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Trainee Showcase 2025: Part 3

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

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

Written by Hannah Richmond

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lindsey Evans – A dive into archives and digitisation

Written by Harry Whattoff

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

The front page of the June 1908 issue of the Oxford Cosmopolitan, complete with a black and white globe logo

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

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

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

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

Written by Phoebe Lawson

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

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

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

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

A poster featuring a labelled diagram of a damaged book
Emma: Graphic design is my passion
A poster entitled 'books are friends not food!' that features a book being attacked by bugs
Don’t eat books, kids!

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

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

Zac Draysey – Building an LGBTQ+ History LibGuide

Written by Yasmeen Khan 

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

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

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

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

A screenshot of the LGBTQ+ History LibGuide homepage

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

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

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

Trainee Showcase 2025: Part 2

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

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

Written by Zac Draysey

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

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

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

Kate Hanson – Adventures in digitization

Notes by Gia Simmons, written by Yasmeen Khan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Written by Jake Banyard

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Written by Charlotte Edwards

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trainee Showcase 2025: Part 1

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The Next Few Posts

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

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

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

Now, without further ado, on with the showcase!

Charlotte Edwards – Student wellbeing at Sainsbury Library

Written by Yasmeen Khan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Elena Brearley – Zines and wellbeing in the Bodleian Old Library

Written by Lilly Wilcox

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Written by Lindsey Evans

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Written by Emma Brand

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

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

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

There are three critical things to know about this project:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

A Day in the Life of an Osney One Trainee

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07:55 – Arrival

Since we’re not beholden to specific opening/closing times at Osney One, we have a little more control over what time we choose to come into work. I usually aim to get in for an 8 o’clock start, but I could theoretically come in at 10 o’clock if I so wanted.

08:00 – Work begins!

Thursdays are special days in English Cataloguing, as they’re when we dismantle our Virtual Book Display (VBD) to send the current week’s Legal Deposit books to their new homes. It can be a bit of a fiddly process to sort out the different categories of books, but since this week’s VBD is quite small it shouldn’t take too long. First up are the Shared Cataloguing Programme books, which need to be given to specific cataloguers. I pick them off the shelf, put them onto their trolley, and wheel them over to their new overlords.

An image displaying eight shelves of books. Each of the books have different coloured pieces of paper sticking out of them.

08:10 – Picking out books

Next up in the process are the books picked by external libraries. As they need to be sent away as soon as possible, I pick them off the shelf, arrange them by library, and change their assigned locations via an immensely helpful spreadsheet. I then take them down to the post room, place them all into the appropriate boxes, and bid them farewell.

08:35 – More picking out books…

After finishing with those books, I pick out the remaining books that have been chosen for reading rooms. A few of them can be sent directly to their new homes, so I hand them to a colleague to alter their location in our records. I place the rest of them on the priorities shelf so that they can be catalogued and sent away as fast as possible.

08:55 – Even more picking out books…

Sometimes we get books that are specialised enough that they need a particular cataloguer to handle them, but as none fall into that category this week, I move on to the X Material. Sadly, this is not an off-brand superhero team, but the name we use for non-academic legal deposit books. After picking them off the shelf, I put them onto a trolley, wheel them over to my desk, and use the previously-mentioned spreadsheet to begin the process of sending them to the Central Storage Facility (CSF).

09:10 – The end of the VBD

At this point, all the rest of the books on the VBD shelves are destined for the CSF. Some can be sent there right away, so I count them, add them to a specific trolley, and wash my hands of them. I put the remaining books onto yet another trolley and wheel them over to my desk, changing their records to reflect the fact that they will remain in our backlog for the foreseeable future. Thus, the VBD is defeated and I can move on with the rest of my day.

9:45 – Cataloguing

Since I’ve finally finished with the VBD, I get on with some good old cataloguing. It’s become easier over time, but every couple of records I’ll find something strange and have to ask my colleagues for some advice. Today’s main issue is an ISBN in a downloaded record that seemingly only exists on Amazon Japan. After taking a moment to marvel at how someone even found it, I cause a bit of debate amongst my colleagues by asking whether or not the ISBN should be coded as being invalid.

13:00 – Lunch

One of the major perks of working out in Osney One is the fact that we sit right in the fork of a river and get to enjoy all the associated flora and fauna. Today, as it’s warm enough that I can sit outside without turning to ice, I grab my sandwiches, wrap up warm, and skedaddle over to our riverside patio to engage in my daily ritual of staring at the water while I eat.

13:30 – Classification

As my colleagues are terrifyingly efficient, many of the books destined for the Art, Archaeology and Ancient World Library are already awaiting classification when I return from my lunch break. As these books need to be classified according to an in-house scheme, I use a folder of shelfmarks to determine which location would best suit each book before assigning them their fate.

14:10 – Back to cataloguing

Since there are no other major tasks that need doing today, I spend the rest of the afternoon doing some more cataloguing. I get extremely distracted looking at an old auction catalogue at one point, but that’s par for the course in this job.

16:00 – Home time!

Like the time I choose to arrive, the time I choose to leave at the end of the day is also quite flexible – so long as I do my contracted hours of work, of course. I could choose to stay a little later to accrue some flexi, but I can feel my new game crying out for attention – and who am I to deny it? I say goodbye to my colleagues, sign out, and begin my journey home.

A Day in the Life (Social Science Library) 2.0

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08:00

Walk to work! The sense of excitement and looking forward to the day ahead usually hits when I come onto Broad Street and walk past the beautiful Bodleian and the Weston libraries.

 

08:45Photo of a long corridor of grey bookshelves along a grey carpet with a safety ladder in the middle.

Opening up time. I do this once a week with another colleague. I like to arrive first when the library is creepily empty and still, a good setting for a murder mystery novel…I turn on the self-issue machines and printers, login to the front desk computers, check the study carrel bookings and open/close them as required. After deleting any expired holds and dragging in the overnight returns box from reception, it’s time to declare the library open by activating the automatic doors.

 

9:00 – 09:15

Emails. The SSL graduate trainee is responsible for managing the main SSL queries inbox. We often get requests to book discussion rooms and study carrels, loan books to ARACU, and remotely extend loans to students overseas who are unable to return them. Occasionally, we receive emails from authors and publishers asking if we might like to buy their books – these get forwarded to the SSL Orders team or appropriate subject librarian, but not before I have admired their bold self-advertising skills!

 

09:15 – 10:00

Book processing. The workroom at the SSL is dominated by a massive shelf of books in various states of processing, several of which are assigned to the trainee. One is exclusively for labels which are wrong or have rubbed off and need replacing. There is also a ‘low priority’ and ‘high priority’ processing shelf for books which require tattle taping, stamping and plating.

In terms of cataloguing, the ‘full processing of holdings work required’ shelf involves adding the shelf mark, location, status, hardback or paperback and reading list code (if required) to the Aleph record before bringing the item into circulation. We also have a ‘processing Bodleian Outhoused’ shelf for books selected by subject consultants for housing in the SSL while they are of current interest to researchers. The SSL is taking part in a pilot scheme where new selections can be borrowed, so these require an additional cataloguing note to indicate them as part of the pilot.

 

10:00 – 11:00Photo of a large book shelf with books inside, and several processing trolleys in front

Issue desk! AKA processing returns, loaning books and equipment, handing out items from the stack and answering reader queries. At around 2pm, the new stack requests from the BSL are delivered – these require ‘checking in’ and ordering alphabetically on the shelves behind. You’ve also got to watch out for readers bringing drinks that are not in a KeepCup and deploy a stern stare now and then to keep the noise down.

 

11:00 – 11:20

A snack and a read on the comfy sofas of our staff break area.

 

11:20 – 12:30

Scan & Deliver. Due to staff illness, I have been helping with the fetching and scanning process of our Scan & Deliver service. Normally, I work on the ‘Deliver’ element, which I will explain later. I locate the items in the library which have been requested before using ‘Hex’, our super bookeye scanner, to create the scans. After a little editing, they are ready to go.

 

12:30 – 13:30

Lunch. The SSL is only a few minutes’ walk away from University Parks. Usually, I will take my lunch down there and have a walk (or a tiptoe when passing the local geese, as they always seem ready for violence). If the weather isn’t very nice, I might have a coffee at the Missing Been café in the St Cross Building up the road or the Weston, a bit further afield.

 

13:30 – 14:30wwe

Another issue desk shift (the graduate trainee will typically have 2 or 3 hourly shifts a day).

 

14:30

The post tray on the issue desk is usually brimming with parcels and letters by this time. I do my best to figure out what everything is and who it needs to go to. An added challenge is opening any packaging very carefully so that it can be re-used.

 

14:35 – 15:30

Scanning triage. This is the ‘Deliver’ part of the ‘Scan & Deliver’ service I mentioned earlier. I login to ‘Request Tracker’ and send off any scans that have been completed. I then triage new requests by checking that they fall under copyright law (readers can only request 5% or below of the total page count of the volume a book, or a single chapter) and that there are no alternative online resources on SOLO. The request can then be added to our ‘Fetching List’, for the scanning team to locate and scan on ‘Hex’.

 

Photo of a line of study desks with purple dividers between them. In the background, grey bookshelves full of library material.15:30 – 16:00

Missing book search. I wander sadly through the library looking for all the books on our ‘Missing Bookings’ list in the hope they have somehow made their way back to the shelf. One in particular, ‘The Mushroom at the End of the World’, has haunted me for a long time (if anyone has it at their library, please send it back!). I also get creative in terms of thinking how someone might have misinterpreted the shelf mark. I have an extremely low success rate, but it’s still quite fun…

 

16:00 – 16:20

Another break time. Usually a nap with my eyes open at this stage in the day.

 

16:20 – 16:30

A quick desk tidy, as it has started disappearing underneath tattle tape backing, chopped up bits of label and processing notes. A major part of the SSL work ethic is re-using everything that can possibly be re-used. You therefore have to have a long hard think before throwing anything into the recycling bin.

 

16:30 – 17:30

Projects. I am working on a number of projects currently. As part of the Technical Services team, I am ‘weeding’ books that need to be withdrawn or sent to the BSF, and converting hardly used Short Loans and Library Use Only material into Normal Loan. I am also working on another project to increase the accessibility of our resources by converting thousands of short loans into normal loans.

 

17:30

Home!

 

 

A Day in the Life (St Antony’s College Library)

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*Posted on behalf of Eleanor Winterbottom, the Library Apprentice at St Antony’s College Library*

Thursday 10th March 2022

Although I may not be a graduate library trainee, as a library apprentice my average working day is very similar to the graduate trainees in terms of structure and daily tasks. However, if you have read the other “Day-in-the-life” blogs you will understand by now that every college in Oxford is unique in its own little ways, and each library has its own system and “house-rules” that it applies in practice. Here is a day in my life as an apprentice library assistant at St Antony’s College.

9:00 – 9:30

St Antony’s College Library is open 24/7, so Aimee (the Librarian) and I never have to really “open-up” the library in the mornings. Usually when I arrive by 9:00 there are already some eager readers sat at their desks! I do though have a list of preparatory tasks that I complete each morning. If I am in before Aimee I will turn on the lights in the library office and open the blinds, before making my way down to the basement stacks to make sure the lights are all working and that no one has gotten themselves stuck between the book stacks (luckily this hasn’t happened on my rounds yet!) I will then walk the library and the Gulbenkian Reading Room (a study space which is also open 24/7), making sure there is enough ventilation, tidying desks and chairs and checking that there are no personal belongings left lying around, before collecting any books from the returns box. When Aimee arrives I will have a chat with her about any meetings, events or visitors we have scheduled during the day, before heading to my desk in the main reading room and writing myself a to-do list.

9:30 – 10:30

The first tasks that I do on any given working day is check and action any emails and go through the daily holdings report to see if any books have been requested by readers. There are no new holdings requests today, so I don’t need to worry about that. I then process all the returns, flicking through each book to check for bookmarks and put them on the trolley ready for shelving. Today is the due date for books currently out on loan so I have a lot to get through!

Four shelves of the New Book display, with books placed on stands so that you can see the front covers
The New Books display

10:30 – 11:30

Once I’ve finished the returns I get cracking on with any other tasks that need doing. Today I have a small pile of new books leftover from the day before that need to be processed, so I attach them to the correct bibliographic records on Aleph, choose an appropriate Library of Congress class mark for them (which can take a while when every library classifies something differently!) and stamp them before adding a spine label and putting them on the shelving trolley, while adding a couple to our New Books Display. The maps of the college that we have on the issue desk are a bit crumpled and one has some water damage, so I recycle them and replace them with new ones, and I remove any out of date posters and notices from the notice board.

11:30 – 12:30

Two sets of six shelves, filled with the library literature collection
The literature collection

I am usually working on a long-term project that I do alongside my daily tasks. My current project is going through the library’s literature section and adding them to the library catalogue. This section has not been a priority in the past, as literature is not really a subject covered at St Antony’s, but it would still be useful for the collection to be on the catalogue so that the students are aware it is there if they are interested. While working on this project we receive an email from the KB Chen China Centre Library, who are interested in acquiring some of our journals that are up for donation. The project I completed in Michaelmas term was going through all of our physical journals and periodicals and checking to see which ones are fully available online and in other libraries, so that we can consider donating them to make space for resources that are more likely to be of use to our students. I head down to the basement stacks to select the requested journals and email the CCL to let them know I will bring them round in the afternoon.

12:30 – 13:30

Lunch time! St Antony’s has a communal dining hall so staff, students, fellows and faculty all sit together. The noise is a strangely refreshing break from the quietness of the library, and it’s a good chance to catch up with colleagues over a plate of delicious hot food. As St Antony’s is a particularly international college the food reflects this, and we are lucky to get a choice between three hot meals of varying cuisine, sides, salad and fresh fruit! Before heading back to the library I pop into the lodge to check if any post has been delivered. No book deliveries today, but we do have some new journals that will need to go on display.

13:30 – 14:30

After lunch I head over to the KB Chen China Centre Library with the requested journals. This is my first time visiting this particular Bodleian library, so Minh, the librarian, kindly gives me a guided tour! When I return to St Antony’s I process the new journals and add them to the display in the main reading room. We insert pink slips into the latest edition, asking people to note when they use the journals so we can collect the data for our statistics. I take the opportunity to check if any new usages have been added and add the data to the statistics.

A view of the library from behind the desk, which shows a collection of newspapers, a roll of barcodes, stamps and ink pads, the computer and the library shelves in the background
My desk in the main reading room

14:30 – 17:00

As there are no new books to be processed and it is a quiet afternoon, I spend the last couple of hours of my shift doing work for my apprenticeship. This involves a number of different things, including working on my written assignments, writing up my reflective logs on my progress and what I have learnt so far, as well as reading and research. I do this at my desk in the main reading room, so I am always juggling this with enquiries from readers who need help with printing, finding specific texts or greeting and having a quick chat with our regulars! At 5pm my work day is finished, and I pack up my desk, say goodbye to Aimee (who always works later than she should!) and head home. I’m looking forward to tomorrow where I will be meeting the graduate trainees after work at G&D’s for ice-cream!

A Day in the Life (Bodleian Law Library)

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Looking down on the law library's main reading room - there are rows of large wooden desks, with bookshelves in the background. This photo was taken earlier in the year, so some areas are blocked off with red and white tape due to Covid restrictions.

If you’re familiar with this blog, you’ve probably gathered by now that there are two Law trainees. Law is a large library, with a team working in three subsections: Academic Services (where Josie is based), Information Resources (where Jess is based), and Official Papers (technically a separate collection housed within the library, with a small team of its own). Although we share some tasks and both spend time out on the enquiry desk, there are some general differences between the two positions – the IR trainee is generally surrounded by various stages of book processing, while the AS trainee shares an office with the librarians responsible for delivering the LRMSP, an undergraduate legal research course. With that in mind, here are two days in the life at the LawBod!

8.45

Josie: I arrive at the library and make my way up to my office on the second floor, opening any windows I pass along the way. Depending on who’s already here, there may be some reshelving to do as well – although restrictions have eased a lot since the start of our traineeship, we still have some variable working patterns going on, so the division of opening-up duties changes from day to day.

Jess: I pack my things away in my locker, hanging up my coat and heading out to open some of the Law Library’s many windows. I keep an eye out for any shelving before heading up (or down) to the Information Resources office.

9.00

Josie: The first thing I do after catching up on emails and messages is check the scan request queues. Although I’m not involved in triaging requests for the library, I do a lot of the scanning, so it’s useful to know if much will come my way later in the day. Beyond this point, the shape of my day is largely determined by my fluctuating ability to sit still and focus on spreadsheets. I really appreciate being able to manage my own time here – I work on a variety of long-term projects, so once I’ve accounted for things like meetings and desk shifts, I can play it by ear and go wherever I’ll be most productive for the next while.

Jess: I clear any new emails and Teams messages, checking to see how much is on each of the shelves in the WIP (work-in-progress) room I have responsibility for, as well as the enquiry desk rota, before drawing up a schedule of tasks for the day.

9.10

Josie: I’m currently working through a trolley of jurisprudence books, part of our ongoing reclassification project. This is a good task to fill an hour or so, as there’s only so much legal philosophy I can google or translate my way through before everything starts turning to word soup.

Jess: Schedule in hand, I start the day by gathering up any books ready for labelling on the designated shelf. We have two different labels types, depending on whether a book is likely to be reclassified in the somewhat near future (more on that later) or not. I fill in the shelfmarks for the new books before printing two sheets of labels. I affix each new label to the relevant spine or the front cover if a shelfmark is particularly long (looking at you EuroComm) or a book is particularly short. Any shelfmark we expect to be correct for some time has a label protector placed over it to keep it legible for years of readers to come. These then go on yet another shelf where someone from Academic Services checks them in order to catch the (hopefully occasional) errors that seep in despite my best efforts. They are then shelved for our readers to find.

10.00

Josie: Every Monday the AS staff have a short meeting over Teams, catching everyone up on the past week’s activities and giving a heads-up for any upcoming absences or unusual occurrences. I take minutes for these and upload them to the Teams channel shortly afterwards. Once a month, I go straight from this to taking minutes for the Bodleian’s ORLO Operations Group meeting, which lasts through to lunchtime and involves many more acronyms. (ORLO = Oxford Reading Lists Online, interactive reading lists which link directly to access points for online resources). 

Jess: We usually have the Law Library staff meeting on a Thursday, where Helen Garner – the fabled Law Librarian – updates us on all the relevant changes and goings-on in both our own library and the Bodleian at large. This year, there has been plenty of information about the various changing COVID procedures and restrictions as well as questions around journals, online resources, and more. 

10.45

Josie: I keep working on the jurisprudence books for now, as I’ll be going over my suggested new shelf marks with the IR librarian tomorrow. However, being part of AS means that it’s not unusual for someone to drop by the office or message me on Teams with a quick job to do instead – getting ahead on admin for next term’s LRMSP sessions, fixing glitchy columns in the tea room budget spreadsheet, and testing out new hiring or induction materials are all part of a day’s work.

Jess: A quick stop for tea and a book. At present, I’m (very happily) weighed down with the tome that is Shamsur Rahman Faruqi’s The Mirror of Beauty. 

11.05

The Bookeye scanner and a computer sit on a wooden desk. There is a large journal resting on the scanner, and a scanned image on the computer screen.
The Bookeye scanner (and an unusually large journal)

Josie: There are few scan requests ready and waiting, so I make a note of the details and go searching for books. Most issues get ironed out by the triage team, but a little detective work is occasionally needed – I once spent most of a desk shift using an incomplete citation to track down a Scottish law report from 1807!

We’re lucky to have a high-tech Bookeye scanner, which can split double pages, crop messy edges, and automatically makes files OCR accessible. Once the scans are done, I use a PDF editor to double-check for missing pages and reduce the file size, then fill in our record of completed scans and add the file to our repository in case it’s requested again. When the same scan is requested by multiple people, it’s often related to a particular course, so it’s useful to already have a good-quality scan that can be sent out again or potentially go straight onto ORLO or LB4S (LawBod 4 Students – more on that later).

Jess: I take an hour to complete various smaller tasks that need managing around the office. I stamp, add security, and label any books that have arrived via purchase or donation – often much smaller than our copyright deliveries. I print some new bookplates for our generous series of donations from the Supreme Court of Korea, which have their own unique design and are possibly the only thing I print in colour. I check up on the status of books that have not arrived from previous copyright deliveries, making sure they are still on their way to us and haven’t ended up at the BSF. I fix any incorrect labels, and make new ones for books that have been spotted with theirs peeled off. 

12.00

Josie: I’ll be on desk at one, so – depending on how long the scans take, and how many times the PDF editor crashes in the process – I aim to take my lunch at around noon. It’s easy to spend the whole day inside, so I’m making more of an effort to take my book and lunch outside as the weather improves.

Jess: Since Thursday is Josie’s day at the SBS, I gather up the day’s scan requests so far to avoid them returning to a large stack.

1.00

Josie: Time for my desk shift! Most enquiries tend to be about navigating the library, although as we’re currently in a vacation period, the number of students in search of PCAS machines and reading list materials has somewhat decreased. I give a quick summary of the library’s layout to a visiting researcher, direct someone asking about Ted Hughes across the building to the English Faculty Library, and take another reader down to the ground floor to help them find a report in the Official Papers collection.

Jess: Thursday afternoons often hold cataloguing lessons. I’m learning to create basic records for a variety of items, known as Minimal Level Records. These records contain key information about the item’s title, author, publisher etc., allowing it to be located by any reader looking specifically for that item, or items by that author, but miss a lot of the detail in a full record (such as Library of Congress subjects) that are helpful for resource discovery when researching. However, they are an ideal place to start learning to catalogue! I create new records for a small stack of Official Papers material; going through the first few record creations in detail with Tanya before leaving me to finish the rest of the stack without supervision to check for errors later (is this homework?). 

2.00

Josie: Between enquiries, my usual desk task is an LB4S checking project. Since it’s important that law students learn to find their own resources, a lot of the undergraduate courses don’t get ORLO lists. However, we still need a way to supply digitised versions of required readings that aren’t widely accessible (the Law Quarterly Review, for example, has a 35-year gap in its online provision), so there’s a designated LB4S section on each course’s Canvas site. Since it’s been a chaotic couple of years for online resource provision, my job is to work through each course and make sure that everything is in order on the copyright side of things, as well as generally tidying up the pages and checking for any resources that have become available online since being uploaded.

A kickstool and trolley filled with books sits between aisles of rolling shelving. Some of the shelves are full, some are empty.
Moving books in the rolling stacks

Jess: A late lunch today, as I find that keeps my energy up for my evening shift. I occasionally drop by the EFL, just a staircase away, in order to exchange my poetry reads. 

3.00

Josie: After desk, I take a tea break and check the post room for blue BSF crates before deciding how to spend the afternoon. It’s been a few days since I got round to one of my other ongoing tasks, so I find an empty trolley on the ground floor and start moving some books. As a legal deposit library, we keep all the up-to-date publications on the upper floors, but also hoard superseded editions and early journals down in the rolling stacks. Inevitably, there are some overcrowding issues, so we’re working through a several-step plan to get what space we have into a more useful location. There’s something very satisfying about closing up the shelf space left for a report series we haven’t received in hard copy since the mid-2010s, but metal shelving is unforgiving of clumsiness – the clanging occasionally attracts a lost reader.

A trolley full of new Law books. Each book has a different-coloured paper slip inserted.
VBD books, ready to be processed

Jess: Usually by this point of the day, the post has arrived! The ‘Virtual Book Display’ is a list of all the legal deposit books the Bodleian has received that week, and Felicity, head of all things in Information Resources, selects the law-relevant titles that then arrive on a Thursday. I record which ones have arrived using a traffic light system on my spreadsheet, having a weekly check of any missing titles to see if they have found their way to another library or the BSF – and sometimes the shelves! Each book receives stamps and security measures before being placed on the designated VBD shelf where the library’s cataloguers – Tanya and Rebecca – pick them up. Whilst the size of this delivery varies week-on-week, it’s usually sizeable – I often process several hundred books a term!

4.30

Josie: Law books tend to be heavy, so I’m careful to leave off the book moving before overdoing it. For the last part of the day, I head back to the office and clear up any leftover tasks – shelving in the main reading room, another scan or two, or working on a blog post like this one.

Jess: Break time! I devour a quick chapter of my book and a fortifying snack. 

4.50

Jess: I tie up any loose ends at my desk before prepping my trolley for my evening desk shift.

5.00

Josie: Once a week I stay on for an evening shift, but not today! I finish off whatever I’m currently working on, make a quick note of anything I ought to prioritise tomorrow, then sign off for the day and head home.

Jess: Late shifts are shared out between members of library staff, and Thursday is my anointed day. There are often fewer reader enquiries at this hour, so I head to the Jurisprudence section to pick up the thirty-two titles on my sheet. My temporary stealing of books from the shelves is part of the MOYS reclassification project – the library is changing over from its old shelfmark style to a new one (MOYS, hence the name) which is a Library of Congress style system designed specifically for law books. I check over tables of contents, introductions, and skim over a few chapters to get a sense of which shelfmark is right, going outside of jurisprudence where needed – and if a book is particularly opaque, I’ll dig further. The library has many foreign language holdings, so I also have a bookstand at the ready to use DeepL to supplement my language skills –French, German, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese are most common, with some surprises! I keep a running Word document with various keywords in an attempt to improve my language skills and I like to think I am starting to get a foothold in my incredibly specific vocabulary – I cannot tell you what the verb for ‘to eat’ is in German, but I can recognise the word for ‘constitution’ about 50% of the time…

7.00

Jess: Time to go home! As my longest day of the week, I usually reward myself with pizza – and get my hours back in exchange by way of an early 3PM finish on Tuesdays.

A page of of circular test stamps, with the words 'Bodleian Law Library', various dates from September 2021, and a letter P for Purchased Copy in the centre,

 

A Day in the Life (Pembroke College Library)

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A Day in the life

Today is a Thursday and it’s Easter vacation and we only have a few readers in.

This means the librarian and I can tackle projects which we cannot do during term time, such as devising weeding strategies for overcrowded subject sections, addressing inclusivity in our collections, reclassifying, collection stocktakes, special collections research etc.

Hopefully this day in the life offers a glimpse into the variety that comes with being a college trainee, and also what trainees can get up to in vacation time since this is often not mentioned on the blog.

8.25 am

Arrive at Pembroke. I say hello to the porters and pass by the bust of William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, who also stands guard in the Bodleian’s quad. Escaping William Herbert, I walk through Old Quad and to the library. I set up base camp for the day in my office which I share with Laura, the college librarian. On Thursdays and Fridays, I say hello to the college archivist who lives next door in the library building. Since, Thursday is today, I say hello to the archivist.

William Herbert was lovingly restored by our archivist  Photo credit: Pembroke College, University of Oxford

8.30am – My day starts

8.30 – 8:40am

I start by looking at my emails (personal and library inbox) and the shared library and archives outlook calendar. We have a conservator visiting in the afternoon. I answer emails and flag complex emails which require more thought, such as missing book claims or special collections queries.

If today were a Friday, I would gather the temperature and humidity data from the Tiny Tag data loggers that are placed in our rare books room and stack. I would download their data and record them in a folder and then analyse trends in temperature and humidity.

8:40 – 8:55am

I tidy the reservations shelf and download an Aleph recalls report and update circulation. I refill the library’s printer.

8:55-9:30am

Shelving …

Depending on the time of term, I can walk into the library met by mountains of books, so I time manage accordingly.

Today, I am met by only a fair few books. I check in these books on Aleph and place them aside to shelve immediately after.

It is good to get shelving done before the majority of students arrive. Although, it’s important to remember that shelving is a continuous task and to not let it dictate your working day. As I shelve, I am often met by stray books which I re-shelve.

9:30-10:30am

I check the library’s pigeon hole for post and deliveries. Two boxes stare at me. This means one thing – book deliveries, and processing. This can be a lengthy process.

I attempt to open the parcels neatly, I fail. I discard a now tattered cardboard box in the recycling bin. I cross reference these books with our budget spreadsheet. I check to see if any of the book deliveries are requests and will process these books first. This often leads to mysterious cataloguing encounters which are best worked through with coffee. Today, however, I only have a few requested books to process, some for fellows and some for students.

One requested book is about the symbolism of the colour green in art history. As an art history graduate, I am obviously distracted by the book. But, I resist from reading and process promptly and inform the student that it is ready for borrowing. I place the book on our reservations shelf.

I update the budget and file the delivery invoices.

10.30 -11.00am

Planning the afternoon, ahead!

Completing the essential library duties, and because it is vacation time, I now have freedom to plan my day in accordance to my individual trainee project and ongoing projects be this: stocktakes, collections management & development, reclassification, preparing displays etc. Often, I reserve afternoons to do my homework for the Bodleian Cataloguer training.

I often plan to do a little task of my trainee project every few days. This approach also works well with large projects.

11.00-11.40am … John Hall

Photo credit: Pembroke College, University of Oxford

Planning project work, I suddenly remember seeing a portrait in college of the individual that my trainee project is revolved around. It’s almost as if the portrait haunts me.

I then find the portrait of John Hall on Art UK. Hall’s serious stare reminds me to crack on exploring his collection. I don’t argue, and dutifully contemplate my trainee project.

My trainee project sees me investigate and manage the Right Reverend John Hall’s (Bishop of Bristol and Master of Pembroke, 1664–1710) book collection. The collection has not been looked at in decades, so I am the lucky person to manage and research it!

At the beginning of Hilary Term, I started to ask myself: In our stack, do we have the Hall collection that our card catalogues from the 1970s recall that we have, and do we have what John Hall’s 1709 catalogue records? Also, some of Hall’s book have remnants of a chain which makes me question whether Pembroke once had a chained library. I contemplate these questions. Getting to know Hall is fun, he is an interesting character who paid for the completion of Old Quad and his lodgings, which is now the Samuel Johnson Building. The cobbles on Pembroke Square still show the path from the front door of Hall’s Lodgings to St Aldates church. This path is smoother than the cobbles to

ensure that Hall didn’t trip whilst walking to church.

I evaluate the progress I have made so far, asking how far I have come to solve these questions, whilst examining, with fresh eyes, my excel database that I have made, and what I am to do with this moving forwards.

11.40-11.55am

A fellow comes by the office with their new book. It’s about interpreters in 16th century China and relationships between China and Britain. I then answer emails.

12.00-1.00pm

Lunch in hall! A nice moment to eat with the entire college staff across all departments.

1.00-3.00pm … Special collections! Rare books, Samuel Johnson, French clocks and knife boxes 

It’s Easter vacation and the few readers we had in the morning have now trickled out. In this afternoon of quietness, I assist the librarian and archivist with our special collections. Typically afternoons during term would consist of more shelving, book processing and be mostly reader services orientated. However, today is rather different.

I help the librarian with attempting to identify strange glitter-like markings which we find in one of our rare books. Is it recent graffiti, or ink that has changed colour over time? New College Notes 10 (2018), no. 6 helps us to figure out what is at play. It turns out we unexpectedly found traces of ‘pounce’. (I will let you read New College’s brilliant article to discover what pounce is). I later assist Amanda, the archivist, to photograph the conditions of Samuel Johnson’s writing desk, a French late 19th century Louis XV style clock and George III mahogany and tulipwood banded knife boxes. The furniture conservator arrives and I have a nice chat with them about his work. I worked with the Furniture History Society during my master’s, so it’s fun to be able to apply what I learnt during that time.

A highlight of my traineeship has been understanding and exploring what collections work is, and can be.

3:00-3.15pm

I tidy my office and sort out the towering stacks of old journals. They are economics and biology journals, but the odd British history journal catches my eye.

In the spirit of tidying, I then organise a pile of donations. I give them a new home, a.k.a one of my empty shelves. This donation consists of a bunch of Lord of the Rings, and Middle Earth related books. I then draw Gandalf to accompany their new home, next to my desk.

“You shall not pass!”: Gandalf protecting the donation

Earlier on in Hilary, I showcased our collection of Tolkien letters to Sophie, the trainee at the EFL. It’s always nice to find yourself working with Tolkien related material.

3.15-3.30pm

This term, I have been handed the reigns of purchasing acquisitions. I order a list of requested books for students and fellows. I update the budget accordingly.

3.30-3.45pm … I set a test for myself – “can I find these objects?”

In moments of peace, which is a world away from the busy Michaelmas term, I sometimes reserve a small moment of the week to have a general explore of the stack.

This may seem an odd thing to do, but I find that practising the ability to locate objects deep down in stacks, not only familiarises myself with Pembroke’s collections (which is handy for enquiries) but it makes me more efficient at collections work. After all, being able to locate objects and information is a skill. Plus, it’s fun!

I scan through the special collection catalogues. I jot down interesting rare books and objects making note of their classification and then head down to the stack to find them. I once found a 19th century judge’s wig.

Today, I locate a collection of military medals, including an OBE awarded to a “college servant”; his medal is paired with “his licence to occupy a College room”. I jot down his name to find in The Gazette (this is where the king’s/queen’s New Year and Birthday honours lists are published) to research at a later date.

3.45-4.35pm

I read the new module of my cataloguing training and take notes. I plan how to approach the practical elements which I will do tomorrow. I find cataloguing rewarding work – making information discoverable and accessible is hugely fulfilling.

4.35-5.00pm

I finish my remaining admin. There are no new books to shelve, so I catch up with my emails. I then do a final sweep of the reading rooms and tidy up. I jot down tasks to do tomorrow.

5.00pm

Home time!

 

 

 

 

A Day in the Life (New College Library)

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The day-to-day life of a graduate library trainee can be really varied, especially in college libraries, and my role at New College Library is no exception. I’ve written about a typical day containing all my usual tasks, but, in reality, what my days look like depends so much on whether the students are on vacation, whether we have an exhibition approaching, or what point in the term we’re at. During vacations, I am freer to work on projects that might otherwise be more disruptive for readers, such as stock checking or re-spacing shelves, or might take me away from my desk in the library office to consult a manuscript in our Special Collections Reading Room, or help to film a video for our Curators’ Choice series.

Although New College Library doesn’t have an information desk, our library office is very open and right next to the library entrance hall so it’s easy for readers to come and ask questions. This is the room where I spend most of my time and the first place I go when I arrive in the morning…

09:00 My day starts with a brief look at my emails and email calendar to see if there’s anything happening that day that I should know about. The thing to look out for is whether we have any readers coming in to look at special collections, as this requires a bit of preparation. Then I log on to the college intranet to book my (free!) lunch.

09:15 Then it’s time to retrieve the Click and Collect requests from the library shelves. This was an initiative started in the pandemic when library use was more restricted, but it remains popular, so we’ve decided to keep it going. Every morning I pick up a selection of requested books, and leave them, labelled, on a trolley in the entrance hall for readers to collect.

Some of the special collections stored in the bell tower

10:00 After these initial morning tasks, I have more flexibility to structure my own day. At this point in the morning, I might take a trip to the bell tower in college, to pick up some manuscripts or early printed books.  Readers come in to consult items from our special collections at least once or twice a week and one of my jobs is to collect items from the bell tower so that they can temporarily be stored in our Special Collections Reading Room. When this room is being used, there is always a member of library staff present to help with enquiries and keep an eye on the rare books. If I’m doing this, I can do stationary and laptop-based tasks as well, like checking reading lists against our collections, or writing blog posts like this one!

 

Our current exhibition, displaying items from New College Library’s Mann Collection.

10:30 If there’s no one looking at special collections, I’ll spend the rest of my morning getting on with work in the library office. Being based here means I’m often needed to respond to readers’ questions, but, when I’m not doing that, I work on creating posts for our social media channels (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter) plan for displays or exhibitions, or write some exhibition captions.

 

13:00 It’s lunch time! After I’ve eaten there’s often time to go into town to run a few errands, but, once the weather warms up, I’m looking forward to being able to enjoy the sunshine in the gardens at college.

14:00 Sometimes, generally in the afternoons, we host private viewings of the best parts of our special collections, either for societies or as part of a course module. These are really fun to set up as we get an in-depth look at so many great manuscripts all at once, and it’s a highlight of my job to then be able to share them with such enthusiastic readers.

Highlights of the most recent book delivery include a first edition of Evelyn Waugh’s Love Among the Ruins, and texts on a range of subjects, from The Faerie Queene to Gandhi.

If we have no out of the ordinary events happening in the afternoon, I can devote my attention to the post and unpacking all the new books, which have usually arrived by this time of day. The size of delivery can hugely vary: the most I’ve dealt with at once has been about 40 books, but normally it’s between five and ten books. The journey of a book from parcel to library shelf (also known as ‘processing’) is one in which I’ve invested many hours, but, in a nutshell, I unpack the books, write an accession card for them, catalogue them (if I can), stamp, tag, label, and cover them, and they’re ready to go!

16:30 Once I’ve finished book processing, there’s usually a bit of time to tidy up any unfinished tasks from the morning and clear any expired Click and Collect requests from the trolley, until it’s time to go home at 17:00.