Trainee Introductions – Arts and Humanities

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Welcome to part three of our trainee introductions; this week it’s all about the humanities! Below, you’ll hear from five trainees, each one stationed at a library within the Humanities division at Oxford University: the Art, Archaeology and Ancient World Library; the Bodleian Old Library; the English Faculty Library; the History Faculty Library; and the Taylor Institution Library. So, without further ado, make yourself a hot drink and enjoy a gentle read about our respective libraries.

 

Emma Brand – Art, Archaeology, and Ancient World Library

Emma outside the Art, Archaeology and Ancient World Library

Hello! I am Emma, the trainee at the Art, Archaeology, and Ancient World Library (Art Library for short). Being under Section 3 also means that I get to do a few shifts a week at the Taylor Institution Library (and possibly the Nizami Ganjavi Library later this year). Each library has their quirks and I have been having a load of fun getting lost. In Art, that often means going round and round and round the rotunda until you think you are where you started… but maybe not. The Taylor is a magical place where rooms seem to appear. The best discovery so far has been the ‘secret door’ that leads from the ground floor women’s bathroom into the basement. I have also just moved over from Australia to start this traineeship, so, I am also on a crash course of learning English slang, tasting a variety of new sweets, and learning the art of layers – especially when it’s wet outside!

I have a BA from the University of Western Australia (UWA) in Art History and Media Communications. I had planned on starting a master’s in Conservation Practice at Cardiff University in 2020, however, due to the pandemic, I have been trying several different things these past few years. I have worked in marketing, at a local history museum and at a digitisation centre, and also completed an honour’s year in the History of Art. Feeling a bit lost at the end of last year, I found I was still wanting to go to the UK despite the master’s no longer being viable. So, at the start of this year, I began looking for roles that would combine my strengths and aspects of my various jobs that I enjoyed, whilst also developing new skills. For example, I knew that I enjoyed a mix of front facing and backend roles, database work, and also a healthy dose of digital communication. I had honestly not thought of working in a library but when I saw the traineeship, it ticked everything I was looking for! So far, it’s been a wonderful start and I am looking forward to the many months ahead.

 

Elena Brearley – Bodleian Old Library (Bodleian Reader Services)

Hello there, my name is Elena, also known as Len. I am the current Reader Services Trainee at the Bodleian Old Library.

Sunshine in the staff area of the Old Bodleian Upper Reading Room

I’ve pursued a variety of interests and had an assortment of jobs that have led me on the path towards being here in Oxford on the Graduate Traineeship. I started off studying Drama at The University of Manchester, during which time I became interested in the use of theatre and arts in community contexts. After graduating in 2020, my interest in community spaces drew me to apply for a job working as a Library Assistant with Stockport Public Libraries. I was in this role for three years, helping readers with all kinds of enquires, organising events and activities, and doing all those lovely jobs like shelving and straightening that ensure a library keeps running smoothly.  

Alongside my role in libraries, I worked as a freelance artist and creative facilitator, delivering arts and drama sessions in settings such as schools, theatres, libraries, prisons, and probation centres. My favourite of these experiences was spending one month living in Barrow-in-Furness working as an Artist-in-Residence where I ran writing, zine-making, and drama workshops with different community groups. Just before moving to Oxford I was working as a gardener, a bartender, and a wedding registrar.

 

I am new to working in academic libraries and am really enjoying being back in a university environment. Although my traineeship is based at the ‘Old Bod’, myself and Zac get to work across both the beautiful buildings that are the Bodleian Old Library and the Radcliffe Camera. A unique part of my traineeship is having the opportunity to work on the Main Enquiry Desk. Here, we deal with questions from across the world about The Bodleian’s collections and provide support for readers accessing library services and resources. For me, the best part of the job is the people I come across in all aspects of the work. I am looking forward to seeing how the rest of the year unfolds and what adventures are in store!

 

Harry Whattoff – English Faculty Library (EFL) 

Dear reader,

Thanks for tuning in! My name is Harry and I’m the Graduate Trainee at the English Faculty Library this year. I think I’ll start by mentioning that this will sadly be the final introductory post you read from an EFL trainee. Next summer, our library is due to make a long-awaited move into the Schwarzman Centre, a new Humanities building that is currently under construction. I went back in time on the trainee blog, and found references to this move in previous entries dating back to 2009 – it’s all very exciting!

My academic background, rather fittingly, lies in English Literature. I undertook both a BA and an MA in the subject, for the latter of which I examined queer rural representations in British literature and film. Upon graduating, I began teaching English at a school. Here, alongside my usual teaching responsibilities, I was able to interact with the school’s library which gave me a small insight into what it might be like to work in one. Following this position, I undertook a range of volunteering and work experience at various museums, archives, and libraries, all of which played their part in leading me to apply for the Bodleian Library Graduate Training Scheme.

At the EFL, my role is very varied (which I love). I handle all the incoming and outgoing deliveries to our offsite storage facility in Swindon, as well as the majority of the book processing for the library. In addition to this, most staff members will have a daily two-hour shift at the Enquiry Desk, and we are collectively responsible for scanning and email enquiries on a rotation basis. I particularly enjoy helping with the circulation of our rare books and special collections; in my first week someone requested a first edition of Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist which was, predictably for an ex-English student, pretty mind-blowing. I’m currently working on a display for the second half of Michaelmas term; I’ve really enjoyed the opportunity to get creative with our collections and consider what our readers might like to see!

I’ll leave it here for now, but I hope this small introduction has given you an insight into what I was up to before my traineeship, and a little about my day-to-day tasks at the EFL!

Until next time,

Harry 😊

 

Zac Draysey – History Faculty Library (HFL)

Hi, I’m Zac, the new trainee at the History Faculty Library (HFL) in the Radcliffe Camera. My own academic background isn’t in history, but in philosophy, and I finished an MPhil at Cambridge this summer, focusing mostly on ordinary language philosophy in Oxford after the second world war. Before I started here in September, my only experience with libraries has been as a reader, so it’s been an eye-opening experience to see things from the other side. The Bodleian central site libraries aren’t, of course, typical academic libraries, and I’ve been amazed by the complexity of the system here.

A misty day outside the Radcliffe Camera

We have a range of different shelf-marks in the Camera, both lending and reference collections, as well as shelves to house books brought in for readers from off-site storage. This maybe goes without saying, but it’s been a real joy to work in such a beautiful and historic building. The Camera feels very much like the focal point of the university, and especially it’s library system.

The Old Bod and the Camera are slowly becoming a more integrated system, with the teams from both libraries being joined together. This larger team is then being split into reader services and collections groups. I’ve been placed in the latter group, so I’ve been learning about how the HFL develops its collections to best suit the needs of students. It’s been really interesting to gain a greater insight into how reading lists inform purchases, the process of actually acquiring books, and also the classification of new books. Preparing new books for placing on the open shelves once they’ve been classified has been my favourite task so far.

 

 

Lindsey Evans – Taylor Institution Library

The Main Reading Room of the Taylor Institution Library

Hi, I’m Lindsey and I’m based at the Taylor Institution Library, whose collections cover Western and Eastern European Languages, as well as Linguistics, Film Studies and Women’s Studies. The historic, slightly maze-like, Taylor building is located at one end of Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum (perk of the job: free entry to exhibitions!). It also houses lecture rooms for the university’s language courses. Once a week I walk to the other end of the Ashmolean to work at the lovely Art, Archaeology and Ancient World library as well. I feel lucky to be working in these unique places in the heart of the city and I’m really enjoying the opportunity to get to know more than one library team and library environment during my trainee year.

I applied for the Bodleian Library Graduate Training Scheme because I was keen to explore a second career in the library and information field. Prior to this, I was working in educational publishing as an editor of language-learning resources, so a move into libraries represents ‘switching sides’ from producing books and online materials to helping people access them. I have been curious about library work because I enjoy being able to combine the management of complex information with delivering a service. I’m also interested in doing work that involves handling physical items, as well as desk-based tasks, in a physical space with its own community. My experience of libraries up to now has been from the student/reader side and I hadn’t worked in a conventional library before. However, interestingly, I have volunteered in a ‘Library of Things’, lending out diverse useful items to the public – from hedge trimmers to camping equipment to disco balls!

So far, I’m finding my new job and the library field in general very varied and interesting, and I am really looking forward to deepening my understanding as the year goes on.

 

Trainee Introductions- Law and Social Sciences

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Hannah Richmond – Law Library (Academic Services)

Hi everyone! I’m Hannah, one of the two Law Library trainees this year. Although there is definitely some overlap between our roles, we are split into two different teams. I am sitting on the Academic Services side of things this year. This involves helping with the compulsory Legal Research and Mooting Skills module for undergraduate students, which is actually taught and delivered by the library rather than the faculty.

My background is (rather fittingly) in Law, which I studied at undergraduate level. Post-graduation, I then headed back home to Northern Ireland to work in a firm for a year. Perhaps surprisingly, that is not the case for most of the former Law Library trainees. In fact, most have come from a range of different subject backgrounds from History to Maths so any prior understanding of Law is most definitely not required, but admittedly can sometimes prove helpful.

I ended up here after finding out about the trainee programme two days before the application cut-off date. After going back and forward in my head, I decided to apply an hour before the closing time, successfully submitting with one minute to spare(!) Despite having never worked in a library in any capacity, I had toyed with the idea of working with books for a while. The traineeship seemed like the perfect opportunity for me to gain the experience I needed to know whether librarianship was something for me. As for the answer to that, I will keep you updated…

Charlotte Edwards – Sainsbury Library

Autumn sun making an appearance
Autumn sun making an appearance

Hello! I’m Charlotte, the new Graduate Trainee at the Sainsbury Library in Saïd Business School. Unlike a lot of the Bodleian libraries, the Sainsbury library is relatively new, but it doesn’t take away from the cosy facilities it has to offer; I’ve noticed students like the soft seating we have, and the indoor plants make it a calming place to study (it’s also where I am currently writing this post!).

Before this, I had just completed my BA in English Language and Literature at LMH, focussing a lot on Old Norse literature – so something that couldn’t be further from business! Since starting, I have been learning an abundance of new things about business and market research (with much more still to learn), and I currently have the mysterious Market Research Challenge to look forward to tackling.

Other than studying in libraries, I had no experience working in them before this position. I instead volunteered on a Saturday during my final year of undergrad at the Oxfam bookshop on Turl Street to gain some experience, so I have handled books in varying degrees of disrepair…we even encountered a book from the 17th century. I highly recommend going, and it’s a bonus that a Missing Bean café is right next door!

Since beginning the traineeship last month, I have enjoyed creating book displays and blog posts on the Sainsbury Library Blog for Green Libraries Week and World Mental Health Day 2024. Alongside book and journal processing and sitting at the enquiry desk, I also tested my own knowledge of the library at the MBA (Master of Business Administration) Information Fair welcoming new students.

Sainsbury Library branded M&M’s at the MBA
Sainsbury Library branded M&M’s at the MBA information fair

I’m interested in how libraries, alongside being a source of information, have recently been involved in student welfare (the wellbeing room at the Radcliffe Science Library – the RSL – is particularly good). I especially like that the Sainsbury Library has incorporated student wellbeing into its facilities with a colouring and puzzle station; you’ll also find me doing the puzzle during my breaks. Over the coming months, I am hoping to explore the intersection of libraries and wellbeing, and other facets of librarianship, including improving the accessibility of resources. I’m also looking forward to our conservation and special collections training session at the Weston Library since it is so different to my day-to-day work. Hopefully you’ll hear more from me over the coming year!

James Lawson – Law Library (Information Resources)

Hey everybody! I’m James (they/them), this year’s Information Resources Trainee over at the Bodleian Law Library! I’m originally from Scotland (though despite my best efforts, I unfortunately don’t sound like it) and did my undergraduate degree in Ancient History and Classical Archaeology at Edinburgh! After graduating, I came to do an MSt here at Oxford, also in Classics, before deciding I wanted a break from academia and applying to the Bodleian traineeship programme.

I had a wee bit of experience in libraries but that mostly consisted of me volunteering at one of the Edinburgh Uni libraries. And by volunteering, I mostly just mean sitting at a desk making sure people don’t bring coffee cups into the library. That, and writing really stupid book reviews on their blog (I’m sure one of our two readers liked it!).

To be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure what I thought the traineeship was going to look like but, thus far, I really love it. My days mostly involve processing books, updating Oxford reading lists, updating more Oxford reading lists and lurking at the front desk scaring freshers. Otherwise, I spend a lot of time re-shelving books, making scans of books and doing my favourite thing of all time: stamping books. And sometimes I get to update Oxford reading lists as well.

I think the Law Library is a really great place to work. Probably my favourite thing (aside from the people who, obviously, are lovely to work with) is the building itself. The inside of the library is very bright and airy with lots of shelves that have very satisfyingly bound books on them. The outside looks a bit like a giant brick mound grew out of the earth one day and the university turned it into a library hoping we wouldn’t notice and, to be honest, I love it.

Gia Simmons – Social Science Library

Hello! My name is Gia, and I am the Graduate Trainee at the Bodleian Social Science Library. The SSL is based on the ground floor of the Manor Road Building. It is one of the busiest lending libraries in the Bodleian, so I am always kept really busy, which I love! I am originally from Wexford in the south-east of Ireland and recently moved to Oxford to take up this role.

I hold a BA (International) in French and English from University College Dublin (UCD), graduating in 2023. I was recently awarded my MA in Languages and Image Studies, also from UCD. I have a passion for languages, as I studied French, Italian and Spanish during my time at university. So, I am always really excited to see a book in one of those languages come across my desk for processing!

I had a variety of jobs while at university before joining the Bodleian, such as a retail assistant, an administration assistant, as well as working in a peer-to-peer support role in my university residences for two years. I have been interested in working in academic libraries since I started university. However, this is my first experience working in this environment. I am glad to report that I am loving every minute of it!

In the SSL, I get to do a mixture of reader services and technical services tasks such as working on the issue desk, book processing, and reviewing reading lists (just to name a few!) In my first few months here, I have gained a great deal of knowledge about how academic libraries work and my eyes have been opened to the variety of roles that make up a library staff. I am very excited for the rest of my year here at the SSL.

Trainee Introductions – Digitisation and Resource Description

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A Broad Overview of the Next Few Weeks

Hello everyone!

For those of you who are returning readers, welcome back to the Trainee Blog! We’d like to say a huge thank you for sticking with us over the quietness of the last few weeks. Rest assured, we shall be back to a regular posting schedule shortly. For those of you who are new readers, welcome! We hope that our content over the next academic year will keep you entertained and informed about the Bodleian Libraries and life as a Graduate Trainee.

As you may have seen in the previous post, a new year means a new cohort of trainees – and since there are quite a few of us, it might be a little hard to keep track of us all. As such, we’ve dedicated the next four weeks to doing a few small introductions to ourselves and our roles within the Graduate Trainee Programme. We hope you enjoy!

 

Evie Morris – Weston Library

My background before I started in the library was mostly in sciences. I have a BSc in Biology and worked as a researcher and ecologist after I graduated. Like so many people, the pandemic completely up-ended my life and for a while I was lost… I worked a range of jobs in the aftermath, but when I got a Saturday job in the local library, it was a real ‘lightbulb moment’- I knew I belonged in the stacks! At heart, I have always been a polymath, and struggled with the ‘one track mind’ one seemed to need to be a successful scientist. But even my eclectic work history hadn’t imbued me with the experience needed for most full-time library jobs. As an undergraduate, whereas history students (and similar) have to use the primary sources contained in the library, everything I wanted as a researcher in genetics came from the internet.

The traineeship was thus my golden ticket and now I work in the Weston Library (or the ‘New Bod’, despite being *checks notes* yep, almost 100 years old) in Archives and Modern Manuscripts, which means working with records created between 1800 to the present day. As libraries and archives begin collecting materials created more recently, a lot is in digital media. Working in digital archives combines my skill set from computing for science research with my passion for expanding the reach of knowledge. It’s exciting to be working in a field where it’s still ‘all to play for’: if and how we decide to preserve these collections now will impact the scholars and combined knowledge of the future.

At the moment my time is split between the Bodleian Web Archive and a project to digitise catalogues, but that’s another blog post.

 

Lilly Wilcox – Weston Library

Hello world! My name is Lilly Wilcox, and I am one of two graduate trainee digital archivists with Archives and Modern Manuscripts in the Weston Library.

My academic background is in literature and communication studies, with a healthy dose of digital humanities. During my undergraduate, I worked on a digital humanities project that used the Text Encoding Initiative guidelines for XML to make pre-Victorian women’s writing digitally available and facilitate research on underrepresented writers. I found text encoding so fascinating, I moved to Oxford to do my MSc in Digital Scholarship. During my master’s, I got to design my own TEI/XML projects with Taylor Editions—the digital editions publishing platform run by the Taylor Institution Library—and learn about the variety of digital projects happening behind-the-scenes at the Bodleian Libraries. Now working at the Weston, I’ve swapped TEI/XML for EAD/XML (Encoded Archival Description) to support the retro conversion of the Africa & Commonwealth collection’s print handlists to digital catalogues. I also work on web archiving, so that online information about the running of the University in 2024 is preserved and can be made available for research in the future.

 

Yasmeen Khan – Osney One

Greetings! I’m Yasmeen, the Graduate Trainee Resource Description Assistant for this academic year. If you’re wondering why you’ve never seen a predecessor of mine on the blog, my position was newly created for 2024-25 – so hopefully there will be many more of us to come!

An image of a desk with two computer screens, a keyboard, and a mouse. On the left of the computer are four small piles of books, and on the right is an open green file
My (very organised and extremely uncluttered) workspace

Perhaps predictably for someone on this scheme I have been circling the idea of working with books for long time. Throughout primary and secondary school I could be found volunteering in various libraries, only taking a break when I went to study books for three years as an English undergraduate. Following my graduation, I worked in a boarding school for a year, where I naturally ended up volunteering in the school library (because I am, at the end of the day, a creature of habit). When my contract at that school came to an end, I finally gave in to the inevitable and applied to be the graduate trainee at Osney One, which houses a lot of the behind-the-bookshelves work that keeps the Bodleian running. Now my days are largely filled with tasks such as sending newly acquired books to their required locations, classifying books, and working to cram as much cataloguing theory into my head as possible. But one of the interesting quirks of my role is that I’ll slowly be shuffling from department to department (and occasionally library to library) over the course of the year, meaning that my workload could look entirely different by the time Hilary hits.

So, if you happen to see a member of staff looking entirely baffled by the mere concept of your favourite library’s shelving system later this year, there’s a good chance it could be me – feel free to come over and say hi!

Welcome to our 2024/25 Trainees!

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Well it is that time of year again when we welcome our new trainees to the Bodleian Libraries and our Colleges! We have 18 trainees this year, 10 are based in our Bodleian Libraries (including a new post in our Collections and Resource Description team!), we have 2 Digital Archivist trainees and 6 in our colleges. We held the welcome session last week and they have a tour of the Bodleian today and welcome drinks tonight.

As ever, they will be saying hello on the blog over the coming weeks, so please do follow their journeys throughout the year. If you work in or frequent our libraries do say hello to them. We wish them a fun and successful year with us!

A picture of the 2024/25 trainees
Welcome to our trainees!

A Fond Farewell: The 2023-24 Trainees Sign Off

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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

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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.

Trail signs designed by Clara

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!

2024 Trainee Showcase: Part 2

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The second part of the 2023/24 Trainee Showcase comprised of presentations by Leah Brown (English Faculty Library), Sorrel Fenelon (St John’s College Library), and Erin Minogue (Bodleian Art, Archaeology and Ancient World Library). The projects ranged from a deep-dive into the offprints owned by a renowned professor, work to widen access to special collections, and an investigation into how social media and digital outreach can work to highlight collections and engage audiences.

Leah Brown: A Sérprent Saga: Professor Turville-Petre and his Literary Network

By Clara Oxley

A set of four grey filing boxes. Each box has a white label with a woodprint bookplate which denotes it as part of the Turville-Petre collection.
Offprints from Turville-Petre’s collection in archive folders.

Leah’s trainee project was a fascinating deep dive into the offprints of Professor Turville-Petre, a prominent Oxford scholar in Old Norse-Icelandic Studies who, as a student at Christ Church, was tutored by none other than J. R. R. Tolkien himself. When Turville-Petre died in 1978, he donated his entire library to the English Faculty Library. This, along with the rest of the EFL, will be moved to the Schwartzman Building in 2025 (a fact which motivated this project to begin with).

For anyone unsure of what an offprint was, Leah began by helpfully describing it as a ‘printing of a single piece of work that is part of a larger body,’ such as an article from a periodical. On top of exploring his offprints, another aim of the project was to create a handlist of them and store the items carefully to ensure that they were protected and conserved. This was because the off-prints were originally stored in magazine files, something which might have sent any conservationist into a frenzy.

To reduce damage to the items and make the collection more accessible, Leah created a spreadsheet detailing each Turville-Petre offprint. These details included, but were not limited to, author details, publication information, as well as language. Leah also paid close attention to the contents and notes that he made in the margins of the off-prints, which gave a unique insight into the way his relationships with colleagues changed over the years; something Leah went on to explore in more depth. Once the helpful handlist was completed, Leah moved the offprints to conservation boxes, and a quiet sigh of relief was heard from the conservation community across the country.

Next, Leah’s deep-dive into the contents and contexts of the offprints proved to be effective in bringing Turville-Petre to life, letting us catch a glimpse of his personality and work style. By exploring the historical context, as well as his academic engagements, correspondences and notes, Leah painted an image of a man who was clearly very academically driven, yet also dedicated to and supportive of his colleagues. These colleagues included the first woman to be Professor of Old Norse at the University of Oslo, Professor Anne Holtsmark, with whom he remained in correspondence for over 30 years. Furthermore, Leah’s inclusion of items in which he conveyed personality beyond the academic rigour of his work really helped humanise this great scholar. We particularly liked his artistic endeavours, such as the doodle of a Viking in his lecture notes. It’s always reassuring to learn that even the brightest can lose focus from time to time!

From Leah’s presentation, we learnt about a truly fascinating man who dedicated his life to Norse studies. So much so, that the Prime Minister of Iceland award him with the Grand Knight’s Cross of the Order of the Falcon.

A touching addition to the presentation was the inclusion of correspondences Leah had had with those who remembered Turville-Petre with fondness and respect. This included a former pupil of his, who recalled how, ‘Gabriel was, in his own way, as much of a teacher as a scholar and researcher, and a devoted teacher at that.’

Before completing her traineeship, Leah informed us that she will be creating box level records for the new offprint boxes, making the items accessible for all and ensuring that Turville-Petre and his legacy is kept alive for future scholarly endeavours.

Sorrel Fenelon: Widening Access to Special Collections at St John’s College

By Connie Hubbard

You might think that St John’s College, who have a special collection of manuscripts, would be overly protective of their collection. Sorrel, however, made increasing access and interest in early manuscripts her goal. Not an easy task.

To prepare, Sorrel shadowed school tours run by the Public Engagement team at the Weston Library, learning and magpieing tour-guiding techniques. She then began planning a tour for sixth form students visiting St John’s College as part of the Inspire programme. This initiative is a free, two year course for pupils from non-selective state schools, which includes a research presentation day onsite at St John’s. As part of this day, Sorrel planned a special collections visit, complete with a tour of the old library, and a session getting up close to an array of rare works. Sorrel had a brainwave while planning the event and, before the students arrived, she asked each what interested them and created the exhibition based on their answers. Talk about customer service!

On the big day, eighteen eager pupils got to see and interact with six items, including: a letter written by Jane Austen; Peter Apianus’ Astronomicum Caesareum* illustrated with a beautiful dragon, and an 18th-century autograph book which also housed a tapeworm – gross, but when entertaining teenagers, disgust is usually a safe bet. The chosen items highlighted the breadth of St John’s Special Collections with works from a range of time periods and in a range of languages, with different quirks.

This image shows a powerpoint presentation opened on a screen. The text of the presentation reads Widening Access to Special Collections at St John's College. On the left of the screen there is an a image of some bookshelves with early printed books, with brown covers. On the far left of the image, a woman can be seen standing behind a lecturn presenting.
Sorrel presenting her trainee project on Widening Access to Special Collections at St John’s College.

As with any ambitious project, Sorrel experienced complications. The most notable being that a condition check of the items revealed the Astronicum Caesureum would have been too fragile to move across college to the room booked for the event. Luckily Sorrel had been unreasonably organised and had a backup; a stunningly illustrated atlas. Crisis averted!

During Sorrel’s showcase presentation, she shared with us, not only her positive feedback from the College Access team and the students themselves, but suggested improvements, for example: to include more STEM subject manuscripts (though she noted the Astronomicum, gone AWOL, would have remedied this somewhat).

If that weren’t enough, Sorrel has also been working on a database of the John Rose letters, picking up where a previous trainee left off.

*an instrument for predicting the occurrence of solar and lunar eclipses.

Erin Minogue: Developing a social media presence for the Art, Archaeology and Ancient World Library

By Xanthe Malcolm

Wrapping up the morning session, Erin told us all about the process of establishing an X (formerly known as Twitter) account for the Art, Archaeology and Ancient World Library.

Erin began her presentation with a discussion of how she had chosen her project – which translated neatly into some tips for those trainees from next year’s cohort who were in the audience. For example, she knew from the start that she wanted something with a tangible outcome, which would be useful to the library, and have potential for continuity in the future. Marrying all that with her personal interest in outreach and increasing access to the library’s collections led her to the decision to develop a social media account.

Walking us through the timeline of her project, Erin started with her research into existing library social media accounts. This helped her to develop her initial thoughts on the aims of creating this account: who the target audience would be; what sort of content would meet the needs of the diverse groups within that target audience – from current readers to prospective students, and the local community to a broader audience who might have an interest in the library’s collections; and which platform to choose.

A screenshot of the Bodleian Art Library's new X profile. The header of the image shows the stone exterior of the library, which features brown wooden double doors and columns on either side. The profile picture is a small circle in navy blue with the words Art, Archaeology and Ancient World Library next to an illustration of a column. The profile text reads All things Classics, Egyptology & Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Archaeology, and History of Art & Architecture. Part of @bodleianlibs
A screenshot of the Bodleian Art Library’s new X profile.

Having established the purpose of the account, Erin then made formal proposals to her own library and the central Communications team for the Bodleian. She also began work on branding for the account. We heard about how she had decided on a colour scheme that would be cohesive with the central Bodleian X account and her library’s blog, as well as the importance of finding high resolution images and the difficulties of fitting the words “Art, Archaeology and Ancient World Library” into a profile picture!

All Erin’s hard work paid off on launch day. With some carefully crafted initial posts and a takeover of the central Bodleian X account to harness the power of their huge pool of followers, she was able to surpass her target of 100 followers by the end of the first day.

Since then, the account has gone from strength to strength. Erin gave examples of how she ensures she continues to meet the account’s aims of highlighting the collections, providing reader service updates, improving the accessibility of the building and engaging with readers and visitors (for example, by linking posts to exhibitions at the Ashmolean). She also talked us through how she has planned to ensure the continuity of the account after the end of the year.

Erin rounded off her presentation by talking us through some of her personal highlights from the year – a fantastic reminder of the wide range of opportunities open to trainees who are keen to get involved.

And if you haven’t done so yet, go and follow @BodArtLib on X!

 

2024 Trainee Showcase: Part 1

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Among the many fantastic opportunities afforded to Graduate Trainee Library Assistants based in Bodleian and Oxford College Libraries is the chance to design and undertake a project. Undoubtably one of the highlights of the year, the annual Graduate Trainee Showcase provides the opportunity for each trainee to present their project to an audience from across the Oxford libraries. The 2024 Showcase, superbly organised by Anna, Clara, and Connie, was a resounding success. The huge variety of projects presented reflected both the trainee’s diverse interests and expertise, and the varied aims and priorities of the different libraries in which they have been based.

This blog post is the first in a series dedicated to this year’s Graduate Trainee Showcase. The blog posts contain descriptions of all the different projects, each written by another trainee. We’ll be kicking off here with the morning session of presentations made by Lara (Bodleian Law Library), Elena (All Souls College Library), Nia (Old Bodleian Library), and Jess (New College Library).

 

Lara Hatwell: ‘O Stranger from England, why stand ye aghast?’: Exploring the Law Library’s Northern Ireland Collection

By Leah Brown

Taking on the task of opening this years’ Trainee Showcase, Lara couldn’t have done a better job!

Lara’s project focused on the Northern Irish collections held at the Law Library. Having observed that there’s often a sense of horror around looking at Northern Ireland’s past, Lara wanted to reframe this. This is reflected in the title of her project; ‘O stranger from England, why stand ye aghast?’ is a line from Ballad to a Traditional Refrain by the Northern Irish writer and historian, Maurice James Waldron Craig (d. 2011).

A screenshot of the beginning of a blog post, displaying the title, the first paragraph of the text, and a picture of the Northern Irish parliament buildings at Stormont.
Lara’s piece on the Law Library blog.

Lara began by working through the Bodleian Law Library LibGuide on Northern Ireland and fleshing it out as she went, including keeping it up-to-date with current political events—something quite unique to the Law Library! After immersing herself in the LibGuide and collating all of this information, which was no mean feat, Lara was also able to write a longform blogpost for the Bodleian Law Library Blog. It covers Northern Ireland’s relationship with British politics, particularly in the decriminalisation of homosexuality in the 1980s and the legalisation of abortion in Northern Ireland in 2018. Both of these laws were passed much earlier in England, Scotland, and Wales in 1967, but Northern Ireland was left out of the legislation. They were forced to bring the matter to the European Court of Human Rights and the UK Supreme Court respectively, while the UK government tried to wash its hands of the whole affair. Lara’s blog is a truly interesting read on the complicated political relationship that Northern Ireland, Europe, and Britain share, so I highly recommend you click through and take a look!

With this under her belt, Lara created promotional material for Northern Irish resources for the Thesis Fair, which then led to the opportunity to help with individual sessions on Northern Ireland with students. As a part of this, Lara created a guide on the resources held by the Bodleian, including highlighting the huge collection of papers that can’t be found anywhere else, many of which are now out of print. She was also able to shine a spotlight on the Conflict and Politics in Northern Ireland (CAIN) Archive, which she discovered was not included on Databases A-Z. It contains a huge amount of information on deaths relating to the Troubles all the way up to 2001 and is very community-focussed, which Lara mentioned is why she particularly likes it as a resource. Lara is currently working on a short bio of the site before Official Papers will make a claim for its addition to Databases A-Z, so watch this space!

So, what’s next? Well, before the traineeship is over Lara aims to write further blog posts particularly focussing on acquisitions based around Northern Ireland. She will also be writing a longform piece on Lady Justice and ‘how justice as a wider concept has been imagined’, so do keep an eye out for those over here.

 

Elena Trowsdale: The Importance of Cataloguing: A Multi-strand Exploration of Searchable Catalogues as the Backbone of Librarianship

By Nia Everitt 

Elena’s project was all about the importance of cataloguing, which many library staff (and shoppers at Argos, probably) can attest to. At All Souls College Library, where Elena is the trainee, cataloguing takes many different forms. Elena researched all of these and suggested some great improvements that could be made!

All Souls Library has got some super interesting digital projects and outreach initiatives coming up, so Elena’s project sought to promote these by taking a look at the role that cataloguing plays/will play, as well as researching historical librarianship (blowing the dust off card catalogues) and looking ahead to future cataloguing projects.

Elena got started with creating a comprehensive list of pamphlets held at All Souls in the GZ classification series, including details about shelfmark and reference information, as well as logging whether it is currently catalogued or not. In doing so, Elena laid the foundations for cataloguers to fully record and describe these items on formal databases, saving them time in the future!

Rather excitingly, All Souls is currently in the midst of re-cataloguing their archive, and so Elena also got to assist with this. Crosschecking the existing archives catalogue, she created a machine-operable spreadsheet, up to professional standards. Again, she’s reduced the timeframe quite a bit for these details to be uploaded to Expexio, the archival database platform, although doing so will still require professional input.

Then Elena conducted a survey to see what library staff actually think about cataloguing. The survey results were very interesting. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the biggest change to cataloguing that staff have noticed is a switch to online systems. Many also noted that, in the wider academic world, cataloguing is not regarded highly enough. This disregard for cataloguing is frustrating because, as staff observed, it is a job that requires a lot of skill. One colleague remarked that ‘having worked for 39 years in Oxford University libraries, I fear I am still an inadequate cataloguer’. Survey respondents also highlighted the political aspect of cataloguing, noting that some subject headings seem inadequate in a rapidly developing society, and that accessibility is becoming more and more prevalent.

Six AI generated images depicting a cat reading a book, ants climbing a bookshelf, a cartoon octopus, a cat, a cuckoo clock, and a landscape.
Images generated by AI in response to prompts about online and paper catalogues.

Elena also incorporated AI into her survey! Images generated when online catalogues, like SOLO, were mentioned, included a happy cat holding a book, ants climbing a bookshelf, and a rather severe looking octopus. Images generated when paper catalogues were mentioned were a grumpy cat with no book, a rather old clock, and a very idyllic, mountainous landscape. Make of that what you will!

The final aspect of Elena’s cataloguing project was an exhibition about legacy catalogues, investigating past librarianship methods. The All Souls Library catalogues dating to c. 1635–c. 1756 had a very basic style, and seemed optimised for use at the time as they were arranged by the authors’ last names. Elena also charted the cataloguing methods for one item, ‘A Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft’. Her findings were that paper catalogues needed to be physically handled for information, whereas on SOLO, everyone has access to the same information, improving accessibility. The number of catalogue records and amount of information for this one item also suggested scope for interoperability, such as linking between current catalogues, transcriptions, and more!

Elena’s hopes for the future of cataloguing include: more training for all library positions, increased funding, opportunities for technical experimentation, investment in learning, and well-supported digital tools. With advocates like Elena, the future of library cataloguing certainly seems exciting.

 

Nia Everitt: A Wellbeing Collection for The Bodleian Old Library and Radcliffe Camera

By Fran Allen

Choose Your Own Adventure: Graduate Trainee Library Assistant Project.

You are Nia, a Graduate Trainee Library Assistant at the Bodleian Libraries who is completing a project as part of their trainee year.

To choose the Wellbeing Collection project, turn to section 7. To choose Alien Communication, turn to section 51.

Section 7. Inspired by your own time at university during the Covid-19 pandemic, you choose to create a wellbeing collection for the Old Bodleian. Wellbeing collections and spaces are becoming more common in libraries due to both an increase in the number of students reporting negative mental health experiences, and a recognition of the role academic libraries play in supporting a student’s mental health whilst at university. There are already a number of wellbeing initiatives within the Bodleian Libraries and you have visited nearly all of them for inspiration.

To start with a local needs assessment, turn to section 39. To search the internet for pictures of cats, turn to section 84.

Section 39. You start the process with a local needs assessment to see what services are already provided, and which aren’t appropriate (e.g., medical advice). Through this process you identify two areas of focus for the collection.

To choose wellbeing resources and reading for pleasure, turn to section 19. To choose fashion advice and scone recipes, turn to section 32.

Section 19. The initial stages of the project have successfully identified two main areas for the collection to focus on—wellbeing resources and reading for pleasure. Unfortunately, there is no budget for this pilot project so you will have to be resourceful when sourcing books.

To make all the books yourself in your breaktimes, turn to section 11. To access the enormous resources of the CSF, turn to section 2.

Section 2. Due to the Bodleian Library’s standing as a legal deposit library there is a wealth of non-academic texts available to any Bodleian reader via the CSF. These items are, however, predominantly Library Use Only so can’t be taken out of the library on loan. You choose a selection of shorter texts that can be read quickly or flicked through in order to make the collection more engaging and accessible.

How do you choose to record this information?

To create a series of tables, turn to section 44. To whisper them into a colleague’s ear, turn to section 63.

Section 44. You create a series of tables that contain all the relevant information for the chosen titles. In order to ensure the collection can be easily maintained by colleagues after you have finished your traineeship, you include all the information required to request them from the CSF as well as costs so that if funds are available in the future they can be purchased. You are almost ready to assemble your collection and locate a small bookcase from the Duke Humphrey’s library for the display.

Image of shelves containing wellbeing and light-reading books.
The Old Bodleian wellbeing collection.

Where are you going to place the bookshelf?

To tuck the bookshelf under the arm of Bodley’s statue in the quad, turn to section 43. To place the bookshelf on a bright and accessible stairwell, turn to section 74.

Section 74. You choose a bright and accessible staircase for the physical location for the collection. It is outside of the reading room environment but still within the library.

How will you advertise the collection?

To create a series of bright posters and bookmarks, turn to section 29. To take out small weekly adverts in Oxford Mail, turn to section 9.

Section 29. Using Canva you create a series of colourful, eye-catching posters and bookmarks which introduce the new collection to library users. You also signpost other available support such as the Counselling Service.

Congratulations! Your Wellbeing Collection is in place and is available for all Old Bodleian Library readers to access.

 

Jessica Hodgkinson: Mythical and Monstrous: Promoting Special Collections at New College Library

By Connie Hubbard

New College Library is home to a large collection of beautiful manuscripts and rare printed books which Jess made it her mission to further promote. She wanted to help provide access to special collections items and encourage people to engage with them, hoping to advance our knowledge about these books and manuscripts along the way.

Jess decided to focus in the main on curating an exhibition. She thought of a very cool theme for this—monsters and mythical creatures. Jess explained that she wanted to pick a topic which lots of people would be interested in.

An image of a smiling woman in a pink dress stood next to a large poster decorated with fantastical creatures.
Jess at the Mythical and Monstrous exhibition.

To find items to include in her exhibition, and to research their origins and significance, Jess scoured SOLO and the shelves, compiling an extensive list of fantastic, and fantastical, books to display. These included, for example, a sixteenth-century atlas illustrated throughout with mythical creatures, such as mermaids with buttocks (!), a fourteenth-century copy of the Book of Revelation full of monstrous miniatures like the horse-locusts of the apocalypse, and a thirteenth-century copy of Homer’s Illiad which has a drawing of the chimera added in the margins.

Of course, an exhibition would not be an exhibition without a few goodies to go with it. Jess designed postcards and bookmarks using images of the most remarkable illustrations, featuring dragons, a blemmy (a humanoid creature with its face in its torso), and other fantastical beings. To advertise her exhibition, Jess designed a poster which other trainees very kindly displayed in their libraries, sent out emails, and posted on social media.

Jess’ exhibition, entitled Mythical and Monstrous: Fantastical Creatures at New College Library, was a huge success. It ran on two separate occasions and welcomed over 200 visitors.

In addition to the exhibition, Jess also wrote a piece for New College Notes, the scholarly e-journal of New College, Oxford. The article is about New College, MS 287 which was written for King Henry VIII and presented to him as a gift on New Year’s Day 1515. Jess included this manuscript in her Mythical and Monstrous exhibition because it contains a doodle of Pegasus, the winged horse-god of Greek myth, on the first page. Studying the book closely, Jess also discovered something scratched into the margins of another page which had never been noticed before. John Barrett, technical lead of the Bodleian Libraries’ ARCHiOx (Analysing and Recording Cultural Heritage in Oxford) project, was able to make a recording of the addition, revealing it in even greater detail. Jess and her colleagues now believe that the addition could contain the Henry VIII’s name! If you’d like to read more about this exciting discovery, check out Jess’ piece for New College Notes, which is freely available online to everyone.

Keep an eye out for the final output of Jess’ project, a video about New College, MS 255 for the library’s Curator’s Choice series, in the coming weeks! Jess will be continuing her work with special collections at New College Library as she transitions in to her new role as the Special Collections Curatorial Assistant in September.

Day in the life of a History Faculty Library trainee

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08:30

I’m out the door and on my bike. I’m lucky enough to have a genuinely enjoyable ten-minute cycle to work in the mornings, which is a great way to start the day.

08:40  

I arrive at the Rad Cam. After putting my things away, I start the opening routine for the Lower Camera – this involves opening windows, turning on computers and PCAS machines, shelving, and making sure work spaces are tidy for readers. This morning I find a sports bra on one of the radiators, which I put in lost property!

View from above of two stacks of blue plastic boxes. The top box on each stack is open to reveal piles of books inside.
Lapsed books in their boxes ready to head back to the CSF

08:55

Using Alma, the library management system software, I create today’s lapse list: a spreadsheet with details of self-collect books which are due to be returned to the CSF. By the time doors open to readers at 9am, I’m starting to collect these lapsed books onto a trolley. Once I’ve finished, I return them all on Alma and then box them up to be taken back to the CSF this afternoon on the delivery van.

09:30

There weren’t too many books on the lapse list today, so I have time for a background task. I find a few books whose shelf mark

labels are beginning to fade, and print and attach new labels.

10:15

Break time – a cup of tea and a couple of biscuits in the reader common room, while listening to a podcast.

Two images of the same stack of books. In the first, the shelf mark labels are faded. In the second, there are new, clear labels.
Relabelling books – before and after!

10:35

I’m on fetching duty now. This means I’m collecting books from around the Rad Cam and Old Bod which have been requested for scanning by readers. Today this takes me into the Duke Humphrey’s Library, the very oldest part of the library, which is always exciting! Then, I identify the sections that need scanning and put in bookmarks ready for my colleague who will be scanning them this afternoon.

11:30

I decide to do some shelving. Maybe not the most exciting part of working in a library, but always satisfying!

12:00

Today I have the early (12pm) lunch slot. It’s lovely weather so I head along to the Botanic Gardens (free entry is a great perk of the job) to eat my packed lunch. I take a book and enjoy sitting and reading in the sunshine.

13:00

I’m back at the Rad Cam, and have an hour slot on the reception desk. It’s an extremely quiet shift – I issue books to one reader, give a couple of tourists directions to the Old Bod, and send a reader who has forgotten her card to Admissions.

Partially completed data input form from an Excel sheet. There are fields for language of resource, ISBN, title, subtitle, statement of responsibility, edition statement and more.
Inputting metadata to the spreadsheet

14:00

I get on with some project work. My project covers a collection of uncatalogued materials at the History of Science and Medicine Library – the aim is to identify items that are unique across the Bodleian and record their metadata so that they can be added to the library catalogue and ingested. When I was there this week, I took photos of some of the items, so this afternoon I use these photos to finish entering the details of these items into a spreadsheet created by the Resource Description department.

14:30

Break time – after sitting to work on a computer it’s time to stretch my legs, so I put on a podcast and go for a short walk.

14:50

An email has come in from ARACU (Accessible Resources Unit) requesting a book for them to scan for a student. I fetch the book, issue it on Alma, and box it up to send to ARACU on the delivery van. Then I get on with some more shelving, starting with the Upper Camera and working my way down to the Lower Gladstone Link.

15:30

It’s my final desk shift of the day – this time I’m on the circulation desk in the Rad Cam. I help a couple of readers connect to the internet, and take a student down to the Gladstone Link to locate a book in the tricky Nicholson sequence. I issue and return books, provide directions to the toilets, and answer questions about loan periods and shelf marks. It’s always nice to be able to help readers out – definitely a rewarding part of the job!

17:00

It’s the end of my working day. I’m off to the gym (another perk of the job is discounted membership at Iffley Road Sports Centre) and then home!

 

 

A Day in the Life of a Law Library Trainee

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8:25      My journey to work begins with a, thankfully, short walk into work. This morning I am rather precariously carrying two cakes which I have made for a work party.

 

8:50      After making my way into work, my morning begins by unloading the dishwasher. We do this on a rota and this morning is my turn.  Alongside the dishwasher, I make the morning’s pot of coffee, which is very much needed. After that’s finished, I head up to my desk, where I sort through my emails and send off a few scans which I didn’t get round to yesterday afternoon.

 

Shelves for books to be labelled.

9:30      I take a few books that I have now finished with from my desk and head upstairs to reshelve them. Our lift is currently out of order so I am finding that I am climbing many, many more stairs than usual.

Returning to the workroom, I check to see if there any any books on the shelves I have responsibility for. Books for me are any ones which need processed, labelled or sent out to the floor. I collect any for me and bring them to my desk, where I work through them all. After finishing, I drop the books up to Academic Services for shelving, in a series of journeys which take much longer than normal (broken lift + manual handling training = frustratingly slow book moving process).

 

10:30     Tea party!! I head down to the staff room as we say goodbye to one of our colleagues, whose last day is today. We have some snacks, some cake and hand over a goodbye gift.

 

11:15        More scanning to do now. Accompanied by a list of all the requests, I gather up the books required and head to the scanning room. Our scanning room is a very small, out of the way room in the library, but it has a fantastic big window which looks out over the New College sports grounds. Unfortunately, today the scans are not as simple as I would like. A reader has requested a set of pages which don’t appear to make much sense, starting on the last page of one chapter and finishing mid subsection of the next chapter. I send a message to the Scan & Deliver triage team, who will confirm with the reader what exactly they want. Another scan is for a book which does not appear on the shelf. Thankfully, it has not travelled far, only to the shelf below. I decide to stay and tidy up these shelves while I’m here, as I’ve found a couple books in the wrong sequence. This is quite a satisfying task, but one that at least I, can only do for so long, before the dust generated from moving all the books makes me start sneezing uncontrollably.

 

12:45       I send off the completed scans and head downstairs to sort today’s post.

Today’s haul!

We receive a range of items in the post, mostly journals and purchased books, but sometimes mysteriously packaged parcels with donated books, sent by either the author or publisher. We also receive post for Official Papers, which may be Statutory Instruments or Acts published by the UK governments or documents from intergovernmental organisations, such as the United Nations. After collating and stamping any invoices and packing slips, all the post is brought up to the Information Resources Workroom where I sort it onto its respective shelves. Journals and books all have different shelves depending on whether they are purchased, donated or copyright material.

 

13:15         Lunchtime! I now have an hour for lunch, so I make myself up a bagel and have a cup of tea. I have a number of books on the go currently, as I read different books depending on what mood I’m in, but today I have only a few chapters left of Agatha Christie’s The Secret of Chimneys and I am determined to find out if I have guessed the murderer correctly. Tonight, I’m on the evening shift until 7pm, so I head outside for a short walk to stretch my legs and get some sunshine before heading back to work.

 

Official Papers post ready to be shelved.

14:15         It is now time to process the pile of Official Papers post which has been slowly building over the past couple of weeks. All the post has to be stamped with the correct date and type of stamp (C for copyright, P for purchased and D for donated), before being counted, noted down and shelved. It is a long process, but the upside is that there are some very interesting documents to read through. Today, I process 77 pamphlets and 8 Acts and Explanatory Notes.

 

16:00       I head downstairs for a break, grabbing a cup of coffee and the final one of my sister’s hot cross buns, which she had sent back with me when I visited home last weekend.

 

16:15         By now, the VBD books have arrived. The VBD stands for Virtual Book Display, and every week the Information Resources Librarian sends me over a spreadsheet with the picks for the Law Library. This week there are not too many, so only two runs up and down the stairs. Once at my desk, I have to check the books off on my spreadsheet, process them and send them to the copyright shelves for cataloguing. I also take this time to track down any missing VBD books from previous weeks, looking to see where they have got to.

 

16:45        I head down to Official Papers to grab some boxes of material to be barcoded and then head up to the desk for my 5pm evening shift. While on the desk, I answer queries from readers and give (hopefully useful and easy-to-follow) directions.

Home Office Research study from 1975 on homicide statistics.

When my attention is not required by readers, I work through barcoding the OP material. Currently I am working through series from the Home Office, which includes some very interesting reads, such as Absconding from Open Prisons and Homicide in Britain, 1967 – 1971. 

 

17:30        Time for the count. I grab the clipboard and head round the library to count the number of readers inside.

 

17:45         Mental maths done, I return to barcoding. When finished, I begin work on this blog post!

 

18:40         I ring the first bell to alert readers we will be closing soon. The bell is very loud and always makes unsuspecting readers jump (readers – I’m sorry!!).

 

18:50          Second bell.

 

19:00          The bell is rung for the final time to signify the library is closed. We switch the lights off and I drop my work to my desk before heading to the staffroom. Both cakes are finished and someone has kindly washed my plates, so I pack up them into my bag and head off to enjoy the rest of the sunshine!