Whilst I am the trainee at the History Faculty Library, our team has merged with the Old Bod team, so we all work on a shared rota across both sites. This is a day in the life of the HFL but look out for a day in the life at the Old Bod for a taste of what else I get up to!
An unusually quiet Radcliffe Square
8:40am – Opening up
I arrive at the Radcliffe Camera, lock up my bike, pop my mask on and make my way to our staff area in the Lower Camera. Normally we open at 9am so this gives us 20 minutes to open up the Reading Rooms. Today I start up the computers and printers in the Lower Camera and open all the windows before heading down to open the Gladstone Link. I’ll make a start on any reshelving; it gets pretty busy during term!
9am – Lapse list
My first job today is the lapse list, any books on our self-collect shelves that have reached their due date have to be collected and returned to the BSF. I print off the list and find them all before scanning them out on the system and boxing them up ready for the van later. Then I fit in a coffee break sitting in one of the recesses around the outside of the camera.
All boxed up ready for the BSF van!
10:30am – Reception desk
I take the second slot of the day on reception. It’s third week so there’s a constant flow of people coming in and out. I deal with any questions or problems including a student whose reader card is not working, returning some lost property and redirecting tourists to the Bodleian Library ticket office. The desk is quieter during vacation so then I get on with other jobs such as checking reading lists.
12am – Scanning
I hand over at reception and since I’m not scheduled for anything specific, now is the time to get on with background tasks. I decide to spend the hour scanning pages or chapters from books that readers have requested and emailing them out. We have a BookEye for scanning but since someone else is using it I head for the PCAS (Print, Copy and Scan) machine.
1pm – Lunch!
I love exploring Oxford and normally wander somewhere for lunch, my favourite spots on sunny days are University Park or Christchurch Meadows!
New HFL books being made shelf ready
2pm – Book delivery and processing
The van from the BSF arrives and the Camera team help unload new boxes full of material requested by readers. One team member scans the books in whilst two head over with the van to the Old Bod. I collect a few new books that need processing and set to work stamping them, inserting tattle tape, covering them and updating their status on the system before popping them out on the new book display. Time for a quick tea break before my next desk shift!
3.30pm – Circulation desk
This time I’m on the circulation desk and am kept busy issuing, renewing and placing hold requests for readers. Returned books need fetching from the drop boxes and I keep an eye out for any books coming back that might need repairing. Readers come with different questions: asking about WiFi, printing, to reset their password, how to locate their self-collect or open shelf books. Time flies by and before I know it the evening staff have appeared, so I hand over the desk then get ready to head home!
Although our traineeships are based at the Bodleian Law Library, we also get to spend a day each per week at the Sainsbury Library, part of the Saïd Business School. Since it’s been a couple of years since the Sainsbury team had a trainee of their own, we thought this would be a good opportunity to share what business library life is looking like these days.
9.00
Jess: I turn on my computer and leave it slowly loading in order to do some shelving to start the day. I clear my emails, reading updates on SBS, flagging any ORLO reviews for my time at the Law Library, and making sure I’m up to date with all new info on Slack.
We’ve run out of archive boxes (for now…)
Josie: My Sainsbury day is a Thursday, so while I’m waiting for my computer to wake up enough to catch up on emails and Slack messages, I check my desk for any sticky notes bearing updates on ongoing projects or unfinished bits and pieces from earlier in the week. Sometimes there’s a bit of book processing to do – this is always a bit of a novelty for me, since I’m not very involved with that side of things at Law.
9.30
Jess: I’m on desk for the morning shift today. In between answering reader enquiries, I get to work on the Sainsbury Library’s benchmarking spreadsheet. We search other university library holdings for a long list of business databases, which lets the SBS see if it has a competitive number of databases for its students and to identify any gaps our holdings might have. Today I’m starting a new column and working my way through LSE’s catalogue.
Josie: Once I’m up to date on everything, I check in with one of my colleagues to see if there’s anything in particular they’d like me to do today. Quite often, this just means working on the Futures Library- crates of books, papers, and assorted Stuff from the collections of significant figures in scenario planning. Formerly based at the Egrove Park campus, it is now being transferred to offsite storage, so one of my jobs has been boxing up the non-monograph collections. This is always a bit of a mystery dip – it turns out “non-monograph” can mean anything from journal issues and presentation notes to projector slides, diaries, and pretty much anything else that can be put on a shelf. Rather than cataloguing each individual item, we fill numbered archive boxes according to a master spreadsheet, keeping track of which items end up in which box, and then create an ALEPH record for each completed box. I quickly discovered that the boxes fill up much faster than the BSF vans will collect them – the office has been in an increasingly precarious state since mid-November.
11.00
Jess: Break time! I head into the office for a bit of reading time, before returning to the desk at about twenty past. On today’s menu: Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment.
Josie: At some point the person on desk will take their break, so I’ll step out and cover for them. This is a good opportunity to sign into the desk computer, getting all the slow loading out of the way ahead of my afternoon desk shift, before going back to the morning’s tasks.
12.00
Jess: I’m also keeping an eye on the library inbox for the second half of my desk shift. Whilst more complex enquiries still have me poking my head into the office to ask someone for help, I’m getting the hang of doing database account requests. There’s also a new project in tow to make sure each of the data tags in our books are up-to-date. I gather up a trolley of books, removing old tags as gently as possible, and reprogramming new ones.
Josie: I take my lunch break at twelve, so I can be ready to take over on desk at one. I’m pretty sure that the SBS building was entirely designed for networking – I could find a new spot to sit and eat my lunch every week for the rest of the year.
1.00
Jess: Time for lunch! When the weather allows, I love wandering to the amphitheatre-like seating in one of the SBS’s quads and enjoying my lunch there. I crack open my book to read for the rest of my break.
Josie: I settle down at the enquiry desk for the rest of the day. I keep an eye on the library email inbox, responding to those I can and forwarding others on to better-informed colleagues. The library itself is usually pretty quiet, but I’m getting familiar enough with the usual questions about printing, toilet locations, and (occasionally) finding a book. I have yet to be asked about the Bloomberg terminals and their alarmingly colour-coded keyboards, and I’m hoping it stays that way – although help is always only a frantic Slack message away.
2.00
Jess: The Sainsbury Library Annexe is currently closed to readers as material from the SBS’s Egrove Park library is relocated across the Bodleian. Today, I’m looking at print journals! At the SBS, we keep print journals for a limited amount of time before they are withdrawn from the library collection to keep current issues on the shelves. Issues are distributed to fill gaps in other library holdings or taken out of the Bodleian’s collection entirely. My first task is to make individual piles of each of the 14 journals for checking with over 300 individual issues. There are several large crates for the Futures Library project – which Josie has told you about above – so I feel like I’m dodging my way around a jungle gym as I fire up a philosophy podcast on my headphones.
Josie: The Sainsbury is a lending library, which means I occasionally get to do a bit of circulation – another novelty! However, students prefer to use the self-checkout machine beside the desk, so circulation enquiries mostly tend to be of the “something isn’t working” variety- it’s usually the RFID tags (see Jess’s explanation above). Another quirk of the SBS is that some courses run intermittently throughout the year, and these students will often only be in Oxford for a few days at a time. It’s a little jarring to go from the strictly reference-only Law Library to lending several books to a reader who then tells you they’re about to fly back to Chicago for the next month!
Several stacks of sorted serials
3.00
Jess: Nine large bags, two boxes, two-and-a-half podcast episodes, and one exceptionally well-hidden box later, I have all my journal issues sorted. I start with The Economist, as it’s teetering dangerously, beginning to sort issues for checking. I have a spreadsheet that tells me the earliest and latest issues I should have, alongside a list of ones marked as missing. Each journal is out of order, so I work on putting each pile into publication order and noting any missing issues as I go.
Josie: When I’m not dealing with readers, I work on one of my LibGuide assignments. At the start of the year, Jess and I were each given a set of LibGuides to work on- checking links, updating the date range on pre-set searches, and finding new resources to add. Before Christmas I was working on adding recent reports to a guide on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals; now I’m looking at a guide on South America, part of a series on “Doing Business” around the world.
3.20
Jess: I retreat to the office for my final Dostoyevsky fix of the day, accompanied by some dried pineapple for a sugar boost to my afternoon.
Josie: If we’re expecting a delivery of Bod books from the offsite storage facility, I’ll head down to the secret cupboard in the car park to drop off any returns, retrieve the new delivery, and process them back at the desk. Unlike most Bodleian libraries, readers need a separate SBS card in order to get into the building, so I double-check the requestors’ permissions on ALEPH in case there might be any issues with that – people do occasionally click the wrong library in the drop-down menu. Around this time, I’ll also take my break from desk, popping down to the cafeteria to take advantage of the daily free tea or coffee we’re allowed as SBS staff.
3.40
Jess: Back into the Annexe I go! Whilst I’m continuing with serials today, there’s another ongoing project to withdraw from the library’s collection any book that hasn’t been borrowed for 10 years or more, starting with the stack (as regularly borrowed titles on reading lists are kept on the ground floor). I check each book to ensure it has the matching shelfmark and barcode, usually taking three large stacks down to the office. Opening up our library cataloguing system, known as ALEPH, as well as using Oxford’s online catalogue SOLO, I make sure each book is held somewhere else in the central Bodleian libraries where it’s available to all students (sorry colleges). If it’s the only copy, I place it on a new pile to go back up to the stack. If not, weed away!
First, we delete the item record – this is a record that is specific to a particular book, versus all books with the same title, author, etc. The next step is to delete the holding record, if the library has no other copies of that particular book at that location – for example, in the SBS, there are separate holding records so the catalogue will tell a reader if a book is in the stack, the annexe, or the main reading room! Each of these books goes through a special secret process to stop it from beeping at the gate, and then gets a nice red ‘WITHDRAWN’ stamp on the inside. They’re then boxed up (with a very fun roller of packing tape) and go on to a second-hand book provider so they can be read and loved.
Josie: At some point I’ll try to have a quick chat with Hal, the Business Librarian – I have some questions about the guide I’m currently working on, and I also want to talk about potential topics for building my own LibGuide from scratch. Current options include banking, financial technology, or another piece for the “Doing Business” series – all a bit daunting, considering I had very little idea of what a business degree involved before starting here. However, I’m finding that the LibGuides, along with all the other day-to-day library tasks, are providing ample introduction, and things are finally beginning to make sense.
5.00
Jess: Home time! I’ll often quickly nab a book I’ve spotted the previous week to enjoy over the weekend.
Josie: The library follows the same opening hours as the main SBS building, so there’s not much in the way of opening/closing routines. Since it’ll be a week before I’m back, I make a note of any LibGuide progress for my future self, say goodbye on Slack, and then hand over the desk to the person taking the evening duty.
9:00 – I switch on my computer, load up the main enquiries email box and begin filtering through queries from readers. These commonly include researchers struggling to access a database, students who can’t return to the UK but have a pile of books due at the SSL, and suggestions for resources to add to our collections. I really enjoy being able to make a difference to someone’s research by helping them find a resource they’ve been struggling to access. Additionally, the main inbox is where the room booking requests from our Google Form are delivered, so I filter through these and add them to the calendar.
9:15 – I begin opening up the library with a colleague, switching the self-issue machine and printers on, and deleting any expired hold requests. Once we’ve wheeled in the out of hours book returns box, we open up the doors and begin to let readers in.
The entrance of the SSL inside the Manor Road building
9:30 – The library is now open, and I take the first desk shift of the day. This involves assisting readers with their questions, lending and returning books, and answering the phone. When I first started this job, I was nervous to be on the desk on my own as the thought that the readers could ask me anything felt intimidating. However, working with the students and academics has become one of my favourite parts of the job, and I know I can always ask a colleague for advice if the question is a bit rogue. When the desk is quiet, I work on a project which involves making sure any online resources for Social Science courses (eBooks, podcasts, YouTube videos) are marked clearly as viewable online on the reading list, and that the links to these work.
10:30 – I take a break! Sometimes I take a trip to The Missing Bean Café in the St Cross Building next door to catch up with a fellow trainee and reward ourselves with a doughnut.
10:50 – For the rest of the morning, I’m processing new books. This involves some physical processing: sticking in a slip about returning books, stamping it with an SSL stamp, covering it with sticky back plastic, and inserting “tattle tapes”, which are thin magnets that stick in between the pages of our books to trigger the exit gates unless desensitised when loaned to the reader. After this, I process the book on Aleph, our library management system, which involves creating a holding and adding the shelf mark, reading list codes, and marking the book as loanable or a library use only copy. Once this is complete, the information will display on the user’s end – SOLO – so that they can search for and find the book.
A newly arrived book along with some physical processing supplies
12:30 – It’s lunchtime! Time to take a walk to the University Parks around the corner for some fresh air and a break away from the library.
1:30 – Another desk shift! I continue responding to the enquiries in the SSL’s email box. I also log a reader onto our Bloomberg terminal. This is a high demand PC that has access to current and historical financial data on currencies and the stock market. To keep the data secure we don’t give out the password for it, which is why we have to assist researchers in accessing the terminal. I also make sure to organise the post that has been delivered to us, sifting through new physical copies of journals and letters for the librarians before popping them in their pigeonholes. I finish up by scanning in and popping onto the shelves the newly arrived Bodleian stack requests that readers order from the storage facility to be accessed in the reading rooms.
Our closed stack shelves – looking rather empty here as this photo was taken before all the students returned
2:30 – I take some time to create a blog post advertising upcoming Bodleian iSkills sessions which are relevant to researchers and students in the Social Sciences. These usually cover topics such as Open Access, referencing, or finding appropriate research materials. Once this is written up, I schedule the post along with a Tweet and Facebook post so the sessions reach as wide an audience as possible. I then fetch some books requested by the Accessible Resources Unit who take our print copies of books and transform them into electronic text, Braille, audio and tactile diagrams for users with disabilities. I make sure to select a clean copy as sadly there is often lots of highlighting or written notes which can make the process difficult! However, the turnaround for this process can be really quick, which always impresses me and is great news for the students that require them.
3:30 – Time for another break! Snacking gets me through the day.
4:30 – After taking 5 minutes to water the plants, I update the new books display with brand new legal deposit books, research books and print outs of some new eBook covers too. This helps keep the library looking fresh and up to date whilst also allowing our readers to access the new releases in their field quickly. It’s also an opportunity to be a bit creative and directly contribute something to the readers’ experience at the library.
The New Books Display from November 2021, featuring research books, eBooks and legal deposit copies, as well as the subject librarian’s book of the month.
5:30 – Time to go home! No need to lock up as the SSL is open until 10pm on weeknights, so after handing over to my evening colleagues, my day is done.
8am: Arrive at the library and wash my hands! Since we are a lending library (unlike the Law Library and Old Bodleian), I come in an hour before we open so I can shelve the previous day’s returns and start gathering Click and Collect requests before the students arrive. This is because our bookshelves are in close proximity to the study desks, and it becomes much more difficult to navigate around students for books while maintaining a 2m distance once it starts filling up.
The previous night’s library clerk will hopefully have arranged the books on our returns trolley in sequential order so I just have to run them back in through the self-issue machine. This is the first substantial adjustment we’ve had to introduce because of the virus – instead of returning books themselves, readers must leave their loans with us to be quarantined overnight before I return them the following morning. I then separate the returns according to their location (e.g. East or West Library, Upper Library or the Orangery). At this point, I usually log into the library inbox, open the Aleph report for Click and Collect requests, organise the shelfmarks to my liking and then print them out so that I can collect students’ requests and re-shelve returns simultaneously.
While moving around the library to shelve, I’ll also complete any outstanding tasks as I encounter them, for instance replacing the daily track and trace form, checking that the Upper Library is unlocked and de-alarmed for student arrivals at 9, and removing any student belongings that have been left overnight.
9-10.30: Once I’ve fetched the day’s first batch of Click and Collect requests, I spend the morning at the enquiry desk. Students start filing in from 9 and I answer any questions they may have while issuing out their requests and notifying each reader via email that their loans are ready for collection – a lengthy process, and one that is unique to pandemic times. I also remove any uncollected requests from previous days (we retain books for 24 hours only) and make a note of repeat offenders so I can see if they need another nudge, or extra assistance with getting books – occasionally these have not been collected because the student in question is self-isolating.
Then I’ll work through our inbox and answer emails, making note of quarantine deliveries and chapter scan requests. Our wonderful senior library assistant and the colleague I work with most closely, Georgie, will also check in with me to see what our plan for the day is, and leave book post with me to unwrap and print invoices for the new arrivals.
10.30-11: Coffee break!
11-12: Back on the enquiry desk, I spend this time processing and issuing out new books that have been recommended for purchase by students. We are fortunate to have a generous book budget so there is always a huge pile of books in various stages of processing that need covering, adding to Aleph and so forth.
Students can also request books they need by simply coming to the enquiry desk and asking, so I usually spend some time fetching and loaning out books on demand. This feels more personal than the Click and Collect service and sometimes leads to interesting conversations about students’ research. I believe that I have gotten to know our students more quickly and comprehensively this year than I otherwise would have since I’m now (perhaps to their chagrin) an intermediary figure between them and their reading.
If it is a quiet morning, I also do a little work on our reclassification project. We are moving towards Library of Congress, however a significant amount of our collections are still classified via our Roman numerals in-house system. I’ll grab 20 or so books from the Classics section (currently IX), switch them over to LoC on Aleph, print new shelfmark labels and shift them over to their new home in the PA’s in the West library.
12-1: Lunch! The librarians at colleges get free lunch and I take full advantage of this. We are big fans of the bread rolls.
1-2: More enquiry desk, more processing, more emails.
2-3.15: Georgie takes over the desk, so I am free to complete my tasks outside the library building. Throughout Michaelmas, my afternoons were dedicated to following through on delivering books to self-isolating students – mostly within college grounds, although I have also cycled to an accommodation site in Cowley for a book delivery. I’ll also swing by the lodge for more parcels, boxes and post, and fetch the more obscure books (usually requested by fellows) from our off-site locations.
3.15-4: The second Click and Collect report arrives, so I do another round of fetching and issuing books. Georgie and I might brainstorm a tweet for the library account, I’ll spend several minutes lamenting that we don’t have library cats like St. Hugh’s (the cornerstone of any truly decent social media presence), and finish my work day at 4pm.
Hello! We have now been in our roles for over two months and thought it would be a good time to share what a typical working day might look like for us both. Aside from daily desk duties and the Wednesday afternoon training sessions that are a brilliant feature of the graduate trainee scheme, we largely have the freedom to structure our days as we please. While no two days are typically identical, this ‘A Day in the Life’ timetable offers a flavour of how we organise our time…
The mysterious IR office…
08:40
Naomi: Arrive at the library, put things away in locker and walk up to the Information Resources (IR) office where my desk is.
Ella: Arrive at the library, make a cup of tea, get myself sorted and head upstairs to log in.
08:45-08:55
N: Sign into Microsoft Teams, check emails, write a to-do list for the day.
E: Log in to the computer, sign in on Teams and check emails for anything urgent. I’ll also check for Law Bod 4 Students (LB4S) requests at this point – LB4S is an online site available for law students with extra resources, and they can submit requests for material that they can’t find online to be added to it. If any requests have been submitted, I make a note to deal with the request later that morning.
08:55-09:20
N: Shelving books left on the trolleys throughout the library overnight and opening windows.
E: Whizz round the library opening windows (very important at present – helps ventilate, which limits the spread of coronavirus) and shelving books from the day before.
09:20-11:00
N: Morning desk duty. The library opens to readers at 09:30. Sitting at the Enquiry Desk involves signing in readers who have booked seats through the online Space Finder system, answering readers’ enquiries (e.g. explaining where certain books are located, lending power banks, giving directions to other parts of the St. Cross building), and working on other tasks that can be done at a computer, such as building ORLO reading lists (or writing this blog post!).
Using the mobile shelving
E: I carry on dealing with LB4S requests, double-checking SOLO (Search Oxford Libraries Online) and ORLO (Oxford Reading Lists Online) to see if the material is available online and they’ve just not spotted it. If it isn’t, I email our Research Support Librarian, who has to go through various copyright checks to see if we can make the material available on LB4S. (She also sometimes finds resources I’ve not been able to, as she has more experience dealing with tricky legal databases!)
I’ll also do a bit of scanning for Scan and Deliver, the Bodleian scanning service. I’ll then edit them and send them through to readers.
11:00-11:30
N: Quick socially-distanced tea break in the staff room with Ella… potentially a trip to buy a coffee. Then a brief session stamping Official Papers.
E: Tea Break! An essential part of the morning. Naomi and I occasionally visit The Missing Bean Café in the building (great coffee, friendly barista, sweet treats always look delicious too) but mostly have tea and a socially-distanced natter about our mornings (Bake Off is also a popular topic of discussion – I have strong views about this year’s hosting choices). Then I’ll do some book processing – stamping and tattling if Naomi wants help, or shelving serials. I might also spend some time stamping Official Papers (OP) and attempt to shelve some OP documents (a daunting task as shelf marks can be exceptionally complex). This will usually take me through until lunch.
The Official Papers collection
11:30-13:00
N: Book processing tasks such as counting, stamping, labelling and updating spreadsheets to record deliveries of purchased and legal deposit books. We are currently making headway with processing the many books which could not be delivered during the first lockdown, seeing as the Law Library was closed.
13:00-14:00
N: Lunch break. Ella and I eat together in the staff room and then go for a walk around the beautiful University Parks – we love how close they are to the library.
E: You’ll find Naomi and me in the staff room at lunchtime. Sadly, we don’t get a free lunch – the trainees at the college libraries do, and from what I’ve heard the food is delicious, and there’s usually dessert. Although our kitchen boasts a hot water tap, two microwaves and numerous coffee machines, so…
14:00-15:00
N: Time to scan some book chapters and journals for the Scan and Deliver service. After scanning them to a memory stick, I edit the PDFs at my desk and email them to readers.
E: This hour might be spent carrying on with the tasks above, digitising a resource for ORLO, updating an ORLO list or doing some of the other tasks that pop up on an irregular basis. I also help out with the LRMSP (Legal Research and Mooting Skills Programme) which is a module to help undergrads get to grips with finding legal resources and using them in a moot 1. In the past couple of months it has involved looking over some students’ submissions and figuring out strategies for moving parts of the course online, and we’re currently preparing for online moots, which I might get to help clerk at.
15:00-15:30
Doing some scanning
N: I shelve some new serials. These can often be a little trickier to find and shelve correctly than books.
E: Desk duty until 17:00. Naomi has described the main tasks we do while at the enquiry desk. In the background, I’ll be updating the Spanish and Latin American Law LibGuides – online guides to the Bodleian Law Library’s resources.
15:30-16.55
N: Another tea break! Afterwards, I unpack some book deliveries in the post room and fill a trolley to take back to the office. The rest of the afternoon is spent making a start with processing them.
16:55-17:05
N: Tidy things away, say goodbye on Teams, close any open windows in the office, and go down to the staff room.
E: Time to pack up and head home!
1. Moot = a ‘court competition [which] simulates a court hearing (usually an appeal against a final decision), in which participants analyse a problem, research the relevant law, prepare written submissions, and present oral argument’ according to the Oxford Law Faculty.
During my weekly late shift in the Law Library I am able to get a sense of the quietness that would usually be a constant presence here. However most of the time instead of hearing the telltale rustling of books and tapping of keyboards associated with students hard at work, we have been subject to drilling and banging going on above us as a team of builders work hard to install our new roof. Currently the large scaffolding structure holding up the temporary roof takes up the majority of the space in our main reading room, with part of it covered in lovely yellow health and safety approved covering. We have definitely made the most of having scaffolding, as a few have been subjected to feature tinsel as the Law Library gets into the festive spirit.
In a nutshell these works are taking place because the roof needs some TLC. The structure of the roof is being replaced to allow for better ventilation, better rainwater drainage and better lighting in general. Even though the scaffolding is a prominent feature, we have still welcomed many readers over the course of Michaelmas term, most of whom were not too fazed by what was going on above them. However, there is no denying that the drilling and banging of building work can put people a bit on edge, and this probably contributed to the high volume of ear plugs taken from the box on our Enquiry Desk daily (again – suitably decorated in the festive spirit.)
So far the project seems to be going ok (except when our lovely British autumn weather decides to get in the way) with a new phase of the project having started in November on rebuilding the roof structure. I am definitely looking forward to April when the new roof is finally in place as myself and Laura (the other trainee here at the Law Bod) have only ever known the reading room encased in scaffolding.
As I post this, there is a mere few hours left of Michaelmas term and it boggles the brain as to where the time has gone! Reading back on my first post from over two months ago has got me reflecting on how much I’ve learned since then and how comfortable I now feel in a building that has been slowly revealing its character to me. These dark, gloomy mornings must be making me emotional!
As I am based in the Information Resources team, my tasks this term have been mainly book processing, serials processing for the New Journal Display and reclassifying part of our collection. This is broken up with a several 2-hour shifts a week on the Enquiry Desk which have been great for interacting with our regular readers and learning about their area of research, as well as aiding newer readers in navigating our, often confusing, collection. I have only just gotten to grips with the layout of our ground-floor rolling stacks, and not embarrassed to admit I had to consult a map a few days ago while shelving after becoming baffled as to where the usual home was of an old, secondary collection Criminology text.
A rare sunny and quiet morning in the Law Bod. View into the main Reading Room from the Gallery.
My IR (Information Resources) work is varied and allows me the privilege of handling almost every book that comes through the library – be it through Legal Deposit, purchase or donation. Some days I’ll find myself 5 minutes into reading a book that I had intended only to skim through while stamping and tattling. Who knew law could be so interesting to an English Literature and Art History graduate?!
One of the more difficult, but very informative, tasks have been the reclassification of our Roman Law collection. My language experience has certainly come in useful as the texts are predominantly in German and Italian, but it is often hard to decipher the nuanced meanings between certain words when you are deciding on specific shelfmarks, as many words can be similar in language but mean very different things in a legal context. One language which would have been useful to be familiar with is Latin, but I decided against studying it on the belief that it would not help me while being a tourist… However, now that I am learning tonnes about Roman Law and its apparent influence on our own Common Law legal system, I can impress anyone while travelling with the Latin terms for various contracts and criminal activities, because I hear people love to talk about Stipulatio and Damnum Iniuria Datum on their holidays, yes?
‘Furtum’ is the Latin legal term for ‘theft’ in Roman Law …but of course you already knew that.
Speaking of summer holidays… the stormy, winter weather has brought the library alive with the howling of the wind circulating around the building and the thunder of the rain on the slanted roof windows. The noise is almost biblical when the rain is pouring and it still excites and awes me when it is in full force. I am really getting familiar with where the best seats are, which of our four floors is the least chilly and the quietest areas of the library, which is useful when suggesting places for readers to park up with their books for the next 8 hours. I have also aided a student in using our microfilm reader, which was a nice departure into the past from a standard query of how to search for legislation on an online database.
Best seat in the house. This nook can be found on our Gallery level, tucked between carrels with a lovely view.
Finally, our training sessions this term have been so interesting and varied, and extremely useful for day to day library work. Seeing the other trainees almost every week has been so great for catching up and reminds me that I’m not alone in being thrown into so many new experiences. I am so looking forward to heading back up north to Scotland for Christmas and Hogmanay, but I am also welcoming Hilary Term in the New Year and wondering what new challenges and opportunities it will bring. We still have a few weeks left until the Law Bod closes for Christmas, but Merry Christmas when it comes and lang may yer lum reek!
Hi there! I’m Emma and I am the new trainee at the Sainsbury Library at the Saïd Business School.The Business School was opened in 2002, so the building and the library is one of the newest in Oxford. The Business School has two locations; Egrove Park and Park End, where I currently work.
At the Saïd Business School
The Business School offers a variety of courses in business, such as the MBA (Master of Business Administration), Law and Finance, Major Programme Management, and MFE (Master in Financial Economics), to name a few. The library is split into two levels; the upper floor for silent study, and the lower floor (where the main library desk is) for a mixture of quiet study areas and group work spaces.
The Upper Reading Room
The library offers many textbooks on all areas of business, as well as several journals and a daily Financial Times. We also have a large number of databases that students can access to research different companies and their financial and economic data. The newer members of staff, myself included, are currently undergoing training on these databases so that we can help students with their enquiries and research.
Some of the books we offer at the library
My days are really mixed and no two are the same! Here’s a quick overview of what I did yesterday:
8.45am – Arrive at work. Today, it’s my turn to set up the front desk for the day. I turn on the computer and the lights, check the photocopiers, re-shelve books that have been returned, and make sure the library is ready for our users.
9am – The day is split into two for the desk duty; the morning and afternoon shift. I usually work one of these a day. I’m working the morning shift today which is 9am to 1pm. The enquiry desk can be challenging at times, as I don’t always know the answers to the questions asked of me, but help is at hand! My colleagues are really patient and helpful, and I’m learning a lot from their answers and training. This morning I had enquiries about how to use the printing system, where to find particular books, and which databases were best to look at for researching different aspects of a certain company. We’ve recently finished welcoming this year’s under- and postgraduate students, so the library is pretty busy now.
1pm – Lunch time. The Saïd Business School has amazing facilities, lots of different options for lunch, and the students are well cared for by all the staff here. I have a free coffee every day too! Yum!
The Cafe offers a wide variety of snacks, and we also have a restaurant that provides hot and cold meals.
2pm – This afternoon, I received a new copy of the Economist and two other journals. As part of my role, it is my responsibility to prepare and process the journals so that they are ‘shelf – ready’. This involves registering the journals, attaching a bar code and preparing security labels for them. I then process the older copies and store them upstairs.
The Economist, one of our weekly journals.
3pm – The Saïd Business School is going through some re-branding so I’m working my way through changing the signs around the library. This week I’m working on changing the labels on the journal holders upstairs. I’m also going through them and making sure they’re all in the correct order.
Part of the re-branding involves me checking the journal labels upstairs.
4.30pm – Throughout the day I make sure all the books are correctly re-shelved and the library is looking tidy and suitable for our users.
5pm – Home time (already!). The days here zoom by for me. I feel like I blink and it’s the end of the day!
I love working here at the Sainsbury Library. It’s really modern with lots of green spaces available for both staff and students. When the weather permits, I like to sit outside for lunch and my breaks.
One of the courtyards around the Business School
I’m learning a lot about search techniques and understanding all the different databases that we have so that I can help the students the best way I can. The days are incredibly varied and I am encouraged and helped by my colleagues everyday. Everyone here has so much knowledge that they’re willing to pass on – I’m well looked after! I’m looking forward to seeing what the rest of the year has in store for me!
A day in the life of a graduate trainee librarian, St John’s College.
Hello – my name is Rhiannon and I’m the graduate trainee at St John’s College Library. I’ve recently graduated from the University of York where I did my undergraduate degree in English literature.
Our readers at St John’s are all members of the College, from undergraduates to Fellows, and we provide core texts on a wide range of subjects. We also have Special Collections, including manuscripts and early printed books. As part of a small team, my work is very varied, with many opportunities for responsibility and personal projects.
9 am: social media. I start the day by updating the Library’s Facebook page. Today I have a new Special Collections blog post to advertise, sharing our texts from the Reformation. (I almost immediately get a text from my mum telling me I’ve made a spelling error in the blog.)
9:30 – 11 am: processing books. This is the technical services side of the job. I classify texts and create holdings records for new stock, making it available to our readers. This includes brand new books, and older texts which might be donations or unrecorded items from the Library stores.
11 am – 12:30 pm: reader services. A visiting academic has come to look at an early printed book, so I work in the beautiful Old Library to supervise his study and make sure he gets the information he needs. The Old Library houses our Special Collections; as well as being a space to preserve and display wonderful old texts, it is very much a working library. Visitors often come from far and wide to consult unique items. While I supervise, I get on with some writing, including a Halloween themed blog post for the Special Collection blog.
12:30pm – 1:30 pm: lunchtime! A significant perk of working in a College Library is free lunch every day in the Hall. Today is a hearty pasta bake.
1:30pm – 3:30pm: donations. The Deputy Librarian and I sort through a new batch of donated books, choosing which books would be useful for our Library, which I then process. Donations provide some interesting and unusual texts; in this case, there is a wide array of theological books. Excitingly, one contains a 1940s bus ticket!
3:30pm – 4pm: RFID labels. Bringing the library up to date, one of our projects this year is to put RFID labels in all borrowable books. This will prepare them for use at self-issue machines in the new library building, due to open in a few months.
4pm – 5pm: shelving. Some good old-fashioned shelving! The library has two rooms of open shelves: the Paddy Room on the ground floor, mainly for sciences, and the Laudian Library on the first floor, mainly for humanities.
5pm: closing up. During the Vacation we close at 5pm, so I switch off all the lights and make sure there are no readers hidden away who have lost track of time.
Throughout the day, readers and visitors come in with queries and items to return. Most of my work is done at the Issue Desk so I’m always on hand to greet and assist readers.
As we are now approaching the final months of the Graduate Trainee year, I thought I’d write a quick post detailing what I’ve been up to throughout the last twelve months! Although my work has changed throughout the year, in this post I have tried to describe a “typical” day in my library; detailing both the routine activities I do virtually every day and giving a snapshot of the individual projects that have changed throughout the year.
Here it is:
9.00 – Arrive at work and prepare the library for opening at 9.30. This involves switching on the Desk and SOLO quick search computers, setting out the cash boxes ready for collecting fines, and opening some windows in the main reading room and computer room to let some air circulate. I will also normally do a spot check of the library; tidying up anything left from the previous evening and shelving any books left on tables.
9.10-9.30 – Once the library is ready to open, I then start Aleph (the University’s Library Management System) on both desk computers, and open my email inbox. Afterwards, I download the daily “Lapse List”, which contains a list of both the Bodleian and PTFL books that need to be returned to the Book Storage Facility in Swindon every day. I then find these books on their shelves by the main desk, process them, and place them in the box to be collected by the delivery van at lunch time. If my colleague has not already done so, I will also check the Book Returns Box to check whether any books have been returned to the library outside of opening hours, and then return them to the shelves.
9.30-11.00 – Now that the library is open, readers start to enter and I therefore start my everyday desk duties. As it is now close to exam time, several readers are entering the library returning or borrowing books, but there are also regular questions from readers both in person and on the telephone, and I advise them on a case-by-case basis. This week, for example, I have answered questions about the payment of fines, the use of the Bodleian wide printing system (PCAS), the location of resources both in the PTFL and in the wider Bodleian libraries, and had to chase up books for readers that had not been returned on time.
When readers are not at the desk, I also start to reply to any emails that come through either to my own inbox or to the generic library inbox. These can be from readers asking questions about resources, or from colleagues asking me to complete specific tasks. Additionally, I help to process any fines payments coming through from the online store and reserve places on information skills sessions run by the library.
11.00 – Tea Break!
11.10 – 13.00 – In addition to my regular desk duties and answering email enquiries, as the day goes on, I normally take the opportunity to work on one of my individual trainee projects when the desk is quiet. These have been varied throughout the year and have changed depending on the individual needs of the library. So far, I have written a blog post advertising the library’s collections to a wider audience, created a new PowerPoint presentation for the Library Information Screen, and taken part in a project to reclassify the remaining Theology classification to Library of Congress (more details to follow in my presentation for the Trainee showcase!).
13.00 – 14.00 – Lunch!
14.00 – 15.00 – Shortly after 2pm, the Bodleian delivery van usually comes to collect the outgoing Closed Stack Books and to drop off any books that have been ordered in the last 24 hours from the Book Storage Facility in Swindon. After they are delivered, I process any new books with colleagues and then place them on the reservation shelf at the Enquiry Desk. When they are processed, a reader gets an email informing them that their request has arrived, and they can then come to the desk to collect it. After processing the stack books, I normally continue on the desk, answering any further enquiries and shelving any returned books once I have any spare time.
15.00 – Tea Break!
15.10 – 16.45 – For the past few months, in the afternoons I have often been in the back library office as we are currently completing a weeding project. As we are trying to make space in the library for new acquisitions, I have been selecting low use books from the open shelves and processing them ready for ingest into the Book Storage Facility. I therefore need to replace the barcode on these books and update their catalogue record to reflect their new location. Once they have been processed, these books are placed in a special ingest box and collected by the Bodleian delivery van the following day.
16.45 – 17.15 – If it is not term-time, in the last half an hour of the day I help other colleagues to prepare the library for closing at 5pm. This process is basically the reverse of the opening procedure, but we always make sure that we check all areas of the library for any stray readers before we close the building! As it is currently term-time, I normally hand over to the evening staff at this time at the moment, unless I am on an evening shift myself of course. The library then closes at 7pm.
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