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Graduate Trainee Events 2011-2012

Visits and events are organised as part of the SCONUL (Society of College, National and University Libraries) training programme. This page will be updated on a regular basis.

Details of previous trainee events can be found here (2010-2011), here (2009-2010), here (2008-2009), here (2007-2008), here (2006-2007), here (2005-2006), and here (2004-2005).

Conferences

Library visits:

Picture of University Library

Training Opportunities

Christ's College

  • Introduction to MARC21
  • AACR2 training
  • Introduction to Library of Congress Subject Headings
  • Voyager Circulation Client
  • Voyager Cataloging Client
  • CATALOG website training
  • Various html/computing courses, available through the University Computing Service
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Conferences

Libraries@Cambridge conference

On Thursday 12th January most of the graduates attended the libraries@cambridge 2012 conference in West Road Concert Hall. This gave us the opportunity to hear talks from some prominent figures in the library world and mix with colleagues from libraries all across Cambridge.

Prior to the conference we all chipped in to create a poster on the graduate trainee scheme. We each found an area of the work in our library that appealed to us and wrote a short piece on it (along with a humorous advert to libraries considering having a graduate trainee by Phillip). At the start of the conference this was displayed in the entrance area allowing all attendees to browse at will throughout the day!

The conference kicked off with key note addresses from people working in other universities. Firstly Deborah Shorley, Director of Library Services at Imperial College, London gave us a hard hitting talk on her view of the future for libraries and how they must evolve to keep up with the changing world. She spoke of how her scientific library aims to become bookless. She also expressed her view that librarians will become more geared to working with researchers, offering specialist advice, and that items such as journals will become obsolete and should be cleared to create study space. She told us her motto for libraries to survive is 'not doing things differently rather doing different things'.

Secondly Liz Waller, Deputy Director of Library and Archives and Head of Strategic Planning at the University of York, spoke of the use of space in libraries, continueing on from Deborah's idea that books should be cleared for desks. We saw some very different ways of studying to how we're used to in libraries, ranging from bean bags and sofas to adaptable group study areas.

After a short coffee break we moved onto the Parallel Sessions. I chose to attend ' The Digital Library' which was split into two sections; the first being a discussion of how digitised information can be viewed by those wishing to access it. Various projects are underway to digitise rare items such as the Board of Longitude Archives and the Newton papers on Cambridge Digital Library. The aim of projects such as this is to allow easy access to material that would not otherwise be available to the public. The viewer for the Cambridge Digital Library was built here at the University and allows notes to be displayed alongside the images. Other software was also required such as Goobi, which controls workflow, and XTF (eXtensible Tag Framework) which allows indexing and searching.

Secondly Christy Henshaw, Programme Manager at the Wellcome Digital Library, spoke about their digitisation project. Their collections consist of mostly genetics and health reports. She spoke of the issues they have with access; ensuring that personal material is not made freely available. They have implemented a registration scheme for items either of a particularly sensitive nature or that are less than 100 years old (and therefore the people mentioned in the work may still be alive). Copyright is also a problem due to the numerous authors who cannot be traced to seek approval hence it is made sure that it is clear the material is for research and not commercial use.

After lunch we moved on to the final session of the day; short talks given by various users of libraries. This included the Digital Humanities Network, a researcher from the University of Edinburgh and a third year undergraduate. The overall topic was what they wanted out of the libraries they use, and linked back to talks given earlier in the day about becoming bookless and the use of space in libraries. It was generally agreed that although digitisation is a great thing it will never replace books, and that more teaching is required for students to help them learn how to get the most out of all the resources available. However it was brought up how difficult it is to get students to attend such sessions! The idea of group study space was found to be a great idea however everyone still wanted their own area to work when needed.

To end the day there was further time for looking at posters. We can definitely say that the conference gave us a lot to think about!

Rachel Walker, 19 January 2012

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Visit Reports

The Libraries of Lambeth Palace and the Institute of Chartered Accountants

Lambeth Palace, home to the Archbishop of Canterbury, contains not just the man himself (who, alas we did not encounter), but also a huge collection focused on the English Church. The library is a global resource, holding one of the leading collections on the Church of England, with over 160,000 books and periodicals, almost all stored on site. Add to this a huge collection of manuscripts and early printed books, many from the personal libraries of previous archbishops, and it is easy to appreciate the library's scholarly importance.

The Palace is located squarely in central London, with the red-brick medieval gateway seeming a little out of place, surrounded by office blocks and overlooking a busy round-a-bout! However, once inside, it was clear that there was a complete blend of the site's cultural heritage and the functional needs of a busy, well-stocked library. The incongruous gateway, far from being left as a relic of the past, was employed as the primary archive storage area, with each floor stacked high with shelves and records. Majestic though the settings were they presented serious practical constraints. The gateway, while utilised very effectively, was limited in the number of shelves that could be installed: too many and the ceilings might collapse. The story was the same (though slightly less dramatic) elsewhere - flagstone floors, by their nature uneven, though aesthetically appealing, do not provide a secure base for heavy shelves. However, plans are afoot for a new, purpose built library, within the Palace grounds, which would solve the problems of space (and weak ceilings) and improve access and storage conditions.

After a tour round the library our visit culminated in being shown a selection of the library's treasures - each item deserves its own description, but, for the sake of brevity, the stars of the show (from an antiquarian's point of view) were a sumptuously decorated and illuminated prayer book which belonged to Elizabeth I and several examples of wonderful armorial bindings of previous archbishops.

After Lambeth, which did not seem entirely removed from our own working lives, our next stop, the library of the Institute of Chartered Accountants for England and Wales (ICAEW), was entirely unlike anything we had experienced. The immediate differences were the physical ones: an in-library cafe, a television showing 24-hour news, and a suite of meeting rooms told us that this was not a typical library. This initial impression was, however, slightly mis-leading; certainly, the trappings were different, but the fundamental ethos of the library remained providing an invaluable resource to their readers. Where the differences really struck home (once we'd resisted telling the accountants to stop eating in the library) was in how the service was both required and provided. The library users are, obviously, accountants - people without the luxury of time to spend a day poring over books. Instead, they rely on the 'information professionals' (none of the library's staff are called librarians, though almost all are qualified librarians) to do research for them, typically phoning/e-mailing the library with requests (the accountants themselves are often based throughout the country and internationally). Almost all staff spend at least a third of their time on the enquiry desk, and the library has a policy of answering any request within 24 hours. While helping readers and manning a desk were not alien to us, the volume of requests and their urgency (finding undergraduate text-books doesn't come with the same pressure as supplying details on a point of tax law) all handled with consummate professionalism was truly impressive.

While the environment at ICAEW was very different to what we were familiar with, not least in the absence of the proud moniker of 'librarian', the library and its staff were still central to the Institute. This was particularly noticeable in the 'Corporate Taxonomy Project' - an exercise to standardise the language and vocabulary throughout ICAEW's faculties (especially their website). The reason, simply, was to ensure that if someone searched for a word or phrase they could find what they were looking for, rather than their search failing owing to a proliferation of synonyms. The people tasked to carry out this daunting project are, primarily, the library's cataloguers - indeed the inspiration for the project came from seeing how effective the library catalogue's standardisation was, confirmation (should doubt ever creep in) that librarianship and the skills it teaches can prove invaluable to modern business life.

Our thanks to the staff at both institutions who all took time out of their day to show us round and answer our questions.

Jonathan Pearson, 26 March 2012

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University Library Rare Books Reading Room and Churchill College Archives

This was a lovely afternoon of two visits in one.

We were firstly taken to an area of the UL I certainly hadn't been to before, the Rare Books department. Here, we were told about the various roles within this department, from helping readers to gain access to the rare books (40,000 items are fetched to the Rare Books room a year, with many scattered in various corners of the expansive building), monitoring the reading room to ensure books are dealt with correctly , cataloguing and often recataloguing collections, and buying books to fill holes within collections.

We learnt the UL has 80 historic collections, many with their own classification systems. Particular strengths include their incunables , classical scholarship, architectural books, History of Science Cambridge itself, Newton (of course- it's Cambridge!) and the French Enlightenment. It was particularly interesting to know that the Rare Books department holds Newton's own copy of Principia Mathematica, with his notations and coffee stains included! This is apparently one of only a few items which requires a great deal of special permission to see. The UL hols one of the largest collections of reference works on open access anywhere.

Kindly, ( I think we were rather privileged!) we were allowed to see and handle a number of rare items, including a 1492 Ciceronian incunabula. Special care, of course, was taken with this one...

We then went onwards to the Churchill Archives Centre which threw out a number of surprises! We firstly visited the conservation area in which we were told about different ways in which precious papers, suffering from wear and tear/ damp/mould/you name it, are stabilised to allow their continued use. Very special and delicate Japanese papers were used to replace fragile areas. It was really interesting to see this area of work which was, I think, new to us all.

We then received yet more privileges in being shown, somewhat surprisingly, Margaret Thatcher's handbag! This, complete with its contents, forms part of the Thatcher collection held at the Archives Centre. Photos of Thatcher wearing the handbag at various political meetings was proof enough that this was indeed the real deal.

Upstairs in the archives we were again spoilt for choice in seeing various parts of the Churchill papers, including love letters to his wife, letters to his parents and, most significantly (and deeply harrowing for the likes of us) a letter stating his library fines! Having recovered from said shock, we also saw speeches annotated with his notes and various other significant items from events such as the Potsdam conference.

I think this afternoon was a real insight into a different aspect of library-related work for all of us. It was great to see how varied such work can be( and, of course, to see a certain handbag...) Many thanks for such an enjoyable and informative afternoon!

Polly Harper, 14 March 2012

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Anglia Ruskin University Library

Anglia Ruskin University has two graduate trainees who work in two of the campuses that belong to the University (Cambridge and Chelmsford). The trainees were kind enough to host our visit to the library on the Cambridge campus. The tour provided a stark contrast to the working environments of the graduate trainees at the University of Cambridge. Even on approach it was clear that the organization of the campus library was very different from our college and departmental libraries. The library was considerably larger than any of our libraries (with the exception of Trinity College Library, which holds a comparable stock) and it was clear that the design and the ethos of the place were very different. The ground floor was almost entirely devoted to computing facilities and communal working places, where the readers were allowed and even encouraged to talk. The hustle and bustle presented a much livelier environment than our traditional college libraries, in which one has to speak in hushed tones (or not at all) as soon as one passes the issue desk; and it was not until we ascended to the first and second floors that a tranquil library environment was found.

With nearly one hundred staff the library is a much bigger organization than any of the college and departmental libraries in the University of Cambridge (excluding the University Library, which employs several hundred). The trainees therefore have to work in a large hierarchy, in which they may not know everyone by face. (By contrast, my library has a staff of three, where I am sometimes the only member of staff in the building.) Unsurprisingly, each member of staff has a smaller jurisdiction in a large library. But while the responsibilities of individual staff members were more narrowly defined in Anglia Ruskin, their roles allowed for greater specialization. I was interested to learn that the trainees at Anglia Ruskin had no exposure to cataloguing (of which I do a lot), but spent some considerable time providing research assistance to students on matters of referencing, compiling bibliographies and even deciding which books are relevant to essay titles (of which I do comparatively little).

Anglia Ruskin is undoubtedly closer in spirit and design to the majority of libraries outside of Oxbridge, and the visit was beneficial to those who, like me, have remained in Oxbridge from undergraduate level upward.

Joe Sandham, 5 March 2012

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Norwich Cathedral Library and Norwich Millennium Library

Forward planning and time-table research on the part of one of our more organised trainees saw us all at Cambridge station, on the 14th of December, tickets in hand, ready to catch the train to Norwich. Upon arrival we made our way to our first stop - the cathedral, which we found largely thanks to one of our number having been to UEA!

There are two parts to the cathedral library: the first is a theological and religious studies collection, primarily for the teaching and training of ministers (though any member of the public can use it too). The second part is the historic library, which comprises some 8,000 volumes and was built up through donations to the cathedral over the centuries. The majority of this collection is, unsurprisingly, theological; however, the donations naturally reflected the donors' personal interests too, and so the books are on all manner of subjects, including the Classics, mathematics, music and geography to name a few. The cathedral library showed how even a collection as specialised and venerable as this one, in a building even more antiquated, still remained a relevant focal point for the area, both with the teaching it supported and resources it provided. It reflected a real sense of regional heritage, with many donors either being local themselves, or contributing books of relevance to the cathedral, so forming a collection unique to the cathedral.

The Millennium public library, our next stop, is the busiest public library in the UK, with well over a million visitors a year, and it looked every inch a modern library. The library is part of a complex which includes a restaurant, a café and BBC East, with the entire area being encased in glass and lights, giving it a very modern feel. The library lends not just books, but also CDs, DVDs, video games and has recently started lending e-books and e-audio, both of which are becoming increasingly popular. Admittedly, digitisation and 'e-technology' are sensitive topics to some librarians, but this library clearly showed how, even with the advent of such new formats, the library as an institution still remained a central to the community, both educationally and recreationally. The Millennium library provided an invaluable insight into what public libraries will look like in the future, both in terms of lay-out and design, but also in terms of shifting attitudes and understanding to what readers want, and how best to provide it.

Our thanks to Gudrun Warren and Catherine Wymer for taking the time to show us round their respective libraries, and answer the barrage of questions we fired at them.

Jonathan Pearson, 19 December 2011

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University Library

Having spent a good few mornings already in the University Library partaking in various training sessions, the trainees were finally allowed to see the 'real' UL, given access to its hidden secrets through a tour, which despite the library's magnitude, we (quite impressively I might add) all managed to survive without getting lost somewhere in the depths of its endless shelves!

Colin, our very informative guide, gave us a history of the library, from its first mention , dating 1416, through to its many and various expansions, and its current, roughly 8 million volume, collection. As one of the UK's 6 legal deposit libraries, the UL receives, weekly, a lorry filled with the latest publications from the British Library, and we saw a glimpse of this collection in the great 'snake' (the rows of stock) extending for what seems to be miles and miles. One year's worth of books taken in by the library extends to a mile and a half alone. It does NOT, we discovered, and contrary to popular belief, contain a copy of every book in Britain. There are notably some missing, particularly around the 17th and 18th centuries...somewhat curiously...

We were also shown the old cataloguing records, around numerous departments including behind the scenes of acquisitions (which focuses on international publications), the reference section. Excitingly Colin also took us up the looming tower giving us the opportunity for lovely views of Cambridge. The tour ended finally with a trip to the old printing room downstairs containing printers which have been passed on from the Cambridge University Press. Interestingly, these printers are still used at times and Colin demonstrated to us the technique used for printing in the past. We learnt it would have taken 3 hours for a professional printer to gather up all the right stamps for a single page.

All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable, invaluable and eye opening trip. The place certainly seems less of a mystery now, although I get the feeling we only really touched its surface...

Polly Harper, 20 October 2011

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The Betty and Gordon Moore Library and the Computer Laboratory Library

Joe and I had the chance to visit two libraries in one afternoon, the Betty and Gordon Moore Library and the Computer Laboratory Library.

The Betty and Gordon Moore, though the name might not necessarily give it away, provides for mathematics, physics, astronomy, computer science, materials science, and engineering students. We were kindly shown around by Yvonne Nobis and I think it is fair to say we both found it quite different to our own libraries!

The BGM Contains 190, 000 volumes and is a legal deposit, although unlike most other legal deposits, it has 24 hour access for Graduates and staff. With 200 reader spaces, its bright colour scheme throughout, an unusual circular structure- echoing Jefferson's Library- and light and airy feel (enhanced by the self-regulating air conditioning system- this impressed!) it is not surprising it is a very popular study space with students studying within a variety of fields. The BGM also works very closely with the Central Sciences Library, with staff moving between the two for relief work, and a system of sharing scanned documents.

Nicolas Cutler then led us around the Computer Science Laboratory Library. Different again, it is an L-shaped building, which greets you from the first shelving unit you meet with all the 3-day loans from Undergraduate reading lists. Such quick accessibility seems a very good idea. We learnt there are 4000 volumes here, including some unique archival works, dating from the 1930s, which in computer science terms, is very early!

This was a really interesting and insightful afternoon visiting libraries we probably would have been unlikely to see otherwise.

Polly Harper, 16 September 2011

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