Millie Krantz (All Souls College)
Hi, I’m Millie, and I’m the graduate trainee at All Souls College Library. Compared to some of the other trainees, I’ve had a fairly straightforward route to this position: I studied Classics at Oxford, then worked in a sixth form college library in London for a year before applying to the traineeship.
Working in a school library was a really fascinating experience. Like a lot of school libraries, there weren’t many staff members and there wasn’t much oversight, so I got to do virtually everything – I helped students, acquired new books, catalogued (badly), weeded, classified and reclassified, and did endless amounts of shelf-checking. I loved the wide range of tasks I got to do and the level of independence I had, but I wanted more training and a better idea of how other libraries work, which made me more interested in traineeships at smaller institutions with more of a jack-of-all-trades attitude to librarianship.
It’s been wonderful and exciting working at All Souls so far, and much more glamorous than working at a state school! The library is a bit unusual for a college library – we’re open to readers from the rest of the university, but we only lend books to our small population of Fellows, which means we see very little circulation. We primarily have books on European history and law, though we end up collecting a little bit of everything based on the needs of the Fellows. As the trainee (and only library assistant) I’ve been able to get involved with quite a lot: I do a lot of acquisitions and journals processing, book fetching, scanning, and shelving, with a generous amount of coffee cup policing and shooing tourists away. A real highlight has been getting to look at and handle some of our manuscripts, especially the Amesbury Psalter!
Ash Lammers (Jesus College)
Hi folks! My name is Ash (they/them) and I’m this year’s trainee at Jesus College. I’m originally from Germany, but have lived in the UK for the last five years doing both my BA and MA up in the North East of England. My academic background is History (although I did also study English Lit for my Joint Honours BA) and my MA research focused on modern European Jewish and Queer History. To distract from my sometimes emotionally heavy research and indulge in my love for working with books, data and solving problems, I started volunteering with the book-tracking app The StoryGraph as a librarian! I spent afternoons with such fun activities as solving user-added ISBN messes and sorting out series sequences. While I loved the idea of working in a physical library, I thought it was kind of unattainable and applied to the trainee programme sort of impulsively one evening in June. Apparently, following the dopamine does pay off…
I’m enjoying library work immensely, especially as I do a rotating variety of different things every day. I process books, help lost readers, compare reading lists with our collection or carry lost property to the JCR. I also have excellent company during the day – namely my manager, Owen, and two crocheted desk pets. I also poke about in the Fellows’ Library, which is always eerily quiet and wouldn’t be out of place in a mystery novel. The majority of the college’s rare books are kept there, and while I don’t work there a lot – my daily checks on whether rain has come through the walls not included – sometimes books need to be set out for classes, or we check specific texts for minute details upon request. An unanticipated side effect of this job is that when reshelving or processing, I find so many interesting books and subjects that my TBR is growing steadily – much to the dismay of my bank account…
Jess Pascal (New College)
I’m Jess (they/them) and I’m the trainee at New College Library. New College is one of Oxford’s older colleges, which means it has an excellent collection of medieval manuscripts and rare books, and I’m lucky enough to get to work with these as a part of my role! This involves fetching items from secure storage elsewhere in the college, invigilating readers who want to consult them, and working on exhibitions. When I’m not doing that, I’m helping with the day-to-day running of the library: since it’s the start of term, this means a lot of unpacking new books and getting them ready to go out on the library shelves while trying to resist the temptation to read them when I ought to be stamping them…
Before this, I was studying French and Spanish at the University of Leicester, where I volunteered in the library and archives. This gave me some experience of working in a library, and it was my first taste of working with special collections, which inspired me to apply for this job. I’m looking forward to sharing more about my work here and the many things I’m sure I’ll be learning throughout the trainee scheme.
Gareth Smith (Oxford Union Library)
Hello everyone, my name is Gareth and I am Graduate Trainee Library Assistant at the Oxford Union Society Library.
The Oxford Union is Oxford University’s famous affiliated debating society, known for its debates and interviews on current affairs, occasional controversies, and interminable student politicking. In many ways it is quite a strange place: though nominally run by an elected Standing Committee of Oxford students who decide on the termly programme of speakers and events, we also have a core body of around twenty professional staff including four librarians and an archivist, who, as employees of an organisation separate to the University, are not formally part of the Bodleian Libraries but use the same information management system. We look after a members’ library of around sixty thousand books (housed mostly in a beautiful Victorian building decorated by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, pictured) and play perhaps the most important and visible part in the day-to-day running of the Union.
Before working at my current job, I completed my BA in Classics (Literae Humaniores) and my MPhil in Ancient History at The Queen’s College, Oxford. Outside my degrees, I also volunteered on several seasons of archaeological fieldwork in Greece and on archive and object digitisation projects at Blenheim Palace and the Ashmolean Museum. My prior library experience includes a quick stint in a public library when I was a teenager and a paid job as Summer Library Assistant at University College Library immediately after my Masters. As Graduate Trainee, I participate in the training programme organised by the Bodleian Libraries alongside the other trainees.
As you might imagine, this background has made me a very organised and versatile person, and I’m enjoying having my skillset constantly stretched through working at such an idiosyncratic library! As well as all the usual jobs expected of a library assistant, my role has also included working closely with our archivist to produce displays for Union events and publicity as well as archival research and digitisation; I occasionally give tours of the Old Library and the famous Debate Chamber, which are the main attractions for visitors to the Union, and I’m also particularly focused on bringing our social media presence into the 2020s. I am also secretary to the Library Committee, a member-run body which decides on acquisitions and withdrawals: the Union library is the only in Oxford where every book has been suggested by a reader, and we stock a large amount of fiction, travel guides and magazines alongside our academic books.
Jake Banyard (St. Edmund Hall)
Despite the wonderful benefit of college lunch as a college library trainee, a free meal was not the reason I decided to embark upon a career in librarianship. In fact, after graduating from the University of Reading with a BA in French and History I wasn’t sure of any reasons to embark on any careers! I found myself working in hospitality, and despite enjoying some aspects of customer service, there are only so many 2am finishes and stressful shifts before change is needed. After some soul-searching I came to the conclusion that a
career in libraries might combine the good parts of customer service with my desire to work in an educational environment. I found a job in a
public library and took great satisfaction in helping readers and contributing to a sense of community in the local area. The allure of academic libraries was too strong though, and I applied for the traineeship here at St Edmund Hall.
Having some experience of a library environment has been a real help in these first couple of months at Teddy Hall, and while not a pre-requisite for the traineeship, the familiarity of books and barcodes has helped to combat the unfamiliarity of the Oxford system – full of terms like cuppers, blades and battels! Working in a college environment means that the library is host to a range of events at Teddy Hall, from Compline in the crypt (did I mention the library is housed in the 10th century church of St-Peter-in-the-East!) to wellbeing sessions like an ‘Hour in the Tower’. The Librarians here work hard to integrate the library into college life, and we are currently running a ‘Blind date with a book’ event, offering readers a chance to read something they might not otherwise pick up. My role also has the exciting benefit of being a three-year position and, after this first year of the traineeship, Teddy Hall will fund the tuition fees for Library School and allow me to study alongside my work – so I will be sticking around for a while!
