Hello, I’m Nadia, and I’m this year’s St. John’s College trainee. I graduated in July with an English Literature degree from the University of Warwick, and have been working at St. John’s since the start of August. I’ve really enjoyed my first few months as a Library trainee, although I can’t quite believe how quickly the past few months have flown by. During my undergrad degree, I worked and volunteered at my university library in a range of capacities, and I also have some (very limited) experience of working in a public library. These roles nurtured my love of books and libraries, something which has continued to grow during my trainee year so far.
Working in a college is a truly unique setting, and I am thoroughly enjoying the experience. The start of my trainee year coincided with St. John’s move into a brand new Library and Study Centre. While this definitely felt like being thrown in at the deep end, it meant that I quickly familiarised myself with the new Library and how it works, as my first jobs included creating new stack signs and a new Library guide (complete with reading room maps). Since the start of term, I’ve been getting more comfortable with usual library jobs – staffing the main desk, fully processing new books and donations, creating book displays, giving tours of the new building, supervising special collections readers, and so on. I like having mini projects to do alongside the daily running of the Library – my main one this week is writing a new special collections blog post on St. John’s current exhibition.
A favourite from the current exhibition – a 1603 edition of Abraham Ortelius’ Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. This double page shows a hand-coloured map of Iceland, complete with sea monsters and brown polar bears.
I’ve also been attending the Bodleian training sessions, getting to know the other trainees, and attending the various (library and non-library related) events that are always going on in Oxford. Moving through the rest of the year, I’m excited to learn as much as possible, and get as much out of my year as I can.
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.
Hello, I’m Connie, and I’m the trainee for 2016-17 at St John’s College Library.
I’ve been working at St John’s since August. Back then, the library was closed to students for the summer vacation and I became introduced to the library through the annual stock check. This meant I very quickly familiarised myself with the layout of the library which was particularly helpful as one of my first projects was to create a guide to the library for new students, and once term started, I needed to be able to help users with their enquiries.
The entrance to the Laudian Library
In the run-up to term, the library received reading lists from various departments and some large donations of books from retiring fellows. One of my jobs was to check titles against SOLO and then process the new books, from classification (using the college’s unique, home-grown system) through to shelving via holdings, bookplates, stamps, stickers and plastic covers.
At St John’s I’ve also had the opportunity to work with the library’s special collections, such as preparing materials for exhibitions, writing about specific items for the Special Collections blog, and assisting the librarian in photographing some of the library’s most precious items for the website. The Special Collections at St John’s include
manuscripts….
A plate showing lions in MS61, York Bestiary (13th century)
early printed books …
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, William Caxton printing (c. 1483)
and notable individuals’ papers…
A letter from Jane Austen to her niece, Anna. (1814)
It is currently a time of change in the library as an extension is under construction; the new Study Centre is set to open in the next academic year. Lots of aspects of the library are subject to change before the construction is finished and the related conversations surrounding the practicalities of the move are particularly interesting for someone new to the world of libraries.
I came into the traineeship almost immediately after graduating from Durham University where I studied English Literature. This was a quick turnaround from full-time study to full-time work, and my previous experience of working in a library was solely through volunteering opportunities: regularly volunteering at the Bill Bryson university library at Durham, and undertaking a brief spell of work experience at Leeds College of Music’s library.
As for the rest of the year, I’m looking forward to further training and visits to libraries with the other Oxford trainees as well as getting to know more about the collections here at St John’s.
Curating a Special Collections exhibition on the theme of war
As I am unable to attend at the trainee showcase, I’ve written an account of my trainee project at St John’s Library instead, covering the process of organising a themed exhibition of rare books and manuscripts.
One of the reasons I applied for the traineeship at St John’s College Library was due to its fascinating range of extensive Special Collections, and the chance to explore and work with these as part of my day-to-day tasks. Items housed in the library date back to the 9th century and include some 400 manuscripts, 20,000 early printed books and significant collections of modern literary papers. In order to give College members the chance to learn more about these, we organise exhibitions displaying a number of items of interest twice a year. Each exhibition is based around a particular theme, with recent topics including a Classical A to Z and the Seven Deadly Sins.
Knowing that I would be setting up my exhibition in April, I decided to get started as early as possible and began thinking of possible themes (which gave me a great excuse to explore the collections themselves!) Three topics stood out as possibilities; witchcraft, alchemy and war. However, it turned out that we didn’t have enough variety of material to justify a witchcraft exhibition. Left with two options, I eventually decided on the theme of war – despite it not being an area I know much about – as I thought it tied in well with the marking of the centenary of WWI this year. War has become a prevalent theme in the media, with an increased topical and cultural presence.
The exhibition poster and handlist cover picture
I then had a closer look at the items I could display – choosing war as a topic made it easy to ensure that the exhibition could cover all our collections, from a 13th century Egyptian manuscript, to 17th century early printed books, to the modern literary papers of Robert Graves and Spike Milligan. The Librarian and Deputy Librarian, having a wider knowledge of the library’s collections, both suggested items to include, and I then decided on the final order. I intended this to be fully chronological, but logistical considerations (making sure all the items would actually fit in the exhibition cases without being damaged!) made this difficult. The first three cases are therefore based around different themes, before the exhibition moves on chronologically to cover the 16th to the 20th century. It sounds slightly confusing but I think it works! I learned that one of the most important things was trying to include a balance of text and image in each section in order to maintain the viewer’s interest.
The information I give in my captions for the exhibition obviously had to be meticulously researched, before being checked by the Librarian. Part of this research involved consulting a 19th century book in the Taylor Institution Library, which was a lovely place to work in and made me feel very studious!
After the exhibition was finally set up, I looked into how best to promote it. As well as using channels already in existence, such as posters, the library website and Facebook page, I took the opportunity to increase the library’s social media presence by posting on the St John’s College Twitter account and setting up a Special Collections blog for the library, (http://stjohnscollegelibrary.wordpress.com), with the first post focusing on the content of the exhibition. The College President’s Executive Assistant also included details about it in the monthly College events flyer. This part of the process showed me another important side to Special Collections work; the fact that good communication skills, both online and face-to-face, are essential in an sector which relies on gaining funding and developing innovative ways to engage readers to ensure its relevance in an increasingly digitally-focused society.
Promotion of the exhibition in the College events flyer
The range of tasks involved in completing this project reflects the opportunities the trainee scheme as a whole has given me – I’ve really enjoyed the combination of reader services and Special Collections work that being part of a College library team entails. The other projects I have been involved epitomise this variety; from sorting through 19th century letters and cataloguing Spike Milligan’s literary papers, to setting up general interest book displays and providing free squash and biscuits to students during exam time!
A selection of the treats on offer as part of our daily ‘squash and biscuits’ breaks
Overall, I feel that all of these projects and tasks, along with the training sessions provided by the Bodleian scheme, have given me excellent practical knowledge and experience of academic libraries, something I look forward to exploring in an academic context during my MA in Librarianship at the University of Sheffield.
9am: Arrive and settle in
This involves checking and responding to emails, both from readers and external researchers, and confirming what’s in the diary for the day. We have a team of graduate invigilators who cover the early morning, evening and weekend shifts in the library, so if they’ve noted any issues or enquiries we’ll follow these up.
9.30am: Shelving
I am responsible for shelving the Arts and Humanities books in the upstairs Laudian Library. While I’m doing this I also ensure that the reading room is tidy for today’s readers.
10.15am: Book Processing
Part of my role is to process new books and journals acquired by the library. For books, this involves giving each item a barcode and shelfmark, before labelling, stamping and covering it. We have our own in-house classification system, and it’s interesting working out where each book should be placed in order to ensure easy accessibility for readers.
11am: Coffee Break
11.15am: Other Projects
I supervise a manuscript reader in the Old Library and use the time to catch up on other general tasks, such as updating the Library Facebook page and creating posters and captions for our new books display, which we change on a termly basis.
12pm: Issue Desk
I cover the issue desk while other members of staff are at lunch, issuing and returning books and dealing with reader enquiries.
1pm: Lunch
I get a free lunch every day, which is a definite advantage of working in one of the Colleges!
2pm: Cataloguing of Spike Milligan Papers
The College has a collection of papers originally belonging to Spike Milligan, which includes original manuscripts and drawings for many of his literary works. I’m cataloguing these to archival standards (this process is somewhat different to library cataloguing so has taken a bit of getting used to!) by describing each individual item in detail and uploading this information to the Archives Hub website. I also add tags and access points (using mainly Library of Congress subject headings) to aid any readers who might be interested in consulting this material.
3.30pm: Law Library
The Law Library is a separate 24 hour study space on the other side of the college, so once a day I head over there to shelve new acquisitions of books and journals and have a general tidy up.
4pm: Tea Break
4.15pm: Exhibition Preparation
For my trainee project I’m working on an exhibition, using the Library’s Special Collections to explore war throughout history. We put on two exhibitions a year in order to give College members a chance to view some of the rare books and manuscripts they wouldn’t generally have access to. My main tasks are to research the items I plan to display and write captions for them, and to design a poster and a handlist to accompany the exhibition. (Note: I wrote this post a while back but forgot to upload it until today, so the exhibition is now up and running!)
This week, we had a Monday morning treat in the form of our first trainee-led library tour. Joanne welcomed us into St John’s with a bit of historical background, describing the college’s foundation by a wealthy Merchant Taylor and its staunch loyalty to the Royalist cause during the Civil Wars. In fact, finding images of King Charles I in and around the library took on a distinctly Where’s Wally feel after a while!
We were welcomed in and asked to stow our bags safely behind the desk: in contrast to most of the reading rooms we saw on the Bod tour, the librarians are the main form of book detectors here. Then it was onwards into the Paddy Room, a light and spacious area with open shelves holding the library’s science, social sciences and DVD collections.
Upstairs provided a striking change of scene with the Old Library, complete with a laser security system (which Joanne managed to disable for us with her secret library ninja ways). One of the other librarians, Stewart Tiley, then treated us to a hands-on display of some of the manuscripts and early printed books. These works were passed around very gingerly! As we walked through we took in some of the display on the Seven Deadly Sins organised by Joanne’s predecessor; who knew Jane Austen would be one of the guilty party?
The Laudian Library
We then passed into the Laudian Library, named after Charles I’s archbishop. As well as holding modern humanities works and providing an atmospheric workspace for readers, this room housed yet more special collections.
We saw a botched piece of royal propaganda, a tiny New Testament written in indecipherable shorthand and a Renaissance horoscope. Some of the more bizarre curios included a macabre walking stick used by Laud right up until his execution, while Stewart suggested the reinstatement of the skeletons which used to flank the door. And to keep up the Charles I quota, there was an image of the king composed of a psalm in miniscule handwriting.
Finally, we got to take a peek into the archives, which offered a mix of the modern and the unique. St John’s is very lucky to hold collections of papers previously belonging to Robert Graves and Spike Milligan. What better way to finish a visit by looking at the Milligan’s illustration of Fluffybum the cat?
Hello, I’m Joanne and I’m the trainee in St John’s College Library. I graduated from Southampton University with a BA in English in July, and started my traineeship in August, so I’ve had a fairly quick transition from education to work. Arriving in Oxford a month before training began was a little daunting, but I soon settled into the library routine. One of my first tasks was to help with the annual stock take, meaning that I learnt the layout of the library much quicker than I had expected!
As well as scanning books, I spent a large part of my first month receiving training in some of the general activities involved in the day-to-day running of the library, such as working on the issue desk and processing new books. The Librarian has also given me some more specialised tasks such as copyediting the library’s manuscript catalogue (so it can ultimately be digitally accessible), and redesigning the library information guide and signage, so I’m really enjoying the variety of the work.
The library is a fascinating space historically – one of the artefacts on display is a chest which once belonged to Sir Thomas White, the founder of St John’s, and I’m looking forward to being able to share some of this history with the public at Oxford Open Doors this weekend. There is also a wide range of Special Collections, which I have a particular interest in after doing some voluntary work in an archive last year, and I’m hoping to have many opportunities to work with these manuscripts and early printed books throughout the year.
Welcome to A Day in the Life of the Graduate Trainee at St John’s College, Oxford…
8.50-9.20 | Settling in Every morning the first thing I do is put the kettle on before sitting at my laptop to sift through my emails. All members of the library staff (all 4 of us!) receive emails that are automatically forwarded from the general library email account, and whoever responds to enquiries copies in to their reply the other staff members. This not only limits the chances of any enquiries being missed, but also ensures that everyone is kept in touch with what is going on and which visiting readers we can expect to see during the week. All members of the college have access to the library during opening hours (we do not have 24 hour opening); anyone from elsewhere within the university who is having trouble locating a book that they require is welcome to approach us if we have a copy and consult the book within the library. Similarly, any researcher (from Oxford or further afield) who wishes to view anything from our special collections is able to make an appointment to do so.
The Laudian Library, where I shelve the arts subjects books.
9.20-10.10 | Shelving It is my responsibility to shelve the arts subjects books in the Laudian Library, which is located upstairs. Downstairs I arrange the books on a trolley in order of classmark and load them into the lift. Upstairs I am defeated by two pesky steps into the Laudian Library which mean that I have to transfer all of the books, a few at a time, onto another trolley which is on the right level! A reader has informed us that a book she returned is still on loan to her account. This happens occasionally when a book has not, for one reason or another, been scanned on return. Before I begin shelving, I locate the book and ask the Library Administrator to return it on ALEPH, our library management system.
10.10-11.00 | Classifying I am regularly given a pile of new accessions to classify. We have a unique classifying system which is fairly straightforward, although occasionally I find that the categories are not quite specific enough, which can cause difficulties in choosing where to place something. I also begin to process the book by giving it a barcode and writing the classmark in pencil on the inside of the front cover. I then input this information into ALEPH. Either I or another member of staff will complete the processing by stamping each book, giving it a bookplate and covering all new paperbacks. As we do not have self-issue facilities and readers are not allowed to bring bags into the library, there is no need for electronic tagging, which is part of the job for many of the other trainees.
11.00-11.45 | Environmental monitoring In all of the places in which we store our manuscripts, early printed books and special collections, we monitor the temperature and humidity in order to keep conditions as ideal for conservation as possible . This is done by humbug dataloggers (not too sure why ‘humbug’!) which take readings at set intervals; we then download the data each month and the humbug datalogger software adds it to a graph. This means that it’s easy to see how stable the temperature and humidity have been, and if and when any fluctuations have taken place. Once the data has been downloaded, we email it to the Oxford Conservation Consortium to glance over. (The Oxford Conservation Consortium was formed by a group of Oxford colleges in 1990 to facilitate the care and preservation of their special collections.) This task actually carries a fair amount of responsibility, since it is important to return each humbug to the correct location, and to ensure that all of the stores are secure. It also takes a surprising amount of concentration to remember which set of keys out of the six that you have with you is for which lock!
11.45-12.00 | Tea break A bit later than usual today, as I wanted to deal with the environmental monitoring first. I spend a little while reading the other trainee blog posts for ‘Day in the Life’.
12.00-13.00 | Issue desk I spend an hour on the issue desk most days, usually when the Library Administrator is at lunch. It’s fairly quiet today, with just a handful of loans and returns. We have some postcards and guide books for sale, and someone buys 8 postcards of the Old Library. Often I will do some book processing or covering when I’m on the issue desk.
13.00-14.00 | Lunch
14.00-14.15 | Classifying The Librarian has purchased a couple of books that have been requested. As there are people waiting for them, I classify them so that they can be processed as quickly as possible.
14.15-15.15 | Copy-editing of digital scans made of medieval manuscript catalogue About ten years ago, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Medieval Manuscripts of St John’s College Oxford, the work of Ralph Hanna, was published. Unfortunately, we do not have it in electronic format. One of my ongoing projects is to copy and paste into a Word document the text from digital scans that have been made of the hard copy, and to edit it. Quite often the computer software has misread ‘1’ for ‘I’ or ‘y’ for ‘ij’, for example! The Librarian has talked me through some of the jargon that is used in the catalogue to describe manuscripts, and the task is much more interesting now that I understand a little more of what it means!
15.15-15.35 | Daily trip to the college’s Law Library Most days I make a trip to the college’s Law Library, which is located on the other side of the college. The Law Library is accessible to law students only, and all of the books are confined to the library. My main task whilst I’m there is to shelve new accessions, and re-shelve any books that readers have been using.
15.35-15.50 | Facebook page At the start of my traineeship, I set up a Facebook page for the library. We currently have on display in the library reception some of the books shortlisted for the 2012 Costa Book Awards, and I have been sharing links to related content on our Facebook page, hoping to generate some interest. Today I post a link to an article in The Telegraph on the two graphic novels that were shortlisted for the awards.
15.50-16.05 |Tea break
16:05-17.00 | Exhibition research As part of the graduate traineeship at St John’s, the trainee researches and displays an exhibition of their choice in Trinity term, drawing on the College’s special collections. I am not going to reveal my chosen topic just yet, but I will explain a little about the research I have carried out so far. Firstly, since working as the Graduate Trainee at St John’s means an involvement in the handling and displaying of the special collections, I was able to draw ideas from what I already knew was housed in the library. I also searched on SOLO (Search Oxford Libraries Online) for early printed books relating to my chosen topic. Next, I located any books that promised to be useful and had a look through them to see what might prove interesting to people as part of an exhibition. I am now in the process of carrying out some wider research into my chosen topic, so that I can construct a coherent narrative around the items I am going to display.
17.00 | Home-time The library is open until midnight this term but after 17.00 it is staffed by postgraduate library invigilators. And so we leave the library in their capable hands and head home for the evening.
I’m working at St John’s College library, and can’t quite believe that I’m seven weeks in already! My first two and a half weeks were pretty much entirely taken up with the stock-check; I think you all have the pleasure of this to look forward to next summer as we approach the end of our traineeships… The good thing about it was that I am now an expert in the location of every subject in the library!
However, any sense of my being well-acquainted with the library was doomed not to last, as the Oxford Open Doors weekend approached. For the first time, the library was opening its doors to the public as part of the city-wide event, and they weren’t going to care in which area of the library one might find John Guy’s Tudor England. I had to be prepared for a different kind of enquiry that was undoubtedly going to be thrown at me. When was the library built? How many books does it house? Whose walking stick is that? So I should be pretty well-practised for when it’s my turn to host a tour!
Just to introduce myself a bit more: in July 2011 I graduated from the University of York, where I studied English. I am originally from Rutland, the smallest county in England, but have been living in Oxfordshire for a year. Before beginning my traineeship, I spent a few months volunteering in two secondary school libraries (one independent, one state), Regent’s Park College and the fair-trade shop in the city centre.
I’m really looking forward to getting to know you all over the next year. Enjoy!
Over the last few weeks myself, Sean and Emma have visited a number of college Archives and had a good nose around. The main aim of the visits was to experience how other archives operate and how they compare to our Archives. There were some big differences and similarities between the college archives themselves, and the University Archives. Below I have given a brief summery of the College Archives.
At Oriel College the Archivist, Rob Petre, is given the same status as the head Librarian and has a good working relationship with the Library staff, the administrative staff and the Bursar. Oriel Archives hold some very precious records (with a high monetary value if the College ever finds itself short of funds!) and documents which prove the College owns land, has certain rights and holds evidence of other legal precedents. The storage room at Oriel was purpose built a few years ago and is temperature and humidity controlled and well as only accessible when either the Archivist or Head Librarian is present. Student records are well maintained.
Keble College has not yet seen the importance of maintaining a comprehensive Archive. Unlike Oriel (and many of the other colleges) Keble has extremely patchy modern student records (1970-90’s). When these modern records were destroyed the Archivist (the only trained record manager at the College!) was not consulted. As a result, many former students and future family historians are going to be very disappointed when they contact Keble College for information. The Archive has been placed within the Library and the Archivist (Rob Petre) has to report directly to the Head Librarian. The storage area for the whole of Keble Archives is 20 shelves (four bays). I think that shows how many important records Keble could be throwing away without thinking!
Merton College and Corpus Christi College, like OUA are based in an old stone tower. This is good on one hand because the records are protected from fire and flood, but not so good on the other as the temperature and humidity are hard to control – which usually also means bad for the Archivist as well as it is really cold! A quick insight into the misunderstanding of the role of an Archive by administrative staff can be seen in an example from Merton Archives. The Archivist at Merton (and Corpus), Julian Reid, was puzzled when he kept finding new records in draws that he had already been through and catalogued. This was until he realised that the administrative staff had a key to the Archive and were freely depositing new records and extracting old ones without any communication with him. This resulted in records being catalogued more than once, or not at all, and eventually would make the catalogue system unusable if it was not stopped. It also means the records, which often contain legal and confidential information, are not held securely. Julian will soon be moving to a new purpose built archive but unfortunately is still having trouble ensuring that he is the only member of staff with a key!
St John’s College, one of the richest colleges in Oxford, have just finished building a new library/gym/halls/archive extravaganza. This includes a state-of-the-art store room (with futuristic electronic moving stacks) and a purpose built reading room and office. Michael Riordan, the Archivist at St John’s, has been involved in the design and layout of the Archive, which has been fitted with fire and flood prevention systems. The concern of the Archive being near water pipes is especially important for Michael, as his old archive storage room at St John’s had two water pipes running overhead. These bust in the cold weather at the end of 2010, but luckily the College had taken out emergency insurance for the Archives, and the wet documents were quickly frozen and slowly dried in a vacuum meaning none were lost in the accident. The new reading room is also great for PR as College Archivist and Archives are often the only point of contact local and family historians (and general members of the public) have with the College.
The only thing that really stands out in my mind about Queens College Archives is that nothing is catalogued (where it is catalogued at all) to Archiving standards. If the Archivist (Michael Riordan again) stop coming into work tomorrow I think it would take his replacement years to fully understand the records they were in charge of! And there is no space for new records (student files are currently piling up in Michael’s office making the task of cataloguing the collections even more difficult!) A new Library, with a specific area for the Archives has been promised, but Michael and the Library staff are still waiting.
So there is a brief introduction to the college Archives I’ve visited. If you have any questions, let me know and I’ll try my best to answer them.
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