St Hilda’s is, I think, something of a special college. It was the last in Oxford to start admitting men, becoming co-educational in 2008. It is (I’m told) the only college east of the river Cherwell.  Our buildings are dotted around several acres of open gardens, rather than bound up in quadrangles. And, our 60,000+ holdings aren’t on SOLO (the university-wide catalogue) but can be perused instead (by Oxford users) through our own Heritage catalogue.

And now it’s where I work! I’m Liam, and I’m the graduate trainee at the Kathleen Major Library at St Hilda’s this year. I finished an MA in political theory at the University of Sheffield over the summer, and before that I read philosophy at Jesus College, Cambridge, so I’m currently learning to replace one set of jargon (e.g. court, supervision, bedder) with another (quad, tutorial, scout).

It’s an interesting time for the Hilda’s library at the moment, as we’re currently making the transition to self-service issue and return. A fair chunk of my time in the couple of weeks that I’ve been here has been spent electronically tagging books and troubleshooting the new equipment (should that be glowing/beeping and, if not, how do we stop it glowing/beeping?). Today’s new challenge is to work out how to add items like bookstands and keys to the system, and, in the latter case, where to source the large pieces of wood we think we might want to attach to them.  As you might expect, I’ve also spent a lot of time staffing our issue desk and processing and shelving books, which has been great for getting to know our readers and our catalogue.

An ongoing project of mine is to create more shelf space to clear the backlog of new books that currently have no home to go to. Our medicine and biology collections, for example, are housed in rolling stacks in our basement and are currently extremely congested (no medical pun intended). Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as just moving stock around – instead, I’m having to virtually dismantle and rebuild our shelving, with the help of the delightfully-named shelf clips called “tonks”. I’m hoping to get this all finished as soon as possible as I imagine the amount of time I can spend lurking in the stacks will decrease dramatically once our undergrads return. I’m also hoping to start a project this term on surveying our damaged books and assessing whether they can be repaired in-house, or whether they should be sent off for more serious repairs or replaced.

St Hilda’s is an extremely peaceful place to work. Only members of the College can regularly use the library (although we do get visitors, particularly to the Archives), and, tucked away down Cowley Place as we are, not many tourists find us. The Cherwell wends its way through the grounds, disturbed only by the ducks and the assorted punters of varying aptitude. We’re a very small library team, with only the Librarian, the Archivist, and myself at present as we await the arrival of our new Assistant Librarian. This is fantastic, not just because it means I know everyone I work with very well, but because I get to do a bit of everything and gain experience very quickly across the board.

We have a training session this afternoon at the Bodleian offices out at Osney Mead, so I’d better make the most of the rest of the morning and get back down to the stacks!

Hello all! I’m Emma and I am the new(ish!) Graduate Library Trainee at the Kathleen Major Library, better known as the St. Hilda’s College Library. I say newish as I started the post in April as the wonderful past trainee (Grace Brown) secured a full time job at the Bodleian through her second year at St. Hilda’s.

So a little bit about me … I graduated in 2013 with a 1st class honours degree in Observational Astronomy from the University of Glamorgan. I specialised in solar system volcanology over my two dissertations; volcanism in the inner solar system and cryovolcanism in the outer solar system. I know it sounds star trekkie but no, there was no mention of Spock in my work! I spent most of my school life in the library – doing work, swotting up and most importantly reading Star Wars novels (I must have been the only person to do so as the librarian was shocked that I would request more books from the series …). I have fond memories of finding exciting novels to read as well as, you guessed it, finding lots of stuff on volcanoes and astronomy! A home from home, I learned that life could be exciting, knowledgeable and dare I say it, dangerous, without leaving the comfort of my chair.

My library experience (apart from being in one for the majority of my educational life) has been based on public libraries. I worked as a relief library assistant after graduating for a year and a bit before getting the post at St. Hilda’s. I fell in love with library work and interacting with the public and then everything slotted into place – librarians are awesome! I want to be awesome … I will become a librarian!
So far St. Hilda’s has been a joy. Starting at the beginning of Trinity term with lots of anxious students got me into the swing of things quite quickly. I have had the long summer to complete some small projects (yay!) and to look forward to finally meeting my fellow trainees (double yay!).

I can’t wait to get the trainee year properly underway, getting to know Hilda’s and all you trainees further and looking forward to all there is to experience in the Oxford library system.

Hello, I’m Grace and I’m the Graduate Trainee at St Hilda’s College Library (also known as the Kathleen Major library, after a former Librarian and Principal of the college). I graduated from Cambridge this year, where I studied English at Selwyn College, so moving to Oxford didn’t feel like too much of a change. Abundance of gowns, beautiful architecture, weird terminology – yup, feels normal. I have very limited library experience; I spent a week working at the English Faculty Library in Cambridge, and then a month helping with the project of RFID-tagging all the books in my college library. After 6 hours per day of sticking tags into books, shelving seems like a magical adventure…

St Hilda’s has quite a large library for a newer, less grand college. This is because it was a women-only college until recently, and since once upon a time women were not allowed to use the Bodleian, female colleges had to build their own strong collections (as Hannah also mentioned in her post). There are a few quirks of Hilda’s library: firstly, we’re not on SOLO, as we have our own system called Heritage (note my absence from SOLO training sessions, fellow trainees). Additionally, we tend to do things rather traditionally: I am the main security system, checking bags and Bod cards, and I also use a typewriter for spine labels.

There is one other notable fact about St Hilda’s Library which I keep forgetting is the main reason people have heard of it. I was reminded when a conference guest came in today. “I have come to see the famous St Hilda’s library!”, he proclaimed. I was confused – it’s a nice library, but famous? “Yes, where the students did the video!” Oh. Welcome to the library that made national news with that Harlem Shake fiasco…

I’m very much looking forward to the year ahead – learning lots, riding out the chaos that will ensue when the undergrads turn up, avoiding being crushed by the rolling stacks, getting to know my fellow trainees better, and generally enjoying life within the great web of Oxford libraries.

Hello all! I`m Niall, the Graduate Trainee for St. Hilda`s College Library. I am a History graduate with a BA and MSc from University College Dublin and the University of Edinburgh respectively.

I have arrived in Oxford having recently worked in the University of Birmingham library and am delighted by the upgrade in architecture. Walking through the Bodleian on my way to work each morning is a wonderful bonus indeed.

I am looking forward to working this year as part of a small team in a busy library and getting to grips with the unique features of the Oxford collegiate system. This week past we had quite a number of alumni visiting as part of Gaudy weekend, some of whom regaled me with their memories of descending the back stairs from their lodgings in the dead of night to the permanently accessible library. These days only the Law students have 24 hour access in term time, student dedication is clearly on the wane in Oxford. Mercifully my first three weeks have been relatively quiet, although having spent a day and a half creating reader records for all incoming undergraduates and postgraduates I am preparing myself for the inevitable influx come 1^st week.

So far I have mainly been processing new books (including the creation of spine labels with our old forgotten friend, the typewriter), accessioning journals, shelving, withdrawing items and undertaking stock moves to deal with a growing collection and the ever-present bane of libraries, lack of space. I have begun ordering books from suppliers on behalf of the subject tutors and will be responsible for this and handling student requests to purchase books during the year. As one of only three members of staff I am sure I will have a very busy year and gain a good understanding of the many different aspects of running a college library.

The library itself is a situated in the very pleasant college grounds on the banks of the Cherwell, complete with its own punts which I hope to master in the coming months. I am greatly looking forward to this year`s training with you all.

Hello everyone,

I’m Liz and I’m the trainee at St Hilda’s College Library. I’m originally from Norfolk, and I graduated this summer from Warwick University with a degree in Comparative American Studies. I worked in a public library as a Saturday assistant during my A levels, so am familiar with some elements of working in a library, but working at St Hilda’s is, as you might expect, a rather different experience.

Fortunately, it is an experience I am very much enjoying. Although the library has been relatively quiet, I‘ve had plenty to do – ordering books, accessioning periodicals, helping readers and of course shelving – and I have been assured that next week, when the undergraduate students arrive, I will be even busier. I’m hoping that as the year goes on I will be able to get involved in all aspects of running the library, learn a great deal, and that my year as a trainee will prove to be an excellent beginning to a career in librarianship.