Library and Archive

The work of Collections staff this year was focused on two main areas: securing and managing an important new acquisition and continuing to ensure that the environmental conditions in the new stores were stable and compliant with best practice in the field.

The most important acquisition of the year – and a significant milestone in the Centre’s history – was that of the Paul Oppé Archive and Library. The material was allocated to the Centre under the Acceptance-in-Lieu scheme and therefore is recognised as being of national importance.

Oppé (1878–1957) was a British art historian, critic, art collector and museum official. Educated at New College, Oxford, he taught at both the University of St Andrews and the University of Edinburgh (1902–1905); worked as a civil servant at the Board of Education (1905–1938); served as the Deputy Director at the Victoria and Albert Museum (1906–1907 and 1910–1913); and was elected as a Fellow of the British Academy (1952). Oppé’s collection of over 3,000 drawings from the period 1750–1850 was acquired by the Tate in 1996. He wrote many catalogues on English drawings in the Royal Collection at Windsor, as well as monographs on various artists, including Alexander Cozens, William Hogarth and Paul Sandby. He led the study of British drawings as a scholarly pursuit.

The Oppé Archive contains papers created in both a professional and personal capacity. Alongside material that reflects Oppé as an art historian, critic, museum official and art collector, it also includes a significant volume of correspondence with, and between, family members. At the heart of the archive is an extensive series of diaries and notebooks which were used to record professional appointments, everyday activities and private thoughts. Together the material presents a great source of art-historical information relating to the first half of the twentieth century.

The Oppé Library is one of the Centre’s largest and most important single acquisitions. It chiefly consists of works on fine art, especially painting and drawing, from the early eighteenth to mid-twentieth centuries, and it includes many rare titles. Particularly notable from the Centre’s point of view are the collections of important sale catalogues from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and treatises on art from the same period. There are some early printed books from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that represent a departure for the Centre’s Library. This collection is more than the working library of an art historian of the time; it is the collection of a keen connoisseur and book collector and will augment the Centre’s library collections enormously. Since their acquisition in October 2017, the Oppé Archive and Library have been with Harwell Document Restoration Services in Oxfordshire receiving conservation treatment.

Centre staff continued to work with external experts to secure the installation of air-conditioning units in the Archive stores. Meetings were held with contractors, experts, architects and building-planning officers from Camden Council in order to compile the relevant plans necessary for Planning and Listed Building permissions. The application was submitted to Camden Council in June 2018. It is anticipated that formal approval will be obtained in late 2018 and that the work will take place in 2019.

Although some of the collected archives had to remain offsite because of the lack of suitable storage at the Centre, and the majority of the Paul Mellon Centre Photographic Archive also remained offsite awaiting digitisation, in-person visitor numbers to the Public Study Room totalled 896, and 199 new readers registered to use the collections. In addition, the number of remote enquiries continued to rise: statistics kept for those requiring up to twenty minutes of research indicate that 193 enquiries in this category were addressed during the year.

There were three Drawing Room Displays during 2017–2018 and these were organised by Hana Leaper, Emily Lees and Bryony Botwright-Rance respectively, all of whom were assisted by Research Collections staff. The displays featured items from the Centre’s Library and Archive collections, plus a few items borrowed specially from other institutions. Each display focused on a different theme, with one specifically related to the celebration of the Royal Academy’s 250th anniversary:

The Catalogues of the John Moores Painting Prize (27 September 2017–12 January 2018)

Publishing at the PMC: A Brief History (19 January–18 May 2018)

Supporting the Spectacle: The Summer Exhibition and its Spin-Offs (29 May–21 September 2018)

All of the displays were well received and helped to raise the profile of the Centre’s Research Collections.

In September 2017, Frankie Drummond Charig, the Archives & Library Assistant, went on maternity leave and Natasha Held was appointed as cover during her absence. Natasha was appointed as Assistant Librarian in May 2018 following Frankie’s resignation and a review of staffing in Research Collections. In December 2017, Georgina Lever completed her Archive cataloguing projects and left the Centre at the end of her contract to go travelling. Mary Peskett Smith continued to work one day a week cataloguing the part of the Library’s auction catalogue collection that was formerly owned by Arthur Tooth & Sons. She completed this work in June 2018. She also worked one day a week listing and cataloguing arts-related articles in the Brian Sewell Archive, and Stephen O’Toole also continued to list and catalogue the non-arts articles. Laura Dimmock-Jones worked from January to April 2018, helping with book processing and weeding materials from the Brian Sewell Library collection as well as re-boxing the pamphlet sequences in the Public Study Room.

During the year, Research Collections staff received training in conservation, preservation and emergency recovery, archive accreditation and digital preservation. They also continued providing talks and tours of the Research Collections, including giving a presentation titled “How to Use Archive Material” for MA students from the Courtauld Institute of Art. Research Collections staff also participated in a Centre-wide event open to students of Art History, which focused on giving guidance on researching and writing dissertations and theses. There was also a one-day workshop about the work of the Gothic Victorian architect G. E. Street, which was organised to celebrate the Centre’s acquisition of the Paul Joyce Archive and Library in 2016. In addition, during the summer Research Collections staff again participated in London History Day (organised by Historic England) and the Bedford Square Festival.

Library

A total of 1,206 books, pamphlets and exhibition catalogues were accessioned during the year.

As well as the newly published books, exhibition catalogues, journals and auction catalogues acquired by purchase and the many individual gifts received in the Library, a number of donated collections were received. Alongside the Oppé Library mentioned above, this included the following donations:

In July, the Attingham Trust donated a collection of books formerly in the possession of the architectural historian Dr Geoffrey Beard (1929–2015). This donation consists of approximately 50 books on architecture, interior decoration and furniture history, filling many gaps in our existing holdings.

Hope Kingsley, a curator of photography, facilitated a donation from her employer of about 60 books on photography. This donation, that came in two tranches in September and January, has added to our existing collection of materials on the history of photography, as well as augmenting our holdings on contemporary British photographers.

In November the Centre was given a large collection of books by the family of Sir Brinsley Ford (1908–1999). The collection consists of 100 books, many of which are multi-volume sets, that formed the core research library of Sir Brinsley Ford. It is rich is eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century travel accounts. This generous donation complements our existing holdings of Sir Brinsley Ford’s archive and other parts of his extensive library previously donated to the Centre.

As well as cataloguing new books and older donations, the Librarian and Assistant Librarian were engaged with sorting the donations listed above, sending them for cleaning where necessary, checking them against existing stock, weeding them and cataloguing them on the Library catalogue.

The Library’s collection development policy was re-written in February to reflect current collecting. For the past few years, the Library has begun collecting more widely, including materials on post-war and contemporary art and the history of photography. In order to communicate this to staff and readers, and after consultation with senior staff, the policy was updated and published on the Centre’s website. A full review of journal and auction catalogue subscriptions was also undertaken at the end of 2017 to reflect the revised collecting remit.

Archive

The acquisition of the Paul Oppé Archive required both the Archivist & Records Manager and the Assistant Archivist & Records Manager to liaise extensively with the donor as well as members of staff from the Arts Council, lawyers, copyright experts and conservators. They visited the collection in situ twice in order to review, assess, list and package the material ready for transportation to Harwell Document Restoration Services.

As the Centre is increasingly contacted by individuals wishing to donate archive material, a key aim for the year was to review the official Archive Collection Policy document approved by the National Archives (TNA) in 2011. Following discussion with Senior Management and staff at TNA, a revised policy was agreed and is available on the Centre’s website. In conjunction with this work, the procedure for assessing and acquiring material was also reviewed and new guidelines compiled. In pursuit of transparency and consistency, a new webpage – “Thinking of Offering Archive Material?” – was developed. This went live in March 2018 and all potential donors have since been directed to this information.

In July 2017 Georgina Lever, Project Archivist, completed cataloguing the Oliver Millar Archive. Her work was of an incredibly high standard and the resulting catalogue – launched online shortly afterwards – has generated much interest in the Collection. The number of in-person visitors consulting the material has more than doubled.

Georgina’s contract was extended and she was engaged to appraise, weed and catalogue the Paul Joyce Archive. She successfully completed this work in December 2017 and again the resulting descriptions, available online, have drawn more researchers to the resource.

Alongside the work of Mary Peskett Smith and Stephen O’Toole, Collections staff also began work cataloguing material in the Brian Sewell Archive. In addition, cataloguing of the Benedict Nicolson Archive was also commenced. For technical reasons, the Centre had previously only been able to submit collection-level descriptions to Archives Hub and Archives Portal Europe. However, following extensive work with staff at these initiatives, in January 2018 Collections staff successfully exported full catalogue descriptions to both union catalogues. This resulted in a sevenfold increase in page views: Paul Mellon Centre data was consulted 74 times in the three months prior to the work and 574 in the three months afterwards. Descriptions of newly acquired collections were also submitted to Discovery, the National Archives catalogue. All of these initiatives facilitated greater awareness of the Centre’s Archive Collections.

Institutional Archives

Following approval from Senior Management at the Centre in March 2018, the Archivist & Records Manager and Assistant Archivist & Records Manager commenced a project to implement a robust records management programme throughout the institution. Initially, this entailed compiling a project plan establishing the core aims, benefits, key stages and outcomes of the work. It also included compiling an Archives & Records Management Policy which was approved by Senior Management and is available on the Centre’s website.

Following the initial planning stage, a project timetable was drawn up for an institution-wide records audit which would involve meeting every member of staff, reviewing and revising key record-keeping tools and destroying or transferring records to the archive accordingly. This audit was commenced in May 2018 and focused initially on HR-related records. The project will continue for the next two years, by which time all Centre staff and activities will have been encompassed. In addition, the project will also consider the implementation of a system designed to cope with the challenges of preserving electronic records, including emails. Records management training is now mandatory for all staff new to the Centre.

The oral history programme continued and Frankie Drummond Charig conducted interviews with Mary Peskett Smith and Guilland Sutherland. The resulting recordings have been added to the Institutional Archives.

Gdpr

In response to the new General Data Protection Regulation which came into force in the UK in May 2018 and following discussions with Senior Management, the Archivist & Records Manager was assigned a new responsibility, adding “Data Protection Manager” to her role. Having never previously adequately addressed its Data Protection requirements, it was agreed that the Centre should begin by undertaking a complete and thorough review of the personal information it processes. This would be carried out in conjunction with the records management project. Starting with the HR activity, the Data Protection Manager has liaised with staff to review and revise working practices and compile and update contracts, forms and key legal documents in order to secure compliance. Completing this work across the Centre is likely to take two years. A Data Protection Policy has also been compiled and is available on the Centre’s website.