Tag Archives: visits

Visit to the University Library (Part One)

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Tour & History of the University Library

In mid-November we attended a jam-packed day-visit to the University Library. For many of us, this was our first voyage into the soaring entity that is the University Library. For myself, I was a student at Clare College, and spent the last three years in Memorial Court of Clare, literally stationed across the road; the University tower was a permanent fixture of my skyline and my life. Yet, for us all, this trip was eye-opening, not just about the University Library themselves and their unique collections, the intricacies of the space and the work taking place within it, but also to the plethora of careers and people that go into running a library on this scale, and which are pathways available to us in our future careers. This peak behind the scenes was enriching and exciting, especially as so many departments kindly opened their doors to us.

We later learnt, in our tour with one of the Library Assistants that kicked off the day, that the sky-scraper effect of the design is an intentional part of the architecture at the request of the donor (The Rockefeller association), and that the UL shares an architect (Sir Giles Gilbert Scott) with the Tate Modern in London; we got to appreciate the souring effect of the tower at the conclusion of the day (but I will leave that to Zia to explain in part two!). A fun fact we learnt while in the basement, exploring the underground storage system and the processes of book collection and return in the request element of library use, was that this architect also designed the phone box, and motifs of this design can be spotted all around the university library, most notably in the use of one as a drop-box, but also in the structure of glass in the doors, in the shape of plant pots, and more. Keeping your eye out for these motifs is a fun way to explore the library that I highly recommend. Liam kindly, and very helpfully, also organised our movement throughout the day between the many departments we got to visit.

While leading us around the building, our guide intertwined the history of the library with the actualities of their current use, such as in the catalogue room, where he explained how the physical catalogue was central to library use, as well as explaining the cut-and-stick approach to their creation, which he placed on a timeline with modern digital cataloguing practices, while still stressing the importance of a physical catalogue to library users and staff alike today. This highlighted to us how our role in libraries, and the way these institutions are run, will echo throughout the future of these collections and the way they are used; take Henry Bradshaw, the librarian from 1867-1886, who established many procedures and structures that remain in today’s practice.

Two major moments in the history of the University Library were explained to us as we walked along a staff corridor in the basement, with photographs of the construction and development of the library running alongside us: the introduction of the Copyright Act in 1710, which saw the University Library anointed as one of the nine privileged libraries of copyright deposit which makes them entitled to a copy of every book published in the UK; and the completion of the creation and move to the new Library in 1934, with the aim of transforming the library into a space that facilitated and cultivated scholarship. Our guide highlighted an image of a cart containing books, being drawn by a horse, and embellished how over 600 trips were required using the horse and cart method to move the library collection to the new building in the 1930’s (thankfully there were only two book fatalities in this process! Sadly, these books were claimed by the river – oops!).

The Map Room

Our first departmental stop was the Map Room, where the Maps Librarian had laid out a selection of maps held in the collection, ranging from a medieval map of Constantinople, marked with red crosses to show the location of templars, to the continuous scale map projects of the 1850’s/60’s, to ground intelligence soviet maps. Being able to see these objects and see first-hand the wide range of material that comes under maps, as well as the way maps morph to fit purpose was fascinating. The Librarian explained how map curation techniques develop in relation to printing techniques by showing us examples of lithography, tooling, hand-painting, and more. He also explained that maps develop in response to intention/requirement; this raised our awareness of a critical understanding of maps, as holding a tension between the perceived empirical truth of them and the purpose of them. To highlight this, we looked at two maps in comparison; a medieval map of the sea, awash with mythical beasts that pose threat to seamen, next to a modern nautical map, which focused on empirically mapping the depth of the sea.

A particular highlight was the fantasy maps which the Librarian got out at my request. He kindly took the time to explain how he pursued online fantasy map designers who created these maps as a hobby in order to curate a collection of them to be held by the library for prosperity. These maps indicate a great amount of modern interest, knowledge, artistry and work that continues to thrive in map making. He also asked us (and in turn I now ask you) to donate any fantasy maps we have from video/board games and such to further enrich this area of the collection.

Here we also considered, and saw, how library practices respond to different types of collections and the items they contain. The first challenge is that of form and format; when the object is not a typical book it requires flexibility of storage, such as tubes and large drawers to preserve them. Another element is how cataloguing is modified to cover the data that users need to know about these objects; in this case, there are specific unique fields in Alma for cataloguing, but Ian highlighted how much of a key role card cataloguing retains in this type of collection by showing us their catalogue drawers. We also heard how special collections like these are responding to, and utilising, modern developing technologies, as with the open-source project with the British Library which aims to create a digitally stitched map of the world. In this way, we saw how librarianship practices are responsive, how they must, and can, be flexible to special collections, and how they continue to be malleable with the introduction of new technologies.

Manuscripts & Archives

After a tea break in the library café, we arrived at potentially our most highly anticipated stop of the trip; the manuscript reading room. As an undergraduate student at Cambridge, I had personally been given access to this room in my final year to use a manuscript from the collection for my dissertation, but even that couldn’t have prepared me for the wealth of treasures the Archivist had prepared to show us. In his selected array, the Archivist took us simultaneously through the history of the development of the manuscript and archives collection in the library, as well as the very history of books themselves. He began by unveiling from an unsuspecting box a glass case, containing the earliest item from the collection: fragments from the Oxyrhyncus  papyrus collection, dated to 300 AD. We were then shown a Buddhist illuminated manuscript, which had a format which none of us had seen before, and which we were fascinated by as he carefully removed each strip of palm to reveal the next in the Poti format sequence; it demonstrated the wide array of forms that books have taken over centuries, and geographies. Dated to c.1000, this manuscript of the Perfection of Wisdom in Eight-Thousand Stanzas is a jewel of the library, as it is one of the oldest illuminated manuscripts from India in Sanskrit.

Next was a beautifully sumptuous medieval Book of Hours, dated to the 14th-century, gilded with gold, and rich in colour, with many playful marginalia scampering around its pages, and a provenance of Alice de Raydor. He explained how the manuscript reveals the history of its creation, as with the tools depicted in the marginalia placing its creation in East-Anglia, and its story of preservation, highlighting the marks left from Victorian attempts at conservation on one of the pages, where a cleaning fluid has permanently stained the text beneath an illumination. In this way, we learnt how conservation practices, special collections, and the thought that runs them, have morphed across time, and how we might play a roll in their future. These books may only be in our care for a short while of their lifetime, but it is a Rare Books Curator’s role to care of them, and to facilitate scholar’s access to them both now and for posterity.

In this display we were also shown a remarkedly broad selection of the type of records archived in the University Library: from Isaac Newton’s student notebooks, marking his experiments on his own eyes with a bodkin that were not for the squeamish; to ship logs; to Charles Darwin’s prose and cons list of marrying, which included as a pro “better than a dog anyhow” and concluded with the decision to “marry, marry, marry Q.E.D”. We began with the Ely diocese records, which were highlighted as a key resource to social historians, as the records go back to c.1200 and track the complex changes of the concept of justice through the court records. Specifically, we were shown a selection of records from the 1640’s that related to witchcraft, including the Archivist transcribing a section of a spell to us which involved a man taking eucharist bread “in his hand”, feeding it to a frog or toad, and “pissing[ing] against a church wall” in order to perform magic. Weaving a path through the vast collections, we were introduced to a collection held by the library relating to The Goligher Circle, and their paranormal investigations in the 1920’s. This featured photographs that claim to evidence ‘exuding ectoplasm’, which the library also has a sample of, floating in a bottle. 

Medical Library Visit

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The trainees recently visited the Cambridge University Medical Library, situated just outside the city centre in the School of Clinical Medicine, which also forms part of the wider Cambridge Biomedical Campus. The Medical Library’s resources (including study space, borrowable collection, and reference materials) are available not only to Cambridge University’s medical students, but also to use by NHS staff working next door at Addenbrooke’s Hospital. Throughout our visit, we found impressive the ways academic and healthcare librarianship combine to balance the needs of both user groups at the Medical Library.

The visit began with a tour of the library, and the Library Manager described how the library space has developed over the years. The first reading room in the Medical Library is an all-purpose study space, with a range of seating designed to accommodate both individual study and students’ collaborative work. A ‘Quick Picks’ section of frequently borrowed material sits close to the self-issue machines, and is one of the library’s most popular resources. This reading room also houses the Medical Library’s wellbeing and general interest collection of books and DVDs. The Library Manager explained how some of the reading room computers operate on the University system, and the rest connect to the NHS user network.

General interest and wellbeing collection at the Medical Library.

From here, we passed the library’s dedicated silent study space (aptly named the ‘Shhhh’ area), and a classroom equipped for library-run training sessions. The adjoining reading room contains most of the library’s working collection of books, alongside more study space.

Study spaces throughout the Medical Library’s working collection.

After the tour, we were introduced to the Head of Medical Library Services, and one of the Assistant Librarians. Chatting to the team, we were able to ask questions and learn more about the role of the Medical Library; whilst also observing the time-honoured library tradition of morning tea and biscuits! We found the exciting aspects unique to healthcare librarianship particularly interesting to hear more about, such as assisting medical researchers and doctors with their literature reviews. It was also inspiring to learn that routes into healthcare librarianship are many and various – for instance, a background in medicine is not a prerequisite to becoming a healthcare librarian.

We would like to thank the library team for their warm welcome and fascinating insight into the work of the Medical Library.

West Hub Visit

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In April, we were treated to two library visits in one day: Cambridge Judge Business School in the morning and the West Hub in the afternoon. Located on the University of Cambridge’s West Cambridge Site, the West Hub is a 10-minute cycle or a short bus journey from the city centre. It was a really lovely route, with the cycle path running parallel to the fields and heading towards the nearby village, Coton.

The view as you leave the West Hub

Home to the University Sports Centre, Cavendish Laboratory, Department of Veterinary Medicine, Whittle Laboratory and various commercial research institutes, the West Cambridge Site’s main focus is on physical sciences and technology. One of the Site’s newest buildings, the West Hub, opened on 26 April 2022 and represents the first step in the creation of the West Cambridge Innovation District.

Lovely, bright staircase with floor-to-ceiling windows

The West Hub is the University of Cambridge’s first publicly open co-working hub. With no restrictions on who can access the building, the space feels like a futuristic public library. On the ground floor, you can find a canteen, bar, newsagent, and even showers. Moving up the bright orange staircase, there is a rich variety of working areas (40 to be exact!) to suit different needs and moods. Interestingly, there are no zones for studying: the architect designed the building so that it naturally gets quieter as you move up the building. The Library Manager did note that students tend to be quiet in the North Room (where the books are located) though. Perhaps the visual cue of books is all it takes to inspire silence! It was an important and intentional decision to name the room with the books the North Room rather than the Library, so that the West Hub as a whole is understood to be a library.

One of many different seating styles in the West Hub

What struck me, was how accessible the space was. Unlike many buildings in Cambridge, the West Hub has step-free access, two lifts, wide corridors, accessible and gender-neutral toilets, baby change stations, spacious seating areas, and a mixture of high and low-tables. The West Hub’s relationship with nature is also inspiring. There are beautiful big windows overlooking green space, trees in the atrium growing toward the upper floors, and indoor plants dotted everywhere. Incorporating nature into the building is a clear indication of their desire to prioritise wellbeing and sustainability. The calming atmosphere is complimented by the availability of contemplation rooms, which are comfy, technology-free spaces to contemplate or have a conversation. Other bookable spaces include large meeting rooms, meeting pods, and a pop-up media lab.

A growing tree in the atrium

While in many ways the West Hub reimagines what a library is, it still maintains traditional services. The library desk is located on the first floor and as part of the Technology Libraries and Biological Sciences Libraries Team, it supports the Departments of Engineering, Computer Science, Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, and Veterinary Medicine. The library staff offer standard study skills sessions (how to use the library, literature searches, referencing) alongside more personal sessions (designing a great poster, perfecting presentation skills, revision tips). In addition to the North Room, there is also a small ‘Inspire, Learn and Inform’ collection, which displays books from outside of the main subject areas. Although borrowing is restricted to University of Cambridge students and staff, non-members are welcome to reference the material inside the West Hub.

A massive thank you to Danielle, the Library Manager, for providing such an engaging tour and to the rest of the West Hub team for sharing their expertise with us.

Queens’ College War Memorial Library and Old Library visit

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Recently, we had the pleasure of a visit to Queens’ College, where we got to visit both the War Memorial Library (the student library) and the Old Library. The Rare Books Curator met us at the Porter’s Lodge and after a walk over the Mathematical Bridge, we were shown some of the historic and notable parts of the College including the Old Court, the Old Hall, and Cloister Court. She told us some history of the College and Library, including important benefactors of the early Library such as Thomas Smith, whose portrait hung in the Old Hall.

The Long Gallery in Cloister Court

The Reader Services Librarian then showed us around the War Memorial Library, which holds their teaching collections and student study space. The stacked walkways and twisty spiral staircases help maximise the amount of room available for books and students, and it felt like a cosy place to study. The main room was complimented by a huge glass window with beautiful stained glass details at the top, helping the space feel more open and provide a great amount of natural light. We also got to view a display on the ‘Golden Age of Science Fiction’, put together by the Queens’ trainee, and based on a sizeable collection of mid-twentieth century novels donated by an alumnus of the College.

A bay of shelves in the Old Library. The lower portions of the shelves are original, with the higher shelves built on top at a later date.

We were then taken into the Old Library, a beautiful room built specially for its purpose as a library in the mid-fifteenth century! It has been in continuous use since then, and remains very close to its original state. The lower sections of the current bookshelves were part of the original medieval lectern shelves, and many books remain in their original bindings. As well as the home of many of their rare books and manuscripts, the Old Library is also an exhibition space, and we were given some time to explore the current exhibition, ‘Legacies of Enslavement at Queens’ College.’ This exhibition follows an investigation by the College into their students’ and fellows’ connections to empire and enslavement from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. The exhibition featured documents and books from this period in the Library collections that revealed some of Queens’ connections to the slave trade as well as the abolition movement.

Finally, the Rare Books Curator gave us a ‘hands-on’ workshop introduction to early printed books. After a brief history of paper production and the printing process, we got to try our hand at folding a printed sheet into a gathering, making sure the folds were all in the right place so the text was the correct orientation and in the right order. We were then shown various types of early printed books, using examples from the Queens’ collections. In pairs, we were given a book to look at, and challenged to examine it and talk about any interesting features we could spot. It is surprising how much you can learn about a book and its history by understanding its materiality!

Our thanks to the library team at Queens’ College for a wonderful look into this historic library and a fun and educational introduction to rare books!

Cambridge Judge Business School Library Visit

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A few weeks ago, we had our first joint visit with the Oxford trainees to Cambridge Judge Business School (CJBS). Located in the former Addenbrooke’s Hospital, the School has an impressive façade and despite various reconstructions, still maintains some original features. The interior of the building has changed significantly though, with an open plan design, floating staircases, balconies, giant columns, and lovely bright windows. The art deco feeling, with bright colours and patterns, represents a marked difference from traditional University of Cambridge buildings and speaks to the School’s desire to be innovative.

After introductions and a lot of staring in awe at the atrium, we were met by CJBS’ Deputy Librarian, Andrew, who led us straight to tea and biscuits (which is quickly becoming one of my favourite traditions of library life!).

It’s a fairly small library, but immediately feels like one which is welcoming and comfortable. There is a map on the wall for students to place a pin on their home country, googly eyes on staplers, beanbags within the stacks, “dinky doors” on shelves, and a work-in-progress communal jigsaw. It was really nice to see a playful side of librarianship, especially when business is a stereotypically serious subject. I’m sure that CJBS’ efforts to create an open space, with student wellbeing a key consideration, contributes significantly to combatting library anxiety and positioning the library staff as friendly and approachable.

I was really impressed with how committed CJBS are to understanding and then improving user experience. With a dedicated User Experience Librarian, they run numerous UX projects throughout the year. One of their previous projects asked students to empty their bags (this was optional!) to understand what kind of things students brought with them to the library. It led to the discovery that more users than they thought owned Microsoft devices and as a consequence, they purchased more compatible chargers. Another project observed the creative solutions students implemented to change the height of their laptop i.e., by placing their laptop on a pile of books. To combat this, CJBS now have lots of laptop stands available and a couple of height-adjustable desks.

Alongside UX projects, they also have a ‘graffiti wall’ so students can leave anonymous feedback and suggestions. This has proven to be quite successful, with the team acknowledging that, for many students, writing on a board is less daunting than approaching staff directly. The library team then write the actions they’ve taken underneath. The ‘graffiti wall’ initiative has brought to light many issues that wouldn’t have been discovered otherwise, including a squeaky door in the far corner of the library.

The collection is very reading list focused, which results in the stock being regularly weeded and replenished with new acquisitions. There is also a big emphasis on electronic resources, because many students aren’t located in Cambridge, or even in the UK. A clear example of this is CJBS’ new Global Executive MBA programme, which includes teaching from various locations: Cambridge, other countries, and online.

The library also has access to specialised business databases such as Bloomberg. Alongside traditional services such as live market analysis, Andrew showed us some of the more fun features such as the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which updates daily to show the world’s richest people. Bizarrely, there’s also a feature called ‘Posh’ which allows users to list items to sell – think Ebay for rich people – such as cars and apartments (everything we saw was in the millions…).

In addition to essential texts and reading list materials, students can also borrow wellbeing books from the ‘Boost’ section and access ‘Weird Ideas and Disruptive Thinking’ books covering a variety of subject areas. There’s also a small fiction and DVD section.

Cambridge Judge Business School’s user-centric approach was really refreshing and gave us all lots to think about for our own libraries. A big thank you to Andrew and everyone at CJBS for such an interesting visit.

Ely Part 2: The Cambridgeshire Archives

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After our tour of the Cambridge University Library’s remote storage facility and a lovely tearoom lunch, the trainees headed across town to the Cambridgeshire Archives, which hold ‘historic records and other resources relating to Cambridgeshire, the former counties of Huntingdonshire and the Isle of Ely and their communities’.

Housed in an unassuming former bowling alley by the train station, the Archive was light, airy, and very functional. One of the archivists, Sue Sampson, kindly gave us a tour. Because the Archives had only recently been moved into the building from a previous site in Cambridge, the storage area was very thoughtfully laid out with the current collection in mind, and we were struck by how well-suited the space was to its function. The Archives hold materials ranging from the 1205 Huntingdon Borough Charter to nineteenth century enclosure maps to contemporary records to births in the county (in total the materials comprise the weight of 171 elephants, we were informed!). There were spacious, well-equipped separate rooms for conservation and digitization: the Archives use digitization as a revenue stream and tries to prioritize digitizing material for which there is a demand, particularly from websites like Ancestry.com.

Digitization room

We then stopped in to chat with the cataloguing and processing team, who showed us a glimpse of some of the new items being received. The Archives take in a wide range of material relating the history of Cambridgeshire, preserving personal documents as well as institutional ones: at the moment we arrived, the journal of a man who had been evacuated to Cambridgeshire during the Second World War as a child was being catalogued.

After our tour behind the scenes of the Archive, we returned to the reading room, where the research team told us a bit about their jobs. The Cambridgeshire Archives employ three members of staff whose central role is undertaking commissioned work for the Historical Research Service; often the enquiries they address relate to family history and building/home history. When not working on commissions, the research staff has time to undertake their own projects in the Archives that they feel will aid future researchers. This seemed a very impressive service to offer, and a fantastic way to make use of the expertise and knowledge of archive staff.

Many thanks to the staff at the Cambridgeshire Archives for a wonderful visit; what a perfect day out in Ely we had!

Reading room

Pembroke College Library Visit and Law Libraries Talk

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On the 9th of January 2023, the Graduate Trainees visited Pembroke College Library to attend a talk on Law Libraries, as part of our professional development. Founded in 1347, Pembroke is one of the oldest Colleges in Cambridge, with architecture and library collections that reflect its development from a medieval house of study to a modern and dynamic academic institution.  

The Waterhouse Library. Alfred Waterhouse designed many buildings in Oxford and Cambridge, as well as the Natural History Museum.

The Library has inhabited several locations within the College over the years. It originally existed in a corner of the medieval Old Court, before migrating to the original chapel building after Christopher Wren’s construction of another chapel in 1665. In 1875, the notable architect Alfred Waterhouse built a new Library as part of his refashioning of the College, and Pembroke’s collections now occupy the gloriously eclectic building, with its distinctive red brick façade, stained glass windows, and ornate Clock tower.

Stained glass windows inspired by Ted Hughes’ poetry refract light onto the writer’s desk.

The Waterhouse Library is home to 42,000 books, with strong specialisms in Art History and Law. This year’s Pembroke trainee showed us around the peaceful reading rooms, with views over Pembroke grounds, and took us to see Ted Hughes’ impressively ink-stained desk and chair, positioned underneath windows inspired by his poetic fascination with nature. More stained glass windows, designed by German artist Hans von Stockhausen in 2001, shade the vestibule stairwell, featuring woodcut illustrations of animals and botanical specimens taken from the work of Nehemiah Grew and William Turner, early botanists at the College, contributing to the chapel-like ambience of the Library.

We then attended a talk on the world of Law Libraries by the Assistant Librarian at Pembroke, who began her own career at one of the Inns of Courts in London. Law librarians can work with many different aspects of the law, and are employed in law firms, academic institutions with law libraries, some government libraries, and the Advocate’s Library in Edinburgh, all with different remits.

As England exists in a ‘common law’ jurisdiction, our legal system is based in the ‘doctrine of precedence’, through which sitting judges can respond to, uphold, or reject the previous judgements of older courts. Librarians, therefore, serve a vital purpose within the legal profession, ensuring barristers, solicitors, and clerks have the relevant information on these precedents required to win a case in court. Our speaker described the enjoyably fast-paced nature of this environment, as well as the warm and often collegiate atmosphere of the Inns of Court.

A quiet reading room in the Pembroke College Library.

Physical collections remain an integral part of legal information services, due to the mass of written material on historic cases. When referencing cases from many hundreds of years ago, librarians might even consult some of the early printed books still held in collections at the Inns of Court, adding a special collections element to the role. Databases, and database management, form a similarly vital part of the job. The Librarian showed us the highly specific referencing style within the different law books and online databases, which can aid finders in their search for individual cases. We examined the online judgement of the recent (and infamous) Rooney v Vardy case, to observe how these cases are disseminated as precedents after their conclusion.

It was fascinating to hear about the demands and rewards of this strand of librarianship, and revealed another possible path for our careers after the trainee year. It was also wonderful to observe the inner workings of Pembroke Library, with its peaceful demeanour and busy and vital Library service, hidden in the very heart of Cambridge.

Newnham College Library visit

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Last week, we had the first of our visits to one of our own trainees’ libraries – Newnham College. Newnham is a women’s College founded in 1871, with the Library being first constructed in 1897. The Library was a gift from Henry and Elizabeth Yates Thompson who had close connections to the College and its founders, including the architect Basil Champneys. The 2004 modern extension is named the Horner Markwick Library after two previous Librarians of the College, who both generously donated funds towards expanding the Library.

Our tour started in the Archive, where the Archivist had laid out a selection of photographs and other items of note from the College’s history for us to view. Of particular note was a letter written by Rosalind Franklin, whose later work would contribute hugely to our understanding of DNA structure. At the time of the letter, Franklin was a first-year undergraduate student, and wrote to her parents of the exciting news of the first female professor elected in either Oxford or Cambridge (this was Dorothy Garrod), who had been elected from Newnham. Franklin also noted that there was still a question over whether, as a woman, she would be given full membership of the University.

Our visit to the Archive also elicited a fascinating discussion about archiving personal histories of people who have been marginalised throughout history. Collection of personal letters and photographs allows us to now reveal and understand some aspects of women’s lives that would have been ignored, deliberately hidden, or suppressed in previous centuries and decades, for example LGBTQ+ identities and relationships.

The Horner Markwick Library. Its open, multi-storey layout shows off the Library’s large collection.

Our Newnham trainee then took us on a tour of the Library reading rooms, explaining the layout and their classification scheme. The size of the collection was particularly impressive, and is one of the best-stocked undergraduate college libraries in Cambridge. For a College with around 400 undergraduates, a collection of over 100,000 volumes gave a much larger ratio of book-to-student numbers compared to other College libraries such as my own, Pembroke. I was then reminded that for a long time, women were not permitted to enter the University or faculty libraries, and thus the College needed to stock anything its women could potentially need for their studies, explaining the large collection.

The Library building itself was beautiful to see. We first explored the modern extension of the library, where the majority of reader spaces and the main Library office now lie. It is bright and spacious, and though very modern in appearance, its layout and vaulted ceiling bring with it a continuity of style into the old library. The similarly vaulted ceiling in the old Yates Thompson library features beautiful panels displaying printers’ marks from European printers that Henry Yates Thompson, himself a collector of manuscripts and early printed books, highly regarded.

The Victorian Yates Thompson Library with its beautiful vaulted ceiling and wood panelling.

Throughout the library were several displays. Some of these were created by students themselves, while others had been put together by Library staff. Highlights were the ‘Roger’s Collection’ of late 19th century children’s literature and folk stories from around the world, on display in the old library, and the display about women obtaining the right to education in Cambridge, on display in the lift corridor. The latter of these featured shocking photos of riots that ensued when the question of women obtaining degrees was put to the (all-male) University members, and in particular of the vandalism Newnham College was subjected to by opponents of women seeking the right to receive a degree.

Next, we were shown the Katharine Stephens Rare Books Library, named for the Librarian who presided over the creation of the Yates Thompson Library. The Assistant Librarian gave us a tour of one of their current rare book exhibitions they’ve put together for students, about the history of Sociology and Anthropology. She explained that the Library begun to put together collections of rare books related to each Tripos subject studied at Newnham, which they would then invite students to look at during their subject formal halls. This not only enabled the students to become aware of and engage with relevant texts and resources in the Library, but also allowed the Library staff to continue to get to know their large collection of rare books by challenging them to find books relating to particular subjects.

The overall impression of Newnham College Library was one of a welcoming and friendly study space, with a large and diverse collection of books and materials for its students. It is a great example of a library whose space and collections have been truly shaped by its history and users. Having been one of the only spaces for women studying in Cambridge for so many years, it appears to have fostered an incredibly supportive and close-knit environment, leading to its alumnae and members giving generously to maintain and expand the Library and its collections.

Cambridge Central Library Visit

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For our second visit, we were given a tour of Cambridge Central Library. It is one of the 33 council run libraries in Cambridgeshire, tucked away in Cambridge’s busy shopping centre, the Lion’s Yard. The bright and modern library spans three floors and caters to all with community at its heart. In addition to its broad catalogue (children’s, teenage, and adult books; CDs and DVDs; music scores; and newspapers), it offers important services to the public such as book clubs, rhymetime, arts activities, basic digital skills sessions, mental health support, and help applying for a bus pass. Membership is free and open to all living, working, visiting, or studying in Cambridgeshire. I have always found public libraries to be warm and welcoming spaces, and Cambridge Central Library was no exception.

Library entrance and main sign
Outside the library entrance

In the first half of our visit, one of the library staff, Jess, gave us a general tour of the library. On the ground floor, the fiction, teenage and teenage plus, and children’s books can be found.

Books on shelf with blue or orange stickers on their spine
Their sticker system differentiates between teenage and teenage plus material

I was really impressed about how accessible the children’s collection is with separate sections for braille, large print, dual language, and dyslexia friendly books. The entrance and train shelving units were also great fun!

Mid-height wall with a person-shaped cut out
The entrance to the children’s section

We were then shown the book return sorting room which had some great technology. Once customers have returned their items via the self-service machines, the books are taken on a conveyor belt to the sorting room where they can be distributed into various boxes depending on which floor they’re shelved, or which library they need to be sent to.

4 storting trolleys on each side of the conveyor belt
Behind-the-scenes in the book returns room

The rest of the books can be found on the second floor, classified according to the Dewey Decimal system. There are also plenty of desks and computers available, and some great nooks for reading and relaxing (or people watching!).

Chair between shelves facing the window overlooking the Lion's Yard Shopping Centre
Red chair in corner facing window looking outside
On the second floor between every set of shelves, there are chairs facing the window
Framed colourful quilt of Market Square
A wonderful quilt of Market Hill is displayed on the third floor. It was made by members of the Gadabouts Quilting Group between 2006 and 2008

In the second half of our visit, Mary introduced us to the Cambridgeshire Collections. Starting in the reading room, we were shown their microfilm newspaper collection which dates from 1762. Mary was really proud to show us their microfilm reader, too, which is the only one in Cambridge. The digital machine allows users to easily find and crop articles, then save them as PDFs/JPEGs – a really useful tool for research. We were then taken down into the temperate-controlled basement, which stores the majority of the collection. The range of material is extensive – as long as it relates to Cambridgeshire, then you name it, they probably have it! Mary shared her personal favourite with us: a set of miniature jam jars created by a local company in Histon for the Queen’s dolls’ house. We loved these too!

6 miniature jam jars in a cushioned box
Miniature jam jars!
The Queen's Dolls' House These miniature jars are exact reproductions of those which we were privileged to supply to The QUEEN'S Dolls' House Chivers & Sons Ltd. The Orchard Factory, Histon, Cambridge, England Purveyors of Jams, Jellies, and Canned English Fruits to HIS MAJESTY THE KING, H.R.H. THE PRINCE OF WALES, H.M. QUEEN ALEXANDRA and H.M. THE QUEEN OF NORWAY
The note accompanying the jam jars

We are all very grateful to Jess, Mary, and the rest of the Cambridge Central Library team for welcoming us to their library.

The UL Tour

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A collaboration between Lauren Pratt, D Saxelby & Jess Hollerton.

Introduction

Something you might have noted from our other posts, like our post on a visit to Cambridge Central Library, is that we get many opportunities to tour different libraries around Cambridge. Today, we were lucky enough to receive an exclusive behind-the-scenes tour from the Cambridge University Library (UL), featuring talks from senior members of staff from a wealth of different teams. These included rare books, digital collections, cataloguing, legal deposit and acquisitions teams. I spent a lot of time as an undergrad at the UL, but never did I quite understand (or even think about) the scope and depth of effort and upkeep fronted by the teams here.

Outside view of the UL
The UL from the outside

The exact date on which the University Library was established is somewhat up in the air, it’s generally agreed to be around the fifteenth century. No computers meant no iDiscover, no iDiscover meant no online records of books, no online records of books meant, well, they had to use paper records. So, if you were looking for a certain book, you had to (potentially) spend hours scanning through stacks of files until you found the written record and location of the book you wanted. I don’t think anyone could envision doing that in the 21st Century. Can you imagine trying to get by on paper records that are in one location? Hundreds of students fumbling over that one crucial text on the recommended reading list – sometimes technology is a good thing! It was interesting though, to grasp an idea of how technology has shaped the lives of these books.

On our tour, we saw incredible things, from a piece of manuscript from the 8th century written in ancient Sanskrit, to the personal diary of Charles Darwin, to a step-by-step guide on how Sir Issaac Newton undertook an experiment on the colour spectrum by sticking objects into his own eyes – ouch. It was incredible to discover just exactly how these teams fit together in one huge library jigsaw. Their day-to-day work is so diverse, yet the teams are united in sharing one common goal: creating the library.

General tour – Jess

It’s a well-known fact that that University Library is a bit of a labyrinth. The students tell horror stories about people who went inside and never made it out again, cursed to wander the halls of a modern-day Daedalus for eternity, another soul claimed by the hungry depths of the UL. (Or something to that effect, I may have over-dramatised.) Since my undergraduate degree, I have loved the UL immensely and I thought that after three years of using it while a student, there weren’t many more secrets it could reveal. I was, quite clearly, wrong.

One of our first stops on our tour is the Catalogue Hall, a room which I had walked through hundreds of times before, but never paid any attention. The current catalogue for most libraries in Cambridge, including the UL, is hosted online but prior to this, as Lauren mentioned earlier, the catalogues were kept as books or written and filed on individual cards. The books which make up the former are still kept in the UL on open access, and together they take up all the shelving of an entire room. The card catalogue is also still accessible, the hundreds of thousands of records kept in tiny, perfectly sized drawers. Whilst it is not normally necessary to use these, there are apparently certain collections where the physical catalogues are still the fastest way to search them.

One of the things which distinguishes the UL from other legal deposit libraries is the amount of material which is kept on open shelving, available for any member of the UL to browse – and, for those with borrowing privileges, to borrow. The North and South Fronts and Wings, and West Four are all open access, as well as several other more specific collections. A significant proportion of the collection, however, is housed in either closed stacks or off-site storage. If you want to use these, they need to be requested and picked up from our next stop, the main Reading Room. As well as requesting non-borrowable material here, there are also desks for working at, and terminals for viewing Electronic Legal Deposit material. As we enter, the room is silent apart from the shuffling of paper and the clicking of laptop keys. It feels like how I would imagine a medieval scriptorium.

One of the stops on our tour

All this is accessible to all the UL’s members, but our next stop takes us behind doors marked ‘Private’, deeper into the library’s depths. As we entered the staff-only corridors, I lost my sense of direction alarmingly quickly, and was forced to follow close behind our guide for fear of never seeing the sunlight again. It was fantastic, and I could quite happily have done it all day. In one of the corridors we came across a huge set of grey-silver metal and glass doors that looked uncannily like the iconic red telephone box – which it turns out that Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, the architect of the UL, also designed. This warren of corridors led us into the sections of the library that are usually off-limits to all but staff, including the closed stacks, where on-site books that are not borrowable are stored, and the offices of various departments – for example, the Legal Deposit team and the Digital Content Unit, both of which we would visit later. One of the closed stacks we saw was the storage for modern journals and magazines. We were challenged to find the strangest or most niche magazine in the collection; I found a modern magazine for the Clangers and someone else found Scottish Beekeeping!

After this, our final stop was through another maze of corridors, to the Rare Books Reading Room, and I’ll let D, the Pembroke trainee, take over from here.

Rare books – D

While most of the college libraries in Cambridge have a special collection containing rare books, I wasn’t quite prepared for the treasure trove which was shown to us in the UL. Pembroke’s special collections are relatively extensive and very fascinating, but the UL has more rare books than I could have dreamed of – though we didn’t get to see just how many there were until the end of our tour of the rare books reading room.

When we arrived, a member of the rare books team had laid out several interesting rare books for us to look at. Among these was a first edition of Shakespeare’s first folio (published in 1623), which was in pristine condition – it was almost impossible to tell that these pages were nearly 500 years old, other than for the discolouration on the fore-edge of the book. Unfortunately, this book was not in its original binding, but had been beautifully rebound in the Victorian period, an era in which ornate bindings were considered a sign of wealth. We can only despair that they did not see the importance of an original text – however it does mean that this book is steeped in the history of more than one period.

Similarly, we were shown a book which had been rebound with a red velvet binding, on the front of which was the coat of arms of Queen Elizabeth I. One theory is that this book was owned by Queen Elizabeth I, which would explain its luxurious binding. Another book which felt particularly historical was a medical textbook, in which a local apothecary had annotated descriptions of surgeries he performed. One of the annotations is suspected to be the first written account of what I think was a full body dissection, though my memory is not perfect, and unfortunately my palaeography skills are lacking when it comes to medical terminology! The passage begins: ‘1565. the 27th of marche I did make anatomie…’ and is written on reddish brown paper – stained by the blood of the corpse! It

seems that he had the book open whilst he performed the dissection, reading the relevant information, which has made for an interesting historical object!

Particularly fascinating to me was a late 15th century text titled The Nuremberg Chronicle (the Liber Chronicarum in the original Latin), by Hartmann Schedel. Having done an MA in European Renaissance studies, I was thrilled to find scattered throughout this text many beautiful images, printed with illustrations suspected to have been made by none other than Albrecht Dürer himself! Although it cannot be confirmed which of the illustrations are Dürer’s, the suspicion seems highly probable in light of the fact that the publisher and printer was Anton Koberger, Dürer’s godfather. Like the first edition of Shakespeare’s first folio, this text was incredibly well preserved; the hand-painted illustrations still pop with colour 528 years after the book’s publication. To physically turn the pages of such historic texts made this part of the tour, alongside the manuscripts (which I will discuss later), the most exciting for me.

Finally, we were taken into an enormous room where the rare books are shelved – and then into another of the same size! It is impossible to describe how extensive this collection is without seeing it for yourself. These books are shelved using a variety of classification schemes, but one section that we all enjoyed learning about was ‘Arcana’, marked with the label ‘DO NOT FETCH’. The Arcana section contains a variety of books which were banned for different reasons (it is best to use your imagination here), spanning a large time period which leads up to texts that faced lawsuits in the modern world. These books are not available for viewing by anyone, and must remain on the closed shelves under lock and key – though they demonstrate just how exciting the position of Rare Books Librarian at the UL is – who wouldn’t want access to texts which can be viewed by no one else?

Digital content unit – Lauren

My highlight of the tour was the digital collections team as they fused creativity with technology to preserve the past.

Fresh eyes laid upon texts that are centuries old can produce new, exciting perspectives for exploration and research. However, due to everyone’s favourite friend – aging – this is not always possible. Pages crafted from finite resources like crate paper or palm leaves after a while become too delicate for our oily fingers, the ink fades and becomes illegible. The wonderful words and beautiful artwork from thousands of years ago become forgotten, and the roads for research and new ideas close. Thankfully, the digital collections team at the UL have this in hand.

  • The kind of material that the digital content unit strive to protect

Armed with lights, cameras, and a plethora of new-fangled tech equipment, the team demonstrated just how they use modern technologies to their advantage, extrapolating methods from photography and lighting to preserve the delicate detail displayed in the library’s special collection. For instance, they can manipulate lighting to uncover text that had been written over. On that note, check out the UL’s exhibition ghost words which is based all around this! It runs until December 4th 2021.

It appears that, to become a digital archivist, a person can come from a diverse background. Not many of the team members had master’s degrees in library-related subjects, which is great news for accessibility. They also came from diverse academic backgrounds too. Supposedly, anywhere from computational linguistics to modern Greek, digital archives, media studies to physics.

Whether it’s historical significance or individuality of the item, or even scribbled notes of a mad scientist, it will tell a fascinating tale about the history of mankind, and thanks to this team, can now be looked upon by humans for generations to come.