Happy New Year!
We ran out of time to do our usual December headlines post at the end of last year, so we thought a quick 2013 retrospective would suffice. We hope everyone had a lovely relaxing break while the library was closed.
2013 saw some interesting developments in the Oriental Institute Library.
We welcomed two new members of staff – Kenan Khazendar joined us at the beginning of the year and Hannie Riley has been working here since November, dealing with our increasing Korean collection; and we were also joined by Gillian Evison, the head of the Bodleian’s Oriental section.
After months of preparation and some quite intrusive building works we saw the official opening of the Window on Korea collection in June, which is proving to be a popular addition to the library. We are pleased to see that the books are being used!
Our new website launched (http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/oil), and at the end of the year this blog moved to the new Bodleian blogs site, which gives us a more streamlined identity within the Bodleian Libraries and also guarantees that there will never be adverts on our blog – a good thing!
Our Social Media presence continues to be a success – the Facebook page is now up to 558 “likes”! The OIL Mystery Object Competition, while not garnering too many entries, was a fun way to get people involved in this side of the Library’s work. We are already thinking of a follow-up for the start of the next academic year, suggestions (within reason) are welcome!
We have also improved our electronic resources provision with the eBrary collection, which has now been online since the start of Michaelmas Term we hope that readers are finding this resource useful.
The reclassification project, mostly involving Kate, who is at the Library 3 afternoons a week, is reaching the end of the BP section. We are pleased to report that, in the period since the start of the Long Vacation 847 volumes, representing 729 shelfmarks, have been done! The reclassified books have been amalgamated into the Library of Congress section (at the back of the library, with the white labels); do ask at the desk if something you are used to finding in the old BP section has vanished from its usual place!
Meanwhile, back to the present, remember that books loaned before Christmas are due back on Tuesday 21st January – that’s the Tuesday of 1st week.
It’s probably also worth mentioning, given the current flooding situation, that we are NOT expecting any problems with book deliveries from Swindon at present, but that we will update via the Facebook page if the situation changes.