UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, BODLEIAN LIBRARIES, RARE BOOKS DEPARTMENT

Constanta Burlacu, Merton College, DPhil Medieval and Modern Languages, A mixture of in person and remote working

Work Projects

During my internship at the Rare Books

Department, I have been working with both

rare books (printed material from the 15th to

the 19th century) and artists' books. One of

my projects has been to work on an old

Slavonic chapbook (Arch. B b.4), the only

surviving copy of a 17th century liturgical calendar printed in Kiev. Besides conducing

bibliographical research on the book, I have also analysed its iconography and provenance.

When it comes to artists' books, I have been involved in identifying the material which is

already part of Bodleian's collection and needs some cataloguing improvement on SOLO for

better identification. I have often had the chance to see these books and to think in which

way their record on SOLO can explain more explicitly what they are. For example, the

Bodleian recently acquired a concrete poem composed by Stephen Emmerson, 'Endless

Sleep', the leaves of which are made from a wasp nest. In front of such an object, it is often

not easy to describe in words something which ultimately has a highly visual impact.

Besides working on these two long-term projects, I have been involved in shorter research,

cataloguing, shelving jobs, which gave me a better understanding of the wide variety of

activities the Rare Books librarians are involved in.

Daily Life

Before starting my placement at the Bodleian, we decided with Francesca Galligan, the

librarian coordinating the internship, that it will have a mixed format - some days would be

in-person and others remote working, and these would be decided on a weekly basis.

For my days at home, I focused mainly on my artists' books project, which meant working

my way through a catalogue of early 1960s to 1980s artists' books and see which of these

the Bodleian already has. Other days I would work on my 'treasure project', the Russian

calendar, which meant pure research. While remote working would resemble what I usually

do for my doctorate research, in-person working was completely different.

While on site, I would learn about how new and old books are processed and which tasks

the librarians carry out daily. Some days I would help putting barcodes on newly acquired

books, other days to place bookplates in these, and others to shuffle things around so that

there might be space for other books. While doing this, you see many curious books and

objects related to library management. At times very fragile, 19th century newsletters

would come in, other times a librarian would show you a wonderful jewellery chest, which

has old, printed material glued inside.

It is hard to describe my daily routine while working for the Bodleian, for it varied so much

on a daily basis. Nonetheless, books were involved in every activity, and so it happened that

there were incredible books!

Lasting Impressions

I have enjoyed every single moment of my internship at the Bodleian. Besides being

surrounded by incredible objects, I have mainly appreciated interacting with the librarians

working in the Rare Books departments, as well as across the Weston more in general. Every

single one of them has been extremely available in showing what their job consists of and in

answering the many questions I had for them.

Additionally, besides working side by side with the members of the Rare Books office,

Francesca Galligan very kindly organised a series of meeting with other librarians across the

Weston, who are involved in conservation, education, events, exhibitions, curatorial work,

manuscript and ephemera collections, etc. These meetings gave me the chance to

understand better all the many paths which can unfold for someone interested in

librarianship, and so it confirmed my interest for this career sector.

The aspect I liked the most was to realise how in order to run a library, or even just part of

it, teamwork is fundamental, and indeed the Rare Books team is a great one!