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Bodleian Law Library

The Law Library, also known as ‘Law Bod’, is a major research library, supporting the staff and students of the Faculty of Law and the wider legal community. The library has over 550,000 volumes, and all four floors are open to readers. It is the home of the Official Papers collection.

Welcome from the Trainees of 2025!  

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Hello again, loyal readers, and welcome to part two of our introduction to the 2025/26 Graduate Trainees. This time, the spotlight is on the Business, Law, and Social Sciences libraries, as well as this year’s College trainees.

Noughth week was busy! We’ve been running induction tours, putting up Black History Month displays, visiting the newly opened Schwarzman Humanities Centre, and somehow keeping our libraries running smoothly. The city is covered in falling leaves (romantic, autumnal, stunning) and the beginnings of the expected wet weather (slippery cobblestones, my nemesis). Regardless, we’re all set to give warm welcomes to our incoming freshers. 

Now, let’s meet some more trainees! 

Trainee Introductions: Business, Law and Social Sciences 

Heidi Cruft – Sainsbury Library, Saïd Business School

Hi everyone! I’m Heidi, the Graduate Trainee at the Sainsbury Library in the Saïd Business School.   

Although my BA wasn’t in Business – I studied English at the University of Cambridge – I got a taste of what business students might be looking for while working with them during a summer scheme at my college. That experience gave me some insight into their research habits and made me appreciate how unique the Sainsbury Library is among the Bodleian Libraries: we primarily serve postgraduates, with a strong focus on journals and databases.  

I knew quite early on in my undergraduate degree that I wanted to pursue a career in libraries and was lucky to gain experience by volunteering at two of Cambridge’s college libraries. That proved invaluable – not only did I get to work with some fascinating special collections, but I learnt a lot about the day-to-day tasks common across most libraries, including processing new books, shelving, and answering enquiries.  

I’m really enjoying my role at the Sainsbury Library so far, and it’s been lovely to get to know the (quite large!) team here. I’ve particularly enjoyed learning how varied everyone’s roles are – it’s shown me how much collaboration goes on behind the scenes in library work. 

The Saïd Business School from the outside at night.
Photograph taken from the SBS website: The School | Saïd Business School

Gemma Hammond – Bodleian Law Library 

Hello! I’m Gemma, the graduate trainee at the Bodleian Law Library.  

I have a BA in History and an MPhil in Ancient History, both from Oxford. I’ve always been interested in working in libraries in some capacity, so after my Master’s I looked for volunteering opportunities and found a position in the library of a small theological college. This was a really useful experience because as well as getting a lot of shelving practice(!) I got to do all sorts of other background tasks (cataloguing, checking reading lists, working with the archive). I went on to work part-time as an evening and weekends library assistant in the Old Bodleian and the Art Library, which was much more focused on front-line reader services: issuing and returning books and generally helping readers and problem-solving.  

What I enjoy about working in libraries is that it’s relatively structured but also involves a variety of tasks, and you never quite know what will come up so it doesn’t get boring! I decided to apply for the graduate trainee role because I wanted to learn more about working in libraries in general, and technical services in particular, and to hopefully work out whether to commit to a further Master’s.   

I’ve really enjoyed my first month at the Law Library. Everyone has been welcoming and very helpful, and I feel like I’m beginning to settle in and become part of the team. I’ve obviously had a lot of experience using the Bodleian libraries as a student as well as working in them for the past year or so, but before now I hadn’t ever been in the Law Library. I don’t know much about law as a subject at all, so I’ve been learning a lot! I’ve also been getting used to the library itself, since of course although they’re all under the Bodleian Libraries umbrella, each library has its own idiosyncrasies. The Law Library is reference only, so no one can take the books out, which is a change from the libraries I’d worked in previously. As well as legal texts, the library houses the Official Papers collection, some of which date from the 16th century. 

So far, I’ve mainly been processing new books (putting tattle-tape in them and stamping them) and labelling them (there’s two different types of labels, reflecting the two classification systems that the library uses). I’ve also got to grips with using the Bookeye scanner, which is actually a lot easier than it looks! There’s not been too much shelving to do but the library has been getting busier as the beginning of term gets closer, so I’m sure I’ll soon have the opportunity to properly test myself on the library layout and shelfmarks. I’ve also spent some time at the Enquiry Desk. The (Grade II*-listed) building that the library is in can be a bit of a labyrinth and I’m still working on how best to answer the inevitable questions from readers about how to find the water fountain… For October I’m hoping to get involved in the book displays we have planned and looking forward to the start of a new term!   

The reading room and bookstacks of the Bodleian Law Library.

Summer Mainstone-Cotton – Social Science Library 

Hi everyone! I’m Summer, the graduate trainee at the Social Science Library (the SSL).   

Whilst a medievalist at heart, having studied an MA in Medieval Studies, I feel that I’m starting to find my feet amongst the Social Sciences (there were plenty of economic and political influences in the medieval world after all!) At the SSL we serve a mix of undergrads and postgrads, with probably our largest undergraduate cohort being the PPE students – I’m always a bit daunted when their big economic textbooks come to me for processing!   

I was fairly inexperienced with library work before this traineeship. As a student I spent a lot of time in libraries and became quite good at the detective work of tracking down obscure research books, but the inner workings of libraries remained a mystery. During my MA I did a placement at Cambridge University Library, but that was with special collections rather than reader or technical services – I learnt a lot about childbirth in medieval medical manuscripts, but I’m yet to find a use for that knowledge in the SSL! Far from being a disadvantage though, it’s made everything here feel new and interesting – I still get a lot of satisfaction from stamping books with the Bodleian stamp (even if I haven’t managed to stamp in a straight line yet).  

I’ve really enjoyed my first few weeks at the SSL. Everyone in the library has been very friendly and patient with my many questions and triple checking alma holdings editing – I’m still terrified I’ll accidently delete a book from the system!  

The traineeship offers a great mix of technical and reader services alongside the Wednesday training sessions, which makes every day new and interesting. I’m looking forward to the upcoming chaos of Michaelmas term and I’m sure this year will fly by! 

A view down the shelves at the Social Sciences Library.
More shelves and book displays at the Social Sciences Library.

Trainee Introductions: Colleges

Amy Fry – Christ Church College Library 

Hi everyone! I’m Amy, the Graduate Trainee at Christ Church Library for this year. My position is slightly different to the Bodleian Trainees: I’m technically employed by my college, but I still get the same training sessions and experiences. The best of both worlds!  

I studied Music at Lincoln College before starting this job, probably the only other Oxford college library whose beauty can compare to Christ Church’s (I still can’t quite work out where my loyalties lie…), however the world of libraries is rather new to me. It was actually the advertisement for the Bodleian Trainee scheme that sparked my interest in librarianship as a career, and after some great advice from Lucy and Marina, the librarians at Lincoln, I decided I would give it a go.   

Christ Church Library is a wonderfully impressive place to work. Vertically split into the Working Library downstairs and the Special Collections upstairs, it offers such variety on a daily basis. Downstairs, my responsibilities include much of the day-to-day tasks involved in keeping the library useful for students: processing, shelving, collections management, and fielding questions (if I know the answers that is…). Upstairs, I get to help out with exhibitions, and over the course of the year will also put on various short pop-ups. I’m currently planning one to celebrate the Christ Church 500 Music Festival – a rather cool experience for a music grad! I’m lucky to have joined such a welcoming and knowledgeable team here (9 of us total!) and feel very excited for what the rest of the year will hold, both in Christ Church and across the wider Bodleian Libraries! 

The outside of Christ Church Library in the fog.

Leah Duffin – New College Library 

Hello. My name is Leah, and I am the Graduate Trainee at New College Library. As I work in one of the colleges my role is different from the other trainees. I work across a multitude of projects, execute various tasks, and contribute to the successful running of the library. I am fortunate to feel quite settled in this role as I started in July and have had lots of exciting opportunities since then.  

I hold a bachelor’s degree in English Literature and History and a masters in Medieval Studies from University College Dublin. I have spent much of my academic career in libraries and upon completing my master’s I found myself drawn to a career in libraries. Due to the nature of my master’s research, I worked closely with special collections, and I knew that I wanted to foster this interest in a more professional capacity. Thus, I decided to move away from Ireland and combine my passion for history and libraries and what better place to do that than Oxford!  

Perhaps I show my bias but, in my opinion, New College is one of the finest colleges in Oxford and the library has become a welcoming and wonderful place to work. New College Library is home to a renowned collection of rare books and manuscripts; this includes 384 manuscripts and thousands of rare books and incunables. I was particularly drawn to this role as it allowed me to use the knowledge I gained in my studies through working with a rich repository of special collections whilst also learning more about librarianship and supporting readers. Here at the library, our year is full of opportunities to showcase our special collections, as we often hold exhibitions for the public to come and view our treasures! We also assist academics and readers in viewing our collections. Recently, I aided in curating our current temporary exhibition on the American illustrator Edward Gorey. I was responsible for deciding which items to showcase along with carrying out research, creating labels and designing the promotional material. As term has begun, we are busy holding inductions for new students, purchasing books from readings lists and planning our next exhibition that will take place in November. I am looking forward to what the next few months have in store! 

New College Library and Bell Tower from the outside, surrounded by trees and plant life.

The Red Cross Collection: A Trainee Project

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Introduction: The Collection and I

At some point between the invention of writing and the modern day, the Law Library received a donation. This donation consisted of close to a thousand books from the Henry Dunant Institute, a research institute for the Red Cross based in Geneva. As many good donations do, the collection sat on our shelves for years waiting for somebody to find the time to go through it and see what was there.

            Between December and April of this year, I set out for my trainee project to clear out the Red Cross collection. The donation sprawled across four shelving-units on the ground floor, consuming valuable shelving space. In December, the Law Library’s incredible foreign-languages cataloguer, Tanya (whom we love) gave me lessons on creating minimum level records (MLRs) on the library catalogue. With that knowledge, I began clearing the collection.

            Over the next few months, I checked the books against our library management system ALMA and discarded anything we already had. After that, everything else in the donation was free to be added to the Bodleian Library collections. Aside from a handful of books which came to the Law Library, the vast majority of those books went to The Stacks (henceforth known as CSF), our giant book warehouse in Swindon. By the time the collection had been finished, I had created 624 records for books in 13 different languages published in over 50 different countries across the world.

            When I started the project, I didn’t appreciate how interesting it would be. Aside from the opportunity to learn about cataloguing, the collection turned out to be an incredible set of documents detailing some really interesting parts of 19th and 20th century history.

            So, in the interests of making this collection a wee bit more accessible and discoverable, I want to briefly talk about a few of the stand-outs from the collection. This is by no means an exhaustive list; there are many very interesting books here but I want to highlight a few parts of the collection which I really enjoyed.

Drawing the Great War (1914 and 1916)

Histoire illustrée de la guerre du droit

I adore the fabulously intricate designs on the front covers of the books
Lord Kitchener’s moustache has never been more moustachy

The oldest book in the collection came from as far back as 1855 but, to me, some of the most interesting parts of the donation were the WW1-era books. Amongst these, I really want to single out the gorgeous Histoire illustrée de la guerre du droit. I will say, it was a bold choice to write an illustrated history of the First World War in 1916 but that didn’t stop Émile Hinzelin from turning out this beautiful three-volume set.

            The books cover the build-up to, and history of, the war from the mid-19th century to 1916 and are lavishly illustrated with a range of photographs, illustrations and what appear to be coloured photographs as well. Being written when they were, it should come as no surprise that these books are full of wartime propaganda and represent a particularly nationalist perspective on the war. According to Hinzelin, for example, the French republic has only ever desired peace but is now being forced to fight to help save the entire world from German aggression and imperialism.

            They are truly incredible books and I would absolutely encourage people to take a look at them, even if just for the many (and beautiful) pictures. I have to say that, after the Bodleian Trainees received training on using a printing press recently, I feel like I appreciate better just how much work must have gone into printing these books and the many images contained within.

The Sino-Japanese War (1938)

La Presse Chinois et le Conflit Sino-Japonais 1937 Japanese Aggression and Chinese Opinion

Another book which really stuck with me when I was doing the Red Cross collection was this one. Written in early 1938 (possibly February, judging from a date at the end of the book), this book was published by the Bureau du Kuomintang en Europe as part of a broad attempt by the Kuomintang (the governing party of Republican China) to build support in Europe to protect against the rapid advance of Japanese soldiers through China.

            The book consists of a series of articles written by Chinese press agencies throughout 1937 during the build-up to war, its declaration on July 7th and the first few months of active combat, culminating in the fall of Nanjing in December of that year. The stated aim of the book is to demonstrate the broad support throughout China for continued resistance against the Japanese army in an attempt to galvanise foreign support.

            The book is a fascinating historical document, providing transcriptions of original news and magazine articles published throughout 1937. It also gives some insight into how the Kuomintang were attempting to present themselves and to generate support abroad during these first few months of the war.   

North Korean Propaganda (1970s-1980s)

Significacion historico-mundial de la idea zuche

Kim il-Sung: a l’occasion du 30e anniversaire de la fondation du parti du travail de coree

The (temporary) North Korean shelf in the Law Library’s storage rooms!

Something which surprised me in the collection was the number of books published in North Korea. Many of these we already had and, for the last while, the library has been home to a small shelf of books which I call the ‘North Korea Shelf’. Most of the books are biographies of Kim il-Sung, the first leader of North Korea and founder of the ruling Kim Dynasty. Published by the ‘Foreign Languages Publishing House’ in Pyongyang, the books were part of a change in North Korean literature in the 1960s through 1980s.

            Earlier North Korean literature had consisted of traditional Korean stories, translated into other languages in the USSR and distributed from there. However, the 1960s saw the Foreign Languages Publishing House starting its own publications. With the development of Kim il-Sung’s own brand of Marxism-Leninism in the mid-1960s (known as Juche), North Korean literature shifted towards celebrating Kim il-Sung and his ideology.

The goal of these was to promote Juche outside of North Korea, especially throughout East and South-East Asia, West Africa and the Americas. As such, these books were published in a range of languages including English, French, Spanish, and Indonesian and distributed through the USSR, a practice which ended when the Soviet Union fell in the 1990s.

These books are a fascinating artefact of the time and an incredible insight into how North Korea chose to self-represent during the 1970s and 1980s. Personally, I found it quite interesting to see a book published in North Korea, having never actually come across one before and I’m excited to see what research people can do with these additions to the Bodleian going forward!

Conclusion

There isn’t space in a single post to highlight all the books we received from the Red Cross. Even if I just picked the ones which I found most interesting, I think we would be here for tens of thousands of words. Instead, what I’ve tried to do here is just to pick out a few examples from across just the 20th century collections. My hope is to make some of the books just a wee bit more accessible and well-known so that they don’t simply disappear into CSF never to be seen again.

            I loved cataloguing the Red Cross collection this year. The vast majority of the books weren’t quite as cool as these ones but it’s still an incredible collection of books and I can’t wait to see what research they might support in the future. For anyone out there (including, again, any future trainees) interested in cataloguing, I would say that it’s absolutely worth getting into, doing this project was one of my favourite parts of the year and I’m really glad that the traineeship gave me the opportunity to do some.

            To finish off, I just wanted to add a small map of all the different countries represented in the collection. I was struck by how wide-ranging and different the books we received were and kept a small list of different countries (because, you know, I’m a librarian and I enjoy data).

Maps! Data! Excitement!

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.

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!

 

 

LGBTQ+ History Month at the Bodleian Law Library

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British LGBTQ+ history has an involved and often traumatic relationship to the Law. At the Bodleian Law Library (BLL), we’ve taken the opportunity to highlight some of those relationships through a display of our primary and secondary collections. In this post, we want to briefly touch on just a few pieces of legislation, currently on display or accessible on open shelf in the BLL, that were vital to the progression of LGBTQ+ rights in the UK, showing how the Law Library can be a key resource for studying its history.

Three books on display against the background of a rainbow flag
Physical copies of the Wolfenden Report, a Homosexual Law Reform Society annual report, and Peter Wildeblood’s memoir.

In 1954, Peter Wildeblood, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu and Michael Pitt-Rivers were convicted for “consensual homosexual offences” and sentenced to 12 to 18 months in prison. The trial invigorated a reform movement that triggered a Commons “committee on homosexual offences” that, in 1957, would publish the seminal Wolfenden Report, which advised that “‘Homosexual behaviour between consenting adults in private be no longer a criminal offence”. The report was debated in parliament, but the government did not act on its recommendations, galvanising new organisations agitating for gay rights, such as the Homosexual Law Reform Society (a 1960s report of the Society is on display in the Law Library). Also in the Law Library, you can read the Wolfenden Report itself, as well as Wildeblood’s brave memoir Against the Law, which appeared in the same year.

Picture of a book display showing various primary and secondary resources related to LGBTQ+ history
Part of the LGBTQ+ History Month display at the Bodleian Law Library.

The library-held collections of historical and in-force statutes (such as Halsbury’s or online legal databases like Westlaw or Lexis+ subscribed to by the Bodleian – see the list of legal databases at Legal databases | Bodleian Libraries (ox.ac.uk); not quite as up to date but freely accessible to everyone is the government’s own Legislation.gov.uk) are a key source of LGBTQ+ history. In 1967, ten year after the recommendations in the Wolfenden report, the Sexual Offences Act finally decriminalised in-private sex between men over 21 (i.e. only a partial decriminalisation: the age of consent, moreover, was not equalised until 2000). Another key statute is the Gender Recognition Act 2004, which finally gave Trans people the legal right to full recognition of their gender (we also hold the 2018 parliamentary consultation material regarding its reform). And there is the Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Act of 2013, which legalised gay marriage, or the 2010 Equality Act, Britain’s key anti-discrimination legislation. All these laws have a direct impact on people’s daily lives and experiences, as well as our sense of what kind of society we are and/or want to be.

The BLL does not only hold the final product when it comes to legislation. In the Official Papers collection, the often fascinating (and not rarely disturbing) parliamentary history of LGBTQ+ – related legislation can be followed, for instance through the debate reports printed in Hansard (also online at https://hansard.parliament.uk/). From the first discussion of Lesbianism in parliament in 1921 (a Criminal Law Amendment bill, which would have criminalised all sex between women, was defeated in the House of Lords that year) to the long history of the repeal of the repressive section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 (which prohibited the so-called “promotion” of homosexuality by local authorities, inspiring the activism of Stonewall and OutRage!), readers can discover how House discussions and committee reports reflected (or not) debates, prejudices, advocacy and reform in wider society. Behind the glass of the main reading room, for instance, three volumes on display chart the repeal of section 28: from the 1988 introduction of the paragraph which offensively termed gay partnerships “pretended family relationships” into the 1986 Local Government Act, over the introduction of repeal in the Standing Committee stage of the 2003 Local Government Bill, to the eventual enactment of repeal in the Local Government Act 2003 (a government apology, however, did not follow until 2009).

Two statute books and a parliamentary committee report on display, resting on bookstands.
Tracing the repeal of Section 28 at the BLL

If you want to know more, a good first place to start is the Oxford LibGuide prepared by the Law Library: Home – LGBTI law – Oxford LibGuides at Oxford University. The secondary literature on display until the end of this month in the main reading room, moreover, highlights not only titles about the UK, but also the US, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. On the first floor of the library, in addition, there are extensive collections of statutes from Australia, Canada, India, and many other jurisdictions: on the first of February, for instance, we displayed the Canadian Civil Marriage Act, which legalised same-sex marriage in the country on that day in 2005 (on the same day in 2009, incidentally, Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir became the prime minister of Iceland, and with it the world’s first openly gay head of government).

There are many more legal resources accessible through the library, either in physical form (such as reports on the trial of Oscar Wilde, notoriously convicted under the infamous Labouchère Amendment of the 1885 Criminal Law Amendment Act, at KB65.ENG.WIL on the second floor), or in electronic form. As such, the library constitutes an excellent resource in remembering and making visible LGBTQ+ history, the constraints and repressions that the Law has inflicted, and the trajectory of its reform and the construction of anti-discrimination legislation.

 

Happy Christmas from the Oxford Library Trainees!

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Well! It’s the last day before Christmas closure at the Bodleian Library, and as I am writing this, I imagine that some of the trainees in other libraries are making their way back to family and friends for Christmas. It’s been magical to see how Oxford libraries transform at Christmas time. There have been carols in the Divinity School sung by Bodleian staff, busts decorated with Santa hats, and Christmas trees springing up all over our different sites.  

Like the trainees last year, this year we decided to explore our libraries in the festive season through the medium of our very own 12 Days of Christmas- or should I say, Libmas! Originally posted over on our X (Twitter) X/Twitter account below is a list of all the presents that our libraries have ‘sent’ to us, and now to you!  (Singing along is optional.) 

On the First Day of Libmas, my library sent to me- 

A bust of Chichele! 

Henry Chichele was the founder of All Souls College and also Archbishop of Canterbury from 1414-43. One of our trainees has the privilege of working in the library there! 

 

On the Second Day of Libmas my library sent to me-  

Two book displays 

Part of the trainee role is getting to be creative with book displays. Pictured below are some Christmas book sculptures from the Social Science Library. How cute! 

 

On the Third day of Libmas my library sent to me-  

Three window frogs! 

According to cataloguer Peter Spokes, much of the painted glass in the Old Bodleian Upper Reading Room is of 17th century Flemish origin! 

Top right frog has definitely had too much Christmas pudding. 

 

On the Fourth day of Libmas my library sent to me- 

Four festive busts! 

Pictured below are busts of Professor Hermann Georg Fiedler, Prince Edward and Voltaire. 

  

 

On the Fifth Day of Libmas my library sent to me- 

Five old things! 

1)A papyrus dating from 3 AD from St John’s College, in which the recipient is asked why they didn’t attend the sender’s son’s birthday party ! 

 

 

 

2) MS 61 – a rather lovely 13th century bestiary made in York! 

3) A copy of the 27 Sermons preached by Hugh Latimer and held at the English Faculty Library! This edition was printed in 1562 by John Day, seven years after Latimer was burnt at the stake for heresy on Broad Street near Balliol college in Oxford. 

4) One of a series of letters written by Jane Austen to her niece Anna in 1814. St John’s College also owns a 1797 letter from Austen’s father, George, to a publishing house, offering them his daughter’s novel ‘Pride and Prejudice’ – they said no! 

5) Last but certainly not least in our list of old things, a book on Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules! Although still used in some select libraries, AACR and AACR2 were a cataloguing standard that have largely been superseded by machine-readable cataloguing, known as MARC 

 

On the Sixth Day of Libmas my library sent to me-  

Six Christmas data charts!  

With roast spuds as the top dish, average Christmas budget, most desired gifts, total UK Xmas spending, average Christmas dinner cost, and toys as largest gift spend! Sprouts beat mince pies…hmm? 

 

On the Seventh Day of Libmas my library sent to me- 

Seven damaged books! 

It’s inevitable that some of the Bodleian’s collections will become a little careworn, however, it’s important that they are able to keep circulating. This is when the lovely Bodleian conservation team step in! 

 

On the Eighth day of Libmas my library sent to me-  

Eight totes for packing!  

Artfully (?) arranged by a trainee into a very vague christmas tree shape, these totes contain books to be refiled in our Collections Storage Facility. 

 

On the Ninth day of Libmas my library sent to me- 9 ladies’ dancing (manuals)  

Exhibited in Blackwell Hall, Weston Library, ‘The Dancing Master’ was a widely popular manual of country dances, first published in 1651. 

The Weston Library is holding a Dancing Master’s Ball in January- join the waiting list here: The Dancing Master’s Ball | Visit the Bodleian Libraries (ox.ac.uk)  

Or learn more about the display: The Dancing Master | Visit the Bodleian Libraries (ox.ac.uk) 

 

On the Tenth day of Libmas my library sent to me-  

10 pre-Raphaelite murals! 

In 1857, 8 artists including Rossetti, Morris and Burne-Jones, painted the #OxfordUnion’s Old Library (then Debate Chamber). Their inexperience meant the art faded and some said it should be covered. 

Read more about the murals and the pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in Oxford here: OXFORD AND THE PRE-RAPHAELITES | Ashmolean Museum 

On the Eleventh Day of Libmas my library sent to me- 

Eleven (House of) Lords (Hansard parliamentary sittings reports) a-leaping (on to their trolley)! Did you know the Bodleian Law Library also houses the Official Papers collection? 

On the Twelth day of Libmas my library sent to me- 

Twelve libraries with trainees wish you a very merry Christmas!

Thank you all for reading our blog and engaging with our X posts over Michaelmas term. There is lots more to come in 2024, so watch this space!  

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from us! 

Michaelmas term round-up

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As the libraries empty out over the Christmas vacation, the trainees reflect on their first term.

 

A display including fact sheets and images of suggested titles such as Ableism in Academia and The Oxford Handbook of Disability History
The Disability History Month Display in the Old Bod Lower Reading Room

Christmas at the Old Bod has arrived, and although in the last week there have been fewer visitors, the reading rooms are still peopled with studious readers. I’ve put up some fabulous Christmas decorations (circa 1970), and the tree in the quad has drawn even more tourists in.

The past few months working at the Bodleian have been a lot of fun. One of my favourite activities has been making displays and advertising resources that the Bodleian has to offer, like my recent book display for UK Disability History Month . It means I get to interact with a wider variety of books from our vast collection. What it has fundamentally shown me is that my favourite part of working in a library is the opportunities you are given every day to help people!

Nia Everitt, Bodleian Old Library 

 

 

 

My first term at the Sainsbury Library has been busy with tasks varying from processing new books, weeding old journals, and creating and updating signs for the library (which sometimes involves warming up the laminator!). I have three main highlights so far:

  1. Creating a ‘How to Guide’ for readers with Sainsbury’s Circulation and Customer Services Librarian. The guide covers topics like setting up the university VPN, how to use PCAS services, and how to search, find, borrow and request books in our library. It is over 60 pages long and counting…
  2. Creating an AI book display which then led to creating an AI window display at the library entrance and now updating our Business of AI LibGuide to include books from the display and A visitor even came in asking about the display because they saw the post I wrote on our Sainsbury Library News blog.

Both projects have helped me to learn about the variety of support and services that the Bodleian provides. I have explored business databases, SOLO, ORLO, and other University of Oxford resources doing these two projects. I have realised that readers at Oxford have access to a wealth of resources but, through working on the enquiry desk, you come to realise how many readers do not know about it! So, the final highlight is:

  1. Helping a reader discover something they didn’t know before and helping them with problems they have accessing services.

The reader’s gratefulness after helping or even just visiting the library is like extra icing on a cake. The gratefulness is a reminder that helping someone in a way that, as staff we may feel is small or routine, such as scanning a chapter, telling someone about a useful LibGuide or just showing them where the printers are, can be quite significant for our readers.

Anna Roberts, Sainsbury Library

 

What a learning experience a term can be. ALMA, ORLO lists, law reports, legal databases, citation styles, serials processing, loose leaf binders: they were all quite new to me. Happily, thanks to the great training and brilliant support from library colleagues, they aren’t anymore. But never fear: the readers and the library keep coming up with new and intriguing conundrums (missing books, obscure queries, rare Bodcard colours…). I’ve loved assisting the students, faculty and visitors (there was one reader who was so enthusiastic when I showed them our bookable study spaces that I got the firmest handshake I have ever experienced!), but equally have come to really appreciate the mindful calm that can come from a book moving or filing spell (when not interrupted by an urgent scan request for use in court, or a group of new readers to guide round, or a puzzling mountain of books left somewhere seemingly at random – there’s always something going on!). And of course, our visits to the CSF, conservation studio and special collections were a real highlight. The term has certainly confirmed that I’d love a career in libraries, and I’m looking forward to the next term, when there will be a recurring display to organise, some more to learn about cataloguing, and a Libguide to write! Keeping busy…

Wanne Mendonck, Bodleian Law Library

 

A Christmas tree stands on a marble table in the Union Society Old Library. There are bookcases and decorative walls visible in the background.
Christmas tree standing on the mysteriously chimneyless fireplace in the Union Society Old Library.

Working for the Oxford Union Society Library is amazing! This term the Union was visited by Sir Roger Penrose, Nazanin Zaghari Radcliffe, Tom Hanks, etc and I have tried things I have never attempted before, such as creating displays – possibly my favourite task as I get to research everything from Victorian ichthyology to recreational drugs, Oxfordshire geology to gothic poetry, and medieval table manners to historical transgender figures. I had never used Twitter, never posted on Facebook, and had never run a professional Instagram account and this term I began running the Library’s (Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook). Training can be pretty interesting too; so far my favourite day has been the conservation day at the Weston Library where we learnt how books are fixed, what pests to look out for (we were handed round laminated insects e.g. silverfish), and about active and inactive moulds.

Connie Hubbard, Oxford Union Society Library

 

This term has been a wild ride. Alongside learning an incredible amount from my training process at All Souls, there have been some amazing events in the library such as a play, a visit from a youth orchestra and a formal dinner. We had over 700 new reader applications, over 1000 visitors to our open day and over 200 book requests. All in all, these first few months of my traineeship have been immensely positive. The day to day work has often been chaotic, but this meant I was rarely bored and always learning. I am very excited for the challenges Hilary term may bring, and feel ready to face them.

Elena Trowsdale, All Souls College Library

 

It’s hard to believe that it’s been three and a half months since my first day at the Rad Cam – the time has flown by! But when I stop and reflect, a lot has happened over this period, and I have learned a lot.

Besides some of the big stand-out moments from the training sessions, such as the tour of the CSF or our afternoon with Special Collections, I think the main highlights for me have been the pleasure of helping out readers and the variety of the work; my days regularly involve fielding enquiries at the circulation desk or reception, fetching and scanning books for Scan and Deliver, donning glamorous high vis and directing delivery vans through the quad, creating blog or social media content, processing new books, and more. I enjoyed getting to take on the responsibility recently of sorting out the HFL books for rebinding, and I’m really looking forward to getting started with my project next term.

Xanthe Malcolm, History Faculty Library

 

It’s safe to say that as my first full term as a trainee draws to a close, the experience has been jam-packed! From the day-to-day running of the EFL, to our weekly training sessions (not to mention the cheeky post-training pub trips) there’s always something going on, and always something new to learn. Looking back at my introduction post, I can easily say that I’ve enjoyed everything even more than I thought I would. Highlights being (of course) the tour of conservation studios; the opportunity to see incredible literary figures such as Philip Pullman; and learning more about the EFL’s collections through my project! Being a part of the traineeship has really cemented that I want to continue working in libraries and, having seen next terms’ training schedule, I’m even more excited for the new year.

Leah Brown, English Faculty Library

Bonfire Night and the Development of a Tradition

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5th November 1605. A day that would live on in a nation’s memory for centuries, encapsulated by a rhyme which few remember ever being taught:

Remember, remember the fifth of November. 

Gunpowder, treason and plot.

yellow flame
A modern Bonfire Night

Supposedly the nursery rhyme goes beyond these two sentences, however the passage of time has determined that only the first two are the most important.

For what is a rather macabre celebration, if you think too much into it, Bonfire Night is an incredibly fun night. Modern celebrations now revolve mostly around dramatic firework displays, at least this is the case in Oxford, but the bonfires remain. Over the years it has developed into one of Britain’s biggest commemorations, celebrated by children and adults equally.

We all know the story, how Guy Fawkes was discovered in the cellar, about to light the barrels of gunpowder, hoping to assassinate both King and Parliament. Following his arrest and the discovery of the plot, King James I (and VI) declared the 5th November to be a day of Thanksgiving to celebrate their escape from annihilation. And so, the tradition began. Guys in prams as children called ‘a penny for the guy’, homemade Guys placed onto bonfires to be lit, fireworks and sparklers.

5th November 1605, Journals of the House of Commons, Vol. 1 1547 – 1628, pp. 256 – 7, Official Papers, Bodleian Law Library.

 

Such events are a far cry from a locked shelf on the bottom floor of the Law Library, where the Journals of the House of Commons describe those hallowed events of November 4th/5th, 1605 [1].

It describes the arrest, as they discovered ‘One Johnson, Servant to Mr Thomas Percy’. John Johnson was the pseudonym which Guy Fawkes had picked (no relation to the John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera held by the Bodleian Library, although we would encourage you check that out!) [2]. It was picked because it was British and commonplace – one look at the Wikipedia page for ‘John Johnson’ and you will see he chose rightly.  Thirty-six barrels of gunpowder were found underneath the House of Commons with the intention of blowing up the ‘King, and the whole Company, when they should there assemble’. The origins of ‘The Plot’.

The House of Commons Journals are not the only contemporary artefact of the Plot nearby, as on another Oxford ground floor, only 15 minutes away, the Ashmolean Museum holds the iron lantern supposedly carried by Guy Fawkes the night of his arrest [3]. The lantern was gifted to the University in 1641, by Robert Heywood, whose brother Peter was one of those who discovered Guy Fawkes in the undercroft and, as the story goes, took the lantern off him, preventing him from setting off the gunpowder.

It was not the first of such attempts by Catholic conspirators to assassinate the Protestant King James, but perhaps it was how close they were to success that led James to proclaim a day of Thanksgiving. A celebration of his escape from death, but a warning too, to any conspirators who may follow.

The events of the night of the 4th/5th of November 1605 and those of 21st century Bonfire Night are hard to reconcile. While reading the Journals of the House of Commons, one cannot help but muse on the development of tradition.

Title page, Journals of the House of Commons, Vol. 1 1547 – 1628, Official Papers, Bodleian Law Library.

What if you’d told Guy Fawkes in October 1605, that his own name, not his pseudonym, would become a part of everyday conversation? Or, that he was the namesake of one of Britain’s most enduring holidays? He would surely assume it was for entirely different reasons than we remember.

The concept now, of celebrating a failed assassination attempt with bonfires and fireworks, is albeit an odd idea, but one only has to ask around the Oxford colleges to learn how much odder traditions survive. Such traditions are captured moments in time, perhaps not of the authentic activities, but of how societies viewed themselves.  Libraries hold a fundamental role in the safeguarding of tradition and staring at the House of Commons Journals brings a reminder of the vital role of information preservation in our world. Bonfire Night is a fascinating snapshot of what our ancestors believed would be important for our generations to remember. One wonders, in another 400 years, in another library, what events from our day will be written on the pages of tradition.

 

 

The Official Papers Collection is housed on the ground floor of the Bodleian Law Library. 

Official Papers | Bodleian Libraries (ox.ac.uk)

 

 

[1] 5th November 1605, Journals of the House of Commons, Vol. 1 1547 – 1623, pp. 256 – 7, Official Papers, Bodleian Law Library.

[2] About the John Johnson Collection | Bodleian Libraries (ox.ac.uk)

[3] GUY FAWKES’ LANTERN | Ashmolean Museum

Lara Hatwell, Bodleian Law Library

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Hello! I’m Lara, one of two trainees at the Law Library this year, alongside Wanne, who beat me to the punch with his introductory post!

Immediately before joining the trainee programme, I had just finished my undergraduate degree in Ancient and Modern History at Lincoln College  – so I haven’t travelled far! Despite this, I had never once set foot in the Law Library, and was pleasantly surprised with how it looked inside, as from the outside it looks rather square and imposing. As most young people who love books, I’d always entertained the idea of working in a library, but was unwilling to fully commit to taking another degree, without knowing whether library work was the right fit for me. While working in some other historic sights of Oxford, such as the Ashmolean Museum and Christ Church college, I saw the trainee programme and I knew it was an opportunity I couldn’t miss.

The rolling stacks of Official Papers

The two Law Library trainees are split between Information Resources (me) and Academic Services (Wanne). This means I am much more involved with initial processing of books, and have spent much of my first month labelling, stamping and figuring out how to work the printer (the labels always print slightly slanted so this is a much harder task than it first may appear). Aside from this, a rather unexpected, but particularly enjoyable undertaking has been the sorting of official documents sent from the Irish Government. This is because the Law Library is also home to Official Papers, which houses British and Irish parliamentary papers and publications of other international organisations such as the United Nations. I am acquiring niche knowledge on various Bills and Acts (such as in 2021 the Irish Government banned the import of non-native honeybees – Bill No. 133 of 2021), which I hope will one day be put to use in a dramatic final round of a pub quiz.

Over the past week, the library has begun to grow much more alive, having been quite quiet when we first started. It’s been great to chat to all the new and returning students, although it really is challenging my knowledge of where everything is – I promise I do usually know, what I have yet to work out is how to give easy-to-follow directions. In the coming months, I’m looking forward to exploring all the different facets of academic librarianship and mastering the ground plan of the library!

Wanne Mendonck, Bodleian Law Library

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Hello all! I’m Wanne, one of the two trainees in the Bodleian Law Library this year, working in its Academic Services department. We share our lovely Brutalist building with the English Faculty Library, and I’m getting rather attached to the soft greys and whites of the peaceful Law Library reading room!

The Bodleian Law Library Main Reading Room before readers arrive
The BLL Main Reading Room

The BLL holds a varied mass of legal material, from law reports and legal journals over monographs on Roman, International and European Union law to books on Criminology and Legal Philosophy/Jurisprudence. We’re also home to the Bodleian’s Official Papers collection, comprising Bills and Parliamentary debate records, Royal Commission reports, UN material, and much more.

All this is quite a new world for me (and much more varied than I had imagined – Law really does engage with all aspects of life, as they say). During the earlier half of this year, I was working in the collection logistics department of Cambridge University Library (book moving, fetching, and all that), and, before that, finishing a PhD in English Literature at Cambridge (delving into the socialist poets and novelists of the Victorian and Edwardian period, and relations between literary form and the structures of political thinking). It’s great to explore a new field of information and how it’s curated – I’m learning about law reports with their different levels of authority, the differences between Bills, Acts and Statutory Instruments, the intricate citation styles of EU treaties, and all kinds of (to me, at least) formerly somewhat mysterious publications. Even more than that, though, it’s a delight to get to know all the various tasks that come with librarianship – by actually doing them, through enquiry desk shifts, shelving, editing online reading lists, getting to grips with Alma (together with everyone in the Bodleian – which is quite encouraging), loose-leaf filing (surprisingly relaxing), book moving, giving introductory tours, scanning material, checking catalogue records, etc.

Several rows of bookcases filled with legal monographs and law reports
A view along our cases, from private law to UK law reports and legal journals

My personal highlight, so far, is working with the library’s people, both my new colleagues, who have already been more than generous with their time and help, and the readers – something I very much craved after 4 years of solitary research. The satisfaction that comes with actually being able to help a reader is wonderful, and I’ve enjoyed learning about the links between librarianship and teaching, too. I don’t doubt this year will bring much more surprises: I’m looking forward to delving a bit deeper into cataloguing, looking into the way the other Bodleian libraries (and the CSF) do their library thing, and maybe even getting creative with my trainee project!

Some colleagues at the Cam UL may have jokingly referred to my Oxford move as a minor act of treason, but I’m very glad I committed it (and grateful to the spirit of Bodley for having me)!