Summer Building Works Postponement

Following the postponement of building works until next summer (2020), the Oriental Institute will now be open during the summer vacation. Our Opening hours during July will be Monday-Friday 9.00-17.00.

Our opening hours during Aug and Sept will be confirmed in due course.

The vacation loan limit, which has been raised to 20 books, will remain in place, and further information that affects library users will be shared when it becomes available.

May news and reminders

Welcome back to everyone who was away for most of April! We trust that everyone had a relaxing and productive Easter Holiday (as much as the two are not mutually exclusive).

First up from us this month is a new trial for an e-resource which may prove useful to our students, Quran Gateway:

You can find it on the A-Z databases list under “Q” and it will be available for a month, until 31st May.

Building works

Following on from our previous post, we currently do not have any further information about the building works scheduled for the summer. As soon as we know more about the timeframe/scope/disruption or anything else, we will make sure that we post on this blog and also put signs up around the library.

 

Book moves

Kate has been rearranging the PJ area of the Library of Congress section, but only by a few shelves, so everything should be more or less where it was last term. As ever, this is a long-term process, and things will move around as more books are removed from the old sequence and added to the new one.

At present there are no plans for a large-scale move over the summer vacation as the timeline for the building works has yet to be finalised, but there may be a small rearrangement to move things up into the space vacated by the old PJ books which are currently being reclassified. We will inform readers if there is likely to be any disruption, but since Kate is the person who usually does the moves and she is only here on Tuesday and Friday afternoons there will be very little going on for most of the week!

 

Reminders

We are now back on to Term time opening until the end of June, 9am-7pm on weekdays and 11am-5pm on Saturdays.

Readers are requested not to bring coffee – in keep-cups or otherwise – into the library, but just to drink water (in a sealed bottle, not one of the cups from the water cooler downstairs), please. Coffee and foodstuffs attract pests which may damage the books. We realise that people are revising for exams and feel the need to caffeinate themselves in order to concentrate, but that is easily managed in the common room downstairs (and stretching your legs every so often and getting away from your screens is never a bad thing).

As ever, please keep an eye on our Facebook and Twitter feeds for up-to-the-minute (or as soon as we find out about it) news!

Advance notice of temporary summer closure

At some point during the summer vacation, the Oriental Institute Library will need to close temporarily. This is to allow for refurbishment work funded by the recent gift to the University, given in honour of the British Foundation for the Study of Azerbaijan and the Caucasus, which was announced in the University Gazette of 25th Oct 2018. Refurbishment will include creation of a room within the library to provide office accommodation for Nizami Ganjavi scholars. This will involve some substantial building work that will include creation of a new door from the scholars’ room into the main Oriental Institute lobby area. The current library reader service point will be moved to a new location in the library; the acoustic barriers  surrounding the service desk will be removed and new acoustic barriers will be installed around the relocated service point.

The closure dates and advance notice of periods of noise and disruption to users will be communicated as soon as the library receives a detailed schedule of work. We would ask those who are planning to work in the library over the summer vacation to get in touch with library staff to let us know as soon as possible when you are planning to work in the library and what open shelf books you are intending to use. The graduate student vacation loan limit will be raised to 20 books and we strongly advise people to borrow their books at the beginning of the vacation. A fetching service to the Sackler Library will also be put in place. If you know of any colleagues from outside of Oxford who are planning to use the Oriental Institute Library over the summer, we would be grateful if you could share this advance warning with them.

Welcome to OIL! Michaelmas Term 2018

October is upon us once again (where did September go?!) and we find ourselves at the start of another Academic Year. We are excited to meet all the new students and of course to see all our returning readers again.

What follows is a brief news-report of the summer, and a few reminders of the library rules and general housekeeping so that we can get off to a smooth start.

Summer update

The summer saw the continuation of the building works to change the heating system in the Oriental Institute, and also the installation of new windows on the basement. We were closed for four weeks, during which time our Sackler colleagues facilitated collecting of books from OIL to their reading rooms for our readers (thanks again to them for that!). Unfortunately, a supply problem resulted in the closure not coinciding with the noisiest part of the work, which happened when the shiny new pipes were being installed and caused some disruption. Happily the installation is now complete and the new panels near the ceiling are ready. The new heating system should be much more efficient and less wasteful than the previous (largely uncontrollable) one, so we should not need to have *quite* so many windows open in the middle of winter.

Kate has collated her reclassification data for the 2017-18 academic year; she has reached the last tier of the row which she started last year and has reclassified 645 shelfmarks, amounting to 797 individual books, in the last year.

A minor book-move was carried out over the Vacation. This mostly affects the end of the LC sequence, where the main change is that the PK books now start in the middle section rather than under the windows by the computers. PJ now occupies that space, with space to grow as that is the area currently being reclassified. All the shelves are labelled as accurately as possible (allowing for occasional moves round corners). There are now only two large sections which have similar shelfmarks to the LC collection – PJ and PK. We have noticed a difference over the past few years in the numbers of people asking where things are, which has reduced dramatically as the reclassification has progressed, so we know it is worth doing! If at any time you need a book which is being reclassified, please speak to staff. If it is not a Tuesday or Friday afternoon (the days when Kate is at OIL) then it might be awaiting a label on her trolley, but staff will be able to advise you.

New staff

Excitingly, we have three new members of staff joining the OIL team this term. Ben, who is the Graduate Trainee for the Sackler, will be doing some hours at OIL this year including Tuesday evenings; Katie, who is the Graduate Trainee at the Taylorian, will be working Thursday evenings during the Terms this year, and Jennifer, a new Library Assistant with responsibilities for both Sackler and OIL will be spending some of her time at OIL each week.

We are optimistic that these extra pairs of hands will enable us to deal with problems which have arisen due to our staffing-shortages over the last few years, including the shelving in the basement, which requires a re-organisation of the KSL section for which we have had no time.

General reminders

As it is now Term time, we are now open until 7pm on weekdays and from 11am – 5pm on Saturdays.

Up to 8 books can be borrowed at any one time, the normal loan period is 2 weeks, and they can be renewed online via SOLO up to three times before you need to bring them back to the library. We have longer loan periods during vacations. If you are not able to renew an item it is likely to be because someone else has placed a hold on it; if this is the case, please return the book to the library by its expiry date.

Please leave books for return in the big blue box on the counter just inside the library door or pass them to the library staff member at the desk. Please do not leave returns anywhere else, especially the returns trolleys inside the library, as this may result in them not being checked in properly. If this happens they may stay on your record for longer than necessary, and you could get emails suggesting that they are overdue.

If you have been using a book in the library and are not sure where it came from on the shelves please leave it on the shelving trolleys by the front office or on one of the reshelving areas in the library, rather than putting it back in a random gap. This is especially important for the complex Library of Congress shelfmarks as mis-shelving even a few books away may mean that people cannot then find the book again. If you are not sure, please leave it for us to do. It’s what we’re here for, after all!

As a general rule, books from the BSF cannot be borrowed from the library. Please do not attempt to take them out of the building. They belong to the Bodleian, which has a no-borrowing policy. BSF books can be collected from the library desk – just show us your Bod Card so we can collect it from the back office – and should be returned to the desk after each use so we can put them back in the reserve. BSF books will stay here for one week, and this can be extended using your SOLO account. There are two exceptions to the no-borrowing rule: the Aris Collection of Tibetan Books or the Arabic Literature collection which originated at the Middle East Centre. These books may be borrowed in the normal way. Please do not send books back until you are sure you’ve finished with them completely as they will take up to a week to return if you re-order them. If a book is left on the desk we will usually return it to the reserve rather than sending it back to the BSF for this reason.

Food and drinks other than water are not permitted in the library because they can encourage pests which damage the collections. If you need to eat something, please use the Common Room in the basement.

Water in a bottle with a lid which can be sealed is permitted in the library, but please do not use plastic cups. Keep-cups are not allowed.

PCs for the use of readers are located to the right as you enter the library; four are Library PCs which require a login and the other two are “kiosk” PCs which connect to the internet but have limited functionality for other things. There is also another PC in the basement which is available for readers to use; it is at the far end from the staircase, next to the microfilm reader.

We have a height-adjustable desk, located near the windows by the library computers which is available for anyone who needs to work in a standing position; there is also an adjustable chair which can be used either with the desk or at a normal desk.

If you have any suggestions of books which we should hold but do not, there is a form which can be accessed via SOLO, or you could write something in the Suggestions Book, which is on the counter in the aisle directly opposite the door to the back office, near the photocopiers. We monitor this regularly and are happy to acquire (within budgetary reason) books relevant to the collections.

Finally, if you have any questions, please ask! There will be someone at the desk or shelving nearby most of the time; look out for a note on the front counter.

 

 

Late Summer news and reminders

We’re back!

Enormous thanks to our colleagues at the Sackler Library for their help in ensuring that our readers were able to access the books from OIL which they needed during the closure, and for bringing everything back so promptly when we re-opened! It would not have been possible to ensure accessibility to our collections without their help – not least because most of us were on holiday for most of the closure…

Building Works

We have yet to receive a timetable from the builders for the remainder of the building work still to be done, some of which will be carried out in the library. They have now started on some of that work as of this week, however.

If any areas of the library need to be sheeted off to protect them during the works we will ensure that staff can get into those areas at least once a day to retrieve books which readers may need; we will endeavour to keep everyone up to date so keep an eye out for notices around the library.

Book Moves

Kate has been moving the Library of Congress section around again, we’re afraid. PK now starts in the middle of the library near the Reference section at the Sackler end, the PJ sequence having been extended into the shelves under the windows. This should facilitate her continuation of the reclassification project, which is gradually moving towards its completion. Shelf labels in the affected areas will be updated before the start of Term.

Opening times

A reminder that we are CLOSED on the August Bank Holiday Monday, August 27th, and also on the Monday and Tuesday of the following week – September 3rd and 4th for St Giles Fair.

Otherwise our opening hours will remain 9am – 5pm Monday to Friday until the start of Term.

 

 

 

 

 

News and Summer Announcements

Summer Closure

We would like to give readers advance warning that the Library will be closing during the Long Vacation, due to the ongoing heating works which have been carried out around the building. The work will significantly affect the library spaces, and it will not be safe for readers or staff to access the library during the day. The current dates for the closure are 14th July to 12 August. Please look out for notices in case this changes – we will do our best to keep information up to date.

The protocol agreed with the contractors should allow staff to access the library for an hour at the end of each day to fetch books requested by readers, which will then be made available at the Sackler Library.

We will make sure that everyone is kept informed and will be posting updates here on the blog, on Facebook and Twitter and on signs around the library, so do please keep an eye out for those. If you know anyone from outside Oxford who might be planning a visit to use the library over the summer please share this information with them – we do not want to disappoint anyone unnecessarily!

We appreciate that this is inconvenient for everyone involved, but are optimistic that the improvements to the heating system will mean that everyone in the building can be more comfortable in the long term.

Open Access Week

The University is holding its own Open Access Week in 8th Week, with a series of events of interest to researchers about issues and developments in open access publishing and research dissemination. The full programme and details for booking can be found here: http://openaccess.ox.ac.uk.

Doors

The ongoing issue with SALTO (the door-entry system) appears to be slowly resolving itself. The problem has involved the doors at OIL not connecting to the server and updating the cards which are used here; readers who are also using other libraries where their cards are updated – including the Sackler and the central Bodleian/Weston Library – are not experiencing the same problems. A new Web client for Salto is being installed at the end of June, which should solve any of the remaining problems.

Opening hours over the Summer

Summer Vacation opening hours for the library have been confirmed; we will remain open on Saturdays and until 7pm until Friday 29th June. Thereafter we will be open 9am to 5pm on Monday-Friday from July 2nd until Friday 28th September, apart from the aforementioned 4-week closure.

We will be closed on the August Bank Holiday Monday (27th August) and on 3rd and 4th September for St Giles Fair.

We will start the longer loan period for Vacation Loans in 9th week. We are considering whether to increase the number of books readers are permitted to borrow over the vacation in order to ease the problems which may be caused by the closure, and will let everyone know when a decision is made.

 

January News and General Catch-Up

Happy New Year!

Yes, yes, we know it’s a bit late… but we had so little to report straight after Christmas that it seemed better to wait a bit.

2017 recap

Last year saw some interesting changes in the organisation of the library, with our Technical Services moving out of the library and down to the offices at Osney Mead, along with similar moves for the staff at the Sackler and the Taylorian. This is part of a wider initiative to consolidate the Humanities libraries’ workflows.

The main difference for us has been that Natalija and Kenan now work some of their time down at Osney as well as being at the library, which effectively means that we sometimes have fewer staff than we would have previously had on some days. We are working more closely with the Sackler Library to fill in any staffing gaps which we might have as a result of these changes.

The long-term effect of this change is yet to be ascertained, but we welcome any feedback from readers. We hope that the workflows now being implemented at Osney will speed up the processing and enable us to get new books, especially those requested by readers, to the library faster.

The work to improve the heating system has been ongoing throughout the year, with lots of shiny new copper pipes being installed around the Library. We await confirmation of when this will be finished, but are assuming it will be mostly done during the summer months when the library is quietest.

The biggest change seen by everyone has been our reverting to term-time and vacation opening hours. We now open until 7pm during Term only and until 5pm during vacations. We hope that this change has not been detrimental to too many readers, but it was brought in as a necessity due to a lack of staff to cover during the summer last year.

The reclassification has continued, although at a slower pace since Kate’s hours at OIL reduced to two afternoons a week. She is currently in the midst of the PJ sequence, somewhere beyond the dictionaries, and heading towards linguistics. There is currently an impasse in the dictionary section under the windows, so she is avoiding adding to that section for now. A small move to make up space will take place during the Easter vacation, and anything which has not been reclassified will be kept in its former place until this has been done.

 

News

Due to the aforementioned staffing changes, we have had some problems finding the time to get all the shelving done in the library, particularly since Term started. This is partly due to the fact that we do not have enough space downstairs and need to do some rearranging, but with all our staff busy with their day-to-day duties when they are here in the library there has been no extra time to do the necessary move, particularly in the Korean Studies Library.

We are working on a solution to this and ask that readers are patient; this mostly affects the shelving for the Lower Ground Floor and anything which should be down there will be on the trolleys by the photocopiers if it is not on the shelves. Readers are welcome to borrow items which are on the reshelving trolleys.

We are still finding that some readers are surprised that they cannot borrow BSF books; possibly this is due to a misunderstanding during their original library inductions. To reiterate once again, if a book which has been ordered from the BSF is *not* part of the OIL Arabic Literature collection or the Aris Collection of Tibetan Studies, then the chances are it cannot be loaned. This includes the vast majority of the Indian Institute collection not concerned with Tibetan, as well as the Bodleian’s collections, which have historically never been loaned.

That’s all for now! Keep an eye on the Facebook Page, as ever, for urgent updates.

 

 

 

 

 

 

November News and Holiday Reminders

Holiday Opening Times and Deliveries

Over the Christmas Vacation, we will be opening from 9-7 until the week beginning 11th December, when we will start to close at 5pm.

We will be closed for Christmas from 5pm on Thursday 21st December until 1st January inclusive.

After Xmas we will be opening until 5pm for the first week back, from Tuesday 2nd January and then reverting to our Term time opening of 9am to 7pm from Monday 8th January.

The last book delivery from the Book Storage Facility before Christmas will be on the morning of Thursday 21st December; any books ordered after 7pm on Wednesday 20th will be fetched on Tuesday 2nd January, either in the morning or afternoon runs, depending on the backlog of orders which has built up over the vacation.

 

Care of Library Materials

Readers are politely requested to please take the best care possible of books borrowed from the Oriental Institute, as any damage caused may result in the removal of the book from circulation, and therefore its loss to everyone who might have wished to use it.

Some of our materials are quite old and quite fragile, or have been misused in the past and suffered damage, and we rely on our readers to make sure they do not become any more damaged than they already are.

A short while ago a book was returned to us which was soaked with coffee – fortunately only on the covers and the edges of a few pages – which, had it been worse, might have been removed from circulation altogether. We were able to rescue it, but we would really rather not have to deal with situations like that in the first place.

No action was taken against that particular reader, but we do reserve the right to charge for the replacement of damaged library items if they cannot be salvaged.

 

Food and Drink in the Library

With this in mind may we also remind everyone that *only* water is allowed in the library. A bottle of Oasis juice was found by the Photocopiers earlier this week and several staff have observed coffee cups in the wastepaper baskets. Sugary drinks may attract pests, which might then damage the books, and may also cause mould outbreaks which can be a health hazard.

There is a common room downstairs, and most library materials – apart from the BSF books which cannot leave the library – can be borrowed, so we would much prefer people take their refreshments outside the library. A break from your desk is supposed to be beneficial, after all!

 

Shiny new pipes!

Observant* readers may have noticed a new set of shiny copper pipes, which have appeared on the wall around the Photocopiers and along the edge of the Periodicals section, as well as in the Back Office.

These have been installed in advance of the new heating system which is due to be fitted next summer. Fortunately all the work took place outside normal opening hours so we have not been disrupted by noise.

*They had been there for several days before your humble blogger noticed them, but I do tend not so spend too long looking at the ceiling…

Finally…

We would like to wish all our readers a good break, a Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate it and a Happy New Year to all. We will be back in January with our usual review of 2017 and (hopefully) fewer complaints about food in the library!

 

October News

Building Works in the basement

As mentioned in the previous post, there will be some work taking place in the basement of the Oriental Institute for the first few weeks of November. We hope that this will not disturb readers, as the contractor intends to do most of the noisy work outside office hours, but wanted to remind people that there might be some disruption in the far end of the basement for a period of time.

 

Staff News

Following a reorganisation of several Humanities libraries including the Taylorian and Sackler as well as OIL, Kenan and Natalija will be spending some of their time at the offices at Osney. This is part of a drive to consolidate as much as possible all technical services (cataloguing and classification) work in one place. This week (30th October – 3rd November) marks the first week when both Ken and Natalija will be at Osney for part of their time; we hope they find the change of scene enjoyable and productive!

 

Chicago Manual of Style Trial

This Blog post http://blogs.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/history/2017/11/01/trial-chicago-manual-of-style/ from our colleagues at the History Faculty Library details the new trial of the 17th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style, which will be available via SOLO and OxLip+ until the end of January. (Meanwhile, the Library has the 16th edition on our open shelves at Z253 CHI 2010 Ref.)

 

Quick reminders

We have had several questions from new readers over the last few weeks about borrowing books from the BSF. Most of the BSF books cannot be borrowed and must be read in the library. The majority of books kept at the BSF belong to the Bodleian, and are therefore subject to the no-lending policy which is common to all Bodleian materials. A few of our own books which are stored at the BSF can be borrowed; these will either be part of the Arabic Literature collection or the Aris Collection of Tibetan books. Do ask if you are not sure, but it is probably best to assume that most of the stack books cannot be borrowed.

On the subject of the BSF books, please remember to bring those books back to the desk at the end of the day. We would prefer that these materials, which are not our property, be kept in the office when not in use to ensure that they are not accidentally removed from the building. We will only send books back when they have reached the end of their consultation period, so please keep an eye on your patron record and renew any BSF books before they are due to be returned. As long as nobody else has put a hold on them, you should be able to continue to renew BSF books for as long as you need them as there is no upper limit on renewals.

Finally, please remember that food and drink are not permitted in the library, including Keep-Cups, which are permitted in some of the other Bodleian Libraries. Only sealed water bottles are allowed. We have found some food wrappers in waste bins in the library and would request that readers who are desperate for a snack please take them down to the common room.

 

 

Summer reminders

Vacation Opening Hours

Now that Term is over and the last of the exams are done, we would like to remind readers that this year we will be reducing our opening hours over the summer.

This Saturday, July 1st, will be our last Saturday until October 7th, and during the week we will be open from 0900 until 1700, Monday to Friday.

Readers who wish to consult books on a Saturday may discuss this with library staff, who may be able to move some material to the Sackler. This will be limited to confined books – readers will be expected to borrow books which can be borrowed, as long as they have the correct borrowing rights – and we reserve the right to refuse if the numbers of books being moved become unmanageable. Please give adequate notice that you wish to transfer books for use on Saturday (i.e. please don’t come to the desk at 4.55pm on a Friday with a massive mountain of books – this will not be appreciated!).

 

Basement Closure

Following all sorts of rumours about the imminent building work, the final version for 2017 appears to just be for some preparatory work to take place in the Oriental Institute basement. This will be taking place between the 21st and 28th July inclusive.

Due to the nature of the works, the Library Basement will be inaccessible to everyone, even library staff. This is because the fire exits are to be sealed – the work will not be in the library itself – which means we cannot risk going down there for Health and Safety reasons.

Readers who wish to consult books from the KSL, Hebrew & Jewish Studies, South Asian, and Eastern Christianity sections are strongly advised to either move them up to a desk in the ground floor space or to contact staff in advance if they are coming that week so that we can move them for you. If anyone is aware of a potential visitor who might need these books during the closure period, do please let them know about this; we have informed our colleagues in Special Collections at the Weston Library in case they are expecting academic visitors who might need access to our collections.

During this time, the Common Room and the toilets will also be out of action.

 

Book Moves – a long process

Kate, who has now reduced her hours to two afternoons a week (Tuesdays and Fridays), has begun moving the LC books into space vacated by the reclassified PJ section, and also the Z.Per. periodicals which have now been moved round to the same area as the rest of the journals. This will necessarily take some time, but she intends to keep the shelves updated with handwritten notes until the move is finished.

We apologise in advance for any confusion this may cause!