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Trainee Showcase 2026: Part 3

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Using Special Collections for Teaching

Amy, Christ Church Library

Written by Rebecca 

Engaging with special collections material often requires specialist skills, and the best way to acquire these is practical experience. Hands-on teaching is therefore central to undergraduates’ learning experience, building their confidence and preparing them for independent research. To pre-empt requests from tutors, Amy spent her traineeship planning displays carefully tailored to Prelims and Final Honours Scheme (FHS) syllabi. 

 

The title page of 'The Starry Messenger', a seventeenth-century tract written to interpret a recent astronomical phenomenon.
The Starry Messenger, William Lilly, Wellcome Collection, CC PDM 1.0. 

Christ Church Library caters to many disciplines but is particularly well-placed to support humanities subjects. Amy began by identifying modules across four subjects (History, English, Music, and Geography) where special collections formed a component of undergraduate studies. For each selected module, she created a longlist of potentially relevant works, selected ones that were suitable for teaching, and wrote up new captions where needed (88 in total!). In the process, she unearthed various treasures, including The Wonderful Discoverie of the Witchcrafts of Margaret and Phillip and The Starry Messenger (pictured). 

After surveying the selected items, she was able to finalise plans for thirteen displays. Each corresponded to a module, such as ‘The Scientific Movement in the 17th Century’ (BA History FHS Special Subject), ‘The Renaissance Madrigal’ (BA Music FHS), or ‘Historical Geography’ (BA Geography Prelims and FHS). These featured include items on faculty reading lists, works by named authors, and other potentially relevant items. For example, for ‘Gender and Protestant Cultures in England, 1558-1659’, Amy selected a mid-16th century manuscript copy of Katherine Parr’s Prayers or Meditations. This is the first work ever published by an English woman under her own name! 

Amy’s hard work has produced a valuable set of resources that serve as a blueprint for future work (should any future trainees want to pick up where she left off). The displays will hopefully inspire both tutors and undergraduates to explore Christ Church’s overlooked collections. 

Meinen lieben Eltern!: Cataloguing 155 Doctoral Theses (in German, French, Spanish, and Dutch)

Gemma, Law Library

Written by Amy Fry

Gemma’s project involved creating and updating catalogue records for a collection of antique legal theses in the Law Library. There are 14450 foreign theses at the library dating from the 1850s to the 1930s and mostly in French and German, which can currently be browsed by going onto their website and using the ‘Search foreign dissertations’ page. These items are taking up a lot of space, but before they are sent to the Collections Storage Facility (CSF) for off-site housing, they need to be properly catalogued. Gemma identified that there were over 100 records that had insufficient data to allow for CSF processing. 

A photo of a catalogue record for these theses with generic sample text filled in.
A blank example of the Alma record that Gemma was creating.

Thus, her task was to locate all of the missing data, by examining the items herself, and then to add it to the catalogue entry on Alma, our Library Management System. 

However, the task was not without its challenges. These dissertations are not in English, so Gemma had to stretch herself to work in languages in which she was not fluent. Further, she had to assign the theses subject areas, a very important aspect of cataloguing that allows for a better browsing experience, but, as many cataloguers would tell you, a surprisingly tricky one. In total, she catalogued 155, and succeeded in refining the catalogue by eliminating duplicate entries and existing errors in the entry fields.

Gemma showed us some highlights that she had found when assessing the theses. These involved touching dedications to parents and siblings, some of which show their era with marks of respect to those who died in the First World War.

Page saying, in French, "In memory of my dear brother Emile le Corre, law student, Sergeant in the 91st Infantry regiment, killed in action on 20th October 1917, awarded the Croix de Guerre with palm, mentioned in dispatches by the Sixth Army in the following terms: “On 7th October 1916, he bravely captured a German machine gun battery, turned it around and used it to our advantage. He left the lines carrying this machine gun under fire and brought it back to the rear.” 
In memory of my dear brother Emile le Corre, law student, Sergeant in the 91st Infantry regiment, killed in action on 20th October 1917, awarded the Croix de Guerre with palm, mentioned in dispatches by the Sixth Army in the following terms: “On 7th October 1916, he bravely captured a German machine gun battery, turned it around and used it to our advantage. He left the lines carrying this machine gun under fire and brought it back to the rear.” 
Photograph of the title: MEINEN LIEBEN ELTERN! Translated to English To my dear parents.
To my dear parents 

Another fascinating discovery was seeing evidence of students who had travelled far to make their studies possible: students from Greece to Germany, from Japan to France.

Photograph of the title "Dr Georg-August-Universität zu Göttingen vorgelegt von Agis P. Tambacopoulos aus Athen." Translated to English: Submitted to the Georg August University of Göttingen by Agis P. Tambacopoulos from Athens.
Submitted to the Georg August University of Göttingen by Agis P. Tambacopoulos from Athens

Looking to the future, there is scope to develop what this project started, by cataloguing the non-dissertations and creating more records, before the move to the CSF.  

Gemma’s project was really interesting for a variety of reasons. Firstly, from a nerdier library perspective, it demonstrated the importance of proper cataloguing in order to make items both searchable, and to enable them to be more effectively housed offsite. However, it also reminded us of the human side of libraries and the items that they hold, with the moving familial dedications and the evidence of life behind academia. 

The Many Books of the Bennigsen Donation and How to Process Them 

Summer, Social Science Library 

Written by Summer Mainstone-Cotton

I had the dubious honour of being the only trainee this year who didn’t present at the showcase, the consequence of leaving the trainee programme at the end of May for permanent employment with the Bodleian. As such, I thought I’d take the opportunity to detail my trainee project here instead: 

Back in the spring of 2025, a donor got in touch with the Bodleian regarding his late wife’s book collection. His wife, Marie Bennigsen-Broxup, was an expert on the Caucasus and Central Asia, particularly on Muslim resistance within the former Soviet Union. Her collection consequently contained a wealth of rare and potentially invaluable material for the Bodleian’s collections. There was, however, one small problem: the collection contained more than 70 shelves of books and journals, with plenty of material that was not relevant to the Bodleian. Rather than transporting around 1,700 books to the Social Science Library (SSL) and sorting through them there, the subject librarian for Slavonic and East European Studies travelled to the donor’s house and photographed the shelves. This meant that the collection could be assessed digitally before deciding which books were worth bringing back to the library. However, the process of sorting through hundreds of images of books (264 photos were taken) and transcribing all legible bibliographic data is a long and arduous task, and so the images were left to collect digital dust until someone had too much time on their hands.

Jump forward to November 2025, where I was firmly settled into my trainee role at the SSL and needed a project, the perfect opportunity for this project to land on my desk. Luckily, I only had to work on the texts that were written in Latin script, as my Cyrillic is non-existent. Over the course of about three months (minus time for Christmas), I carefully trawled through the photographs, noting down any information on the title, author, publisher, place of publication, date of publication, ISBN, and any notable physical descriptions of the texts. While this task was mostly straightforward, it did involve some investigative elements – quite a few of the spines were only partially legible due to lighting, wear and tear. For example, I may have had only the author’s surname and a publisher to go on when trying to identify a text. Once I had enough information to determine the text, I would then check to see if it was listed on SOLO and already part of the Bodleian’s collections.

A shelf full of potential donations which needed sorting.
An example of the photos I was working from

While I know little about this subject area, some of the texts chosen seem obviously relevant just from their titles, such as Muslim Eurasia: Conflicting Legacies and The Soviet Empire: A Study in Discrimination. Notably, we did not take Delia’s Complete Cookery Course or Slow Cooker Favourites from the offered collection, but don’t worry, I have checked and both of these titles are already in the Bodleian Libraries’ collection. 

…and with that, we’re done!

Unfortunately this is our last post as trainees before we scatter to new roles, within Oxford and beyond. Thank you to everyone who’s supported us as we found our feet within libraries, and especially thank you to anyone still reading; it’s nice to think we’re not posting into the void! Huge congratulations to the new trainees who’ll be starting soon – we hope this won’t be the last you see of us, but in case it is, good luck and we hope you have a fantastic year.

Somewhere the library has every book ever written, that will ever be written, and, notably, every book that it is possible to write. These are not on the public shelves lest untrained browsing cause the collapse of everything that is possible to imagine.

Terry Pratchett, Going Postal
The 2025/26 trainees, in the Divinity School.
Goodbye!

Trainee Showcase 2026: Part 2

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Working With Livres d’Artiste: a Tale of Creative Outreach and Organising

Jules, Taylor Institution Library

Written by Heidi Cruft

Jules presents to a group of poets and artists, at the Weston Library. Special collection items from the Strachan Collection and the Weston's collections are laid out on the table.
Jules introducing local poets and artists to special collections on the ‘Myths, Beasts, Artist’s Books’ creative outreach day

Jules’ project involved organising a creative workshop and exhibition for the Strachan Collection, a selection of livres d’artiste currently housed in the Art, Archaeology and Ancient World Library. Throughout their presentation, Jules’ enthusiasm for both creative outreach and special collections really shone through, and I will try my best to do their attitude justice here! 

Although Jules organised several events related to the collection, including a staff taster session and a show-and-tell for French and History of Art students, the centre of their project for me was the workshop: Myths, Beasts, Artist’s Books. Bringing local poets and artists together with the Strachan Collection, the day was divided between an introduction to the special items and a collaborative creation session. By the end of the day, the group had created five artist’s books inspired by the collection, and some participants went on to attend a letterpress workshop to produce colophons for their finished books. 

three groups of poets and artists work together on their creative pieces. They are all painting, talking, drawing, or writing, on a busy table cluttered with creative detritis.
Poets and artists creating their responses during ‘Myths, Beasts, Artist’s Books’

What impressed me most was just how much behind-the-scenes organisation and collaboration with colleagues from different departments had gone into making the workshop a success. Everything from setting up the space to figuring out how to reach potential attendees had to be arranged beforehand, not to mention the design of an evaluation survey to understand participant experiences. This survey was invaluable for proving the positive impact of the workshop, with 78% of respondents rating the event as “above expectations” and 100% saying that this was their first time attending an event like this. 

A photo of half of one of the display cases used for the exhibition in the Voltaire Room. It shows a zine bestiary, half unfolded. Below, are photos of the making process, an image of a livre d'artiste that inspired them, and the group's letterpress colophon.
Part of the display in the Voltaire Room

To showcase participant efforts, the project did not end with the workshop. Instead, the five collaborative artist’s books were first displayed at the Bodleian Bibliographical Press during Oxfordshire Artweeks, before being exhibited alongside selected items from the Strachan Collection for two weeks in the Voltaire Room of the Taylorian. Displaying the collection required extensive planning, including preventative conservation measures to ensure that the light-sensitive materials could be displayed safely. 

Alongside the public-facing aspects, the project also had a positive impact on how the Strachan Collection is organised and housed. Jules’ review of the collection, which included reuniting missing parts of 37 items, gathering information to catalogue 60 previously-uncatalogued items, and improving the labelling and retrieval process, has helped make these artist’s books more accessible for future researchers and outreach projects alike. 

Overall, I really enjoyed hearing about Jules’ project. It demonstrated their ability to organise complicated events and bring people together around a shared interest, which are skills that will serve them well as they move beyond the traineeship. I also believe the project highlights the potential of creative outreach within the Oxford community and has enormous potential to inspire similar projects in the future. Already there are plans to hold another show-and-tell session next year, and potentially another creative outreach event, making me excited to see the project continue to grow! 

An artist making a sketch from some of the livres d'artiste on display
three artists working together on their creative response, in the Bibliographical Press

“Pieces of Wisdom” in the Pierre Wack Memorial Library

Heidi, Sainsbury Library

Written by Leah Duffin

Heidi’s project centred around cataloguing the fascinating collection of the Pierre Wack Memorial Library. The collection consists of the professional archive of the Shell executive and scenario planning pioneer Pierre Wack (1922–1997). Heidi opened her presentation with a brief overview of how the collection came to Oxford, detailing its journey from the Global Business Network offices in The Hague to its donation to Green Templeton College in 2005. Today it forms part of the Oxford Futures Library and is held at the CSF.  

This project was well planned and meticulous executed. Along with her colleagues at the Sainsbury Library, Heidi has spent the last few months sifting through this vast collection, discovering intriguing documents, and cataloguing the items for ease of navigation. Heidi outlined her task of standardising and expanding the existing catalogue as well as identifying missing items and those in need of conservation intervention—a vital part of collection management.  

In her presentation, Heidi explained the scope of the 2,000 item collection through an accessible chart, revealing that the portion of catalogued items was made up of reports (27%), journals (19%), magazines (11%), and correspondence (6%), with the rest of the collection given over to conference notes, presentations, graphs, newsletters, drafts, and books.

Heidi spoke about the Pierre Wack Memorial Library with such enthusiasm and took us on a journey of the collection highlights. These included an article from The Financial Times detailing the establishment of the business schools in Oxford and Cambridge.

In addition, the newspaper and magazine holdings revealed advertisements that defined 20th century consumer culture, including graphics centred around domestic family ideals and a rather humorous diamond advert. Such materials are essential to understanding how diamond companies like De Beers have developed their advertising strategies over time, embracing stereotypes as well as challenging them. 

Heidi was inspired by Pierre Wack’s commitment to his work and variety of the collection. This is reflected in her choice of title: ‘Pieces of Wisdom’. Wack’s handwritten notes detail the finer points of scenario planning, cognition, and business strategy as well as some motivational quotes . . .  Heidi’s diligence over the year has been invaluable, with the cataloguing project about 70% complete—a great result for both Heidi and the team at the Sainsbury library.

The materials in the Pierre Wack Memorial Library will become increasingly more accessible for students and researchers interested in scenario planning, economic and social history, and the legacy of the remarkable Pierre Wack. 

Suggested Further Reading: 

Kleiner, Art, “The Man Who Saw The Future.” Strategy Business, February 12, 2003, https://www.strategy-business.com/article/8220 

Oxford Futures Library. “Pierre Wack Memorial Library.” Accessed July 29, 2026. https://oxfordfutures.sbs.ox.ac.uk/ 

Haverfield Hijinks: Auditing an Overflowing Collection 

Olly, Art, Archaeology and Ancient World Library 

Written by Gemma Hammond

Olly’s presentation focused on his attempts to solve the various problems posed by the Haverfield Room in the Art Library. The Haverfield Room, located just off the main Ground Floor reading room and named after Francis Haverfield (Camden Professor of Ancient History at Oxford in the early 20th century), contains an open shelf collection that includes books on numismatics (the study of coins), coin catalogues, museum bulletins, auction catalogues, and periodicals from most of the library’s subject areas.

However, there’s also other books stored in the room which have not been looked at for a while and a lot of overflow, with periodicals or bulletins now continuing their sequence on trolleys or stacked on top of each other on the shelves – and the room itself is not getting any bigger! The library has done its best to keep everything organised but it’s been a (growing) problem for a number of years. 

Olly’s plan was to get a better grasp of the situation by identifying what the problems were and the scale of them, and then to look at potential solutions. He undertook an audit of some little-used folios at the very back of the room, where he found that 103 of them belonged to the Art Library but 142 actually belonged to the Oxfordshire Architectural and Historical Society which had stored them there some time ago. Olly said he’d been fascinated by the variety of topics covered by these folios, particularly the coins, but also ceremonial coats of arms, maps, and architectural drawings.  

The overflowing journals posed the biggest problem because many runs had not been fully itemised and before they could go to the Bodleian Offsite Storage Facility to create some much-needed space they would need to be barcoded and have an item record on the system.

Olly used a lot of spreadsheets to narrow down which journal runs should be prioritised for this treatment and as a next step he created instructions and a spreadsheet for library staff to physically check the shelves and collect data on which journal runs are currently taking up the most space. He then made use of an itemisation entry form designed for staff to input data about a journal item. The data can then be fed into OLIS to create a record on the system, hugely simplifying the process of itemising. However, Olly also pointed out problems that might come up during this process, such as journals changing their names or having previously been recorded in the system under different names.

Screenshot of Olly's itemisation entry form used to enter journal details, including library, location, title, volume, issue, date, range, language, and notes fields.

The plan is that library staff will continue with the tasks of measuring shelf space and then itemising the journals, meaning that a lot of material can then be sent offsite but still be easily findable, while the Haverfield Room will be a lot more user-friendly.

I really enjoyed Olly’s presentation and admire him for getting stuck into such a huge task and making progress on taming the chaos of the Haverfield Room! The journal itemising in particular clearly took a lot of work and it’s impressive that he’s come up with detailed and methodical long-term solutions that will hopefully be continued and built on in the future.

Trainee Showcase 2026: Part 1

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If you’ve read previous blog posts, you might have seen us mentioning our trainee projects at various points. As an Oxford trainee you have the chance to take on a personal project outside your regular duties to help you explore different parts of library work and leave your mark on the Bodleian. This all leads to the Graduate Trainee Showcase at the end of the year, where you get to present your work and explain what you’ve been doing to a captive audience of librarians and colleagues.

The showcase this year was held at Christ Church College and organised by fellow trainees Heidi, Rebecca, Jules, and Amy – huge thanks to them for their planning and effort (and for some last minute tech fixes). Over the next month we’ll be posting short summaries of our projects and presentations for anyone who couldn’t make it. Writing about our own work is too easy though, so we’ve each picked someone else’s project to talk about. Now to get us started, here’s some Royal Regalia, medical paraphernalia, and a whole lot of library data. Enjoy!

Promoting Special Collections at New College Library & Archives

Leah, New College Library

Written by Catherine Birch

Leah’s project involved designing an exhibition to promote New College Library’s incredible special collections. Having had the chance to see her exhibition in-person, I thought it looked incredible, but I’d had no idea just how much work had gone into it over the year! 

Leah started by giving us some background on New College’s special collections, which house an astounding 384 historic manuscripts and over 30,000 rare books. Having specialised in medieval royalty and diplomacy during her MA, she wanted to highlight the wealth of royal history in the collection and work to improve public engagement with them. Identifying materials for display involved endless SOLO searching, trawling through various handlists, and consulting various colleagues, as well as every librarian’s secret weapon… a huge spreadsheet. Deciding which items to use in an exhibition is a very involved process, as Leah explained – you have to consider display space, transport logistics, and item condition before you even get into issues like audience interest and the exhibition theme. Having narrowed down which items she could practically include and which were most relevant to the topic, she picked her final items based on one key rule: are they fabulous?  

From there she wrote item captions and labels, proofread them, proofread them again (those pesky oxford commas…), and got to work producing promotional material. Some of this material included posters, banners, booklets, and postcards, which looked great and were very nice to keep as souvenirs. Leah also promoted the exhibition through social media, university mailing lists, local news pages, and word of mouth, trying to reach library staff, students, and the public in equal measure. Her hard work definitely paid off, as they had over 150 visitors, making it the most successful exhibition of the year! Leah herself was on hand to answer any questions and talk to visitors, which was a nice touch that really improved engagement and interest (as did the free refreshments next door).  

Even though the exhibition has finished, Leah is far from done getting people interested in New College Library’s special collections. She’s already planned an article about representations of King David in medieval manuscripts for an upcoming issue of New College Notes (the college’s scholarly journal), and she’s supporting a Curator’s Choice video highlighting a book published in 1687 to mark the coronation of James II. It was really interesting getting to see the full process of putting together an exhibition, and her display shone a spotlight on the sort of books and manuscripts that most librarians relish working with. 

A poster for the exhibition 'Royal Regalia: Signatures, Statecraft, and Sovereignty' at New College. The background has been made to look like a manuscript covered in cursive middle english. The foreground contains the date and location of the exhibition along with some images of items from the collection.

HML Grey Literature: Part II

Catherine, Bodleian Library (History Faculty Library)

Written by Olly Marshall

Catherine’s project revolved around a collection of grey literature from the History of Medicine Library, picking up the baton and expanding on the work done by previous HFL trainee Xanthe.  

Catherine first explained to us the complicated past of the HML, occupying a site on Banbury Road but being under the stewardship of the Radcliffe Camera, with most of the material having now moved to the Humanities Library at the Schwarzman Centre and some of it being stored in our offsite storage facility. This is fairly standard for a lot of collections in the Bodleian- everything has been moved between many libraries and has had many different names.  

The “grey literature” in question is far more interesting than the name suggest- it’s a mix of material produced by various medical institutions, but not controlled by a traditional commercial publisher like a book or journal article is. The HML collection includes a lot of organisational reports, speeches, statistics, training guides, public health pamphlets and other miscellaneous material important to understanding the history of healthcare and the work of significant institutions and professionals in the field.  

The bulk of Catherine’s project involved going through 41 boxes of the material and creating handlists for them- a list describing each item in a box – to make the contents identifiable and discoverable to researchers.  

The grey literature Catherine has been working with is now housed offsite and involved many requests for it all to be called up, looking through the contents and picking out important information such as institutions, authors, date ranges, topics, formats and other useful information for locating the right resource. This was frequently made difficult by material being in foreign languages, being in odd formats, using antiquated language or being catalogued poorly. By doing thorough research into the items, using templates for how to describe the items, and like any seasoned librarian – expecting and accepting a certain amount of chaos – Catherine developed a good system for listing the boxes consistently. All together there were approximately 450 items to describe and list, which is an amazing amount to achieve over the year!  

The contents of the boxes will ultimately be published in a LibGuide that Catherine has been making to promote their use, make the collection navigable and link to boxes on SOLO for people to call them up from CSF. I was really impressed by the skills Catherine got to develop during her project and her methodical approach, and I thought that the collection sounds fascinating. Work like this is really important for ensuring library collections are accessible and available to use, and the efforts Catherine went through will benefit readers and library staff alike. 

Managing & Adapting to Change

Rebecca, Bodleian Library (Reader Services)

Written by Jules McGee-Russell

Rebecca’s presentation focused on her research into different changes happening in the Old Bod and wider changes across the library service. This included the new Extended Lending rules at the Bodleian, the digital shift towards eBooks and AI usage, and how these things connect to the Climate Emergency. 

Rebecca demonstrated her points using journalistic headlines over time, data from Freedom of Information Requests, and statistical forecasting she did herself using Python. The messages I took away were that there is a year-on-year decline in borrowing requests from readers in the Bodleian. Even though the lending rules have changed to allow some items to be loanable from the Old Bod, the number of annual requests to borrow physical books is decreasing. In contrast, the demand for eBooks is huge and ever-growing, as are the profits publishers are making from eBooks sales. 1/3 of students surveyed are, concerningly, reaching for AI over primary sources.  

A map generated by ChatGPT, colour coded according to which countries it believes are smarter. The general trend is that Europe, North America, East Asia, and Australasia are considered smartest, while Africa, South America, and the Middle East are considered the least smart. This is designed to highlight ChatGPT's racial bias and inherent inequality.
‘GPT Opinion Map‘. 1

ChatGPT has been shown to amplify global inequalities by making assumptions about geographical locations that are not supported by data. AI “makes mistakes and tells people what they want to hear” according to research at the Oxford Internet Institute, influencing search strategies and resource discovery. Using these search strategies can reduce the “serendipity” of discovery, and can also dramatically change how users are interacting with libraries. 

Rebecca questioned the transparency of publishers’ connections with fossil fuel companies, and how skyrocketing profits from eBook sales could be funding carbon emissions. There have been walkouts from journal editors protesting unethical fees for these eResources, and there is growing concern regarding the use of AI within publishing. Purchased goods and services made up 42% of Gardens, Libraries, and Museums (GLAM) emissions in 24/25, which may not even fully capture the scope of emissions related to library purchasing of eBooks and eResources. The effectiveness and integrity of climate pledges across publishing are also questionable – who is holding them to account, and who is measuring their success? 

I was incredibly impressed with Rebecca’s research, and so were several others in the room. She was asked to share her slides with senior members of staff, and will be repeating the presentation to wider university staff groups. A great success, and it really shows how interesting and relevant her work was. These are concerns and developments that affect us all, and I truly admired the effort she put into excavating and illustrating them. 

The presentation closed by recommending the university’s internal Carbon Literacy training module, which anyone can attend. There are certainly more steps to be taken both as individuals and as an institution to investigate and mitigate these impacts. This presentation is one that really stuck with me, and increased my awareness about how all these issues connect.  

1 Kerche, F. W., Zook, M., & Graham, M. (2026).The Silicon gaze: A typology of biases and inequality in LLMs through the lens of place. Platforms & Society, 3. https://doi.org/10.1177/29768624251408919 (Original work published 2026)

Further reading for anyone who wants to learn more:

Insect Damage, Tolkien, and a Book of… Cheese? 

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Adventures in Rare Books and Conservation

by Jules McGee-Russell

A highlight of being a trainee is the access to… well, training! Every Wednesday we have a different session, on topics such as cataloguing, supporting disabled readers, or using the Bodleian databases and software. This week, we were shown around the Conservation and Special Collections areas in the Weston Library, a.k.a where all the rare books magic happens! 

The Weston Library holds the majority of all the special collections items within the Bodleian libraries, although much is also held at the Swindon Offsite Storage Facility (CSF). After dropping off our belongings in the lockers (no liquid or even pens allowed in the areas with rare books), we made our way to the conservation area for our introduction to conservation and collection care. 

The workspace the conservation team use was bright and peaceful, with long desks lit by many big windows that overlook the city. Each workspace was full of mysterious implements: bone folders, brushes, Japanese paper, display shelves of crushed pigments. Dozens of grey archival boxes were stacked in piles, full of rare books and oddities. 

An image of the conservator workspace. There are many windows, and tables covered with implements, boxes, and books.

An Introduction to Preventive Conservation

Our first talk was with Catherine, who works in Preventive Conservation, focusing on environmental pest control. There are many things in the environment that can damage a book, whether that is damp, mould, or as we saw – insects! For example, silverfish are very destructive and can do quite drastic damage to paper. They chew through natural fibres, leaving a distinctive lacy pattern behind. 

Furniture beetles (otherwise known as carpet beetles or book worms) are also a problem, as they chew straight through furniture like bookcases… and any books that are on them. Not a pleasant guest to have in your library! They bore through bookcases so thoroughly that you can line up the damage to determine which books were placed next to each other on a historical bookshelf. Luckily, this critter needs over 65% relative humidity to thrive, so it won’t visit our modern humidity-controlled collections. 

Silverfish damage on a piece of paper. The item has been eaten away at the edges, leaving a 'lacy pattern' behind. Much of the text is also obscured as the surface of the paper has been eaten.
Some calling cards of Silverfish…
Furniture beetle damage on a piece of paper. There are thin but distinct lines through the paper where it has been bored into, and large chunks of the left side are missing.
…and Furniture beetles

Fun fact: If you look at the ‘frass’ left behind by a Furniture beetle under a microscope, it looks a bit like rice crispies! 

A Genizah Conservation Project

We were then introduced to two conservators working on a long-term rebinding project. This three-year conservation project is focused on preserving items from a Genizah in Cairo for future study. A Genizah is a place in a Jewish synagogue where documents are stored before being ritually buried, as it is forbidden to throw away writing containing the name of God. Typically, items are only stored for 7 years, but the Cairo Genizah contains additions from over 1000 years! There is a huge collection of religious and secular works in around 10 languages (mostly Hebrew and Arabic). 

The conservation work in process. A guardbook is help open by book weights on a stand, with several tools and materials laid out next to it.
A guardbook being worked on

Many of these valuable paper fragments were bound together into volumes called ‘guardbooks’. The interesting thing is, guardbooks can house texts next to each other which have no intellectual connection, or shared language. The same text could continue in different places within the same guardbook, or across several different guardbooks entirely. These might even be held in different institution’s collections. The University of Cambridge, for example, currently has the largest single unified collection – around 200,000 items from the same Genizah our conservators are working on. 

A fascicule. A large A1 book is open - the left page is blank, and the right page contains a mounted piece of old paper and a shelfmark.
A fascicule containing material from the Genizah

As part of this project, the conservators are working on rehousing these items – disbanding them and putting them into more permanent guardbooks. Some are also put into ‘fascicules’, which are like large A1 pamphlets, where the historic paper is mounted and then attached to the pages flexibly. This means that the pages can be opened flat and examined without damage, whereas the previous bindings could only be opened carefully to a V.  

But if the conservators are rebinding the fragments anyway, why don’t they reunite the parts of a text that have been bound in separate guardbooks? Surprisingly, it’s not simply because the papers are fragile. The conservators explained that they need to preserve the historic arrangement of texts in each guardbook, and the shelfmark they were originally classified under. This is so that all the previous research which references those shelfmarks will still make sense. Helpfully, many of the guardbooks have historic marginalia notes which mention where to look to find the rest of the text. 

This is a huge project: there are around 12,500 leaves in this collection, and around 217 physical bindings to rehouse. The collection is heavily used and historically important. Many of the items are digitised, but readers and researchers still need to be able to access the originals. It was very interesting to learn more about this long-term conservation project! 

Book Conservation – When to Repair?

We also were also shown three examples of individual books being conserved by the Assistant Book Conservator, Alice Evans. One of these examples was Tolkien’s copy of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Tolkien thoroughly annotated it and repaired it with tape – something we hope no reader will do to our books! In this case, despite the tape degrading over time and staining the book, the tape will not be removed or replaced with acid-free archive-safe tape. That’s because the value of this object for researchers comes from Tolkien’s interaction with it and the signs of use – including all the tape fragments. Who knows, someone might end up doing a PhD on his use of tape someday! 

When repairing an object, one of the most useful tools is Japanese paper. This paper is harvested in a way that keeps the fibres long, and it is activated using only water. It’s non-intrusive and removable, making it perfect for conservation. Conservators want to preserve the signs of use, and the vulnerability of the object itself, repairing as minimally as possible in places with vulnerable edges or tears. You can see some of the long fibres from a torn edge of Japanese paper in this photo.

A piece of Japanese paper, torn at the edge so that its long fibres are visible.

As Alice told us, everything is degrading anyway. Conservators and curators weigh up what we want and need here and now, what is useful to us today. Those are the items they prioritise and conserve. 

Introduction to Special Collections

The last part of the afternoon was a tour and talk with Chris Fletcher, Keeper of Special Collections. The tour included the Centre for Digital Scholarship, the Mackerras Reading Room, the rooftop patio, and a chat with one of the archivists, Frankie. Continuing our accidental Tolkien theme of the day, Frankie was working on cataloguing and digitising the Tolkien papers. There were tables full of rare items and historical objects, and yet more archive boxes of mysterious sizes. We saw Tolkien’s leather suitcases, and a box full of a surprisingly large collection of pipes! 

An illustration of a large rodent eating a piece of fruit, in a somewhat menacing art style.
3D pop-up art books lined up in a row along a table. Each book contains a single geometric paper sculpture in a variety of colours and styles.

Then we were shown to a reading room where Chris had pulled out a selection of interesting Special Collections books. These included an 18th Century book of animal and plant illustrations (which had the pictured vaguely horrifying rodent with green toenails), a series of 3D pop up Artist Books by Tamba Auerbach, and a copy of John Clare’s The Village Minstrel that contained a unique handwritten poem.  

After that, the items got a little unusual. What makes a book a book? Bibliographic detail, a cover, publication date, author, contents, edition? If that’s what a book is, then Ted Hughes’ ‘Laureate’s Choice’ sherry bottle also fits the bill:

A bottle of 'Laureate's Choice' sherry. The visible portion of the label contains a title, an illustration of a bird and a laurel wreath, and a bottle number.
'Laureate's Choice' from a different angle.

As is traditional for a Poet Laureate, Hughes got his own barrel of sherry. This bottle has one of Hughes’ drawings reproduced on the label. 

Then, there was my favourite item – the cheese book! Created by Ben Denzer, 20 Slices is a book where the pages are packaged American style cheese slices, bound with a cover. Denzer’s speciality is poking fun at, and interrogating, ideas of value. What better way do to this than to make the cheapest kind of cheese into a valuable art object and book? 

A small square book, bound in yellow cloth, with '20 Slices' printed in on the front in blue lettering.
'20 Slices' open. Individually wrapped slices of American processed cheese bound into a book, with slight white discolouration at the corners.

The book was bought by Bodleian for £200 – £10 per slice of cheese. The copy we have is one of ten copies that exist, including the artist’s own copy. Denzer has refused to allow the Bodleian to replace the cheese with a replica cheese. When the time comes, the cheese pages will need to be replaced with more Kraft singles! Although that might not be for some time – when we saw the book, the cheese was 10 years old and still looked normal, with only a bit of white crumbling at the corners. American cheese is something else! 

(If you’re interested, you can listen to an interview Ben did with BOOKNESS about 20 Slices here: S1 Ep2: BOOKNESS with Ben Denzer | University of Oxford Podcasts)  

That rounds up our afternoon of rare books adventures! The day was a great introduction to what Archivists and Conservators do, and we saw many weird and wonderful items. The Bodleian’s collections are vast, and there is always something new to discover. 

The 2026/27 trainee scheme is now open for applications, so we hope that our blogs will give you some insight into the work you might be doing. Good luck to anyone who will be applying! 

The 2025/26 trainee cohort on the rooftop terrace of the Weston Library.
The 2025/26 trainees!

2024 Trainee Showcase: Part 2

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

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

By Clara Oxley

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Connie Hubbard

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Xanthe Malcolm

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Spot Attends a Pop-Up Display

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During the odd lunchtime during term, the Upper Library at Christ Church becomes host to pop-up displays of special collections material. Part of my Graduate Trainee role that I’ve really enjoyed is assisting with these displays, whether through invigilation, talking with visitors about the collection or selecting texts for display. Today I’ve put together a selection of texts that featured in our display on Early Modern conceptions of skin. Through the lens of travel books, anatomical texts and medical manuals we invited visitors to explore a range of cultural and medical understandings of skin during this period. I’ve chosen just three items from this display to share in this post today – read on for fugitives (of a kind), duels, and medical drama…

 

Johann Remmelin’s Catoptrum Microcosmicum

It’s possible that one comes across most lift the flap books during childhood. Literary giants such as Eric Hill’s Spot Bakes a Cake[1] come to mind. In this charming story flaps serve as an important ingredient of the mischief and excitement of the book. A flap that takes the form of a wave of chocolate cake batter can be lifted by the intrepid reader to reveal Spot stirring up a storm beneath, for example.

A screen shot of a listing of spot bakes a cake on a book seller's site. The cover features spot the dog at a mixing bowl and the listing titles asys 'original lift the flap book'.
Literary masterpiece, Spot Bakes a Cake

 

Much to my dismay, we do not hold Spot Bakes a Cake in our collection at Christ Church, but that does not mean we are completely bereft of lift the flap books. Despite Abe Books listing this as the ‘Original Lift the Flap’, there are in fact earlier examples of such a technique, and one such text featured in our display.

Johann Remmelin’s Catoptrum Microcosmicum (Augsburg, 1619) is the first anatomical atlas to use flaps to illustrate layers of anatomy. Instead of joining Spot in his mission to bake a birthday cake for his dad, you are invited to step into the shoes of the 17th century physick, learning about the intricacies of the muscles, bones and beyond of the human body. The plates show first a male and a female figure surrounded by figures of isolated body parts, including the eye, ear, tongue and heart. All of these are represented at their different levels with flaps – the man and woman to a depth of 13 superimposed layers. Each new layer reveals what can be found in the body at different stages of a dissection.

 

 

A later edition of this text, published in 1670, sets out on the title page that this book contains:

‘an anatomie of the bodies of man and woman wherein the skin, veins, nerves, muscles, bones, sinews and ligaments are accurately delineated. And curiously pasted together, so as at first sight you may behold all the outward parts of man and woman. And by turning up the several dissections of the paper take a view of all their inwards’ [2].

The face of an 'ogre' or Medusa is the top layer of the femal figure on this page from Remmelin's book
A Medusa-like figure with snake hair is the first layer to this pregnant body – a somewhat foreboding starting point…

The flaps themselves are referred to as ‘dissections’ here, the act of the reader lifting a flap becoming amalgamated with the incision of the anatomist’s scalpel. ‘Curiously pasted together’ is a good description – the nature of the ‘lift the flap’ anatomy book imbues the medical diagram with an enact-able curiosity that only increases with interaction with the different layers.

Despite my attempts to tip the balance with this blog post, when it comes to breath-taking 17th century anatomical books, the phrase ‘lift the flap’ is not bandied around with much regularity. Strange! Rather, they are grouped within a pioneering class of anatomical print known as the ‘fugitive sheet’ or ‘compound situs’. This technique is first recorded as being seen in 1538 in works by Heinrich Vogtherr, which made use of layers of pressed linen[3] to create the same effect we see in Remmelin’s Catoptrum Microcosmicum.

These fugitive sheets would have been a fantastic way for users to understand the internal workings of their bodies, even without proximity to a cadaver. However, writing about Remmelin’s anatomised Eve, one commentator notes how the figures in these engravings ‘[sit] amid the horrific attributes of sin and death […]. If this is self-knowledge, one might prefer extroversion.’[4]

 

 

Gaspare Tagliacozzi’s De curtorum chirurgia per insitionem

Also included in our display was Gaspare Tagliacozzi’s De curtorum chirurgia per insitionem (Venice, 1597). The copy held at Christ Church is a pirated edition of the first book devoted entirely to plastic surgery. In fact, multiple un-official editions of this text appeared soon after the original due to its popularity[5].

A page from Tagliacozzi's book, image shows a man in profile sitting up in bed with his arm strapped to his nose by a special jacket
Tagliacozzi’s stylish suit in action

The realities of plastic surgery met a real need in the 1500s, largely because duelling and violence were pretty rife. If you had taken a rapier to the face in a duel for your honour (perhaps your reputation is on the line when the last slice of chocolate cake has disappeared and you are found with crumbs round your mouth) a spot of light plastic surgery might be just what you’re after.

Around thirty years before Tagliacozzi wrote De curtorum chirurgia per insitionem, the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe was taking some time out from considering the stars and turned to the far more terrestrial pursuit of losing his nose in a duel against Manderup Parsberg, his third cousin. While he and Parsberg later became friends, Tycho was landed with wearing a prosthetic nose for the rest of his life. Word on the 16th century street was that this prosthesis was crafted from finest silver, but when Tycho’s corpse was exhumed in 2010, it was a brass nose that was found, not silver.[6]

While coming a little too late to be of use to Tycho, Tagliacozzi’s text focuses on the repair of mutilations of the nose, lips and ears, using skin grafts in an operation that became known as the ‘Italian graft’. This technique allowed for facial reconstruction via a skin graft taken from the left forearm. The graft would remain partially attached to the arm while grafted to the mutilated area so the skin cells would not decay. Tagliacozzi’s talents did not stop at medical innovation however – he also had an eye for (practical) fashion. Due to the importance of the patient being able to hold their arm to their face after the surgery to facilitate the complete adherence of the graft, Tagliacozzi designed a complex vest, not unlike a straightjacket, to make sure there was no unwarranted movement. The process was supposed to take from two to three weeks.

 

William Cowper’s Anatomia corporum humanorum

The final book that will feature in my post today is William Cowper’s Anatomia corporum humanorum (Leiden, 1750) and at the heart of this text is one of the most famous controversies in medical history.

The plates that feature in Anatomia corporum humanorum were not originally produced for this text, but rather the earlier Anatomia humani corporis, by Govard Bidloo (1649 – 1713). Originally published in 1685, Anatomia humani corporis features 105 striking copperplate engravings of the human body. The plates illustrate the muscular, skeletal, reproductive, and systemic organization of the human body and are seen alongside scientific commentary.

An English contemporary of Bidloo, William Cowper, bought the printing plates from the printing house and reissued them under his own name with new accompanying text in his Anatomy of humane bodies. A text that, in a profound lack of tact, also featured ‘numerous harsh criticisms towards Bidloo’s contributions’[7]. Unlike today, plagiarism – especially over national boundaries – was largely tolerated at the time, as it was difficult to police. Bidloo objected strongly to this instance of plagiarism from Cowper, however, promptly and publicly excoriating him in a published communication to the Royal Society.

What could be termed as Cowper’s lack of imagination when swiping someone else’s prints was more than made up for by Bidloo’s creative insults in this pamphlet – on one occasion calling him a ‘highwayman’, and another a ‘miserable anatomist who writes like a Dutch barber’[8]. I think I’d rather be on the anatomist’s table than have such lines about me circulating in print. All’s fair in love and science I suppose…

 

An image of microscopic drawings of the layers and surfaces of skin. Different diagrams fill a large page.
A closer look at skin in this text

 

Title page from Vesalius's De humani corporis fabrica
Title page from Vesalius’s De humani corporis fabrica

The plates in question were produced by the Dutch painter Gerard de Lairesse. For Lairesse, the anatomical illustrations commissioned by Bidloo were an opportunity for an artistic reflection on anatomy. They are very different from the tradition kick-started by the Vesalian woodcuts in De humani corporis fabrica[9].

Lairesse displays his figures with a tender realism and sensuality, which at first glance seems unfitting for an anatomy book. The figures seem docile, as if in a light sleep rather than deliberately posed objects of scientific inquiry. In these illustrations dissected parts of the body are contrasted with soft surfaces of un-dissected skin and draped material. Flayed, bound figures are depicted in ordinary nightclothes or bedding, as if they will soon be put back together again and woken up.

That’s all I’ll share today – I’m off to make a case for Spot Bakes a Cake as being a prime investment for Christ Church library’s collection.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

[1] https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/122786/spot-bakes-a-cake-by-hill-eric/9780723263586

[2] https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo2/A93593.0001.001/1:1?rgn=div1;view=fulltext

[3] Find out more here! https://artsci.case.edu/dittrick/2014/06/26/flipping-through-anatomical-fugitive-sheets/

[4] Review: Paper Bodies, by Mimi Cazort https://www.jstor.org/stable/41825971?seq=4

[5] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24610608/

[6] https://www.britannica.com/biography/Tycho-Brahe-Danish-astronomer/Mature-career

[7] https://digex.lib.uoguelph.ca/exhibits/show/bidloo-and-cowper–anatomists-/the-beginnings-of-conflict–pu

[8] https://digex.lib.uoguelph.ca/exhibits/show/bidloo-and-cowper–anatomists-/criminis-literarii–anatomists

[9] https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/358129

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 Visit to the Weston

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On Wednesday 3rd November, the Graduate Trainees were treated to a special tour of the Weston Library, where the Bodleian Libraries maintains their conservation lab and special collections materials.

Conservation Studio

By Lucy Davies

My favourite Wednesday training session so far has been the visit to the Weston Library for a tour of the Conservation Studio and Special Collections. This trip really sparked an interest in book and paper conservation for me so I hope this blog post describing our experiences can do the afternoon justice.

According to the Bodleian Conservation and Collection Care team, their role is “to stabilize bindings, bound manuscripts and early-printed books with minimal interference to their original structures and features”. Part of their role also involves maintaining and caring for the open-shelf references books and lending items in the Bodleian libraries. Their responsibilities are extensive and there are a number of roles in the team, including Book Conservators, Paper Conservators, and Preventive Conservators. The Bodleian’s is the second largest conservation team in the UK!

When we first arrived, head of preventive conservation Alex Walker talked to us about storing library materials correctly. Alex’s job is to train the Bodleian Libraries staff to care for their collections and to oversee preventive conservation projects.  Her role includes managing and avoiding pest damage to the Bodleian’s collections, and she discussed with us the kind of damage that silverfish and woodworms can inflict specifically. As former students, we were all too familiar with a silverfish infestation, but had never witnessed the damage they could inflict on paper. Interestingly, silverfish graze along the surface of the paper, whereas bookworms burrow through from cover to cover – the more you know!

She showed us examples of damaged materials and explained how everything from temperature, location, humidity, and the material of a storage box can drastically affect the condition of books and manuscripts. The damage was quite extensive and highlighted for me the importance of preventive conservation and pest control in libraries, not something that had been at the forefront of my mind whilst working at the SSL.

Removing the framing of a document, sewing the binding of a book, and doing repair work on a book's spine.
Examples of conservation work performed by the Weston team, as displayed on bookmarks which are available to readers.

Once our skin was crawling at the thought of various insects, it was then over to Julia Bearman to show us the work she has been undertaking on the consolidation of paintings within a Mughal album. She showed us how she takes photographs of the work before beginning and then carefully marks on the photos every change or repair, however miniscule, so that everything done to the object is recorded. It is a slow and careful process that clearly requires patience. Additionally, Julia explained to us that the aim was not to make the book of paintings appear new again, as that could be misleading and unhelpful to those undertaking research. Instead, her aim is to stabilise it and preserve it enough to travel to exhibitions or not need further conservation work in the near future.

What was most interesting to me was that Julia explained she undertakes research for months before even touching a new project, which I thought was incredible, and highlights how much work goes into a conservation project before even picking up any tools. She speaks to other conservators and academics to gain an understanding of the object’s history, the materials it is made of, and what the aim for the conservation project should be.

Paper stretched on racks, someone filing some a wooden piece, and bottled liquids
Examples of conservation work performed by the Weston team, as displayed on bookmarks which are available to readers.

Finally, it was over to Andrew Honey who showed us how his role is to conserve and rebind books. Again, he outlined how the aim is not to make the book look like it was never damaged but to use minimally invasive techniques to stabilise the book. This is because invasive techniques or the use of certain materials can cause further damage down the line. Interestingly, leather is no longer used to repair broken leather book spines, but rather cloth is used, as this is safer for fragile materials.

He also showed us a book from Henry VIII’s personal library, which blew all of our minds to see, I think. It was covered in velvet as apparently even Henry’s books were not safe from his gaudy fashion tastes. It was fascinating to see it right there in front of us and to learn about how the Bodleian is conserving it so it can survive for future generations to learn from.

The tour of the conservation studio could have lasted days and we still wouldn’t have seen everything, but I learnt so much in the couple of hours that we spent there and am very grateful to the staff for taking time out of their day to share their expertise and experiences with us.

 

Special Collections

By Sophie Lay

After our time in the Conservation Studio, we took a much needed tea/coffee break in the café. From here, we met the Weston’s own Chris Fletcher: Keeper of Special Collections at the Bodleian.

Chris then proceeded to take us on a tour of the Weston Library. We travelled through a series of complexly inter-connected corridors and stairwells which, in retrospect, I cannot piece together at all. The building is a maze, but a delightful one full of treasures – perhaps leave a trail of breadcrumbs if you go exploring! The building weaves together classic and modern architecture, combining oil paintings and sweeping doorways with sleek exhibition spaces and glass viewing platforms.

The tour began with a glance into one of the reading rooms (the Rare Books and Manuscripts Reading Room, to be precise), an architectural delight with exposed stonework, skylights, and a gate-like entrance. From here, we travelled up to the roof terrace. The terrace is not a public space, as it backs onto a reading room so requires quiet, but fret not – we couldn’t possibly miss the opportunity to get a photo or two.

The view over the Clarendon, Sheldonian, and Bodleian Library

Chris then took us down to the Archive Room. Inside, two archivists were hard at work up to their elbows in material. We only saw glimpses of the pieces down there, but they covered a broad spectrum of subjects from OXFAM to the Conservative Party to Joanna Trollope. Chris assured us that in libraries, a dedicated archiving space of the size available at the Weston is a rare and special thing.

Then came the closed stacks, nestled out of public view and often discussed in whispers and covert glances. Of course, these spaces are highly secretive, so there is very little I’m allowed to tell you in a blog post. I can especially neither confirm nor deny the rumours of underground tunnels connecting the Weston stacks to the Radcliffe Camera and the secret wine cellars of the Sheldonian Theatre, Merton College, and All Souls College.

The next highlight for me was the Centre for Digital Scholarship. What had once started out as a few computers that researchers could use to view their rare books in close detail became rapidly swept up in the wash of digital advancement. The centre now exists as a hub for using cutting-edge and innovative digital tools to support multi-disciplinary academic pursuits as well as engaging with the wider public. They run workshops, seminars, and events – some invitation-only, and some open to the public. You can find out more information about that here, including the Digital Humanities School. What is particularly fascinating to me is how this work applies to librarianship, with digitisation projects already underway and the popularity of electronic resources rising among academics of all levels.

The final destination for our tour was the Bahari Room, where Chris showed us some of the rare items that the Bodleian is currently working on or has recently acquired. The talk was detailed and I could not possibly give away all of Chris’ trade secrets, but here are a few key points of our discussion:

  1. In buying special collections, time is of the essence. Pieces that are up for sale get snapped up incredibly quickly, so you have to act fast. Chris told us that he has received catalogues and picked up the phone to purchase items within minutes of delivery – only to find them already gone.
  2. Some of us took the opportunity to talk to Chris about how institutional collectors navigate cultural heritage and the question of repatriation: who owns an artefact? Where did it come from originally? Through what processes and hands did it end up in the collection? These questions are key in collections work.
  3. Collaboration and mutual respect are important within and between academic institutions. Sometimes multiple bodies team up to purchase certain collections that can be mutually owned. And sometimes, you have to know when another institution has a more vested interest than yours in purchasing a particular item. It pays to back off and let someone else win sometimes (though not always!)

The training session ended as most do, with fond goodbyes and a trip to the pub for the willing. I’ll spare you the details of that, and instead, leave you with a sneak preview of the rare artefacts shown to us by Chris Fletcher…

Rare Collections Material: According to Chris, this was the first bible bound by a woman.

Hands on with the Special Collections: a Trainee’s experience

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The aspect of the St John’s Library traineeship I perhaps most looked forward to was getting involved with the manuscripts and early printed books. Here are four of the Special Collections tasks I’ve been working on over my first couple of months, and a look at what’s coming next!

1. “Book first aid”

Before: the loose coverboard of an early printed book; after: the same book’s fore edge, now secured with two cotton tapes

Although many colleges with historic collections work with the Oxford Conservation Consortium to preserve and repair their items, in-house we perform “book first aid” to minimize further damage. I found that the front board of this bound volume of tracts had detached. The aim of the “first aid” tying is to prevent damage to the page block, and keep the parts of the volume together. When tying, it’s important to put the knots on the fore edge side (pages) to avoid them pressing into the spine. Another consideration is choosing a cotton tape of a similar shade to achieve a discreet look. Previously, we only stocked cream tape, so one of my tasks over the students’ Christmas vacation will be to replace individual cream tapes with pairs of tonal tapes on our many taped volumes.

2. Invigilating of readers

The Caxton volume on the foam rest arrangement the Librarian and I settled upon

Invigilating readers feels like a bit of a role reversal for me, as a former history student. When a researcher scheduled a visit to study our 15th century Caxton volumes, I was asked to invigilate for the first time. The Librarian and I allotted an hour to find the material and pre-prepare the best book rest set up to avoid damaging the volumes. Once the reader arrives, there are a couple of forms to fill in. Having now invigilated several times, my initial nerves have vanished, but I am still careful not to let the manuscript or book out of my sight.

3. Finding aids

One of the twelve bays of early printed books I compiled a finding aid for

Since the renovations started on our early modern libraries, the historic collections have been moved into storage in the new building. One of my first ongoing projects was creating a shelf guide for one of the basement stores to act as a finding aid. Excitingly, I was also given license to examine any books which particularly intrigued me. This was to help with task 4, although if I’d stopped to read all of the interesting ones, I’d still be in the basement right now!

4. Creating Twitter content

Left: Dom’s top tweet; right: my top tweet

St John’s Library has a Twitter account dedicated to our Special Collections (go on, give us a follow at @StJohnsOxLib). Whenever I’m down in the store room, I keep my eyes peeled for Tweetable content. Usually, I hunt for intriguing bookplates, marginalia, or images which will make eye-catching photos, and then write up a brief explanation. Creating the most engaged-with content has become a bit of a friendly competition between myself and the Senior Library Assistant (Former trainee, Dom Hewett, English Faculty Library | Oxford Libraries Graduate Trainees). Creating twitter content is fun because it’s hard to predict what will take off. That being said, we are both hoping that by tracking the Twitter analytics more closely, we’ll get better at that part.

5. What’s next?

St John’s Library operates a Special Collections blog, as well as a Twitter. Currently, I am researching for a new blog post, featuring one of the manuscripts and one of the pamphlets from our early modern collection. These items captured my attention because they are two very different forms of autobiographical writing by executed female criminals, so I feel lucky to be able to pursue my interest in them further, whilst hopefully creating content others can enjoy too. If you are interested in finding out more about the Special Collections at St John’s, or are eager to apply for a traineeship here, check out the blog at St John’s College Library, Oxford (stjohnscollegelibraryoxford.org)

Sometimes following up intriguing catalogue entries leads to questions like: “This doesn’t look like real blood to you does it?”

So far, I’ve found working with the Special Collections to be incredibly rewarding. When working with early printed books and manuscripts, taking care is dramatically prioritized over acting quickly. However, working with Special Collections is not just about hiding books in the basement – and it’s fascinating to meet the visiting researchers to hear about how the items they consult will shape their scholarship. In the future, I hope to continue developing my Special Collections skills, particularly in terms of making material available to wider audiences in person, for example through exhibitions and visitor sessions (when the pandemic permits!).

Mushrooms, Cheese, and Other Challenges

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As part of the Library Graduate Trainee Scheme here in Oxford, we trainees take part in weekly sessions covering a variety of aspects of work in the library and information sector. This year the sessions have been conducted remotely over Teams, and so far have included topics such as reader services, working safely, resource discovery and supporting disabled readers.

A few weeks ago, we took part in two back-to-back one-hour sessions, with the first focusing on conservation and collection care and the second on special collections. I found both sessions so interesting that I thought it would be worth writing a short post about just some of the things the conservators and collection keepers at the Bodleian Libraries get up to.

First, we were given an overview of the Bodleian Libraries’ conservation work, including the different drivers behind collection projects and the three areas within which the conservation teams operate: paper conservation, book conservation, and preventive conservation.

Next, one of the preventive conservators talked us through a little of what their work entails, including IPM (Integrated Pest Management, to keep an eye on those sneaky insects who like books as much as we do), the environmental monitoring used to maintain stable conditions in libraries such as Duke Humfrey’s Library, and, finally, some of the more peculiar conservation challenges the team has faced over the years – including how to preserve a book made of mushrooms!

Then it was time to head over to the conservation workshop. In previous years, trainees visited the workshop at the Weston Library in person. This year, the workshop held their first ever virtual tour, delivered via tablet video call. The workshop itself is a large, airy, open-plan space, and we were shown around and introduced to several of the conservators and some of their current projects. (Did you know that you can use enzymes to separate pages? I definitely didn’t!)

After a short break, we “visited” the Special Collections, and had a “show and tell” of some of the more eclectic items held by the Weston Library, including a book of processed cheese (another left-field challenge for the preventive conservation team!).

Even though we were unable to visit the Weston Library in person, it was still a real privilege to be introduced to this side of the Bodleian Libraries and to get a flavor of the kind of expertise and care that goes into curating and taking care of its vast collections. A big thank you to everyone who made it possible!

You can learn more about conservation at the Bodleian Libraries by following @bodleianconservation on Instagram or finding them on Twitter (@BodCons), and you can take a look at the Special Collections blogs here: https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/weston/finding-resources/scblogs