Adventures in Reclassification

Posted on 3 April 2025 by lammersa — No Comments ↓

Classification systems – we all know them (even if our readers don’t), we love them, we dislike them, we use them every day. Many Bodleian Libraries use Library of Congress (LCC), but it’s not uncommon, especially for College Libraries, to have their own classification systems (Jesus College being no exception). These in-house systems can be a pain – for example, we do not have a General Chemistry section and nobody knows why – but they offer a lot of flexibility to adjust to both your readers and your collection. Sometimes, of course, that means that shifting, updating or reclassifying of the books is required, whether for the sake of accuracy, facilitating easier browsing or improving outdated elements of the collection. As part of our ongoing effort to make the library more accessible, diverse and inclusive, I have recently undertaken several small reclassification projects and am in the process of working my way through more.

Before I get into the thick of it, here is an example of our classification system at work: if I were to write a book about music culture in East Germany, it would be shelved under LG7 LAM. The last three letters denote my surname (Lammers), the first three digits the location. L is Jesus’ letter for History, LG for German History, and LG7 for German history 1945-89. While some sections have fewer initial digits, the underlying concept remains the same.

Project 1: Linguistics

Books on a free desk space to ensure continued borrowing access while reclassifying!

This was the biggest and first classification project I undertook. Until a few weeks ago, all of our general linguistics and translation books lived in NE2. As you may be able to deduce, N is our Language section, with NE being English Language. Not only is the housing of general linguistics books in this particular section confusing, it also posits English as the default language. Given the history of the British Empire and the prevalence of English to the point of eradicating and replacing others’ languages, this arrangement is highly problematic in its implications.

To remedy this, I browsed NE2 and pulled out all books that were not primarily about the linguistics of the English language, collected them on my desk until I was thoroughly walled in before changing their shelfmarks in ALMA, the software behind SOLO. I also changed the shelfmarks on the books’ title pages and went through an entire roll of label protectors and many sheets of stickers for relabelling before shuffling around NE1 and reshelving them. The new section is now N2, Linguistics, and NE2 remains English Language and Linguistics only.

Project 2: African History

The second project was much smaller in scope. Our African history section, comprised of around 60 books, had all been living in just one shelfmark: LV1. This was strange since, usually, when sections are not subdivided, they do not contain numbers. In itself that doesn’t necessarily create a problem, but it did lead to several situations where books were mistakenly classified as LV instead of LV1. The idea of tidying that up and creating subsections had been floated a while back, and I finally decided to go ahead with it.

In addition to our LV1 confusion, there were two other reasons for overhauling the African history section; firstly, there were enough books on a variety of topics (from Nelson Mandela to medieval Egypt and nineteenth-century colonialism) that having separate sections would make browsing easier and thereby improve accessibility and usability for our students. Secondly, expanding the level of detail for underdeveloped subsections is an important part of reducing the impact of past colonialism on our libraries.

Subdividing the section means that our classification system acknowledges the breadth and depth of African history, even if is smaller than, for example, our British History collection. The relative sizes of our collection of course correspond to the subjects taught at Oxford, but by affording the same care and attention to both, we are ensuring that we do not maintain an approach to African history that perpetuates colonial ways of thinking about African history. Colonial attitudes, by virtue of inherent inferiority/superiority dynamics, disregard and erase the diversity of African histories, cultures, lifestyles, beliefs, and more.

There is, however, an important caveat: if we had a mere ten books in the section, subdivisions may be superfluous. This is because they serve a primary purpose of discoverability, and this is already given if there is a small number of items to begin with. As such, our African history section may have once been too small to warrant the divisions but, as it continues to grow, it is vital to pay attention to when a pragmatic choice of action becomes a politically charged, problematic choice of inaction.

Unlike N2, where the new section already had a clear name and purpose when I started, for LV I needed to start with researching which subdividing system would work best for our collection and our students. While most of our history sections are divided by time period, a geographical division may have made more sense depending on the items we have. With an ALMA-generated list of everything classified under LV1, I got to sorting them into the two possible subdivision styles. I consulted Wikipedia for broad, sensible chronological divisions that would allow for some flexibility but adhere to the general pattern of historical developments on the African continent. I soon noticed that a system based on geographical region would end up looking extremely skewed, therefore rendering the potential for easier browsing moot, and so I settled on a time-period-based reclassification. The time periods I chose to use as subdivisions allow for growth and future changes within the collection. Our new African history classification now looks as follows:

LV1 – General
LV2 – to 1884
LV3 – 1884-1960
LV4 – 1960-

Currently we don’t have any books on African history prior to the medieval period (except for what is in Ancient History), but this system allows for an integration of these should we acquire them!

Project 3: History of Gender and Sexuality

This project was entirely the spontaneous work of an afternoon in week six of Hilary, which also happened to be during LGBTQ+ History Month. I was in the process of assigning a shelfmark to a new acquisition (The Shape of Sex: Nonbinary Gender from Genesis to the Renaissance by Leah DeVun), and, as tends to be the case, multiple options appeared as appropriate: LB, for European history, L1, for General history, or S7, for Family and Women’s Studies, which is where lots of our queer books live. I opted for L1, my manager for LB, and so I wondered out loud if we had enough books on historical aspects of gender and sexuality to just create an entire subsection. At that point we had L1 for General history and L2 for History of science, and lots of lettered subdivisions by geographical region. After receiving the go-ahead to do some investigating, I used my tried-and-true method of browsing the shelves and also did several subject searches on SOLO, limited to the holdings of Jesus College Library. I came up with about 30-40 books which were worth grouping together. I pulled books from General History and Family and Women’s Studies but left any period-specific books in their original subsections. As you can probably predict, I then went into ALMA records, crossed out old shelfmarks and stickered plenty. As for the name of the new section, I landed on “History of Gender and Sexuality” after consulting with both my manager and my fellow trainees. While I really loved the idea of its shelfmark being LQ, all the other lettered subsections in L (History) denote geographical regions rather than discipline related subtopics, so we agreed on L3 to reduce the potential for confusion.

The inclusion of history of gender and sexuality as a subcategory serves as a useful pointer for those interested in queer history and related subjects and highlights queerness explicitly rather than letting it disappear in the depths of General History. That is not to say that everything in general history is automatically less important, but a subject like History of Gender and Sexuality is so young that its own shelfmark can serve as a pointed nod that we value and appreciate this part of the collection.

Projects to come: Asian history and 21st century philosophy

Me with some of the stacks of books that lived on my desk.

Our Asian history section, containing approximately 275 books, could definitely improve in terms of browsability, consistency and the amount of outdated and/or problematic language used. I am currently working out what a good alternative would be that both serves our students needs and does our collections justice. I am also soon going to be taking a look at the contents of Q14, which is our later 20th century philosophy section and bursting at the seams. We don’t yet have a separate 21st century philosophy section, even though some of what is housed in Q14 may be better suited to living there. So, if you find yourself in Jesus College Library and Q15 does not yet exist, please feel free to hound me about it!

Something unusual about all of these classification projects is that I did them all in the middle of Hilary term. The regular order of procedure for any kind of reclassification project is to wait until the end of term, so that the amount of disturbance is kept to a minimum and that the maximum amount of books are back on the shelves. However, since many of the books could have been checked out and therefore not included in my reclassifying adventures, I take great care to pull out all potential candidates out of the returned books pile to subject them to the same procedures so that the end result can be a uniform, logical classification system.

While I know that many of our students never really become aware of our classification system as A Thing underlying the entire library, and deal with it only in the context of finding a specific book they already know the title of, these reclassification endeavours are important – not only for addressing and reducing the impact of colonialism, but also for inclusion efforts, for improved usability of the collection, and most importantly, for the case that a student does look at our system, and is not taken aback by an inherited, flawed classification system that is long overdue an update. Making people feel welcome and that they and their history belong in the library is crucial. While our material focuses on providing study material, it is also nonetheless meant to be a place where students feel welcome and seen.

Have you seen this book?

Posted on 30 January 2025 by lammersa — No Comments ↓

Since we as trainees get the chance to visit many libraries, and spend a lot of time in them day-to-day, I thought I would introduce to you a different kind of library today: The Library of Lost Books. Like the name suggests, it’s not so much a physical space (anymore) but rather a virtual collection of book titles and their locations around the world that once used to be housed together in the Library of the Higher Institute for Jewish Studies in Berlin.

Founded in 1872 the Institute was one of the leading liberal rabbinic seminaries in its time, and shaped liberal Judaism in Germany and, through its students, around the world. Rabbis like Dr. Rabbi Leo Baeck and the first female rabbi Regina Jonas studied here. But the Institute also functioned as a social space and as a place of study for those more interested in Jewish Studies without rabbinical ordination. As a flourishing centre of Jewish life and study, the library, led by Jenny Wilde, became one of the world’s most important Jewish libraries, collecting approximately 60,000 titles on Jewish history and culture in at least six different languages. After 1933, the rise of the NSDAP and their repressive measures against Jewish individuals meant that the Institute, seemingly paradoxically, initially flourished as a centre of Jewish life and knowledge. Donations of private collections from those fleeing and the closure of two prominent rabbinical seminaries meant that the library holdings and student body started growing rapidly. It also expanded to secular education and holdings when Jewish enrolments at university and school were capped at 5% in 1933, and finally altogether banned from teaching or studying at German universities in 1938. This is not to say that this continued indefinitely – many fled, were imprisoned or deported, especially after the beginning of the Second World War. By 1942 the classes that the Institute was able to offer were only a fraction of what they once had been.

Jewish prisoners cataloguing and sorting inside a depot for Jewish books – a form of intellectual forced labour.

Because the Institute’s staff, including their librarian, knew that they held valuable, rare books and that Nazis sought to utilise Jewish books to justify their repressive, antisemitic policies or destroy them altogether, they successfully rescued several smaller collections and books by smuggling them out of the country in private collections of people with non-German passports. However, many books remained in the library until its forced closure in 1942. The library’s collection was then transferred to the Reich Security Main Office, where a “Jewish Library” had been set up in 1939 that held all seized items from Jewish libraries all over Germany. It is estimated that the total of the books held there was 2-3 million. Due to the threat of bombing, many of the books were packed into storage in 1943 and distributed to depots all over German-occupied territory; especially, Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic. Jewish prisoners, including Jenny Wilde, were forced to catalogue, sort and process these collections to make them more usable for the Nazis – a form of intellectual forced labour that some of them nonetheless drew comfort from. Aside from the main Jewish Library in Berlin, there were also book collections set up in various other places, including the Jewish Museum in Prague. Many of these books survived the war inside these depots.

After the end of the Second World War, many surviving former students, employees and teachers of the Institute laid claim to the rescued collections. However, there was no one clear successor to the Institute, and the Allies, who managed the return of all seized books to their owners, decided to instead hand the books over to an organisation called the Jewish Cultural Reconstruction founded solely for this purpose. They distributed the remaining books, for which no previous owner or successor could be found, across Jewish cultural and educational institutions all over the world.

Other depots were raided by special Red Army troops called the Trophy Brigades as they approached Berlin, who sent their loot back to Moscow. It’s unclear how much and if any of these were previously housed at the Institute, nor how likely it is that they will be returned. Yet other books ended up as shelf-fillers in various Berlin Libraries as they were found in destroyed houses or abandoned depots.

As is evident, the books that once belonged to the Institute’s Library could now be scattered far and wide, especially in the UK, Central Europe, Israel and the United States. This is why this library is now called the Library of Lost Books – there is no clear way of tracing the entire collection as it was split up, sold, identifiers covered up, inherited, smuggled and abandoned. Over the years some books have turned up and identified as those previously belonging to the Institute’s collections. This happened especially when they were sold at auction or newly catalogued or consulted.

The initiative ‘Have you seen this book?’ also known as the Library of Lost Books, is run by the Leo Baeck Institute and intends to both publicise the history of these books in a beautifully created interactive exhibition and to appeal to the general public for their support in locating them. One of the main ways that this can happen is by local investigation – grab a book search checklist off the initiative’s website here, order some books into the reading room of your local library, and see if you can find some telling provenance marks such as a bookplate, a stamp, or a so-called paper book tail. Alternatively, you can have a browse through the database of reported books and see if you can put your transcription skills to use!

While a virtual record of all the Institute’s former books is one of the primary aims of the initiative, a physical reunion of the books is not. This has multiple reasons; firstly, the Institute never had a direct successor. While there are progressive rabbinical seminaries in Germany, none of them are, or claim to be, directly related to the Institute. Secondly, many books now found in libraries may have been acquired perfectly legally under the assumption that the book was a genuine, sellable commercial good rather than a looted item. And, most notably, the initiative is more interested in how the books ended up where and which ones survived. Completing the library once again is an impossible task – there is no complete catalogue nor the ability to search private collections or find out what was destroyed. A digital reunion however, coupled with the active efforts of highlighting and fighting against Nazi crime, lets the legacy of the Institute as a place for joyous, transformative Jewish learning live on.

In memory of those who perished in the Holocaust, chasidei ummot ha’olam, and all those seeking to preserve their memory and legacy. Zichronam livracha, may their memory be a blessing.

Trainee Introductions – Colleges & Union

Posted on 14 November 2024 by lammersa — No Comments ↓

Millie Krantz (All Souls College)

Hi, I’m Millie, and I’m the graduate trainee at All Souls College Library. Compared to some of the other trainees, I’ve had a fairly straightforward route to this position: I studied Classics at Oxford, then worked in a sixth form college library in London for a year before applying to the traineeship.

Working in a school library was a really fascinating experience. Like a lot of school libraries, there weren’t many staff members and there wasn’t much oversight, so I got to do virtually everything – I helped students, acquired new books, catalogued (badly), weeded, classified and reclassified, and did endless amounts of shelf-checking. I loved the wide range of tasks I got to do and the level of independence I had, but I wanted more training and a better idea of how other libraries work, which made me more interested in traineeships at smaller institutions with more of a jack-of-all-trades attitude to librarianship.

It’s been wonderful and exciting working at All Souls so far, and much more glamorous than working at a state school! The library is a bit unusual for a college library – we’re open to readers from the rest of the university, but we only lend books to our small population of Fellows, which means we see very little circulation. We primarily have books on European history and law, though we end up collecting a little bit of everything based on the needs of the Fellows. As the trainee (and only library assistant) I’ve been able to get involved with quite a lot: I do a lot of acquisitions and journals processing, book fetching, scanning, and shelving, with a generous amount of coffee cup policing and shooing tourists away. A real highlight has been getting to look at and handle some of our manuscripts, especially the Amesbury Psalter!

Ash Lammers (Jesus College)

Hi folks! My name is Ash (they/them) and I’m this year’s trainee at Jesus College. I’m originally from Germany, but have lived in the UK for the last five years doing both my BA and MA up in the North East of England. My academic background is History (although I did also study English Lit for my Joint Honours BA) and my MA research focused on modern European Jewish and Queer History. To distract from my sometimes emotionally heavy research and indulge in my love for working with books, data and solving problems, I started volunteering with the book-tracking app The StoryGraph as a librarian! I spent afternoons with such fun activities as solving user-added ISBN messes and sorting out series sequences. While I loved the idea of working in a physical library, I thought it was kind of unattainable and applied to the trainee programme sort of impulsively one evening in June. Apparently, following the dopamine does pay off…

I’m enjoying library work immensely, especially as I do a rotating variety of different things every day. I process books, help lost readers, compare reading lists with our collection or carry lost property to the JCR. I also have excellent company during the day – namely my manager, Owen, and two crocheted desk pets. I also poke about in the Fellows’ Library, which is always eerily quiet and wouldn’t be out of place in a mystery novel. The majority of the college’s rare books are kept there, and while I don’t work there a lot – my daily checks on whether rain has come through the walls not included – sometimes books need to be set out for classes, or we check specific texts for minute details upon request. An unanticipated side effect of this job is that when reshelving or processing, I find so many interesting books and subjects that my TBR is growing steadily – much to the dismay of my bank account…

Jess Pascal (New College)

I’m Jess (they/them) and I’m the trainee at New College Library. New College is one of Oxford’s older colleges, which means it has an excellent collection of medieval manuscripts and rare books, and I’m lucky enough to get to work with these as a part of my role! This involves fetching items from secure storage elsewhere in the college, invigilating readers who want to consult them, and working on exhibitions. When I’m not doing that, I’m helping with the day-to-day running of the library: since it’s the start of term, this means a lot of unpacking new books and getting them ready to go out on the library shelves while trying to resist the temptation to read them when I ought to be stamping them…

Before this, I was studying French and Spanish at the University of Leicester, where I volunteered in the library and archives. This gave me some experience of working in a library, and it was my first taste of working with special collections, which inspired me to apply for this job. I’m looking forward to sharing more about my work here and the many things I’m sure I’ll be learning throughout the trainee scheme.

Gareth Smith (Oxford Union Library)

Hello everyone, my name is Gareth and I am Graduate Trainee Library Assistant at the Oxford Union Society Library.

The Members’ Library (Image provided by the Oxford Union Society Library)

The Oxford Union is Oxford University’s famous affiliated debating society, known for its debates and interviews on current affairs, occasional controversies, and interminable student politicking. In many ways it is quite a strange place: though nominally run by an elected Standing Committee of Oxford students who decide on the termly programme of speakers and events, we also have a core body of around twenty professional staff including four librarians and an archivist, who, as employees of an organisation separate to the University, are not formally part of the Bodleian Libraries but use the same information management system. We look after a members’ library of around sixty thousand books (housed mostly in a beautiful Victorian building decorated by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, pictured) and play perhaps the most important and visible part in the day-to-day running of the Union.

Before working at my current job, I completed my BA in Classics (Literae Humaniores) and my MPhil in Ancient History at The Queen’s College, Oxford. Outside my degrees, I also volunteered on several seasons of archaeological fieldwork in Greece and on archive and object digitisation projects at Blenheim Palace and the Ashmolean Museum. My prior library experience includes a quick stint in a public library when I was a teenager and a paid job as Summer Library Assistant at University College Library immediately after my Masters. As Graduate Trainee, I participate in the training programme organised by the Bodleian Libraries alongside the other trainees.

As you might imagine, this background has made me a very organised and versatile person, and I’m enjoying having my skillset constantly stretched through working at such an idiosyncratic library! As well as all the usual jobs expected of a library assistant, my role has also included working closely with our archivist to produce displays for Union events and publicity as well as archival research and digitisation; I occasionally give tours of the Old Library and the famous Debate Chamber, which are the main attractions for visitors to the Union, and I’m also particularly focused on bringing our social media presence into the 2020s. I am also secretary to the Library Committee, a member-run body which decides on acquisitions and withdrawals: the Union library is the only in Oxford where every book has been suggested by a reader, and we stock a large amount of fiction, travel guides and magazines alongside our academic books.

Jake Banyard (St. Edmund Hall)

Despite the wonderful benefit of college lunch as a college library trainee, a free meal was not the reason I decided to embark upon a career in librarianship. In fact, after graduating from the University of Reading with a BA in French and History I wasn’t sure of any reasons to embark on any careers! I found myself working in hospitality, and despite enjoying some aspects of customer service, there are only so many 2am finishes and stressful shifts before change is needed. After some soul-searching I came to the conclusion that a

career in libraries might combine the good parts of customer service with my desire to work in an educational environment. I found a job in a

public library and took great satisfaction in helping readers and contributing to a sense of community in the local area. The allure of academic libraries was too strong though, and I applied for the traineeship here at St Edmund Hall.

Having some experience of a library environment has been a real help in these first couple of months at Teddy Hall, and while not a pre-requisite for the traineeship, the familiarity of books and barcodes has helped to combat the unfamiliarity of the Oxford system – full of terms like cuppers, blades and battels! Working in a college environment means that the library is host to a range of events at Teddy Hall, from Compline in the crypt (did I mention the library is housed in the 10^th century church of St-Peter-in-the-East!) to wellbeing sessions like an ‘Hour in the Tower’. The Librarians here work hard to integrate the library into college life, and we are currently running a ‘Blind date with a book’ event, offering readers a chance to read something they might not otherwise pick up. My role also has the exciting benefit of being a three-year position and, after this first year of the traineeship, Teddy Hall will fund the tuition fees for Library School and allow me to study alongside my work – so I will be sticking around for a while!