Library and look around. It’s a gorgeous space, and it was great to see where the exhibitions take place when they’re in 3D! If you’re interested, you can view Grace’s Botanical Books exhibition along with some of Jesus College’s other exhibitions on the website the Grace created here: Collections from the Fellows’ Library and Archives, at Jesus College Oxford (omeka.net)

 

 

 

Alice Shepherd: The Making of a Disability History LibGuide

By Rose

A screenshot of the draft Disability History LibGuide

A theme running through many of the trainee projects this year was accessibility, and Alice proved no exception. For her trainee project, she worked on creating a LibGuide on Disability History, to help people find resources relevant to researching that topic.

A LibGuide is an online collection of resources that aims to provide insights into a specific topic of interest. They are created across all Bodleian Libraries and often act as a launch pad for a particular subject to signpost readers to the plethora of resources available. The resources for Alice’s LibGuide were largely collated during a Hackathon event organised by the Bodleian Libraries team, during which 36 volunteers shared their expertise on Disability History and put together a list of over 231 relevant electronic resources on this topic.

Alice started by working through this long list of resources. She spent a considerable amount of time cleaning, screening, and processing the data collected at the Hackathon. Specifically, she removed website links that were no longer active, evaluated the quality of the materials, and carefully selected those that were most appropriate and relevant to the topic of Disability History.

With this newly complied ‘shortlist’ of scholarly resources, Alice then started putting them together on the LibGuide website, adapting the standardised Bodleian LibGuide template to better fit the needs of researchers by including resources grouped by date, topic, and format. With the resources carefully curated and added to the LibGuide, Alice put some finishing touches on the guide by doing her own research to fill in some of the gaps left after the Hackathon.

There will be a soft launch of the LibGuide in the Disability History month this year. Although this LibGuide is mainly created for students and scholars with research interests in Disability History, the LibGuide will be available to the public as a valuable educational resource.

 

 

Charlie Ough: Duke Humfrey’s Library Open Shelf Collections

By Grace

As the trainee for the Bodleian Old Library, Charlie gets the tremendous pleasure of working in the Medieval precursor to Oxford’s centralised Bodleian libraries, Duke Humfrey’s Library.

A view of Duke Humfrey’s Library

Whilst the setting and atmosphere may be one of academic serenity, after a few months of working there, Charlie identified that something ought to be done to make the organisation of its Open Shelves Collection slightly less chaotic. He had found that books were difficult to locate, some were physically difficult to access, the shelf marks were confusing, and certain volumes from the collection were missing entirely.

With a plan in mind, the first task in addressing this issue was to create a comprehensive list of everything on the shelves. Part way through this venture, Charlie stumbled across a file hidden away in an archived shared folder from 2017 and discovered that a previous trainee had already make a handlist for Duke Humfrey’s. This saved lots of time and allowed him to focus on making improvements to this cache of information by slimming it down, rearranging it according to area, and dividing it into different sections.

During this time Chalrie also designed and conducted a reader survey that was distributed within Duke Humfrey’s to determine who the main users of the library are, and whether they were there to use the Open shelf books specifically, or more because they enjoyed using the space. With the results of that survey to sort through and analyse, Charlie now has a permanent position working at the Bodleian Old Library and intends to continue working with the Duke Humfrey’s Open Shelves Collection. His plans involve new shelf marks, updating the LibGuide, a complete stock check, and barcoding the collection.

The most interesting (and mildly terrifying) thing I learned from Charlie’s talk is that the population of cellar and common house spiders in the Duke Humfrey’s Library ceiling were intentionally introduced at the beginning of this century, to combat an infestation of deathwatch beetle that was burrowing into the wooden beams and panels. In fact, the spiders still thrive there to this day! Not something to think about when you’re peacefully studying in the picturesque Duke Humfrey’s Reading Room…

 

 

Promoting an Exhibition

One of the exciting projects we can get involved in as trainees is preparing for and promoting library exhibitions, whether open to the public or exclusively to university staff and students. For LGBT+ History Month, New College Library will be putting on an exhibition on Queer Love & Literature in our collections on 25th February. We have a display case in the main library for small, longer-term exhibitions of about ten items, accessible to college members only. However, this is not suitable for large exhibitions like this one. We therefore book a room in college with enough space for long tables, which also allows us to open our exhibitions to the public. The downside is the room is not secure enough to leave any of our rare books and manuscripts overnight, therefore our large exhibitions are open for one day and one day only! This involves a lot of preparation to make sure we can set up and take down the exhibition as quickly and securely as possible on the day.

Exhibition in Lecture Room 4

 

However, without people coming to see our wonderful collections, all our preparation would be in vain. For this exhibition, we’ve used some successful promotion tactics from our previous exhibitions as well as some new ones to usher as many people as possible through our doors on the day. First of all is the fun bit, designing a poster for the exhibition on Canva, with a uniform logo we’re using on all of our social media channels. We then sent the design off to a print company to have it printed in A2, A3, and A4. We “launched” the news of our upcoming exhibition on the 19th January on our social media, and sent an email out to the OLIS, Oxford Libraries Information System, mail list. I also changed our Twitter and Facebook profile headers to advertisements for the exhibition. Thanks to my fellow trainees, I sent out some posters to go up in other libraries and increase awareness of the exhibition throughout the university. I also go on a wander around college putting up posters in common areas such as the café/bar and the JCR. I’m also trialling some QR codes, linked to the event page on our website, displayed around the library.  The LGBTQ+ Officers for the college’s JCR and MCR do a great job of organising their own events throughout the year such as queer drinks and LGBTQ+ formals, so we let them know about our exhibition so they can spread the word around college.

QR Codes around the Library
Designing the Exhibition Poster

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As our exhibition is for LGBT+ History Month, a campaign founded by Schools OUT to increase the visibility of queer people’s histories and experiences, we added our event to their public calendar. However, we’ve found social media is the most effective method to reach a wider audience outside just New College and the University. On our Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, we’ve been further teasing our exhibition by posting some of the items we’ll be displaying on the day with our exhibition banner underneath to make sure our followers don’t get sick of the same poster over and over again. I have scheduled a sneaky motion graphic to go out in the week before the exhibition, just to add a little spice. We also asked the Lodge to let us put a poster in an A-frame outside the college entrance on Holywell Street on the day to draw in any walk-ins and notify visitors where the exhibition actually is, as New College can be a bit of a maze. We’re quite lucky that our collections speak for themselves, including a 15th-century manuscript copy of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, early printed books relating to King James VI and I, Oscar Wilde’s Ravenna inscribed by the author, and a first-edition copy of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando. There might be a few surprise additions on the day as we continue compiling the labels, but we’re hoping to show at least 30 items of queer literature.

@newcollegelibrary Instagram Feed
Motion Graphic

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We’re quite a small library and our exhibitions only last one day, so we don’t have the same resources and following to generate as much hype as some larger libraries’ incredible exhibitions, such as those at the British or Bodleian libraries, but we try our best! We’re also looking into putting on online exhibitions, so that our collections can be viewed digitally for longer, as it’s a shame they’re only on display for 6 hours at a time. This is the first of our exhibitions that we’ve put in this much work to promote, particularly on social media, so only time will tell if it works.

 

 

A Day in the Life at New College Library

8:40

After forgetting to eat breakfast I start the brisk (and very cold) walk into college. It’s only a 15 minute walk, but I still manage to slip twice on the morning ice on Magdalen Bridge. The New College chapel and old Oxford city wall never fail to look beautiful in the morning. I get distracted and take some photos before heading into the library.

 

Holywell Quad in the morning

 

9:00 – 9:30

The start of the day at New College Library usually involves checking my calendar for scheduled events or visitors. I also check to see if anyone has requested items through our hold request system the night before and fetch the books for them ready to collect from the Click-and-Collect trolley in the hall. As it’s the start of the term, the list gets longer and longer every day – I enlist a couple of Sainsbury’s bags to aid me in my quest. I answer any email enquiries the Deputy Librarian didn’t get to first and check to see if anyone has booked our group study room.

MS 333, f. 181r

We usually have one or two readers per week come to view our special collections. Requests are varied, from Peter Lombard’s 11th-century commentary on the Psalms to our 16th-century Isaac Newton Papers. It’s always exciting when a reader comes to view something that doesn’t often leave its shelf. Last term, a reader came to view an Italian 16th-century women’s beauty manual, which was nice to see go on a little holiday to the Special Collections reading room. If we have a reader booked in, I spend the morning invigilating, essentially making sure people are handling the books with care and not ripping out any pages as souvenirs. Today someone has booked to see our (possibly) 11th-century Harklean Syriac New Testament, which I fetched from the Bell Tower yesterday. It’s a beautiful volume. If anyone reads Syriac and wants to let me know what it says that would be wonderful.

9.30 – 12.30

I show our reader into our Special Collections reading room, make sure they have pencils and paper or a laptop (no pens allowed), and set the manuscript up on a cushion with snake beads. Invigilating today means I have time to work on longer-term projects, such as writing labels for any upcoming exhibitions, working on an article for the library’s e-journal, writing a script for one of our Curator’s Choice videos, helping run our trainee twitter account, or writing a blog post like this one. Next month we’ll be putting on an exhibition on Queer Love and Literature in our collections for LGBTQ+ History Month, so there’s a lot of preparation to be getting on with. We cannot under any circumstances leave a reader alone with a manuscript, so another member of the teams subs in throughout the morning so I can have tea breaks. Topics of tea-break conversation today: the finer points of the art of the pub quiz, the new Queer Britain Museum that’s opened in King’s Cross, and what if J.R.R. Tolkien stood for Jolkien Rolkien Rolkien Tolkien?

 

A photo of posting photos on the blog . . . Blogception?

 

12:45 – 13:45

Lunch time! As I’m sure my fellow college trainees have already mentioned, one of the perks of working at a college library is the free hot lunch. While the medieval dining hall at New College is very impressive, we usually eat in the less-intimidating south undercroft. Today’s menu is mushroom & tarragon soup, followed by parsnips, wild mushrooms and smoked tofu with soubise sauce, and an apple frangipane. After eating I take a walk around the cloisters and gardens. Don’t ask what the mound is for, I genuinely have no idea. I then spend the rest of my lunch break in the New College café with my book club read: Bimini Bon Boulash’s autobiography.

13.45 – 15.30

The art of processing

After lunch I get on with everyday tasks such as processing any new acquisitions that come in. We received a couple of boxes of books over lunch from Blackwell’s that I begin unpacking. I immediately process any books requested by students or academics and notify the reader that their book has arrived. I then start to process the rest of the books.  This involves attaching them to a bibliographic record on Aleph, choosing an in-house shelfmark for them and stamping them before adding a spine label, RFID tag, and New College bookplate. I then cover the book with a plastic cover – essentially a cutting and sticking job – and put it on the shelving trolley. Most of our new rare and antiquarian acquisitions don’t have an Aleph record, so I apologetically add them to the Assistant Librarian’s pile for cataloguing. I also update our new book display, temporarily rebranded as a ‘Goodbye 2022!’ display, featuring some of the most interesting reads from last year.

This week students are back from their vacation and the library is really quite busy. Our work in term time is therefore a lot more student-focused, and we invest our time in welfare initiatives as well as everyday tasks like ordering and processing new books for our students. On Monday, for example, we put together a display from our Welfare and Wellbeing collection and gave out tea and chocolates for Brew Monday (Blue Monday with a happier twist).

Unlike some of the other college or Bodleian libraries, we don’t actually have a reader enquiries desk, but rather an open-door policy for our office in the main entrance. There are only 4 of us in the office, trying our best to look as unintimidating as possible, so readers can poke their heads around the door if they need anything. One of the best parts of the job is being greeted with gratitude and relief when returning triumphant with a crucial book needed for an essay (usually due on Monday). As most degrees here require weekly essays, we try our utmost to buy and process books for students as fast as humanly possible if its not already in our collection.

15.30 – 16.00

If there are a lot of new books arriving, processing can take up a lot of my day, but today I have a little time to head back over to the Bell Tower to take a look at the final volume of a late-thirteenth-century Bible particularly rich in strange marginalia, such as fish with human heads. I also take a quick look at our 1512 copy of the Malleus Maleficarum, Hammer of Witches. I plan on talking about the book in one of our Curator’s Choice videos, writing an article on it, then perhaps even centring a small exhibition around it . . . Stay tuned. With so many funky manuscripts to look at, I pore through a couple more looking for marginalia and strangely drawn animals to post on our social media.

 

Old books in the Special Collections storage room
MS 6, f. 174v

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

16.00 – 17.00

In the last hour of the day, I get on with creating content for our social media channels (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter). We try to stay quite active on social media, both to showcase our special collections and keep our readers up to date with our new acquisitions, reader services, and any upcoming exhibitions. Our particular focus at the moment is promoting our LGBTQ+ History Month Exhibition, so do come along on 25th February to make my work worthwhile!

17:15

After getting distracted making a Twitter Header on Canva, I say my goodbyes and head over to the Rad Cam to get on with some non-library work before making my way to the pub.

Trans Awareness Week at New College Library

Here at New College Library, we put on a number of different book displays each term, ranging from new acquisitions that catch our eye, to showcasing certain awareness campaigns. This week it’s Trans Awareness Week, in which the trans community and its allies highlight the issues faced by trans, non-binary and gender-diverse people, and celebrate those raising awareness. This annual week of observance will culminate in Transgender Day of Remembrance on Sunday, to honour the memory of those whose lives were lost in acts of anti-transgender violence. In light of this week-long campaign for trans issues, I pulled together a display of books from our ‘Q’ shelfmark, set up a few years ago by a former trainee, comprised of LGBTQ+ histories, biographies, and fictional works. With so many interesting titles, I thought I’d take the opportunity to showcase a few of my favourite reads!

 

 

Juliet Jacques, Trans: A Memoir

This memoir by writer and filmmaker, Juliet Jacques, explores the personal story of her transition, while also critiquing 1990s and 2000s trans theory, literature and film. Jacques narrates her journey of self-discovery, giving an in-depth account of her entry into the LGBTQ+ community and her struggles with her identity; ‘I felt trapped not by my body, but by a society that didn’t want me to modify it.’ From her earliest experimentation with her presentation, we learn how films, books, and music that focus on trans identities helped Jacques explore and come to terms with her own identity. In 2012, Jacques chronicled her sex reassignment surgery in the Guardian, hoping to educate others on the harsh reality of transitioning and the importance of trans rights. Jacques’ memoir combines the personal with the political, exploring controversial issues in trans politics and promising to redefine our understanding of contemporary trans lives.

 


 

Jen Manion, Female Husbands: A Trans History

In this dynamic LGBTQ+ history, Jen Manion uncovers the stories of ‘female husbands’, a term from the 18th and 19th centuries that referred to female-assigned individuals who lived as men and married women. Manion recounts the stories of these queer pioneers, who exposed themselves to media sensationalism and, at worst, violence or threat of punishment. Rejecting the notion that reclaiming transness in the past is ahistorical, Manion refuses to define the gender identity of these ‘female husbands’, among them Charles Hamilton, George Johnson, Frank Dubois, walking the line between recovery and historicization. It is precisely this complexity that makes this such a powerful read, forcing us to challenge modern binaries of gender and sexuality as we retrace the histories of our queer ancestors.

 


Christine Burns, Trans Britain: Our Journey from the Shadows

Through a number of very personal stories, this book retraces the journey of the trans community in Britain from the margins of society to the visible phenomenon we recognise today. In their own words, trans rights advocates tell the story of the fight for their rights in the face of overwhelming opposition, and it is impossible not to respect their determination. For those interested in the current ongoing discussions about trans rights, this book is an excellent resource, despite being a difficult read at times.

 


Kai Cheng Thom, Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl’s Confabulous Memoir

This surrealist novel tells the story of a young, unnamed, transgender woman who lives with other trans women on the Street of Miracles, where different kinds of sex work take place. In response to the murder of another trans woman, the others form a vigilante gang and start attacking men on the street. Kai Cheng Thom herself is a non-binary transgender woman, who, as a writer and poet, exaggerates people from her life as characters in her work. As a response to the trope of transgender memoirs educating cisgender individuals about trans lives, Thom instead wrote Fierce Femmes to be the book that would have best helped her as a transgender teenager.

 

 

 

Caitlín Kane, New College Library

Hi! I’m Caitlín, the Graduate Trainee at New College Library. The college itself was founded in 1379 by William of Wykeham, and still features a lot of the original medieval architecture, as well as a section of Oxford’s city wall. As a Medieval Studies graduate, one of my favourite things about working here at New College is getting to work so closely with the library’s collection of around 400 medieval manuscripts. Of all the Oxford colleges, more manuscripts remain from New’s medieval library than from that of any other Oxford or Cambridge college.

A square stone building and tower sit surrounded by trees and shrubs with a grey misty sky behind them.
New College Library and Bell Tower on a misty autumn morning

When I get free time, you can find me in the Bell Tower poring over manuscripts, trying to find the strangest marginalia to post on our social media. My favourite volume has to be the “New College Apocalypse”, an early fourteenth-century illuminated Anglo-Norman prose translation of the Apocalypse of St. John, which I had heard about through the grapevine in my undergraduate and postgraduate studies at UCL.

A manuscript illumination showing an angel trumpeting in the clouds whilst three figures with horse's bodies, wings and crowned human heads prance about below.
“New College Apocalypse” MS 65 f. 30r

I hadn’t seriously thought about librarianship until I began researching medieval universities and their libraries, and in doing so developed an interest in the day-to-day running of the contemporary university libraries I spent so much time in as a student. As a medievalist, New College Library seemed like the perfect place to apply for the traineeship. Though my research has mainly concerned late medieval Italian women, there are plenty of incredible volumes to keep me occupied here in a range of different languages: French, Spanish, Greek, German, English, Italian, Latin, Syriac, Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, Welsh, Anglo-Norman, Dutch — the list goes on!

My day-to-day work includes processing new acquisitions to the library, setting up exhibitions, helping run our social media accounts, invigilating readers who come to see our special collections, and updating our new books display. It’s also been lovely to attend training sessions, which have given me the confidence to face Aleph — our cataloguing system. It’s been great to meet the other trainees in person and hear about what everyone else is getting up to in their libraries. With new freshers pouring in this month, I’ve been giving induction tours and praying our self-service borrowing machines don’t break. I’ve also been helping write labels for a couple of new exhibitions we’ll be putting on at the end of the month and in November, so there’s a lot to keep me busy for now!

It’s also worth noting that trainees at college libraries get free lunch, and the bar here at New isn’t half bad either — I’ve heard Hugh Grant likes to stop by for a pint or two every now and then…

A long corridor lined with books leads to glass doors. A desk sits directly ahead with a worn but colourful cushion on the wooden seat.
New College Library Upper Floor

Spotlight on the colleges

If you’ve ever looked at a map of Oxford city centre, you’ll notice that it is packed with colleges (thirty-nine to be precise). But what are they, and what is it like to work in one?

We sat down with this year’s cohort of college-based Graduate Trainees, to discuss their roles, their colleges and their libraries. This year there are five of us:

Special thanks to Josie from the Law Library for the transcription.

Pembroke’s Old Quad.

What is a college?

Heather (St Edmund Hall): A college is a community of students and staff who are all part of Oxford University, but within the university community they’re also part of their own separate college community. Most colleges have undergraduates and postgraduates, but some colleges are postgraduate only. Some colleges are very big with lots of students and staff, and some are much smaller.

Georgie (St. John’s): Students can get accommodation, catering, and teaching through their college, and as part of that, the college will have its own library.

Jemima (New): There may appear to be some discrepancy between older and newer colleges but they essentially all do the same job for their students. Even though some of them look bigger or older or have a particular reputation, they all serve the same purpose.

The Library building viewed from an archway in the Quad
All Souls College Library. Photo credit: Lizzie Dawson.

 

How does the library fit into the college?

Jemima: I think generally a college library will cater for most undergraduate academic needs, but from my experience (as a graduate student here) there was more of an expectation that a college library wouldn’t cater for more in-depth academic research. Whether that’s true or not, a college library is definitely more of a centre for undergraduates, perhaps because it’s seen as less overwhelming than a bigger Bodleian library.

Ben (Pembroke): Yes, the library is at it’s heart a hub for students. We have a few postdocs and fellows who use our library, but mostly it’s used by undergraduates and taught postgraduates who all study a wide array of disciplines, reflecting our growing library collection. We’re open 24/7 and the library is also open for all Pembroke staff.  Also our library is a space for holding Pembroke’s archives and special collections which attracts visiting researchers and research students.

Heather: It’s definitely more of a direct service for the students, and I think it’s interesting that when people apply to Oxford or Cambridge, they don’t really think about the fact that they’ll have a college library, but it’s actually a really important aspect. It’s really there to cater to a student’s own needs, so at Teddy Hall, for instance, we buy a lot of student requested books, which something you can do through your college library, but is not something Bodleian libraries tend to do.

Lizzie (All Souls): All Souls Library is mainly there for the Fellows* (as there aren’t any undergraduate students at All Souls). The Fellows can request that we buy books, and also if a particular Fellow with a particular research interest is there for a number of years, we can develop a significant collection relating to that interest. But the library does serve a dual purpose because it is also open to external readers. Because the college doesn’t have its own students, if there is a book that is highly requested across the university, or quite expensive, the library will buy that book so that it’s potentially available to all students.

*Fellows are senior members of a college, whose responsibilities typically include teaching, research, administration, and participation in the college’s governance.

Georgie: Another thing to mention is study spaces. College libraries mean that the students who want to use the library can do that somewhere which, in a lot of cases, is near to their accommodation.

Heather: We have height-adjustable desks, and printing and photocopying facilities and they all get used a lot. We’re open 24 hours and you can see from the records that there are people in here throughout day and night.

Jemima: That’s actually a good point: I think a key difference between Bodleian libraries and college libraries is that Bodleian libraries aren’t open as late as college ones. At New, we’re not open 24 hours, but we are open until 2:00 in the morning. I would say that a college library is accessible at most times of day whereas the Bodleian is less so.

Lizzie: At All Souls, all the books are confined so readers can’t borrow them. That means the library is used more as a study space, since it’s very quiet and there are fewer people taking books off shelves, as all the books are locked up (though you can request me to get them for you). The library also serves as a venue for the college for events such as Encaenia, or drink receptions. Sometimes you can be participating in college stuff more than library stuff.

A tortoise on a lawn, with college buildings in the background
New College featuring Tessa the college tortoise. Photo credit: Anna-Nadine Pike.

 

Can you describe your Library in three words?

Heather: Church, friendly, busy.

Ben: Unintimidating, 1970s, welcoming.

Lizzie: Unique, architectural, research.

 

The former church, now the Library building, during golden hour.
St Edmund Hall Library. Photo Credit: Heather Barr.

 

How many staff members are there in your Library?

Jemima: We have four of us in the main office, basically full-time, then there’s the Archivist, the Curatorial Assistant (who was a trainee last year, and is now part-time), and a Shelving Assistant in the mornings in term time. I think it’s a relatively big team for a college library.

Ben: In the library team, it’s just me and the Librarian, so I often wear multiple hats and juggle jobs such as invigilating researchers, cataloguing, shelving, dissertation-binding, reading list creation, purchasing acquisitions, rare books enquiries, and lots more. Working in a small team is great! There is always something to do, and you gain a well-rounded, and sometimes unexpected experience.

Lizzie: We have a Librarian-in-Charge & Conservator, Senior Assistant Librarian, Assistant Librarian for Digital Resources, and a Graduate Trainee (me!), as well as this, we have the following staff who are part-time: Assistant Librarian for Rare Books, a Clerk to the Archives, and the Serials Librarian (who does cataloguing).

Heather: So, at Teddy Hall, it’s me as the Graduate Trainee, James the Librarian, and Emma who is the Assistant Librarian, and our Archivist, Rob, who is in two days a week. He’s also the Archivist at Oriel and I know that it’s quite common for archivists to be shared across colleges. We also have a Library Fellow on the Library Committee.

Jemima: Yes, I think our Fellow Librarian is involved in important decision-making but I barely see him from day to day. I don’t have very much contact with him at all. It sounds like a similar setup.

Lizzie: I see my Fellow Librarian every day. They do the top-level college stuff and there’s a lot of committees so they sit on those as well.

Cherry blossom in the foreground. The new library extension and the original garden wall meet in the background.
St John’s Library. Photo credit: Georgie Moore.

 

What’s distinctive about the collection in your Library?

Ben (Pembroke): As much as it is a collection reflecting Pembroke’s history as an institution (Pembroke was founded in 1624), we do have some more rogue objects, often things connected with alumni or past staff, such as Tolkien’s letters (we have an amazing letter where Tolkien writes to a friend that he is starting a book called The Hobbit which he hopes will be a success), Samuel Johnson’s desk, Samuel Johnson’s teapot, a fountain pen used by Lyndon B. Johnson, oh and a WWII Japanese sword!

Jemima (New): We have a very good manuscripts and early printed books special collection – I think that comes with the age and wealth of the college. In fact, about 30-40% of my time is spent invigilating readers who come to use our Special Collections for research.

Lizzie (All Souls) : Christopher Wren was a fellow, so we have one of the largest collections of Wren drawings, and T.E. Lawrence was a fellow, so we have some of his things, but they’re on loan to the Ashmolean Museum.

Heather (St Edmund Hall): Something distinctive about our lending collection is that we have lots of student requests and new acquisitions – we’re working hard to try to diversify what we have. At the moment, I am starting to decolonise our history collection.

Interior of the eighteenth century college Chapel.
Pembroke College Chapel. Photo credit: Ben Elliott.

What kind of interactions do you have with Library readers?

Heather: Readers ask pretty much anything and everything – I spend about half my time on the issue desk. Our library is in a 12th-century church, so we also have people coming to see the building.

Ben: Fairly, a lot! Questions can be anything from “how do I find this book?” all the way to, “Would it be possible to see ‘x’ manuscript?”. During COVID peaks, when students are self-isolating, I deliver books around college to them. My workspace isn’t usually at an issue desk, but at the start of the year I gave lots of induction talks, so now the readers know who I am. This means they are confident to pop into my office, or stop me around college to ask me questions.

Jemima: We don’t have a specific issue desk (everyone is based in the office), so I don’t interact with readers as much as you two do. But that doesn’t mean they don’t come to the office with questions, mostly if they’re having problems with the self-issue machines or they want to borrow a book but don’t have their Bod (library) card.

Wisteria and greenery grows over the walls to the left, on the right is a large lawn surrounded by College buildings.
Teddy Hall’s Front Quad. Photo credit: John Morrison (May 2020).

How does working in a college compare with your expectations?

Jemima: I hadn’t anticipated how much social media, exhibitions and ‘internal outreach’ work I’d get to do.  It’s really nice that so much of my role is about sharing the collection with people in college.

Ben: At Pembroke, the Library and Archives work together a lot of the time, which makes the job all the more fun. I can be climbing ladders in order to hang pictures in the hall one minute, then in the next I can be in the depths of the stacks, then helping out with object talks for students or working with furniture and pictures conservators the next, all the way to reader services enquires. However, I think that’s the product of my library team being so small.

Jemima: Yeah, I think it’s worth saying that I think college library jobs are really varied in terms of what you do and the influence you’re able to have.

New College.

Do you get involved with other parts of the College?

Heather: Actually, that’s another thing I was surprised by: you’re part of the College team as well as the Library team. I’ve worked with the Communications team to set up a Library Instagram, and worked with the Housekeeping department on the sustainability project.

Jemima: Although as Graduate Trainee I don’t interact with other departments that often, as a Library and Archives department we collaborate with JCR and MCR committees (similar to a college-based Student Unions) to organise tours, and with the college Warden (i.e. Principal or President) on things like exhibitions.

That concludes our discussion about college library life! We managed to get through the whole thing without mentioning the free college lunches. Oh, no, wait…

The Library's large glass-panelled seminar room and entryway, with the stone steps and daffodils in the foreground.
Portico Entrance, St John’s College Library. Photo credit: Georgie Moore.

A Day in the Life (New College Library)

The day-to-day life of a graduate library trainee can be really varied, especially in college libraries, and my role at New College Library is no exception. I’ve written about a typical day containing all my usual tasks, but, in reality, what my days look like depends so much on whether the students are on vacation, whether we have an exhibition approaching, or what point in the term we’re at. During vacations, I am freer to work on projects that might otherwise be more disruptive for readers, such as stock checking or re-spacing shelves, or might take me away from my desk in the library office to consult a manuscript in our Special Collections Reading Room, or help to film a video for our Curators’ Choice series.

Although New College Library doesn’t have an information desk, our library office is very open and right next to the library entrance hall so it’s easy for readers to come and ask questions. This is the room where I spend most of my time and the first place I go when I arrive in the morning…

09:00 My day starts with a brief look at my emails and email calendar to see if there’s anything happening that day that I should know about. The thing to look out for is whether we have any readers coming in to look at special collections, as this requires a bit of preparation. Then I log on to the college intranet to book my (free!) lunch.

09:15 Then it’s time to retrieve the Click and Collect requests from the library shelves. This was an initiative started in the pandemic when library use was more restricted, but it remains popular, so we’ve decided to keep it going. Every morning I pick up a selection of requested books, and leave them, labelled, on a trolley in the entrance hall for readers to collect.

Some of the special collections stored in the bell tower

10:00 After these initial morning tasks, I have more flexibility to structure my own day. At this point in the morning, I might take a trip to the bell tower in college, to pick up some manuscripts or early printed books.  Readers come in to consult items from our special collections at least once or twice a week and one of my jobs is to collect items from the bell tower so that they can temporarily be stored in our Special Collections Reading Room. When this room is being used, there is always a member of library staff present to help with enquiries and keep an eye on the rare books. If I’m doing this, I can do stationary and laptop-based tasks as well, like checking reading lists against our collections, or writing blog posts like this one!

 

Our current exhibition, displaying items from New College Library’s Mann Collection.

10:30 If there’s no one looking at special collections, I’ll spend the rest of my morning getting on with work in the library office. Being based here means I’m often needed to respond to readers’ questions, but, when I’m not doing that, I work on creating posts for our social media channels (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter) plan for displays or exhibitions, or write some exhibition captions.

 

13:00 It’s lunch time! After I’ve eaten there’s often time to go into town to run a few errands, but, once the weather warms up, I’m looking forward to being able to enjoy the sunshine in the gardens at college.

14:00 Sometimes, generally in the afternoons, we host private viewings of the best parts of our special collections, either for societies or as part of a course module. These are really fun to set up as we get an in-depth look at so many great manuscripts all at once, and it’s a highlight of my job to then be able to share them with such enthusiastic readers.

Highlights of the most recent book delivery include a first edition of Evelyn Waugh’s Love Among the Ruins, and texts on a range of subjects, from The Faerie Queene to Gandhi.

If we have no out of the ordinary events happening in the afternoon, I can devote my attention to the post and unpacking all the new books, which have usually arrived by this time of day. The size of delivery can hugely vary: the most I’ve dealt with at once has been about 40 books, but normally it’s between five and ten books. The journey of a book from parcel to library shelf (also known as ‘processing’) is one in which I’ve invested many hours, but, in a nutshell, I unpack the books, write an accession card for them, catalogue them (if I can), stamp, tag, label, and cover them, and they’re ready to go!

16:30 Once I’ve finished book processing, there’s usually a bit of time to tidy up any unfinished tasks from the morning and clear any expired Click and Collect requests from the trolley, until it’s time to go home at 17:00.