Sackler 101: Sunday Opening . . .

 

. . . Research and Study in the Sackler Library on Sundays!

 

 

 

New Sunday opening hours, 2018

 

One of the aims of the Sackler Library’s blog is to provide insights into behind-the-scene activities that enable readers to conduct Sackler-based research and study throughout the year. This, our first contribution to the Sackler 101 series, discusses the introduction of Sunday opening, tells how it came about, and reports on reader response.

At 12:00 noon on 14 January 2018, the beginning of Hilary Term, the Sackler opened on a Sunday for the first time. Planned as a soft launch, and despite minimal advertising, by the time the Library closed at 18:00 the reader count had reached fifty-five and the Sackler had established itself as the University library with the longest year-round, staffed opening hours:

M-F         09:00-22:00
Sat          11:00-18:00
Sun         12:00-18:00

Within seconds of circulating to various student groups the announcement about Sunday opening, we received email responses such as the following:

“THIS IS BRILLIANT!!! The best news to arrive in my inbox yet! Thank you soooo much!”
“Now might be a good time to reiterate how grateful I am to you all for [. . .] actively working to improve it and extend its opening hours!”

Other comments arrived via our Twitter account — for example:

“Sackler Library opening 12-6 on a Sunday is life-changing.”

Once the inevitable concerns about the new initiative had been dispelled, one almost forgot that this was anything other than business as (weekend) usual – with a similar range of library services on offer as on Saturdays.

Although library operations ran smoothly that first day, Sunday opening at the Sackler had been several years in the making and not without challenges. Given that many colleges have provided 24/7 library access for years, it may seem puzzling that the Bodleian Libraries didn’t have longer opening hours more generally. (Indeed, the demand for Sackler Sunday opening dated back a decade or more.) But, then, access to college libraries is relatively easy to manage and regulate, even when there are no staff present. Spaces are smaller and are familiar to their readers (college members only). By contrast, the Bodleian Libraries estate is made up of some extremely complex buildings and collections, accessible to University-based readers and many others too, and thus it is more difficult for readers to navigate their complicated structures unaided.

So what changed?

The results of a Bodleian Libraries Reader Survey in 2012, together with various smaller consultations around the same time, made it clear that one of undergraduates’ and graduate students’ most pressing needs was increased opening hours. Subsequent financial pressure caused any plans to be shelved at that time. By 2017, however, a further Reader Survey made it clear that the need still existed and resulted in a key aim of the Bodleian Libraries Strategy 2017-2022: ‘We will improve access to highly used hub libraries by increasing opening hours to better reflect user requirements, focusing especially on weekend and vacation hours.’ (Key strategic goal 3: Access, engagement and outreach.) It was obvious that the Sackler, with its already generous year-round opening hours, its wide-ranging collections addressing the research, study and teaching needs of multiple departments and faculties, was a natural candidate for extended opening. We decided, therefore, to introduce Sunday opening asap, and that it would run, initially, on a two-year trial basis.

In order to make Sunday opening a reality at the Sackler, a number of mechanisms needed to be in place. The library’s entry and alarm system had to be reprogrammed, web pages and other signage updated, departments notified. In parallel, new job descriptions were needed, and additional library assistants had to be recruited and trained. As on Saturdays, the Sunday Reader Services staff provide basic assistance to readers (more complex queries are referred to specialist staff), carry out reshelving and stock maintenance, and are also engaged in project work.

Since Sunday opening began, word has spread and the number of readers using the library has increased week-on-week. Within one month of opening, the Sunday reader count already stood at 135. Reader numbers for the corresponding Saturdays, moreover, do not appear to have been significantly affected. Inevitably, vacation figures have been lower, but still not that far below 100.  

Judging by its current success, it seems unlikely that Sunday opening will end after the two-year trial.

Frank Egerton
Operations Manager

 

 

Like @ Sac! – International Women’s Day 2018 Book Display

 

International Women’s Day is an event celebrated on 8th March every year that focuses attention on the efforts that have been made, are being made, and still need to be made, towards equality and women’s rights around the world. (See, in this regard, the New York Times’s Obituaries Overlooked series which includes, for example, photographer Diane Arbus and author Sylvia Plath.)

To coincide with International Women’s Day 2018, the Sackler’s Graduate Trainee has set up a book display in the library to showcase the work and contributions of women, past and present, in various areas of study covered by the library’s collections, including Egyptology, Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Archaeology, History of Art and Architecture, and Classics.

 

 

Subtitled Celebrating Women Past and Present, the display’s broad theme comprises individual women and their creative and intellectual contributions to the above-mentioned fields of study, as well as to wider society through various avenues: archaeological excavations and reports; travel writing and journalism; scholarly publications; paintings, drawings and photographs; and architectural designs.

The display features women from a broad historical range, from the 14th-century-BCE Egyptian ruler Nefertiti to Renaissance artist Sofonisba Anguissola; nineteenth-century travellers and archaeologists; ground-breaking twentieth-century feminist art historians such as Linda Nochlin; and contemporary authors writing for both academic and popular audiences today.

 

 

While many of the publications on display are detailed biographies of individual women – for example, twentieth-century British archaeologist Dame Kathleen Kenyon and Indian-born archaeologist, anthropologist, and folklorist Margaret Alice Murray – other publications bring together the work of several women active in a specific field. One such book is Women travellers in Egypt: from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century, which makes an excellent springboard for further research on women who travelled to, and wrote detailed accounts of, Egypt in that period.

We have also highlighted publications by some pioneering twentieth-century art historians. Frequently described as a seminal work of feminist art history, the 1971 essay ‘Why have there been no great women artists?’, published in ARTnews by the late Linda Nochlin (1931-2017), has greatly influenced the development of subsequent generations of art historians. To read more about Nochlin’s life, one of her many obituaries from late 2017 can be found here.

Our art and architecture collections are represented by a range of international women artists, from the Singh twins, Amrit Kaur Singh and Rabindra Kaur Singh, to Yayoi Kusama, Käthe Kollwitz and Zaha Hadid. We hope readers enjoy exploring the life and works of these women. To find other publications on the topic search the subject phrase ‘women artists’ (or ‘women architects’) on SOLO.

Writers are represented firstly by Agatha Christie, who was often inspired by her travels in the Middle East (the artwork for Le crime de l’Orient-Express (2013) is by photographer Martin Parr). We have also included one of the best-known poets from Classical Antiquity — Sappho — whose complete works have recently been translated by Diane Raynor (2014). This publication highlights not only the creative endeavours of a woman writing in the 7th-6th century BCE, but also the scholarly (and creative) work of a modern female translator, showing how women can give voice to women across the ages. Sappho is currently featured by the Bodleian Libraries in the exhibition Sappho to Suffrage: women who dared (Weston Library), which opened during the week of International Women’s Day.

It was, of course, impossible to include in the Sackler’s compact display as many fascinating and interesting women as are represented in the collections. We hope, however, that readers enjoy (re)discovering those selected for this year’s display, and that our chosen works spark ideas for further exploration and reflection on this year’s International Women’s Day. To this end, this blog post includes below not only a display list of the publications, but also a further reading list of other items in our collections.

We welcome (and encourage) suggestions for future book displays.

Emily Pulsford
Graduate Trainee Librarian
Sackler Library

 

Display list

Beard, M., 2017. Women & power: a manifesto, London.

Davis, M. C., 2008. Dame Kathleen Kenyon: digging up the Holy Land, California.

Flavio, C., 1994. Sofonisba Anguissola e le sue sorelle, Italy.

Fraser, H., 2014. Women writing art history in the nineteenth century: looking like a woman, Cambridge.

Hadid, Z. & Jodidio, P., 2013. Hadid: Zaha Hadid complete works 1979-2013, Köln.

Hawes, H. B., 1901. Excavations at Kavousi, Crete.

Hawes, H. B., 1904-5. Gournia: report of the American Exploration Society’s excavations at Gournia, Crete, University of Pennsylvania.

Hughes, B., 2005. Helen of Troy: goddess, princess, whore, London.

Kaur Singh, A., Kaur Singh, R., Spalding, J., Pal, R. & Swallow, D., 1999. Twin perspectives: paintings, Great Britain.

Kollwitz, K. & Fischer, H., 1995. Käthe Kollwitz: Meisterwerke der Zeichnung, Köln.

Manley, D., 2013. Women travellers in Egypt: from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century, Cairo.

Nagy, H., 2013. Elisabeth Jastrow (1890-1981), in Art Libraries Journal vol.38.no.4.

Nochlin, L., 1988. Women, art, and power: and other essays, New York.

Parker, R. & Pollock, G., 2013. Old mistresses: women, art and ideology, London.

Peuckert, S., 2014. Hedwig Fechheimer und die ägyptische Kunst: Leben und Werk einer jüdischen Kunstwissenshaftlerin in Deutschland, Berlin.

Rayor, D. J., Lardinois, A. P. M. H., 2014. Sappho: a new translation of the complete works, Cambridge.

Samson, J., 1985. Nefertiti and Cleopatra: queen-monarchs of Ancient Egypt, London.

Searight, S., 2005. Women travellers in the Near East, Oxford.

Sheppard, K. L., 2013. The life of Margaret Alice Murray: a woman’s work in archaeology, Plymouth.

Tripp, C. & Collins, P., 2017. Gertrude Bell and Iraq: a life and legacy, Oxford.

Trümpler, C., 2000. Agatha Christie und der Orient: Kriminalistik und Archäologie, Basel.

Wolf, S., Rose, P., Mancoff, D. N. & Cameron, J. M., 1998. Juliet Margaret Cameron’s women, London; New Haven.

Yayoi, K. & Francis, M., 2012. Yayoi Kusama, London.

 

Further reading

Bell, G. L. & Howell, G., 2015. A woman in Arabia: the writings of the Queen of the Desert, New York.

Chadwick, J., 2014. The decipherment of linear B, Cambridge.

Christie, A., Mendel, J-M. & Parr, M., 2013. Le crime de l’Orient-Express, Paris.

Clapp, N., 2001. Sheba: through the desert in search of the legendary queen, Boston.

Cooney, K., 2015. The woman who would be king, London.

Davies, N. M. & Davies, N. de Garis, 1963. Scenes from some Theban tombs: (nos. 38, 66, 162, with excerpts from 81), Oxford.

Fox, M., 2013. The riddle of the labyrinth: the quest to crack an ancient code and the uncovering of a lost civilisation, London.

Freuler, O., 2017. A tale of two sisters: Simone and Hélène de Beauvoir’s La Femme rompue. Taylor Institution Library blog. [accessed March 12, 2018].

Haikal, F. M. H., 1970-. Two hieratic funerary papyri of Nesmin, Brussels.

Hawes, H. B., 1967. A Land called Crete: a symposium in memory of Harriet Boyd Hawes, 1871-1945, Northampton, Mass.

Heartney, E., Posner, H., Princethal, N., Scott, S., Nochlin, L., 2013. After the revolution: women who transformed contemporary art, Munich.

Howard, J., 1990. Whisper of the muse: the world of Julia Margaret Cameron, London.

Kusama, Y., 2011. Infinity net: the autobiography of Yayoi Kusama, London.

Kusche, M., 2003. Retratos y retratadores Alonso Sánchez Coello y sus competidores Sofonisba Anguissola, Jorge de la Rúa y Rolán Moys, Madrid.

Moon, B. E., 2006. More usefully employed: Amelia B. Edwards, writer, traveller and campaigner for ancient Egypt, London.

Murray, M. A., 1949. The splendour that was Egypt: a general survey of Egyptian culture and civilisation, London.

Murray, M. A., 1963. My first hundred years, London.

Nightingale, F., 1987. Letters from Egypt: a journey on the Nile 1849-1850, London.

Olsen, B. A., 2014. Women in Mycenaean Greece: the Linear B tablets from Pylos and Knossos, Abingdon.

Quibell, A. A., 1925. A wayfarer in Egypt, London.

Rees, J., 2008. Women on the Nile: writings of Harriet Martineau, Florence Nightingale and Amelia Edwards, London.

Thompson, C. E., Saggini, F. & Chaber, L., 2014. Women’s travel writings in North Africa and the Middle East, London.

Yamamura, M., 2015. Yayoi Kusama: inventing the singular, Cambridge, Mass.

Like @ Sac! – LGBT History Month Book Display

Starting in 2005, LGBT History Month has been celebrated in the UK each February.  For many in the LGBTQ community, it is a dedicated opportunity to reflect on and raise awareness of their history and heritage.  Here at the Sackler Library we marked the beginning of 2018’s LGBT History Month (and launch of the Sackler’s blog) with Helen Worrell’s  LIKE @ SAC! post focusing on R. B. Parkinson’s A Little Gay History: Desire and Diversity Across the World, published by the British Museum in 2013 as part of the effort to increase access to LGBTQ-related objects in the museum’s collections.

To follow on from this post, and to continue marking LGBT History Month, Sackler Readers Services staff have put together a Sackler book display showing some of the LGBTQ-related works held by the library.  Entitled LGBT History Month at the Sackler, the display brings together, from across the Library, a selection of publications with an emphasis on the long history of LGBTQ people, communities and themes, and their representation through word and image.

The aims of the display are twofold. Firstly, we hope it will provide a chance for readers to encounter a theme they may not have explored in depth before and to reflect on LGBTQ representation in the library space, visual culture, and the wider world.  In addition, we hope to raise awareness of the diversity of the Sackler’s collections and how many different aspects of the collection can be read with, or against, each other in interesting or new ways.

As well as being visually striking, the items on display are intended to be picked up and read too.  Readers may wish to start with the National Trust’s book Prejudice & Pride: Celebrating LGBTQ heritage, as its inside cover features an introductory timeline of key moments in legal and literary LGBTQ history.

From there, the display can be explored chronologically through books on, for example, homosexuality and society in the ancient and medieval worlds.  Alternatively, the display can be read thematically, as it showcases many different aspects of LGBTQ life past and present, such as desire, censorship and misunderstanding.

Anyone looking for a broad overview of the LGBTQ theme in the visual arts can turn to Gay and Lesbian Studies in Art History.  There are also books on Renaissance artists Leonardo da Vinci and Caravaggio, and how they and their works have been interpreted over time, as well as publications on 20th century American artists such as Charles Demuth, Andy Warhol and Robert Mapplethorpe.

LGBTQ responses to and influences on architecture and shared spaces, such as library space, are also represented in the display, for example through the article “Locating the Library as Place among Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Queer Patrons” by Paulette Rothbauer, open on the table and ready to read.  This also serves as a reminder that many journal articles and book chapters explore LGBTQ themes in the visual arts and can be found using SOLO or other bibliographic databases such as Art Full Text (accessible via SOLO or OxLip+).

We hope LGBT History Month at the Sackler highlights a new way of thinking about and engaging with our collections, by a broad theme rather than narrow historical period, school of art, or medium.  Look for the display opposite the Ground Floor Circulation Desk, next to the Self-Issue Machine, in the perfect place for readers to stop by on their way in or out of the library.  The display itself will run until the end of LGBT History Month, but the list of books on display will remain accessible after that via this blog post.

We welcome (and encourage) suggestions for future book displays.

Emily Pulsford
Graduate Trainee Librarian

 

 

Display list

Betsky, A., 1997. Queer space: architecture and same-sex desire, New York.
http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/OXVU1:LSCOP_SAC:oxfaleph019674379

Boehringer, S., 2007. L’homosexualité féminine dans l’antiquité grecque et romaine, Paris.
http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/OXVU1:LSCOP_SAC:oxfaleph016700344

Cook, M. & Oram, A., 2017. Prejudice & pride: celebrating LGBTQ heritage, Warrington.
http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/OXVU1:LSCOP_OX:oxfaleph020910720

Davidson, J. N., 2007. The Greeks and Greek love: a radical reappraisal of homosexuality in ancient Greece, London
http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/OXVU1:LSCOP_SAC:oxfaleph016623527

Davis, W., 1994. Gay and lesbian studies in art history, New York.
http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/OXVU1:LSCOP_OX:oxfaleph015740412

Dover, K. J., 1978. Greek homosexuality, London.
http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/OXVU1:LSCOP_SAC:oxfaleph010565045

Parkinson, R. B., 2103. A little gay history: desire and diversity across the world, London.
http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/OXVU1:LSCOP_SAC:oxfaleph019522970

Mapplethorpe, R., Martineau, P., & Salvesen, B., 2016. Robert Mapplethorpe: the photographs, Los Angeles.
http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/OXVU1:LSCOP_OX:oxfaleph020537898

Mapplethorpe, R., Terpak, F., Brunnick, M., Smith, P., & Weinberg, J., 2016. Robert Mapplethorpe: the archive, Los Angeles.
http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/OXVU1:LSCOP_OX:oxfaleph020537892

Meyer, R., 2003. Outlaw representation: censorship & homosexuality in twentieth-century American art, Boston.
http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/OXVU1:LSCOP_SAC:oxfaleph020571046

Mills, R., 2015. Seeing sodomy in the Middle Ages, Chicago.
http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/OXVU1:LSCOP_SAC:oxfaleph020291118

Rorato, L., 2014. Caravaggio in film and literature: popular culture’s appropriation of a baroque genius, London.
http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/OXVU1:LSCOP_OX:oxfaleph019880867

Rothbauer, P. Locating the library as place among lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer patrons, in eds. Buschman, J., & Leckie, G. J., 2007. The library as place: history, community, and culture, Westport; London.
http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/OXVU1:LSCOP_OX:oxfaleph019522823

Spike, J. T., Brown, D. A., Joannides, P., De Groft, A. H., Rogers, M., & Bisogniero, C., 2015. Leonardo da Vinci and the idea of  beauty, Williamsburg, Virginia.
http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/OXVU1:LSCOP_OX:oxfaleph020476396

Warhol, A., Feldman, F., & Defendi, C., 2003Andy Warhol prints: a catalogue raisonné: 1962-1987, New York.
http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/OXVU1:LSCOP_OX:oxfaleph016253846

Weinberg, J., 1993. Speaking for vice: homosexuality in the art of Charles Demuth, Marsden Hartley, and the first American avant-garde, New Haven; London.
http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/OXVU1:LSCOP_OX:oxfaleph010922447

Weinberg, J., 2004. Male desire: the homoerotic in American art, New York.
http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/OXVU1:LSCOP_OX:oxfaleph015980569

Williams, C. A., 1999. Roman homosexuality: ideologies of masculinity in classical antiquity, New York; Oxford.
http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/OXVU1:LSCOP_OX:oxfaleph013573773

 

Like @ Sac! – A Little Gay History

Welcome to the Sackler Library blog!

This, our first post in our ‘LIKE @ SAC!’ series, marks LGBT History Month 2018 and highlights a favourite item in the Sackler Library’s collections:

R. B. Parkinson
A Little Gay History: Desire and Diversity Across the World
(London: British Museum, 2013)

 

“All too often, written history is monolithic and not multiple, and it quietly suppresses aspects of life that are not considered ‘normal’ by the governing culture.” (Parkinson, 2013, p. 118).

 

My choice of ‘LIKE @ SAC’ item in the Sackler Library is Richard Bruce Parkinson’s A Little Gay History: Desire and Diversity Across the World.  Published by the British Museum, where Parkinson was a a curator in the Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan at the time, this book is one element of a wider project to make LGBTQ objects and histories more accessible at the British Museum.  A trail aimed at uncovering LGBTQ stories and interpretations relating to objects housed at the Museum was launched eight years ago, during LGBT History Month 2009.  It drew attention not only to objects with obvious, or explicit, links to LGBTQ history, but also to those whose connections are more implicit or unrecorded.  Since then, items have been coming out of the closet and into the display cabinets, marking a change in the practice of locking such objects away, such as was practised by the British Museum until the 1950s.

 

Parkinson’s book highlights objects from c.9000 BCE to 2000 CE, taking into account cultures ranging  from Japan to Greece, and including objects in the British Museum’s collections as well as elsewhere.  Starting with a Sculpted figurine of two lovers  (10000BCE, approx.), excavated near Bethlehem, Parkinson, now Professor of Egyptology, University of Oxford, highlights the assumptions that are made when interpreting the past.  Why do we assume that the sculpted figures are male and female, instead of showing same-sex desire?

 

I am particularly drawn to busts of Hadrian and Antinous, both represented on the book’s front cover.  A Newcastle native, I have a natural interest in Hadrian and his nearby, eponymous Wall.  In our school history lessons, however, we never covered the effect of the death of Antinous on Hadrian, the subsequent deification of Antinous, and the founding of a city, Antinopolis, in his honour.

 

Roman. (ca. 130 CE). Portrait of Hadrian, quarter view. [portrait bust]. (Image: © Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence; IAP Artstor) Retrieved from http://library.artstor.org/asset/AWSS35953_35953_32668479, 06 February 2018

Crucially, this book also includes more recent objects from LGBTQ culture, with artworks and badges from Pride marches and campaigns, giving an insight, perhaps, into what future curators will look at when considering the histories of the current era.

 

For me it is important to celebrate not only the objects themselves, but the changing heritage discourse this book represents.  Museums are reflecting on their roles in representing and constructing society, and adapting their displays and policies accordingly.  John Vincent (2014) discusses the importance of the LGBTQ community in seeing themselves reflected in museum and heritage collections.  The work that has gone into exploring and elaborating on LGBTQ identities shows an important shift in the cultures of participation and inclusion of under-represented communities.  Sandell (2017) highlights the role museums can play in countering prejudice.  As LGBT History Month becomes more widely known, there is also an emerging interest in recognising and noting LGBTQ histories.  The V&A, the National Trust and the British Museum have all held recent LGBTQ exhibitions.  In addition, a major funder, the Heritage Lottery Fund, is currently seeking proposals based on LGBTQ histories (Heritage Lottery Fund, 2017).

 

A Little Gay History has inspired further projects exploring LGBTQ histories.  After hearing Parkinson deliver Oxford University’s LGBT History Month Lecture in 2016, Beth Asbury was inspired to apply for funding to put together an LGBTQ Trail across Oxford’s Gardens, Libraries and Museums (also known as ‘GLAM’).  The result of this was the Out in Oxford Trail, launched during LGBT History Month 2017.  The Trail celebrates the diversity of Oxford’s collections, and uncovers queer stories associated with these objects.  This project continues today with a recently launched app.

 

 

A Little Gay History represents an important shift in the cultural heritage establishment, not just because of the objects highlighted within it, but also because it illustrates the important step in the study, inclusion and representation of LGBTQ identities as an essential part of our culture.  Our history is no longer closeted, our stories are no longer hidden.

 

“We are (always have been, always will be) integral parts of human history: and so our histories must not be marginal.” (Parkinson, 2012, para. 16.)

 

Helen Worrell
Archaeology & Tyler Anthropology Librarian
Bodleian Libraries

 

References

Heritage Lottery Fund, 2017. South East England focus on LGBT+ heritage – tell us your story!  [online] Available at: https://www.hlf.org.uk/about-us/news-features/south-east-england-focus-lgbt-heritage-–-tell-us-your-story [Accessed: 05/02/2018]

Parkinson, R. 2012. A ‘Great Unrecorded History’: Presenting LGBT History in a Museum for the World. [online] Available at: http://lgbtialms2012.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/richard-parkinson-british-museum-london.html [Accessed: 05/02/2018]

Parkinson, R.B., Smith, K. & Carocci, M., 2013. A little gay history: desire and diversity across the world, London.

Sandell, R. 2017. Making heritage part of society’s conversations about equality. [online] Available at https://www.hlf.org.uk/about-us/news-features/making-heritage-part-society%E2%80%99s-conversations-about-equality [Accessed: 05/02/2018]

Vincent, J., 2014. LGBT people and the UK cultural sector : the response of libraries, museums, archives and heritage since 1950, Farnham.