Trainee Showcase 2025: Part 4

Posted on 29 August 2025 by khany — No Comments ↓

This is the fourth and final post in our series on the 2025 Trainee Showcase. If you missed the previous three posts, you can find them directly below this one!

Jake Banyard – Improving user access: wayfinding and resource signposting at Teddy Hall

Written by Millie Krantz

Jake’s trainee project tackled a problem intimately familiar to many library staff: how can we make libraries as approachable and intuitive as possible for readers?

Teddy Hall has a beautiful but imposing college library – it’s housed in the converted medieval church of St Peter-in-the-East and retains many original features like fifteenth-century stained glass. When libraries are in historic buildings that were built to intimidate and impress, readers can understandably have apprehensions about using the space, which poses a problem when we as library professionals want to welcome students in and encourage them to use our resources. In addition, the fact that it isn’t purpose-built means that it can be a bit of a maze, even to users who are familiar with academic libraries. Since it tends to be difficult to knock down medieval buildings just to make them easier to navigate, Jake has had to settle on improving accessibility by reworking the map, improving signage, and ensuring that accurate and up-to-date information is circulated on the college website.

An image of a computer on a desk, accompanied by a keyboard and mouse, a map, a sign about searching the catalogue, and a small teddy bear — Jake’s new and improved map and book-finding guide alongside an important member of staff

Jake’s improved maps take a seemingly simplistic approach, but one that is impressively pulled off: stripping out excess information while retaining and adding things that are actually useful. Anyone who has spent hours trying to rework their library’s map in Canva will understand how hard it can be to include as much useful information as possible without everything becoming visually overwhelming, but Jake’s tactic of splitting up and naming the different sections makes navigation much easier. Jake’s use of icons to indicate amenities not only makes it easier for students to look up where their section might be in the library, but also provides a common language of locations so that giving directions becomes easier, and represents the amenities in a visually different way to reduce the amount of clutter on the map. Furthermore, the maps provide an idea of the building’s actual layout and structure in order to help students navigate their way to the books rather than getting stuck at dead-ends. Jake has made sure to display the map at points where students would need it, alongside other useful resources, like a basic guide to using SOLO. On top of this, his map is designed to function in tandem with improved signage that indicates where study and accessibility aids can be found, improving wayfinding in general.

Webpages and social media are also important ways of helping students use our services easily, especially in college libraries that remain open outside of staff hours. Jake’s useful updates to the Teddy Hall websites ensure that students have easy access to information about printing and accessibility aids, and that various different pages are better linked, enabling students to be more independent and confident in their library usage. Jake also made several posts on Teddy Hall Library’s Instagram explaining what the library has to offer; this direct social media outreach provides an invaluable counterpart to the wayfinding and signage improvements inside the library.

All in all, Jake has planned and executed a number of highly useful improvements to Teddy Hall’s reader provisions, ensuring that the library will better serve the needs of students and that they will get more out of everything the library can offer them.

Hannah Richmond – Data, displays and digital support: my year in review

Written by Ash Lammers

Hannah’s presentation took us through her three main projects this year, which are paradigmatic of the various ways in which we as trainees make lasting impacts on our libraries.

Shortly after Michaelmas started, Hannah set out to collect and analyse data from the student induction tours that the Law Library runs for new (and returning) students. She aimed to make these tours more effective for staff and students in three key areas: engagement, satisfaction and workforce. For engagement recommendations, she reviewed keywords that appeared most often in positive feedback about the tours (helpful and informative, if you are wondering!), as well as collecting attendee numbers for each tour or induction session held by the library. By combining this data with the improvements suggested by attendees, she concluded that increasing the awareness of inductions among students would be useful to make sure that all who might benefit from an induction could attend, and to increase satisfaction among those already attending. For workforce recommendations, Hannah collated a spreadsheet which compared the number of staff members involved in giving the induction and tours, and came to the conclusion that a reduction in the number of tours/inductions given would be beneficial for both staff workload and student engagement. Naturally, this data came presented beautifully in highly readable pie charts, spreadsheets and diagrams – what’s not to love?

A collection of books related to Green Action Week arranged into a book display

A second project that accompanied her all throughout the year was the setup of the themed book displays in the Law Library. By curating themed displays for events such as Black History Month and Disability History Month, Hannah was able to highlight the diversity of the law collection and specific intersections of marginalised identities with the law. If you are interested in Hannah’s process, our earlier Disability History Month blog post features some examples from not only the Law Library’s display, but also the Social Science Library and New College Library. While it is widely known that trainees’ hopes of books being taken off the display and read typically remain but a distant dream, Hannah noted significant interest in readers walking past, who would stop to browse.

Her final project involved recording three bitesize videos on Panopto, in which she took students through the basic steps of how to access digital support materials to assist them in their studies while at Oxford. These videos are currently available online, and will hopefully help many more students in the years to come.

Lilly Wilcox – Fresco: managing web archiving in preparation for the move away from Oxford Mosaic

Written by Elena Brearley

Over the course of the year, Lilly has presented on a few occasions about her work as a Digital Archivist, and each time I have been so impressed by her knowledge and passion for the subject. On the day of the showcase, she explained to us that University IT services are currently transitioning from the web publishing platform Mosaic to the new platform, Fresco. Lilly told us how her work as a Graduate Trainee Digital Archivist working with the Bodleian Libraries Web Archive (BLWA) has been impacted by this change.

To begin with, Lilly confronted us with an intriguing question: ‘Why archive the Web?’. She argued that we should archive the web for the same reason we archive any other kind of material: web archives have legal and evidential value as well as cultural, social, and historical importance. They are a significant resource for research, including for use in data sets.

Lilly introduced us to some key tools and programmes that web archivists use to do their work. An important tool for web archiving is a ‘web crawler’, which is an automated bot that ‘crawls’ and browses through the internet, capturing and archiving websites as it goes. Crawlers are used in other contexts too: Google uses them to find and bring together resources relevant to a search, and AI companies use them to scrape information to feed to Large Language Models.

Another key term for those such as myself who are new to learning about web archiving is ‘Seed URL’. Seed URLs function as a starting point for web crawlers to begin their journey working through and collecting data from a website. Web archivists can schedule crawlers to visit seed URLs at different points in time, and each captured version of the site is then saved to a WARC (Web ARChive) file. This means that past iterations of the site can be compared to the live version.

A screenshot of the Bodleian's Archive-It page

Bodleian Libraries Web Archive, which Lilly works on, was started in 2011 and is primarily focused on archiving University of Oxford websites. Until recently, these websites had been supported by the content management system Mosaic, a system which has posed some challenges to web archivists, including content frequently missing from captures due to being pulled through Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).

With the transition from Mosaic to the new content management system Fresco, Lilly’s team had to quickly make some challenging decisions about which websites to document for the Bodleian Libraries Web Archive. With the limited time, resources and budget available to them before the migration took off, they appraised over 1000 sites and decided to begin archiving over 150 additional websites, mostly for lab groups, centres, institutes, and departments. As they were in this process, sites were already being removed, so they had to work quickly and ended up gathering an enormous amount of data.

Fresco is being rolled out to the university community slowly, so the BLWA team is still learning how archive-friendly Oxford Fresco will be. Lilly emphasised the importance of collaboration and communication with web archivists from the outset of projects such as this one and hoped that people might gain more awareness of web archiving when creating websites (including designing them to be crawler friendly).

Lilly closed with a profound message on the importance of digital archiving, especially in times of political change, pointing to the recent change in administration in the US earlier this year and the drastic changes to government websites that have ensued. A question from the audience prompted Lilly to talk further about the implications of AI crawlers and how some sites have banned crawlers altogether. Hopefully in the future site owners and web developers will be open to working with web archivists to allow permission for their crawlers to carry on their work of documenting the World Wide Web.

Lilly is an effective and persuasive advocate of Web Archiving. She has certainly given me new insight and perspective onto how impermanent and slippery the internet is, and how necessary it is to document its changes over time. I hope she continues to be a champion for this important work!

Gia Simmons – Working papers and a small ‘archive’

Written by Lilly Wilcox

Last but certainly not least, Gia Simmons gave us a look into some of the work that she has done this year on two unconventional collections at the Social Science Library: a small archive of papers from the former International Development Centre Library and a large donation of working papers from the University of Bradford. For her project, she helped the SSL make steps toward understanding the makeup of these collections, where they belong, and how to make them accessible in future.

A collection of books and archival boxes from the Queen Elizabeth House collection

The International Development Centre Library was originally based at Queen Elizabeth House, home to the Department of International Development. This collection of papers came into being from a precursor to the IDC called the Agricultural Economics Research Institute and was created between ca. 1900–1980s. The papers were eventually inherited in 2005 when the contents of the International Development Centre Library moved into the SSL. Because of the complicated chain of custody and time that passed between when the papers were created, acquired by the SSL, and when Gia began looking at them, it had become unclear what the collection comprised.

In this larger collection from the International Development Library, Gia discovered a series of papers from the House of Lords for which the SSL had no record of the contents. The four boxes of material comprise miscellaneous papers relating to the creation of the 20th Report of the select committee on the European community’s agriculture and the environment during parliamentary sessions from 1983–1984. These made their way into the archives through a former Oxford Lecturer in Agricultural Economics, Dr Rosemary Fennell, who served as an advisor to the committee and deposited the papers with Queen Elizabeth House. Gia documented the different archival material in the boxes, taking note of their titles, creators, publishers, and dates of creation, as well as the mysterious set of codes with which the documents were labelled. Equipped with a new understanding of what is in the collection, the SSL is now looking for an archive with which to deposit these papers so they can be made accessible for research.

The second collection was a donation of working papers relating to international development donated to the Bodleian by the University of Bradford, which is weeding their collections. To integrate this donated material with existing SSL collections, Gia researched the full institution names and series names behind the working papers (which weren’t always evident from existing records and the material) to determine whether that series and its papers were already held by the SSL. With this information she was able to either match the material up with an existing shelfmark and barcode them for physical processing, or work toward creating shelfmarks and records for materials that were completely new to the SSL collections.

Gia’s presentation was a fascinating look into the sometimes-unconventional ways that our libraries acquire new material and the massive amount of work that is required to understand and make available these acquisitions.

And Finally, Our Farewell

Sadly, with this post, our time as the 2024-2025 graduate trainees has come to an end. We want to thank all of you who supported us, read our blog posts, or simply put up with us as we tried to make sense of the wacky world of the University of Oxford libraries. Hopefully we will see you all again, but if not…

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

Trainee Showcase 2025: Part 3

Posted on 27 August 2025 by khany — No Comments ↓

This is the third of a four-part series of presentation summaries for the 2025 Trainee Showcase. If you missed the previous posts, you can find them directly below this one!

Ash Lammers – From reclassification to Hebrew manuscripts: a tour through my trainee year

Written by Hannah Richmond

Choosing to present on three medium-sized projects rather than one larger one, Ash took us through a busy year of reclassifying sections of Jesus College’s collections, enhancing catalogue records for Hebrew manuscripts and rare books, and starting a book club alongside the college EDI Officer.

Having identified the use of dated and often inaccurate terms being used within the library’s collections, Ash began to reclassify these sections in the hopes of providing a more up to date and browsable collection with a reduced use of colonialist terms. They aimed to achieve this through the following steps:

Dividing larger categories into two or three smaller ones (e.g. dividing Philosophy into 20th and 21st Century Philosophy)
Removing English as a default language
Creating separate sections for certain subjects (e.g. History of Gender and Sexuality, Drama).

For the library’s Asian History section, Ash confronted dated Eurocentric language and inconsistencies between this section and others in the collections. They made the decision to divide this section by geographical region rather than by time period due to the geographical scope. This resulted in separate subdivisions for South Asia, South East Asia, Middle East, East and Central Asia, and Oceania.

Similar to the above, Ash also reclassified the African History section in an attempt to address the perpetuation of colonialist impact and to more accurately reflect the true complexity of African history. For this they settled on reclassification by time period, dividing them by colonial and post-colonial events.

To add to their already impressive and impactful efforts, Ash will be spending the summer months reclassifying the approximately 9000 items that form the Celtic library.

An image of an open manuscript filled with densely-packed Hebrew writing — An example of the manuscripts Ash was working on

Ash then took us through their second project improving current catalogue records for various Hebrew manuscripts, including copies of the Torah and Haftarah housed at the Weston. Ash is currently adding corrections and additions, hoping to increase the discoverability and knowledge of these items. They also tackled two poorly catalogued Hebrew books, transcribing and translating colophons and title pages in order to extract publishing details.

To round off, Ash brought up their book club, which they created alongside the college’s EDI Officer. The group meets termly to discuss books with significant diversity representation or themes. It has gained positive feedback thus far and Ash is hoping to continue it during the upcoming Michaelmas term.

Lindsey Evans – A dive into archives and digitisation

Written by Harry Whattoff

In her presentation, Lindsey spoke about the process of creating a Taylor Edition using an item from the Fiedler Archive at the Taylor Institution Library. For those who are unfamiliar with Taylor Editions, these are essentially texts or images from the Taylor Library’s collections which have been digitised by the Medieval and Modern Languages Faculty, the wider digital scholarship community here at Oxford, or, as in this case, by library staff such as Lindsey!

To begin her presentation, Lindsey shed some light on the Fiedler Archive and its namesake. Hermann Georg Fiedler (1862-1945) was a renowned German scholar and Chair of Oxford University’s German department from 1907 to 1937. He was also a tutor to the Prince of Wales – later to be King Edward VIII before his eventual abdication – and the two kept in touch for many years. In fact, after Fiedler supervised the extension of the Taylor Library, it was the Prince of Wales who reopened it in 1932. As for the archive, Lindsey noted how its expansive contents are mostly uncatalogued and tend to illustrate Fiedler’s complicated relationship with and feelings towards World Wars I and II.

In terms of choosing a text to be digitised, Lindsey outlined a clear approach: assessing the archive contents, carrying out complementary research, and calculating the potential project scope against the time available to undertake it. For the project to be manageable, the item which Lindsey chose had to be suitable in length and complexity, relevant to the Taylor’s wider collections, and out of copyright. As such, she settled on a copy of The Oxford Cosmopolitan from 1908 which details a lecture Fiedler gave on World Literature on February 25th of that year.

The process of creating the Taylor Edition had six main steps: to scan the source text, transcribe, encode in XML, check quality, fix any issues, and publish. Lindsey mentioned that she had not had much prior experiencing of XML encoding, so it did take a little while to acclimate to it. In terms of fixing any issues, this involved clarifying any ambiguities in the text, changing misspellings of Fielder’s name, and integrating links to external sources for further context. The main outcome of the project is that the Taylor Edition has officially been published and can be seen on the Taylor Editions website. Furthermore, the extensive research and sources which Lindsey compiled over the course of the project is being handed over to the team at the Taylor. This ultimately will help contribute towards future goals to document the Fiedler archive more widely and assist in the potential creation of an online discovery tool for it.

Emma Brand – Trapped in the dungeon: reimagining art’s approach to damaged books

Written by Phoebe Lawson

Emma’s presentation this year was all about the dungeon. Until this year, I didn’t even know that the Art library had a dungeon. Apparently, ‘the dungeon’ refers to the Lower Ground Floor Office where, for many years, damaged books went, never to return.

Books had been pulled from the shelves for repairs and a spreadsheet, the perennial favourite of librarians everywhere, had been created to keep track of them. However, many of the books had ended up languishing in the dungeon for far too long. Enter: Emma. Emma’s project was to try to create better workflows and new resources concerning damaged books, and to try to raise staff and student awareness of book repairs so that the books might one day be released from the dungeon.

She started by organising the dungeon, sorting through the books to make everything flow better so that people could easily see what work needed to be done. Emma also created fancy new triage slips to make it easier to triage damage, new signage for the shelves, a whole new (and colour-coded) spreadsheet for book repairs, and a decision tree for people to identify types of book damage. She even created an ID booklet for recognising damage and, my personal favourite, the most adorable awareness posters.

Honestly, I was blown away by the amount of work Emma put into her project this year. Book damage is something which, as librarians, we come across quite often, but which we sometimes don’t know what to do about. I feel like her project has the potential to really help improve book repairs at Art (and maybe free the poor trapped books from the dungeon once and for all).

A poster featuring a labelled diagram of a damaged book — Emma: Graphic design is my passion

A poster entitled 'books are friends not food!' that features a book being attacked by bugs — Emma: Graphic design is my passion

Going forward, Emma is working to finish her ID booklet and other information sources, and continuing to implement her spreadsheet and slips across the Art library (and maybe a few others). At the end of her presentation, she offered to share her resources with anyone else who might want them and, to be honest, I hope people do take her up on that… if only so I can see her cool posters everywhere.

Personally, I really enjoyed Emma’s presentation. I loved the quality of the resources she produced, and I’m amazed by the sheer amount of work and effort that must have gone into her project this year. Also, in a day filled with many different spreadsheets, Emma’s colour-coded book repair spreadsheet remains my favourite. I think she’s done a fantastic job with her project and that it might very well have a major impact on how book repairs are handled at the Art library.

Zac Draysey – Building an LGBTQ+ History LibGuide

Written by Yasmeen Khan

Zac’s trainee project revolved around the creation of an LGBTQ+ History LibGuide – a daunting but necessary task that would help to promote the wealth of under-represented resources on this subject to the wider global research community.

Due to ever-growing academic interest in the topic of gender and sexuality, the staff of the History Faculty Library had been quietly working on the creation of an LGBTQ+ History LibGuide for a while. Zac’s arrival to the library thus came at the perfect time, and he was given the task of taking the project across the finish line.

As a research endeavour like this would be far too much for one person handle in such a short time, the team thought it wise to draw on the knowledge of the wider Oxford community by having Zac host a history hackathon. The aim of this event was for participants to track down reputable, accessible, and free resources on LGBTQ+ history within a limited span of time. Each participant was sent a specification as to what kind of resources were acceptable for inclusion in an Oxford LibGuide and then were left to roam the internet in search of any and all relevant sites. The hackathon was a resounding success, with over 70 participants tracking down nearly 500 resources for further consideration.

From there, the task became only slightly less monumental, as Zac would have to research, vet, and categorise each of these resources while helping to create the LibGuide itself. Although this may sound straightforward, two major problems were quickly discovered.

A screenshot of the LGBTQ+ History LibGuide homepage

The first of these problems was a matter of scope. Whilst the History Faculty Library had circulated guidance as to what constituted an ideal resource in the hackathon’s specification document, the reality of the resources found resulted in a variety of grey areas for Zac to grapple with. He pointed out, for example, the difficulty of determining what constituted ‘good’ or ‘reputable’ academic research when so much LGBTQ+ history has been passed down in ways that traditional academic practice is not equipped to handle.

The second of these issues surrounded the categories that had been chosen for the hackathon and LibGuide. Although certain topics were inundated with resource suggestions, others received little to no submissions despite the best efforts of the hackathon participants. Zac thus had to reconfigure the categories to create a more equal distribution of resources while not losing the variety that made the original range of categories valuable.

Despite the intimidating size of this task, Zac’s efforts have already resulted in a beta version of the LGBTQ+ History LibGuide being soft-launched on the Bodleian’s LibGuides platform. Just over half of the original resources had made it onto the LibGuide by the day of Zac’s trainee presentation – a testament to the incredible work of Zac, the History Faculty Library staff, and the hackathon participants.

Trainee Showcase 2025: Part 2

Posted on 22 August 2025 by khany — No Comments ↓

This is the second of a four-part series of presentation summaries for the 2025 Trainee showcase. If you missed the previous post, you can find it directly below this one!

Gareth Smith – Uniomachia: a new Digital Edition in TEI XML

Written by Zac Draysey

The yellowed title page of Uniomachia, featuring its title, author, and a small illustration of a tree being chopped down by a disembodied hand with an axe. — The title page of Uniomachia

Gareth’s presentation was an engaging deep-dive into Uniomachia, a forgotten gem of comic classical parody unearthed during his traineeship at the Oxford Union Library. Drawing on his strong background in Classics and Ancient History, Gareth recounted his excitement upon discovering this obscure 1833 satirical poem written in a mix of Ancient Greek, Latin, and English. The poem, penned by Oxford students Thomas Jackson and William Sinclair, parodies Homeric epic to dramatize a real political schism within the Oxford Union, transforming an internal dispute into a mock-epic battle between ‘heroes.’ Gareth walked us through how the text not only imitates Homeric style but also includes absurd scholarly commentary in Latin, designed to mock academic pretensions.

Gareth’s project focused on producing a digital edition which aimed to make this otherwise inaccessible work available to a modern audience. His work involved producing a facsimile, transcription, English translation, and detailed commentary, all encoded for Taylor Editions. He illustrated the complexity of the task through a textual analysis of a passage from the poem that showed how deeply layered the satire is, touching on everything from Classical allusions to real Oxford figures like A.C. Tait, a future Archbishop of Canterbury. The audience got a glimpse of the wit embedded in the text and the scholarly humour behind the pseudo-critical notes. Gareth’s blend of insight and humour made for a fascinating presentation, and he ended with a playful farewell, echoing the spirit of the original text.

Kate Hanson – Adventures in digitization

Notes by Gia Simmons, written by Yasmeen Khan

As the graduate trainee based at Christ Church College, it was almost inevitable that Kate would end up interacting with the legacy of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (better known as Lewis Carroll). It was perhaps a little unexpected, however, when she was handed several hundred of his personal letters and asked to digitise them.

Those who know a little about Carroll will likely know that alongside being an author, mathematician, and photographer, he was also a prolific letter-writer – so prolific, in fact, that his logs show him sending and receiving 98,721 letters in the last 35 years of his life. Christ Church was fortunate enough to get their hands on some of these letters through an incredibly generous donation by Jon A. Lindseth, and they quickly realised that they needed to increase global access to these items whilst reducing the number of people physically handling them. Thus, it was decided that the best course of action would be to digitise as many of them as possible.

A photography studio in a library — Kate’s photography set-up

In an act that mirrored one of Carroll’s own 19th century photography set-ups, Kate was equipped with an ad-hoc digitisation studio and banished to the attics of Christ Church to photograph each and every item in crisp detail. Her patient and detail-oriented work bore fruit, and Kate ended the project having successfully digitised 232 out of the original 235 items; unfortunately, the wear and tear of time meant that the remaining three items were too fragile for digitisation. In total, Kate took over 600 images of the books, photographs, letters, envelopes, slips, and pictures that make up the Jon A. Lindseth Collection. The project rounded out with a 24 GB file size, allowing viewers to examine the items in minute detail – Kate pointed out, for example, that it is possible to make out the grain of the paper in some photographs.

But these impressive results naturally came with a few difficulties. Kate had to quickly get to grips with the subtle art of digitisation while grappling with the reality of the material as she found it. Not only were many of the items completely different sizes (forcing her to deal with the havoc of adjusting the lighting and focus), but many had been attached to or tucked inside other items and had to be recorded as such in the photographic record.

Overall, Kate’s trainee project was a fascinating meeting-point between the 19th century and modern day. Although her prior lack of Carroll knowledge meant that she had to quickly come to terms with both his triumphs and controversies, she found that reading his personal letters humanised him immensely. Kate’s brilliant project will not only allow people to encounter the legendary Lewis Carroll, but to interact with the sometimes-overlooked Charles Dodgson. Her work over the course of this year will not only have a lasting impact on Christ Church, but the greater field of Carroll Studies as a whole.

Millie Krantz – Some men in Oxford: queer life at All Souls

Written by Jake Banyard

Millie’s valuable project explored a history of queer experience at All Souls College and the wider university that has often lacked visibility and attention.

The project culminated in the curation of an exhibition of Millie’s findings, and her presentation began with an examination of the role of exhibitions in a college environment. Exhibitions can provide useful opportunities for college libraries to encourage reader engagement and promote their collections, as well as providing justification for Librarians to carry out interesting research and get to know their collections better. Millie raised the interesting question of who exhibitions should be aimed at: academics, students, readers, or the public? In the context of All Souls, Millie also considered the wide range of library users in the college, from fellows using the significant early printed book collection, to law undergraduates and naval history researchers. Who of these would be interested in the exhibition? For Millie this project also served as a way to begin to answer that question.

An exhibition case featuring a selection of books and papers pertaining to queer life at All Souls — Part of Millie’s exhibition

The focal point of the exhibition was the life and papers of John Sparrow. Made a fellow of All Souls in 1929, he remained so until his death in 1992 and served as the College’s Warden from 1952-1977. Sparrow lived through a time of great change in the lives of queer people in the UK and by using his papers (which were left to All Souls in his will) Millie’s exhibition presented an insight into Sparrow’s personal experience of the 20^th century, and the experiences of those he knew and corresponded with.

Due to the nature of the materials exhibited, Millie’s project involved a certain amount of ‘crossing the floor’ from the realm of Library collections and delving into the College archive. Archival practice within Oxford colleges has historically often been haphazard and informal, which means that catalogues can be incomplete or that past sensitivity reviews (if they have been carried out at all) have led to overzealous access restrictions or a lack of any access restrictions whatsoever. These were problems Millie soon ran into: one box of the Sparrow material was restricted simply because, despite Sparrow’s sexuality being publicly known, it “concern[ed] homosexuality”. Fortunately, upon consultation with the College’s current archivists, the restrictions were altered, and Millie was able to access the material.

Perhaps therein lies a concrete example of the value of Millie’s work. Instead of remaining uncatalogued or behind restricted access, queer experience and history has been made more visible, and awareness of the existence of these kinds of collections has been promoted. Millie’s ideas for the future of the exhibition involve potentially creating a permanent digital version, a longer-running physical exhibition, or using the material for outreach purposes in the library – so watch this space!

Yasmeen Khan – The Rhodes less taken: approaches to ethical cataloguing in the former Rhodes House Library material

Written by Charlotte Edwards

Based in Resource Description, Yasmeen had the opportunity to navigate a unique and highly sensitive project. Years before her arrival, the department had received a collection of resources from the Rhodes House Library, mostly pertaining to 20th and 21st century African and Commonwealth Studies. As many of these items were completely uncatalogued, Yasmeen took on the task of getting as many of them onto the system through ethical cataloguing practice as she could.

A colourful selection of books and magazines laid out in a collage — Some of the Rhodes material

Due to the nature, content, and physical location of the material, Yasmeen had many things to consider when starting her project, such as:

A duty of care to readers – there are pictures, language, and references in these resources that can be distressing.
Library ethics – the material is not held in an ideal location at Osney, is not accessible to researchers, and has lots of confusing metadata that makes it difficult to catalogue.

The first step of Yasmeen’s project was learning to catalogue – not an easy feat! She then started experimenting with serials and monographs (both would be needed for the vast array of material she would encounter in this collection) and began researching ethical cataloguing, eventually pulling together a ‘Bodleian Cataloguing Code of Ethics’ based on her research.

Yasmeen’s real-life approach to cataloguing was not priority-based, as she proceeded in the order of what item was next on the pile. The records were full-level, the descriptive fields were left intact, and she altered subject headings if it was both necessary and possible. In a few cases, she also restricted access to items with graphic images – due to their nature, it was felt that these items should only be viewed in private areas in the reading rooms. An attendee asked Yasmeen at the end of her presentation how she herself dealt with the material she was seeing. Indeed, we often consider how a reader would react to the material, but not the staff encountering it. Yasmeen’s approach was to take time to be mentally prepared for what she might see, especially after being taken by surprise at the beginning. It was also beneficial that she would only work on this collection for a couple of hours per week and so could restrict her overall exposure.

There are limitations when cataloguing, especially when cataloguing a collection like this, and Yasmeen touched on her ‘Dream Approaches’ regarding ethical cataloguing. Ideally, rather than relying solely on individual cataloguers, ethical cataloguing would occur on multiple levels, such as having institutional cataloguing policies that are regularly reviewed to ensure alignment with ethical principles.

Due to the collection’s vastness, the comparatively low priority of the collection, and the lack of departmental guidelines on ethical cataloguing, the collection could not be fully catalogued by the end of Yasmeen’s traineeship. To combat this open-endedness, Yasmeen is proceeding to write a report for any future cataloguers who want to continue this well-thought out and important work.

Yasmeen’s presentation was a fascinating insight into the decisions that are made when cataloguing sensitive material, and as an audience member I found her presentation highly enlightening and engaging.

Trainee Showcase 2025: Part 1

Posted on 20 August 2025 by khany — No Comments ↓

The Next Few Posts

As long-time readers of the blog will know, every graduate trainee in the Bodleian has the opportunity to undertake a project over the course of their traineeship. This is not mandatory – rather, it is an opportunity for trainees to try their hand at tasks outside of their everyday job scope and leave a lasting mark on the libraries they worked at. The culmination of all this hard work comes in the form of the Graduate Trainee Showcase: a day-long event where every trainee is given the opportunity to talk about their project in front of a bustling audience of librarians, fellow trainees, and interested colleagues.

This year’s showcase featured sixteen presentations and was held at the Social Science Library. Over the next two weeks, we will be posting short summaries of these presentations in hopes that those of you who couldn’t make it on the day can experience a snippet of what it was like.

Before we begin, however, a massive thank-you goes out from all of the trainees to those who supported us in our projects, came to the showcase, or guided us as line managers or training facilitators over the year. We also particularly thank our fellow trainees Elena Brearley, Gia Simmons, Charlotte Edwards, and Hannah Richmond for their hard work organising the showcase – without you, this wouldn’t have been possible.

Now, without further ado, on with the showcase!

Charlotte Edwards – Student wellbeing at Sainsbury Library

Written by Yasmeen Khan

Charlotte’s fascinating trainee project focussed on the creation of a wellbeing collection for the Sainsbury Library.

Drawing on her experience as a student and on various conversations with friends, Charlotte identified a need for wellbeing provisions that targeted business students. The idea that this was both necessary and desirable was furthered by the coincidental creation of a wellbeing module for the Saïd Business School’s MBA. This proved not only that academic interest in the subject existed, but that a core group of students with an interest in wellbeing was already present at the Sainsbury Library.

Although some wellbeing provisions already existed in the library, student feedback informed Charlotte that there were several areas that could be improved upon. Drawing on this, she then implemented a few meaningful changes to the library’s wellbeing provisions, such as creating a wellbeing book recommendation box and moving the library’s pre-existing puzzle collection from a busy public space to a more secluded area in the annexe room.

However, as there was only so much that could be done with the library’s current wellbeing provisions, Charlotte knew that a large portion of her time would have to be put towards identifying, collating, and expanding the library’s wellbeing resources and book collections. After using a series of webinars to scope out how other libraries were approaching wellbeing, Charlotte began her search for the material that would make up the body of her new collection. While the Sainsbury Library already had some relevant books on the topic, Charlotte’s in-depth research meant that she was successful in her endeavour to have some new books purchased for the collection as well.

A pile of books on the topic of wellbeing — A selection of the Wellbeing Book Purchases

Once she had gathered the relevant materials, it was simply a matter of turning this gathering of resources into an actual collection. As the books were drawn from a wide variety of topics (and physical locations in the library), it became clear that creating a physical collection on the shelves would create more issues than solutions. As such, Charlotte came up with the idea of creating this collection digitally by labelling each of the wellbeing collection’s items with a public note on SOLO.

The culmination of all this hard work was the creation of a beautiful promotional book display in the Sainsbury Library. Not only did this attract public attention to the new collection, but it briefly allowed for a physical version of the Wellbeing Collection to exist in the library.

With the completion of this project, Charlotte has not only demonstrated an impressive range of skills, but has left an important and positive mark on the Sainsbury Library’s wellbeing provisions.

Elena Brearley – Zines and wellbeing in the Bodleian Old Library

Written by Lilly Wilcox

One of the fearless leaders of the graduate trainee showcase, Elena Brearley, presented on her project to incorporate zines into the Bodleian Old Library Wellbeing collection.

Elena helped us by trying to define what a zine is—a notoriously tricky medium to pin down. A zine is typically an independent, self-published, and self-distributed DIY magazine. It can be physical or digital, made by an individual or a group, include a variety of forms of creative expression (like writing and visual arts), and cover pretty much any topic the zine maker wants. Essentially, a zine is a zine if the zine (maker) says so!

Around 30 zines laid out in three rows — Just a handful of the new zines

Based on her experience as a zine maker and reader, Elena thought zines would be a perfect addition to the Old Bod wellbeing collection created by last year’s trainee, as the medium is engaging and zines often discuss themes relating to wellbeing and community. Elena looked to other zine libraries in Oxford—like the Balliol College Library wellbeing collection—and beyond—like the Glasgow and Salford Zine Libraries. From conversations with and research into other zine libraries, Elena identified a few challenges that come with adding zines into library collections. For example, they can be difficult to catalogue as they often have multiple collaborators, unclear publishers and publication dates, and more. Additionally, other ethical questions surround the inclusion of zines in libraries, such as whether they are meant to be ephemeral. Ultimately, she decided that zines that were already published by creators in online libraries and zines submitted by makers who opted in to preservation of their work at the Bodleian would be appropriate for the collection.

In addition to identifying, printing, and assembling zines from online zine libraries, Elena also organized a zine donation drive to expand the collection. She started by sharing a call for zine donations around Oxford including at the Bodleian Zine Fair and through the staff newsletter. From this, the Bodleian communications team picked up on the project and were able to share it through social media where it completely took off! Elena received over 130 zine donations from six countries in multiple languages covering a variety of topics. This huge influx of donations meant that Elena had to appraise the donations for zines that fit the wellbeing theme of the collection. After appraisal, the zines could be catalogued as part of the Old Bod wellbeing collection and classified along with zines that already exist in the permanent collection and zines from the free digital zine libraries.

Included in the Old Bod wellbeing collection is a zine created by us graduate trainees at a workshop organized by Elena and instructed by the artist Alice Hackney at the Bodleian Bibliographic Press. Kudos to Elena for organizing such a great activity for us and for all her hard work on the Old Bod wellbeing collection!

Harry Whattoff – Displaying History: Research-Led Exhibitions in the English Faculty Library

Written by Lindsey Evans

In his presentation, Harry talked us through the displays that he has prepared over the course of his year at the English Faculty Library. A dominant focus for the EFL team this year has been to prepare for the library’s relocation to the new Schwarzman Centre. However, alongside contributing to this overarching project, Harry had opportunities to put together regular new book selections and to develop a number of themed displays.

The brief for the first of Harry’s themed displays was to curate a ‘seasonal’ selection of books in the lead-up to the December vacation. This gave a lot of freedom of interpretation, though with a slight sense of pressure to create an Oxford-worthy end result! Harry wanted the seasonal angle to be enjoyable and relevant to library users (some of whom might feel excluded by an overt Christmas theme, for example, if they don’t celebrate it). With two display cases available, Harry decided to present eight texts where snow plays a significant role, for example within the plot or as a metaphor. Drawing on his own reading and further research (Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous was a starting point), Harry brought together a diverse range of works. He prepared explanatory blurbs analysing the depiction of snow in each of the featured texts, which he hoped would prove thought-provoking and increase students’ appreciation of the importance of small details in literary works.

A few months later, in February of this year, Harry went on to develop “TO BE DESTROYED”: The Legal History of Book Censorship in the UK, a display that charted the events and landmark publications leading to the creation of the 1959 Obscene Publications Act. In terms of the research required, this was more demanding and time-consuming than his earlier display work, especially as it involved going back as far as the late 1400s to the introduction of the printing press in England. Among the six titles exhibited was the uncensored 1960 first edition of Lady Chatterley’s Lover that became a test case for a revised legal definition of obscenity. To add visual appeal and convey a ‘timeline’ idea at a glance with limited resources, Harry employed an ingenious use of book tape to connect each book/event to the next in a chronological chain within the display cases. For readers interested in a deeper engagement with the exhibition, he also added news clippings alongside each item that illustrated the historical context. This exhibition was especially topical as it coincided with Pride Month; Harry wrote a piece for the EFL blog to accompany the exhibition and to highlight in particular the relationship between the 1959 act and the suppression of queer literature, such as Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness.

Books and printed information laid out on a brown background as part of the To Be Destroyed Display — One half of the “TO BE DESTROYED” Display

The EFL’s move to the Schwarzman building provided the impetus for a final Trinity Term display on the past, present and future of the library itself. This display was interdisciplinary in scope and allowed Harry to work with items from the archives, such as the diaries of notable figures from the EFL’s history, which meant engaging with copyright considerations around their inclusion. The display looked back to the library’s beginnings and evolution, as well as looking ahead to its future as it joins a new Centre for the Humanities. Again, Harry worked on a blog post to complement the exhibition and present the research behind it.

Something that Harry has really appreciated in his work with book displays and exhibitions this year is being able to integrate his own interests, knowledge of literature, and research skills into their planning. Although it can be hard to measure the impact of library displays, they are an important way for libraries to connect with their readership. By curating displays that are thoughtfully researched and visually interesting, Harry has engaged with the English Faculty Library community and cultivated interest in EFL collections.

Phoebe Lawson – The Red Cross Collection, or; me, Henry Dunant and a great many books

Written by Emma Brand

As much of this content has already been covered in an informative and entertaining blog by Phoebe, this is a short summary of Phoebe’s presentation. This means I get to toot the horn about how great this project was and why – a summary of which you can see in the image below.

A venn diagram made up of three circles on the topic of why James' project suited them. the central point is labelled James' project and is surrounded by the phrases an interest in cataloguing, lots to do, a large donation, lots to see, a love of quirky things, and lots to learn — TLDR on why Phoebe’s project worked so well

To quote Phoebe (as I laugh every time), “at some point between the invention of writing and the modern day, the Law Library received a donation.” This donation was from the Henry Dunant Institute, a research institute for the Red Cross based in Geneva.

There are three critical things to know about this project:

It was LARGE (1000+ books!!)
The collection was diverse, spanning 13 different languages
It took up SPACE (for some years), occupying 25 shelves at the Law library.

Phoebe had an interest in cataloguing which brought about this project – and luckily for Phoebe, cataloguing is done on site at the Law Library. This made receiving valuable MARC record training from the beloved Tanya very easy. It also meant that any strange and wonderful cataloguing queries could be answered quickly so Phoebe could power through the many, many records she was creating.

This training set her up to start making minimum level records so that she could send books to the CSF from the start of December. By the end of January, she had blitzed through the English texts and was onto the other languages, which she finished by the end of March.

As someone who has spent time working at the Taylor library this year and handling material in other languages, I need to point out how impressive this timeline is. Yes, Phoebe does have a background in languages, having learnt Ancient Greek and German, however to catalogue in another language (especially 13 different ones) is very noteworthy. To state the obvious – some were in languages that Phoebe does not speak or read. Additionally, not all countries print cataloguing information in the same way, or in as much detail, making it yet again more challenging to process. Speaking of, over the four months processing these records Phoebe worked through a whopping 624 records. It is without doubt that Phoebe learnt loads about cataloguing and the many variations of it during this project.

To help learn more about the Red Cross collection, Phoebe kept two spreadsheets on the books that were catalogued: one for the acquisitions team at the Law library and one for data collecting interests. From this, Phoebe was able to pull out interesting books within the collection, some of which she highlighted during her presentation (and blog post). A fun fact Phoebe came across in Red Cross travels was that numerous North Korean propaganda texts were printed in English, French and Spanish as a way of disseminating information in other countries. My favourite part of the spreadsheets was not the spreadsheets themselves, but the map created from them (what can I say, I am a sucker for visual data). This stellar map shows all of the places that the books in the collection were published.

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Phoebe talk about her project. The presentation highlighted not only the amount of work she was able to do, but also demonstrated the enthusiasm she has for a solid spreadsheet, clearing shelves, finding quirky books, and cataloguing. I am positive that the Law Library is thrilled that the shelves are clear, and that they have been processed in such a thorough manner.

A micro-internship in Assessment

Posted on 27 June 2025 by evansl — No Comments ↓

As part of our trainee programme, we’ve had some particularly inspiring sessions about ‘assessment’. You might be forgiven for wondering how the words ‘assessment’ and ‘inspiring’ go together. Happily, assessment in this context has nothing to do with exams or inspections; it’s about evaluating library life in a whole variety of ways.

With Dr Frankie Wilson, who leads the Bodleian Libraries’ Assessment Team, trainees explored how stats, surveys and feedback can inform improvements to how libraries do things. We saw how assessment can also demonstrate the impact of what libraries already provide, in a world where physical library spaces and library staff expertise may be undervalued. In a follow-up workshop, we had fun experimenting with research methods ourselves – going undercover in the street observing how a space functions, exchanging ‘break-up letters’ to companies that have bitterly disappointed us and testing glasses that track your eye movements.

I’ve enjoyed being involved in research activities such as focus groups myself, and I quite often find myself thinking about how decisions can be made in an evidenced way. So I was intrigued to see more during a day-long ‘micro-internship’ with the Bodleian’s Assessment Team. Here’s how it went:

9:00 I arrive at the historic Clarendon Building where I’m meeting Rachel Childs, User Experience (UX) Librarian. Initially we have a slightly awkward wait to get into the building because some newly-weds are having official pictures taken in its photogenic archway. (The perils of working in a beautiful part of town…) Once inside, we get settled and say hello to colleagues Debra Hampton and Tom Pouncy.

^{The Clarendon Building: it’s a looker. Image by Peter Dreisiger on Flickr.}

We start the day with a discussion about ‘usability testing’ of a particular tool (for example, an online reading list system). Unlike software user testing, which might answer questions such as “Does this button do what it is designed to do?”, usability testing asks a broader question: “Does this tool offer an optimal experience, given what we can observe about users’ behaviour and expectations?” Usability testing implies multiple rounds of testing of each iteration of a tool over a number of weeks. Looking at the flowchart of the whole process with Rachel, and hearing that testers are often time-pressed student volunteers, I could see how important it would be to plan ahead with everyone involved.

^{The bible of UX techniques: A Handbook of User Experience and Design in Libraries, by Andy Priestner}

10:00 Rachel gives me some background on User Experience research techniques in general, which represent a combination of anthropologists’ methods (‘ethnographish’ techniques) and Design Research processes. Rachel explains that it is important to mix and match your methods; we need both attitudinal and behavioural research to answer a specific question, so that we can see not just what impressions a library-user reports about doing something, but how they actually go about something in reality, too.

10:30 Next, Debra talks me through the gathering of quantitative data from libraries in the Bodleian network. This includes physical occupancy data (how many people are using each library, when), as well as ‘service catalogue’ data (how often particular library resources are used, etc.). She explains that data often needs to go through a cleaning process to weed out errors and for data protection reasons. She introduces me to the software tools used, and explains that individual libraries tend to have one designated stats person who takes responsibility for recording the relevant numbers and passing them on to the team. This makes me realise I have no idea who does this at my own library!

After talking with Debra I have time for a tea break and a quick visit to the Bodleian Publishing team in the same building, to say hello and admire their lovingly-produced books!

11:15 I’m now with Tom, Business Data Analyst, to learn about KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and data visualisation. Tom has worked on developing KPIs for strategic projects in the Bodleian Libraries organisation. On paper, some aspects of the organisational strategy might sound quite difficult to quantify, such as ‘deliver an inclusive public engagement programme’. We look at the way in which broad goals filter down into programmes, then individual projects, with KPIs attached to define success in a measurable way. Tom shows me how Power Bi is used to bring together accessible graphics and breakdowns illustrating what’s been achieved so far.

12:00 I have a chat with Frankie around midday about the priorities and challenges of her role as Head of Assessment. “It’s my job to tell the truth,” she summarises. The Assessment Team sits outside of the main Bodleian divisions and maintains an independent, user-centred approach. Frankie and her colleagues will undertake projects across the Bodleian as a whole (an organisation-wide Reader Survey has recently taken place, for example). But they also support individual libraries with their own research ideas and sometimes work with external partners as well. Relationship-building and listening skills are therefore really important for understanding different perspectives and making influential recommendations; Frankie credits some of her previous library roles, e.g. as a subject liaison librarian, with helping her to develop these.

14:30 After lunch I am tasked with archiving some images from a ‘Cultural Probe’. Not as ominous as it sounds, this study was ‘probing’ into participants’ experience of library support for their doctoral studies. Each person was given a physical journal with a prompt on each date. It could be a direct question about how they located the books/articles they had been using that day. Or it could be an instruction to ‘take a picture of something that has surprised you today’ (hence there being images for me to process). The thinking is that, by asking people to express themselves in a range of ways, a cultural probe can get to insights that more conventional methods may not. To me, this study looks quite enjoyable for participants and useful to them personally as a reflective log of this time in their lives. For the Assessment Team, it provides a really rich source of feedback that could be analysed in a variety of ways.

15:15 Tom sets me a small challenge: interpreting data from the feedback forms of workshop attendees and picking out the parts that are relevant to a KPI we have seen this morning. Initially I am a little apprehensive about putting my GCSE Statistics into practice, but soon I’m converting the attendees’ satisfaction ratings into a visual format using Excel tools and deciding which style would be most effective for telling the story at a glance.

16:30 In the final part of the day, I help Rachel prepare handouts for the next session of a co-design project she is running with neurodivergent students. ‘Co-design’ is about tailoring a new initiative to its users as closely as possible by involving them in every step of its conception. The focus of Rachel’s project is left intentionally open-ended at the start: participants work together to define an area of the library experience that they may want to rethink, and go from there. I could see that this approach benefits from a lot of preparation and openness/responsiveness on all sides. It is also quite exciting; it makes complete sense that engaging the target demographic in the creation of a new service is going to enhance its relevance and effectiveness. From a participant perspective, I could also imagine this being an interesting and empowering learning process.

17:00ish I head home, my brain starting to digest everything we’ve done and discussed. I feel as if I’ve gained a tangible insight into the Assessment Team’s work, combining day-to-day monitoring of library performance with some quite experimental and innovative projects to influence library life for the better. Thanks to Rachel, Debra, Tom and Frankie for such an illuminating day!

by Lindsey Evans

Women’s History Month Book Displays 2025

Posted on 27 March 2025 by giasimmons — No Comments ↓

March is Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day fell on 8^th March, which means that it’s time for another book display update from the Trainees! In this post, you will find information all about the book displays that were put together in the Social Science Library, New College Library, Taylor Institution Library, and the Sainsbury Library at Saïd Business School.

If you would like to find out more information about Women’s History Month or International Women’s Day, why not have a look at the International Women’s Day website. To find other resources on Women’s History, check out the Bodleian’s Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies LibGuide.

Gia Simmons – Social Science Library

Happy Women’s History Month! We do love our book displays here at the SSL and this month is definitely no exception. For this display, I was able to collaborate with a few colleagues to create an extensive two-part book display.

While creating this display, I decided to set myself a challenge. I wanted to include at least one book on the subject of at least one woman from as many of the subjects that are housed in the Social Science Library as possible. This was definitely not an easy feat as we house a wide variety of subjects such as Politics & International Relations, Economics, Anthropology, Geography, International Development, Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, Sociology and more. For the other section of the display, one of my colleagues compiled the books on women’s history more generally.

In deciding to try and create a display with women from each of our subjects, I was able to explore new historical figures that I had not been previously aware of. Some of the subject librarians in the SSL were kind enough to give me some suggestions of women to research and I added many of them to the display. Here is the list of books about these women that were included in this display with the name of the women written in bold:

Becoming/Michelle Obama https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/fnp0l/alma990225479650107026
The impact of war on children: a review of progress since the 1996 United Nations Report on the impact of armed conflict on children/Graça Machel https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/fnp0l/alma990152729910107026
Jacinda Ardern: a new kind of leader/Madeline Chapman https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/fnp0l/alma990226655670107026
Living for change: an autobiography/Grace Lee Boggs https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/fnp0l/alma990132428420107026
Vindication: a life of Mary Wollstonecraft/Lyndall Gordon https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/fnp0l/alma990159973620107026
Dust tracks on a road: an autobiography/Zora Neale Hurston https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/fnp0l/alma990102991660107026
‘They say’: Ida B. Wells and the reconstruction of race/James West Davidson https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/fnp0l/alma990165797190107026
Simone de Beauvoir/Judith Okely https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/fnp0l/alma990162281360107026
The life of Isabella Bird/Anna M. Stoddart https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/ogbd98/alma991025406227607026
Feminism and voluntary action : Eglantyne Jebb and Save the Children, 1876-1928/Linda Mahood https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/ogbd98/alma991025464234907026
Helena Normanton and the opening of the bar to women/Judith Bourne https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma991022207784507026
Joan Robinson/G.C. Harcourt and Prue Kerr https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/1tb00os/alma990171409740107026
Barbara Ward: her life and letters/Jean Gartlan https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990172717330107026
The best we could do: an illustrated memoir/Thi Bui https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/q6b76e/alma991025464235307026
Wangari Maathai’s registers of freedom/[edited and with an introductory essay by] Grace A. Musila. https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/ogbd98/alma991025332624407026
Women political leaders in Africa/Rosemarie Skaine https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/ogbd98/alma990167170320107026
Mary Robinson: An authorised autobiography/Olivia O’Leary and Helen Burke https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/ogbd98/alma990138280170107026

The theme for International Woman’s Day this year was Accelerate Action. Although I did not follow a specific theme for this display, the inclusion of women from a wide range of disciplines was of paramount importance to me, as each of these women have been a notable force for change in their fields. Some of these women you may have heard of, some you may be unfamiliar with. Nevertheless, I would highly recommend that you look into the impact that they have made on their fields. If you would like more information on the book display, I also wrote a blog post for the Social Science Library Blog.

Jess Pascal – New College Library

For this year’s Women’s History Month display, I first checked out last year’s display so I could avoid repeating too many books and give others a chance in the limelight, though some were just too good to miss! In the same spirit, I drew on as many interesting acquisitions I’ve seen recently as possible – this is an advantage of processing the majority of new books that come into the library. A particularly useful source of new books about women’s history was the Warden’s kind donation of all the books longlisted for the Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize for non-fiction books, which is associated with New College. This included several titles on women’s history, including The Waiting Game and Shakespeare’s Sisters.

Fortunately, there were a lot of books to choose from on women’s history – the hardest part of this display was getting my initial longlist down to just 12 books! In line with the UN’s theme for International Women’s Day this year, ‘For ALL women and girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment’, I aimed to represent a diverse cross-section of women’s history within the scope of the library’s collections. Nevertheless, the display has a bias towards English women, as they are most represented in the library here at New College to align with teaching priorities.

Books used:

Ackelsberg, Martha A. Free Women of Spain : Anarchism and the Struggle for the Emancipation of Women. AK Press, 2005.

Briggs, Robin. The Witches of Lorraine. Oxford University Press, 2007.

Burke, Jill. How to Be a Renaissance Woman : The Untold History of Beauty and Female Creativity. Profile Books Ltd, 2023.

Clark, Nicola. The Waiting Game : The Untold Story of the Women Who Served the Tudor Queens. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2024.

Ferry, Georgina. Dorothy Hodgkin : A Life. Granta Books, 1998.

Gregory, Philippa. Normal Women : 900 Years of Making History. William Collins, 2023.

Jenkins, Lyndsey. Sisters and Sisterhood : The Kenney Family, Class, and Suffrage, 1890-1965. Oxford University Press, 2021.

Romney, Rebecca. Jane Austen’s Bookshelf : The Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend. Ithaka, 2025.

Rupp, Leila J. Worlds of Women : The Making of an International Women’s Movement. Princeton University Press, 1997.

Saunders, Corinne J., and Diane Watt, editors. Women and Medieval Literary Culture : From the Early Middle Ages to the Fifteenth Century. Cambridge University Press, 2023.

Simone, Nina, and Stephen Cleary. I Put a Spell on You : The Autobiography of Nina Simone. Second Da Capo Press edition., Da Capo Press, 2003.

Targoff, Ramie. Shakespeare’s Sisters: Four Women Who Wrote the Renaissance. riverrun, 2024.

Lindsey Evans – Taylor Institution Library

For our Women’s History Month display, I was keen to showcase books and films about women’s achievements across the breadth of cultures represented in the library’s collections. Since the Taylor covers a very wide range of modern European languages – from French to Frisian, Spanish to Yiddish – this gave plenty of scope. Almost a daunting amount of scope, in fact.

The finished displays (with one item taken away by an interested reader 😊 )

For the broad topic of ‘women’, it would have been impractical to canvas everyone in the team of subject librarians for recommendations. (Also this month we have a dedicated St Patrick’s Day display going up, which has been curated by our Celtic subject librarian, Janet.) And so I began a solo process with SOLO, the catalogue, to narrow things down.

Initially my thinking went to works by, or about, celebrated female authors and feminist theorists, past and present. (“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman,” wrote Simone de Beauvoir, on whom there are several hundreds of books in the Taylor, for example.) Another consideration in my mind, however, was to highlight the impact of women whose voices might be less well known. In the end, I settled on a range of titles documenting women’s contributions to art, politics or society at different points in history and in various language communities. These women include crofters in the Hebrides, Welsh women shaking up the status quo, powerful noblewomen of 18^th-19^th century Russia, female creators in 19^th century Germany, and sisters (in the literal sense of blood relatives) who were active in Irish public life over the ages.

With the Taylor being home to a large DVD collection, and even a bookable space for library users to watch them in, it’s also great to be able to publicise films as well as books on a theme. I chose a sample of films by foreign-language female directors to highlight women’s contribution to cinema. I aimed to include some directors who are less familiar to Western audiences, so alongside the French filmmakers Agnès Varda, Céline Sciamma and Claire Denis, we also find the Czech director Věra Chytilová, Ann Hui of Hong Kong and the Saudi Arabian director Haifaa al-Mansour.

Charlotte Edwards – Sainsbury Library

As the Sainsbury Library is embedded into Saïd Business School , I was able to see the celebrations for International Women’s Day extend through the whole school. We had a women’s day themed social, the catering team put together a great cake display (photographed by my supervisor) and there was a book talk by Iris Bohnet and Siri Chilazi on their new book Make Work Fair: Data-Driven Design for Real Results (which I of course included in our book display in the library!).

More focussed in the library, I also gave the Sainsbury Library Women in Business Libguide a refresh, including some of the books I found as part of my book display research.

It was nice to be able to highlight some physical books unique to the Sainsbury Library:

Make Work Fair: Data-Driven Design for Real Results / Iris Bohnet & Siri Chilazi
- A book talk was hosted at Saïd Business School on 10^th March when Bohnet and Chilazi presented their evidence-based approach to create fairness in the workplace by providing an even playing field. In line with this year’s theme, Accelerating Action, they present ‘Actionable solutions’ to establish this fairness in the workplace.
The Mental Load: A Feminist Comic / Emma
- Appearing on our Inclusive Leadership reading list, I discovered this book by a colleague’s recommendation. This comic covers the sometimes-frustrating reality of being a woman in a male dominated workplace in an engaging, easily digestible form. And yes, I ended up reading this in one sitting.
The Lockdown Lowdown: Women and Covid, a gendered pandemic / Sarah Lightman (ed.)
- The Lockdown Lowdown: Graphic Narrative for Viral Times are graphic narratives written by a diverse range of artists during the first COVID lockdown in 2020. The series highlights the strange experiences and emotions felt during this time. This special edition of The Lockdown Lowdown demonstrates how women experienced the pandemic differently to men, both negatively and positively. In a textbook-heavy library it is exciting and refreshing to find other narrative forms such as The Lockdown Lowdown and The Mental Load.
Beyond Leaning In / Melanie Ho
- This book is based on research about Business but is formatted as a novel. Ho creates a narrative intended to begin a conversation between people from friends and family to co-workers. The variety of characters across different genders and ages aids in giving readers new perspectives on the issue as to why it is so hard to close the gender gap.
Why do so many Incompetent Men become Leaders? (and how to fix it) / Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic
- When browsing our shelves in the Annexe, I came across this book and admittedly loved the title. Chamorro-Premuzic explores why competent women and men who don’t fit the stereotypical leader profile (many organizations identify leadership with negative qualities like overconfidence and narcissism) are passed over for leadership roles. And the negative impact of this. Chamorro-Premuzic explains what really makes a leader and how new systems could rectify having the wrong people in charge.
Women’s Economic Empowerment: Insights from Africa and South Asia /
Kate Grantham (ed.), Gillian Dowie (ed.) & Arjan de Haan (ed.)
- Aimed at students, researchers, practitioners and policymakers, this book presents research coming from the International Development Research Centre’s (IDRC) Growth and Economic Opportunities for Women (GrOW) programme. The research covers topics such as unpaid domestic work and childcare, the influence of social and cultural norms that prevent women participating in better paid economic sectors and more in the Global South.

When researching for books I tried to keep my focus very Business and Management based, drawing on some books that are on reading lists for Inclusive Leadership. As World Book Day was happening whilst I was compiling my display (for which we had another book display) I also thought to include some more general feminist literature, so some of my book display picks may already be known to you, but hopefully there is something new here as well.

Other Books Included:

African Women and Intellectual Leadership: Life Stories from Western Kenya / Maurice Nyamanga Amutabi (ed.) – Ebook
Bad Feminist / Roxane Gay
Boss Lady: How three women entrepreneurs built successful big businesses in the mid-twentieth century / Edith Sparks
Sister Outsider / Audre Lorde
The Authority Gap: Why women are still taken less seriously than men, and what we can do about it / Mary Ann Sieghart
The Woman President / Ramona Vijeyarasa
We should all be Feminists / Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Women & leadership : lessons from some of the world’s most powerful women / Julia Gillard & Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
Women in Leadership: Contextual Dynamics and Boundaries / Karin Klenke
Women, Money, Power: The Rise and Fall of Economic Equality / Josie Cox
Women’s Contributions to Development in West Africa: Ordinary Women Extraordinary Lives / Kelly Ann Krawczyk (ed.) & Bridgett A. King (ed.)

LGBT+ History Month Book Displays

Posted on 27 February 2025 by giasimmons — No Comments ↓

Many of us trainees are tasked with, or collaborate with, colleagues on creating book displays in our libraries. This gives us a chance to further explore our libraries’ collections and conduct research on topics that we are passionate about, or topics which are entirely new to us! The month of February is LGBT+ History Month and this year’s theme is Activism and Social Change. In this blog post, three trainees (from the Social Science Library, New College Library and the English Faculty Library) talk about LGBT+ History Month in their libraries, the process of creating displays, and the relevant titles which they are currently exhibiting.

If you would like to learn more about LGBT+ History Month, head on over to the Schools Out! website for more details. There has been a great deal of work done on the accumulation of LGBT+ history resources in recent years. The History Faculty Library held a LGBT+ history hackathon in November 2024 with the aim of crowdsourcing information and resources on LGBT+ history. One of our 2024/25 trainees was involved in the organisation of this event.

Social Science Library – Gia Simmons

Hello again from Manor Road! It’s Gia here, the SSL trainee. One of the most interesting and creative parts of my job is the work that I get to put into the book displays. Luckily for me, we do a lot in the SSL! Every few weeks I get to update our new book display with both Legal Deposit and Research acquisitions as well as our eBook displays. In addition to this, around once a month, we put together a special pop-up display in the SSL. These displays generally surround a particular theme, event or the time of year. This month is LGBT+ history month, so I got to collaborate with one of my colleagues to create a display that fell into the categories of this year’s theme, which was Activism and Social Change. The theme for the month is decided by the founding organisation, Schools Out!

A selection of book on LGBT+ History in the Social Science Library book display.

A colleague of mine in the SSL is the EDI Co-ordinator for Academic Library Services. Once I had come up with my very extensive list of items that I could include in this display, she very kindly helped me to narrow down the resources that I had accumulated throughout my search. Here are the books that were included in the display:

Transnational LGBT activism: working for sexual rights worldwide / Ryan Richard Thoreson https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990204582520107026

Miss Major speaks : conversations with a Black trans revolutionary / Toshio Meronek & Miss Major https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma991027128663607026

Home is where your politics are : queer activism in the US South and South Africa / Jessica A. Scott https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/ohuutv/alma991026827538107026

Kenyan, Christian, queer : religion, LGBT activism, and arts of resistance in Africa / Adriaan van Klinken https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/ohuutv/alma990218360350107026

Coming out of communism : the emergence of LGBT activism in Eastern Europe / Conor O’Dwyer https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/ohuutv/alma990212984130107026

Queer African reader / Edited by Sokari Ekine & Hakima Abbas https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990214902680107026

Queering the public sphere in Mexico and Brazil : sexual rights movements in emerging democracies / Rafael de la Dehesa https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990218455460107026

Political voice : protest, democracy, and marginalised groups / Aidan McGarry https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma991026938153107026

Between HIV prevention and LGBTI rights : the political economy of queer activism in Ghana / Ellie Gore https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma991026941802407026

Global LGBTQ activism : social media, digital technologies, and protest mechanisms / Edited by Paromita Pain https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/1tb00os/alma991025409040407026

Queer activism in India a story in the anthropology of ethics / Naisargi N. Davé https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma991002540669707026

Turning the page : storytelling as activism in queer film and media / David R. Coon https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/1tb00os/alma991026785379807026

The Oxford Handbook of Global LGBT and Sexual Diversity Politics / Edited by Michael J. Bosia, Sandra M. McEvoy & Momin Rahman. https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma991022098169007026

Queer data : using gender, sex and sexuality data for action / Kevin Guyan https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/1tb00os/alma990233653430107026

Activist identity development of transgender social justice activists and educators / Ksenija Joksimović https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma991025429780907026

Transgender in the post-Yugoslav space : lives, activisms, culture / Edited by Bojan Bilić, Iwo Nord & Aleksa Milanović https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma991025429780907026

Sometimes, there are multiple displays happening in the SSL at once. We are very lucky that we have the space for them all! The other book display that took place at the start of February was Green Action Week.

By curating these book display, I not only get to become more familiar with the collection in my library, but I also get to show off the wide range of resources that the SSL and the wider Bodleian collection has to offer.

Furthermore, I created a suggestion booklet to be included in the display. This allows readers to indicate books on LGBT+ history to us which are important to them and also gives them the opportunity to suggest something for the library to purchase that we may not have in our collection. We also included this call for suggestions on the blog post that I wrote for the SSL blog.

We’ll see you next month with our Women’s History Month display!

New College Library – Jess Pascal

A selection of books on LGBT+ History in the New College Library book display.

Never one to shy away from a themed book display, this month I’ve put one together for LGBT+ History Month. Having a smaller library collection to work with, I wasn’t able to stick closely to the theme of Activism and Social Change, however, I selected as many books as possible relating to this theme, such as We are everywhere: protest, power, and pride in the history of Queer Liberation. I also put the most relevant books at the top of the display, as these will be the most visible. Searching for titles to include in this display was relatively easy, as books about gender and sexuality are grouped together in New College library’s in-house classification system under the fairly new shelfmark Q. This meant I could go to that section and browse for the appropriate books. I aimed to incorporate as much variety as possible; this meant including various identities under the queer umbrella as well as differing geographical locations and time periods to showcase the diversity and extent of the queer community. With this in mind, I designed the label for the display around the progress pride flag and included a variety of flags representing queer identities that aren’t yet consistently included in books about LGBT+ history. As always, the final step is to publicise the display here and on our social media, reminding people that these books are there to be read!

Books used:

In Her Hands : Women’s Fight against AIDS in the United States / Emma Day https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma991025354505507026

Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman / Leslie Feinberg https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990210863520107026

Queer (Re)Readings in the French Renaissance: Homosexuality, Gender, Culture / Gary Ferguson https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990228559620107026

Queer Cambridge: An Alternative History / Simon Goldhill https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma991027156561107026

The Lesbian Revolution: Lesbian Feminism in the UK, 1970-1990 / Sheila Jeffreys https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990217995000107026

LGBT Victorians: Sexuality and Gender in the Nineteenth-Century Archives / Simon Joyce https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990231097600107026

The Other Side of Silence: Men’s Lives and Gay Identities: A Twentieth-Century History / John Loughery https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990223290420107026

Queer Philologies: Sex, Language, and Affect in Shakespeare’s Time / Jeffrey Masten https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990214013820107026

Spaces Between Us: Queer Settler Colonialism and Indigenous Decolonization / Scott Lauria Morgensen https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990218530000107026

Sex Change, Social Change: Reflections on Identity, Institutions, and Imperialism / Viviane K. Namaste https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990214902070107026

We Are Everywhere: Protest, Power, and Pride in the History of Queer Liberation / Matthew Riemer & Leighton Brown. https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990218614470107026

Queer Identities and Politics in Germany: A History, 1880-1945 / Clayton John Whisnant https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990208178650107026

English Faculty Library – Harry Whattoff

The English Faculty Library decorated with pride flags.

Whilst the English Faculty Library does not have a designated LGBT+ History Month display like some other libraries do this year, we are, of course, still celebrating in style. Each year, for both LGBT+ History Month (February) and Pride Month (June), the library dons its most colourful finery (various pride flags) and doesn’t it look lovely! Furthermore, our current display (curated by yours truly) is particularly topical and refers to one of the most famous queer books to be banned: The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall (1928).

The display is titled “TO BE DESTROYED:” The Legal History of Book Censorship in the UK and it is essentially a (mostly) complete timeline of the major events/publications that resulted in the creation of the 1959 Obscene Publications Act. This piece of legislation, which is still in use today, took huge steps in reforming previous laws aimed at curbing the publication, sale, and distribution of material deemed to be obscene and corruptive. In numerous instances, these historic laws resulted in the censorship of an array of queer literature such as that of Radclyffe Hall.

Whilst her book was unfortunately banned until after her death, Hall’s case was a landmark one in showcasing the frustration of censorship laws of the time and the need for change; as such, this year’s LGBT+ History Month theme (Activism and Social Change) is especially relevant. Wan writes that “Norman Birkett, the defence lawyer, had assembled a formidable group of witnesses, including E.M. Forster, Desmond McCarthy (the editor of Life and Letters), Leonard and Virginia Woolf, [and] Vita Sackville-West” (150) to defend the novel and oppose censorship. Most of these figures were queer creatives, and all were members of The Bloomsbury Group – an influential artistic social circle of the early twentieth century. The obscenity trial which took place received a huge amount of publicity and consequently, Hall’s status as a lesbian icon was firmly cemented. In many ways, Hall’s trial also led to wider exposure to this so-called ‘obscene’ material, thus, having the opposite of the intended effect.

Changes to obscenity laws would only come about in 1959 after much legal back and forth. To find out more about this, and Radclyffe Hall’s case, head on over to our own blog site here for a more in-depth view. Additionally, please do pop into the EFL for a look at the display – it covers almost 600 years of a long, complex history so it’s not one to be missed!

*It is important to note that, whilst Radclyffe Hall can indeed be viewed as a courageous advocate for social change, her personal politics can divide opinion. To understand more about her life, I would recommend listening to the Bad Gays podcast featuring Jana Funke, Professor of Modern Literature and Sexuality Studies at Exeter University. The link to the episode can be found here!*

Works Cited

Wan, M. (2016). “The Well of Loneliness trials: lesbianism and the return of the repressed.” Masculinity and the Trials of Modern Fiction, Routledge, 2018, pp. 138-170.

Disability History Month 2024 Book Displays

Posted on 29 November 2024 by giasimmons — No Comments ↓

Disability History Month runs from 14^th November until 20^th December 2024 and the theme is Disability, Livelihood and Employment this year. In our job as trainees, many of us create book displays for our libraries. Take a look at the displays for Disability History Month (DHM) in the Social Science Library (SSL), the Bodleian Law Library and the New College Library.

Social Science Library – Gia Simmons

As this month is Disability History Month, one of my colleagues and I have put together a display of books surrounding this year’s theme, Disability, Livelihood and Employment. In addition to creating the book display, I also followed in the footsteps of my SSL trainee predecessor and created an updated ORLO reading list. On this reading list, you can find titles linked to this year’s theme, as well as other resources about disability history more generally.

While putting this display together, I first had to look to our collections to see what books we had in the SSL that were on theme and also appropriate for the display. As we are the Social Science Library, the books in our display are mainly academic social science books. While selecting my books, I was looking at both their content and physical appearance (because, in reality, we all do gravitate towards pretty books!)

Once I figured out how many physical books and eBooks to include, I had to pull them from our shelves and make sure that they were the right fit. For instance, I checked that they were on topics that were relevant to the theme as well as ensuring that the texts contained up to date information. Once I was happy with the books that I selected, I then had to create the visual elements to go along with them. This included a poster, a display for our screen behind the issue desk, bookmarks that indicated whether a book was loanable or library use only and also a blog post for the SSL blog. A lot of work goes in to our book displays here at the SSL!

I followed the theme for DHM quite closely while selecting the books and used the title of this year’s theme as the key words in my search terms. While searching SOLO, I first looked to titles that were physically in the SSL and then to the Collections Storage Facility. Once I had chosen a few titles that were on theme or very closely linked to the theme, I moved on to select titles which covered other topics in disability history. Of course, some titles are only available via eBook, so I had to decide how best to display those. For this, I adapted a pre-existing template that I frequently use to create our new eBook displays in the SSL. This includes the cover of the book, as well as a QR code that brings readers to the SOLO record.

In my post for the SSL blog, I also included links to other important online resources that have been created in previous years by other colleagues around the Bodleian and the wider University community. For instance, I linked a reading list on understanding disability on ORLO which was created by a joint team of staff across the Bodleian Libraries, College Libraries and the Oxford Union Library. It covers a range of topics from ‘Disability and the Law’ to ‘Neurodivergence’.

I also linked the Disability History Resources LibGuide, which contains a great deal of information. This guide was created by the 2022-23 History Faculty Library trainee as part of a year-long project. The resources within were crowdsourced during a Hackathon by 24 volunteer researchers in 2022.

New College Library – Jess Pascal

Normally when I’m putting together a book display, I’ll go for a walk around the library to look for inspiration under the shelfmarks associated with the theme of the display. However, disability history is so spread out across different subjects that I tried a different approach with this display, and began by searching online. My starting point was the Disability History Resources LibGuide, which provided a list of introductory sources and directions to more extensive reading lists with suggested books that I could then look for in my library.

When choosing books, I tried to cover a range of types of disability, as well as a range of time periods. I picked out as many personal stories from the biography section of the library as possible, as biographies and autobiographies are a relatively approachable form of non-fiction, and I felt it was important to include as many disabled people’s own voices as I could. One difficult decision was whether to use books that contain terms that could be considered offensive to disabled people. I ultimately decided to include the books I was concerned about, as I felt it was clear based on context that the terms they used were being reclaimed by disabled people themselves, and it felt wrong to censor them.

Finally, I had to make a sign, which is one of the most fun parts of putting together a book display, giving me the chance to get a bit creative. I designed the sign around the disability pride flag, because it’s colourful and eye-catching while still being meaningful and relevant to the subject of the display. I made sure to use high-contrast text and a clear, readable font so that it would be as accessible as possible. I always include a reminder that books on the display can be borrowed – it isn’t just there to look pretty!

Books used:

Adam, David. The man who couldn’t stop : the truth about OCD. London: Picador, 2015.

Bauby, Jean-Dominique. The Diving-Bell and the Butterfly. London: 4th Estate, 2019.

Girma, Haben. Haben : The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law. New York: Twelve, 2019.

Hanes, Roy, Ivan Brown, and Nancy E. Hansen, eds. The Routledge History of Disability. London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2018.

Kafer, Alison. Feminist, Queer, Crip. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2013.

Keller, Helen et al. The Miracle of a Life : The Autobiography of Helen Keller. London, New York: Hodder and Stoughton, 1909.

Metzler, Irina. Disability in Medieval Europe : Thinking about Physical Impairment during the High Middle Ages, c. 1100-1400. London: Routledge, 2010.

Ryan, Frances. Crippled : Austerity and the Demonization of Disabled People. London: Verso, 2019.

Shakespeare, Tom. Disability : The Basics. London: Routledge, 2018.

Shakespeare, Tom. Disability Rights and Wrongs Revisited. 2nd edition. London: Routledge, 2014.

Silberman, Steve. Neurotribes : The Legacy of Autism and How to Think Smarter about People Who Think Differently. Paperback edition. London: Allen & Unwin, 2016.

Turner, David M. Disability in Eighteenth-Century England : Imagining Physical Impairment. Abingdon: Routledge, 2017.

Wong, Alice, ed. Disability Visibility : First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century. New York: Vintage Books, 2020.

Bodleian Law Library – Hannah Richmond

With just over half a million volumes on our shelves here at the Law Library, you would think finding items for display would be easy. Despite the hefty collection, however, finding items that are relevant whilst being varied enough to offer a range of perspectives has proven to be a tricky (but extremely rewarding) part of curating displays. Mainly, I am aiming to put the spotlight on pieces of the collection that readers (and sometimes staff) might not be familiar with.

A good way to start is by identifying some keywords to pop onto SOLO. Although this isn’t how I usually find some of the more interesting items, it helps me get an idea of whereabouts in the library I should be looking. I always check official websites early in the process to see if there is a particular focus for the year. In this case it is ‘Disability, Livelihood and Employment’, with UK Disability History Month raising awareness of both the history of employment within disabled communities as well as the barriers still faced by many disabled individuals seeking employment today. I’d recommend checking their website for some really informative resources on the topic, as well as past years’ themes.

I make a list of potential options before embarking on a hunt around the library. This is my favourite part as I often discover really interesting books that weren’t suggested on SOLO, usually because the keywords aren’t in the title. Sadly, this is also where I have to cut some books from the list as I don’t have the space to display everything. For this one, I originally had 30 titles on my list (not including the ones I pick up along the way) but I managed to reduce it to 17.

Accessibility is always a crucial factor in curating a display and is something Some of the books on display I aim to improve on throughout the year. Fonts and colours used for any posters should be chosen with everyone in mind, factoring in readers who may have dyslexia or sight impairments, for example. Positioning is also something I try to be aware of. I tend to use the middle shelves and avoid placing heavier items higher up. Having a Disability Liaison check your display and always being receptive to feedback from staff and/or students are two really helpful ways to strive for accessibility improvement.

I like to include QR codes in my displays. Just print them out and put them with the relevant item so readers can go directly to the SOLO link. This allows them to view related texts and/or view the shelfmark for future use. One tip is to save the QR codes and print them out on a sheet, which can then be added to a ‘QR code booklet’ kept beside your exhibition space. This grants your display some degree of permanence and allows readers to browse past displays and gain easy access to any of the texts that pique their interest.

Some titles currently on display in the Law Library include ‘Ableism at Work: Disablement and Hierarchies of Impairment’, ‘Deaf People in the Criminal Justice System: Selected Topics on Advocacy, Incarceration, and Social Justice’, ‘The Disabled Contract: Severe Intellectual Disability, Justice and Morality’, and ‘Discrimination, Copyright, and Equality: Opening the E-Book for the Print-disabled’. You can browse the full list here: DHM

A Fond Farewell: The 2023-24 Trainees Sign Off

Posted on 30 August 2024 by hubbardc — No Comments ↓

A photograph of 12 trainees taken from the roof of the Weston Library, looking towards the Radcliffe Camera

While our blog has been all quiet on the Weston Front for some time now, we, the trainees of 2023-24, would like to bid a heartfelt goodbye to all our readers; we’re confident that there must be at least one of you! (hi mum).

As we prepare to leave, we are all feeling emotional: proud of what we’ve achieved, sad that our traineeship has come to an end, and yet excited to move onto the next stage of our lives. Many of us are staying with the Bodleian and University Colleges, some of us are going back to university, and others have already moved on to new roles!

We owe a massive thank you to the organisers, speakers, caterers, trainers, supervisors, former trainees, etc. without whom our traineeship would not have happened. I am sure that, for some of us, this farewell does not signify the end of our involvement in the traineeship, just a switch of perspective.

As we leave, a fresh batch of shiny new trainees are stepping into their new roles – well done all of you, you should be immensely proud of yourselves!

We wish them all the best of luck and every success.

2024 Trainee Showcase: Part 3

Posted on 23 August 2024 by everittn — No Comments ↓

After a very delicious selection of sandwiches, it was time to hear from the last few trainees yet to present. We heard from Xanthe, whose project was all about cataloguing grey literature; Fran, who in a similar vein was tidying up a collection of anthropological material; Clara, who was helping people navigate their way round the labyrinth that is the Taylor Institution Library; and Anna, who did a deep dive into the Sainsbury Library’s collections, and how to make them more accessible to readers. More on these projects below!

After these interesting presentations, we heard from Ant Brewerton, Associate Director for Academic Library Services, and Keeper of Collections. He gave a great speech congratulating us on our work!

Well done to all the trainees and especially to Clara, Anna, and Connie, for organising the day, which was a massive success.

Xanthe Malcolm- HML Grey Literature : Recording an uncatalogued collection at the History of Medicine Library for ingest into the CSF

The ‘Cupboard of Doom’ at the HML- AKA, the manuscript room

By Elena Trowsdale

In anticipation of many humanities collections moving to the Schwartzman centre, Xanthe’s project focused on the ‘History of Medicine Library’ and its ‘grey literature’. Grey literature is a term which encompasses material produced outside traditional commercial or academic publishing. The manuscript room at the HML library is full of these tricky items, most of which are undiscoverable as they have not been catalogued. Xanthe’s goal was: to move unique items from the Manuscript Room to the CSF; make these items discoverable on SOLO so they can be used by readers; and describe the collection on the HML LibGuide.

The starting point was that half the room had been roughly listed, and half only had ‘unique items’ detailed in a spreadsheet. Xanthe consulted wit

h the CR&D team and was given an optimised spreadsheet to record all the information of the uncatalogued material without the need for cataloguing training. This was an excellent, efficient idea which I believe was successful in its aim.

To obtain accurate data, Xanthe spent one afternoon a week at the HML barcoding, measuring items and taking lots of pictures. She was very well prepared and speedy at this task because of her excellent planning and efficiency. Many items were in boxes, which she listed at box level and with individual item information.

She achieved a lot of progress and has made sure the work can continue. Her current progress at time of presenting included: recording 161 monograph titles and 39 serial titles; ensuring the vast majority of the pre-marked “unique” items were ready to send to CSF; creating a handlist of everything currently recorded; creating the initial draft of the LibGuide; and arranging the right-hand shelves by area. She is currently continuing the work she has planned and is ready to hand over [two words when not used as a noun].

I was extremely impressed with Xanthe’s work and her presentation, as were (in my opinion) the captive audience of librarians. I am sure they could all relate to her organisational aims, and the immense complexity of the material she was dealing with.

Fran Allen- Tidying up the Tylor

By Anna Roberts

Fran’s project work had two parts: the first being very technical, record and catalogue focussed; the second involving her creative and graphic design skills!

Firstly, Fran joined in with the ongoing journey (some may say saga!) of tidying up the Tylor library. She explained that the Tylor collection houses materials for social and cultural anthropology. It used to be the Anthropology departmental library housed at the institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, set up by Sir Edward Burnett Tylor.

The Tylor collection was moved two years ago to the Social Sciences Library but with 20135 item records this turned out be a messy task!

To describe the journey using numbers, Fran designed a lovely

flowchart. In total the Tylor had 20135 item records, of these many were sent to the CSF or SSL, some were dummy/ expected serials for cancelled subscriptions, but still approximately 1000 item records were unaccounted for.

This is where Fran entered the world of the Tylor items. Fran did a fantastic job investigating these unaccounted records. She had to use her SOLO searching techniques and ALMA skills to find items and go through records. Often, these items were in a grey archive box and not missing. Wahey! Fran could delete the individual item records and tick as sorted. She also deleted 500 item records as miscellaneous. This was clearly a time-consuming process, but Fran managed to account for 89% of the unaccounted items which was very impressive!

One of Fran’s book displays, this one focussing on ‘Winter Wellbeing’

The second part of Fran’s presentation focussed on all the many book displays that she curated throughout the year. These had themes marking different months like Disability History and Women’s History Month, as well as seasonal ones like Winter Wellbeing and Spring Books (for which she handcrafted cute paper daffodils). A particularly fun theme was Ghoulish Reads, featuring Slime: A natural history, The Economic Horror, and Zombie Economics. Of course, being the SLL library trainee meant she highlighted the General Election with a book display, cunningly avoiding party affiliations by using a “neutral” teal colour.

Fran enhanced these displays by designing lovely posters and, perhaps most importantly for avid readers, bookmarks to match the theme! This included a designing ghoul bookmarks for her ghoulish reads… I wonder if she has any spare.

Clara Oxley- Wayfinding at the Taylor Institution Library

By Erin Minogue

In the final section of the day, Clara described her project which centered around improving wayfinding at the Taylor Institution Library (also referred to as the Taylorian).

To explain how the project came about, Clara began by providing some details about the design of the Taylor Institution Library. Evolving over the 19th and 20th centuries, the library incorporates two buildings designed at different times (the first part built in the 1840s, and the second part in the 1930s). This history has led to several design quirks, notably the uneven floors in different sections of the building, leading to a confusing enumeration of levels of the building.

As well as several staircases, the Taylorian also boasts rooms that are only accessible by winding through a series of rooms and descending a specific staircase, and similarly named reading rooms in opposite parts of the building. The user experience, for a reader unfamiliar with the building, is disorientating to say the least. But, luckily for Taylorian readers, Clara was on hand to design a project which aimed to: utilise user experience to gain an idea of what students need to navigate the library, identify issues, and then feed these findings back into changes that could tackle these issues.

Clara aimed to investigate different SOLO record location descriptions and how navigational aids help or hinder student journeys around the library.

To achieve this, Clara designed a series of trail signs which would point to different locations around the library, decided on standardized names for different locations and then tested these changes by running ‘treasure hunts’ around the library with student participants .

I particularly enjoyed hearing about Clara’s ‘Russian Doll’ inspired method to improving SOLO location descriptions. Clara’s method aimed to help readers locate an item by providing location details on a macro level and then providing more specific details – the specific floor, the specific room and then lastly, shelfmark information. This, however, was not as simple as it sounded; the third floor of the Teaching Collection on the St Giles’ side of the building doesn’t, of course, line up with the third floor of the Beaumont Street side of the building – why would it? However, with improved trail signs and more detailed location information on SOLO records, Clara began her ‘treasure hunts’ with student participants. Students were tasked with finding items in different areas of the library while Clara noted anything that helped or hindered them with navigating the library. The findings were particularly interesting – even comments such as “[n]ow I’m confused” helped to give a greater insight into how readers interact with the Taylorian.

The findings of Clara’s project pointed to the utility of trail signs around the library, suggesting the need for these and the desire to perhaps increase them. Most readers agreed it would be helpful to differentiate the staircases with different names and that the name 3rd Floor rather than ‘upper’ stack was helpful. Ultimately Clara’s project placed user experience at the heart of her considerations in making the Taylorian more navigable and has produced excellent findings which can be built on in the future.

Anna Roberts- A Spotlight on the Sainsbury Library Collections and Faculty Books

By Jess Hodgkinson

Focussing on the Sainsbury Library’s collections, Anna’s trainee project took a three-pronged approach to enhancing the library’s provision for readers.

Anna’s pie-chart showing the global diversity of books in the library

The first aspect of the project entailed creating a plan for weeding the Sainsbury Library’s annexe, which houses its general-purpose business collection. Using the library management software’s (ALMA) analytics function, Anna generated inventory item reports which she exported to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Anna filtered the spreadsheet by publication date and number of loans to identify little-used and outdated books which could be removed from circulation, thus freeing up space for new acquisitions.

The second, and main, focus of Anna’s project assessed the global diversity of the Sainsbury Library’s collection housed at the Saïd Business School’s Egrove Park site. Inspired by the Building Global Collections workshop she attended, Anna set out to investigate what proportion of these books were on the topic of international business, or focussed on business practices outside of the UK and USA. Using key terms derived from the London Business School’s categorisation scheme and Library of Congress subject headings, Anna searched the collection for relevant titles. Anna identified that only 11% of the collection has an international topic and that, among these books, cross-cultural management studies were the most common. Based on these findings, Anna proposed in her presentation that future acquisitions should include more books about geographical areas currently under-represented within the collection, including, for example, North Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Anna also highlighted the importance of purchasing books written from perspectives other than those of British and American authors, especially regarding topics such as globalisation and social responsibility.

The third, and final, aspect of Anna’s trainee project saw her create an inventory of monograph books and chapters in edited collections authored by academics from the University’s Business & Management school. Responding to a reader’s request for such a list, Anna used code designed by a colleague to match a register of faculty members with inventory item reports from ALMA, creating a list of faculty publications. Given the scale of the task, Anna chose to focus on two research areas—international business and major programme management.

Anna intends to expand and update the list of faculty publications, and continue to contribute to weeding, auditing, and enhancing the Sainsbury Library’s collections as she transitions into her exciting new role as the Collections & Instructional Materials Assistant. She will undoubtedly continue to be an asset to the library team!

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Xanthe Malcolm- HML Grey Literature : Recording an uncatalogued collection at the History of Medicine Library for ingest into the CSF

Fran Allen- Tidying up the Tylor

Clara Oxley- Wayfinding at the Taylor Institution Library

Anna Roberts- A Spotlight on the Sainsbury Library Collections and Faculty Books

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Jake Banyard – Improving user access: wayfinding and resource signposting at Teddy Hall

Hannah Richmond – Data, displays and digital support: my year in review

Lilly Wilcox – Fresco: managing web archiving in preparation for the move away from Oxford Mosaic

Gia Simmons – Working papers and a small ‘archive’

And Finally, Our Farewell

Ash Lammers – From reclassification to Hebrew manuscripts: a tour through my trainee year

Lindsey Evans – A dive into archives and digitisation

Emma Brand – Trapped in the dungeon: reimagining art’s approach to damaged books

Zac Draysey – Building an LGBTQ+ History LibGuide

Gareth Smith – Uniomachia: a new Digital Edition in TEI XML

Kate Hanson – Adventures in digitization

Millie Krantz – Some men in Oxford: queer life at All Souls

Yasmeen Khan – The Rhodes less taken: approaches to ethical cataloguing in the former Rhodes House Library material

The Next Few Posts

Charlotte Edwards – Student wellbeing at Sainsbury Library

Elena Brearley – Zines and wellbeing in the Bodleian Old Library

Harry Whattoff – Displaying History: Research-Led Exhibitions in the English Faculty Library

Phoebe Lawson – The Red Cross Collection, or; me, Henry Dunant and a great many books

Xanthe Malcolm- HML Grey Literature : Recording an uncatalogued collection at the History of Medicine Library for ingest into the CSF

Fran Allen- Tidying up the Tylor

Clara Oxley- Wayfinding at the Taylor Institution Library

Anna Roberts- A Spotlight on the Sainsbury Library Collections and Faculty Books

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

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