Library Annual Report 2021-2022

St John’s College Library Annual Report 2021-22

The Library, St John’s College, Cambridge CB2 1TP

Tel: 01223 338669

Email: library@joh.cam.ac.uk www.joh.cam.ac.uk/library

A copy of this Annual Report is sent to the Domestic Bursar’s Office to form part of the College’s Register of Public Benefits.

With thanks to the Biographical Assistant Paul Everest for cover design and additional photography.

All photographs in the Annual Report were taken by Library staff.

St John’s College is a registered charity, number 1137428.

St John’s College Library Annual Report 2021-22

Contents Page

The Sub-Librarian’s Annual Report 2

Staff Reports 6

Staff Training 13

The Working Library 15

Library Usage 17

Annual Circulation 22

User Education 24

The Old Library 26

The Biographical Office 33

The College Archive 38

Environmental Monitoring and Control 41

Digital Activities 43

Feedback 45 Appendix – Regular Donors 48

The Sub-Librarian’s Annual Report

Our Departmental Aim is to provide a modern, efficient and welcoming Library service for all members of the College, and for all others with valid reasons to make use of the College’s library and archival collections and facilities, so enabling the College to fulfil its statutory and strategic aims.

‘Nothing is constant but change’

Our regular readers will have spotted that the physical format of this report has changed. To reduce environmental impact, we have dispensed with the plastic spiral binding. (While I would hope that you all treasure your Annual Reports in perpetuity, should you wish to recycle, this is now possible.) It falls to the SubLibrarian to write the Librarian’s report again this year, as Mark Nicholls has enjoyed a year’s well-deserved leave, so I have continued to manage the Department in his absence. My tenure as Acting Head of Department ended on 30 June. While the pandemic continued to affect many aspects of life and work, this year has seen a steady return towards ‘normality’, with Working Library hours gradually returning to 24/7, seating to full capacity, more readers being admitted to the Archives and Special Collections, together with in-person exhibitions, and public events. I am pleased to report that the Working Library was awarded TEILA accreditation again.

Staffing

Erika Csider, who joined us in December 2020 gave an invaluable year’s service keeping the Library clean and safe through particularly challenging times. Sadly for us her other part-time employer valued her skills too, and offered full-time work and a promotion. We were fortunate to be able to recruit Nancy Cleaver in her place from Housekeeping, who generously allowed her to join us in time for the Lent Term. Amy Leung, who produced last year’s report so professionally, has also moved on to another position. We wish our leavers well. We benefited from some

temporary administrative support over the summer from an old friend of the Library, Rebecca Watts, while Amy’s position was vacant, before Meg Norman joined us in late September as Library Departmental Administrator, just in time to manage the production of this year’s Annual Report. Jess Hollerton’s year as Graduate Trainee simply flew past, with a welcome return to some in-person visits and activities for the Cambridge trainees. We haven’t actually said goodbye, as Jess is continuing to volunteer for us one day a week. Our trainee for 2022-3 is Caroline Ball who has a first class degree in Classics from Oxford and valuable work experience in York University Library. Dr Sarah Gilbert joined us on an all-too-brief eight-month contract, supported by a grant from the College’s Annual Fund, in which time she made a significant contribution to the planned new catalogue of medieval manuscripts.

Jess with her 'Goodbye' card

Teaching and learning

Whilst some changes to working practices brought by the pandemic were temporary, increased proficiency in the use of online tools has opened up new possibilities for student support. I am delighted to report that Library Assistant, Rebecca Le Marchand, has been awarded a teaching excellence award, nominated by the students, for the academic and personal support she offered through regular online dissertation workshops, in which she was assisted by Adam Crothers. We congratulate Rebecca on her achievement, which highlights the essential role that College Library staff can play in supporting the student learning experience. In addition, Lynsey Darby provided weekly online palaeography classes, giving students the opportunity to develop new skills and interact with historic documents from the Archives.

Events and Exhibitions

Katie Hannawin provided a thoughtprovoking online exhibition on the Huguenots for Michaelmas Term. 2022 saw a return to in-person exhibitions with Women and their Books, the first event in a year-long College-wide celebration of the fortieth anniversary of the admission of women. An online version of the exhibition was also produced, and a slimmed down

version was re-mounted for attendees at the Johnian Dinner in July. The Student Art and Photography Competition was welcomed back after an enforced absence of two years, showcasing the talent of our junior members. Noticeably fewer human faces appeared in the photographs, perhaps reflecting the lackof social contact and mask-wearing of the last two years, but it was a particularly good year for birds. Traditionally our trainee curates the summer exhibition, for which Jess chose to feature Space and Time. The topic was of such broad appeal and displayed so many fascinating books from the Old Library that it remains in place for the Michaelmas Term.

1585 illustration of part of an astrolabe from Space and Time exhibition

For the Cambridge Festival, the Old Library hosted its first major exhibition since 2019. Ticketed timed-entry allowed visitors to explore in controlled numbers and with ventilation breaks. All 125 places were booked, and those attending clearly enjoyed the experience and took full advantage of their time to study the material in detail. Open Cambridge in September 2022 saw unrestricted public access to an exhibition From Babel to the Babel Fish: translation, transmission, and the technology of language featuring special collections items from the 12th to the 20th century. Coinciding with the week of the Queen’s death, numbers were

understandably lower than usual, but those attending were extremely appreciative.

Maintaining safety and security, whilst providing a warm welcome

While the year saw a steady trend towards ‘normality’, the continuing presence of COVID meant that precautions were only gradually removed, the priorities being to keep both library users and staff safe, and to maintain the resilience of services, ensuring that students’ studies were not disrupted, and researchers could continue to access the materials needed. At the same time, staff made considerable efforts to foster a welcoming and supportive working environment for library users. I am in awe of my Working Library colleagues’ ability to greet so many of our students by name. The move of general interest material to the Ground Floor, replacing some dauntingly heavy reference works, has also made the entrance to the Library less intimidating and more accessible both for new students and prospective students who are now returning to in-person visits to the College.

libraries will contribute either financially or with staff time and expertise to new initiatives and services. This year has seen much collective work on guides for students, gathering together information on study skills training from a wide range of sources. Collaboration and knowledge sharing are not confined to Cambridge. A pioneering online conference, for which Janet Chow was on the organizing committee, took place over three days, bringing together some 130 library staff from Oxford and Cambridge Colleges to share best practice. Within the College community, the Library relies upon the professional assistance from and collaboration with many departments, and we are grateful to all our colleagues across St John’s. I have to give a special shout-out this year to the Maintenance staff who moved all of the bookcases in the Lower Library in order to improve air-circulation.

Challenges ahead

Students are now greeted by an attractive range of leisure reading on their entry to the Library.

Working Together

It is taken for granted in the 2020s that any cross-institutional committee within Cambridge will have representation from the Colleges, and expected that College

Interesting times? While some fragile early Chinese works have been digitized, digitization is costly and images require ongoing preservation management.

Along with everyone else, the College faces the challenges of cost of living increases coming hard on the heels of COVID, and the impact of climate change. There is an even stronger focus than usual on using resources as efficiently as possible to deliver the high quality services and resources required. Meeting the College’s ambitious targets for achieving zero carbon whilst maintaining both a comfortable working environment for all those using the Library’s facilities, and the optimum storage conditions for special collections and archives is undoubtedly a challenge in historic buildings, but we have a good team in place to seek creative and appropriate solutions and the will is there to do it. While there is an immediate need for greater storage space, the balance between physical and digital resources is gradually changing, and policies and practices are adapting accordingly. The digital shift creates challenges for providing essential learning resources for students in the format most useful for their studies, and for Special Collections and Archives to put infrastructure in place to accept ‘born-digital’ material, and to ensure the digital preservation of material in a range of formats. We live in interesting times (though hopefully not in the sense of the Chinese curse!).

A new era

Our Librarian since 1999, Dr Mark Nicholls, took early retirement in September. All the staff join with me in offering heartfelt thanks for his support over the years and

very best wishes for a long and happy retirement. Restructuring of the department sadly meant that he did not return to the Library over the summer as expected, though he retains his Fellowship in retirement, so has not disappeared from the College entirely. The College Council have decided not to fill his role as Librarian at this time. The Sub-Librarian will now report to the Senior Tutor as line manager, whilst the Library and Records Committee will be replaced by three new committees, covering the Working Library, Historical Collections, and Records and Data. Professor Richard Beadle will chair the new Historical Collections Committee through its early stages. The Biographical Office staff, who have contributed so much to the department over the last 15 years, were transferred to the oversight of the Development Office from 1 July. The Library team are very sad to lose Fiona and Paul, as they’ve been such supportive and congenial colleagues. The Biographical Office thus contributes to this Annual Report for the last time. Indeed it will be up to the new committees to decide in what form Annual Reports should be made in future, so this publication itself may change. While a new management structure may alter the way the department is run, the focus, of course, remains on delivering the highest quality services in support of learning, teaching, and research, as ever tying in closely with the College’s overarching strategic aims. The formal positioning of the department under Education is a move which could have positive benefits, recognising the Library’s role as a hub for educational resources and facilities, and facilitating closer links with Tutors and academic teaching staff. I look forward with interest to seeing the summary of the department’s activities this time next year.

Kathryn McKee Sub-Librarian

Staff Reports

Caroline Ball | Library Graduate Trainee

If you’ll allow me a cliché as creaky as the Library lift, no two days are the same in this job. In the past few weeks I’ve found myself: a) in a packed-out Freshers’ Fair, yelling enthusiastically about study skills resources; b) crouched Gollum-like underneath a radiator, trying to contain a small flood; and c) in the tranquillity of the Archives, holding a 14th century piece of royal legalese, feeling positively giddy that I get to pore over medieval parchment and have the immense good fortune to call it ‘work’. Needless to say, the past two months have absolutely flown by.

Before coming to John’s, I read Classics at Oxford, graduated into the hellscape of 2020, and then worked in the University of York Library for a while. Since I came over from the dark (blue) side I’ve been enjoying getting to know Cambridge and its herds of cows and undergraduates! It’s lovely to be back in a college community and everyone in the Library has made me feel really welcome: the traineeship naturally involves being somewhat thrown in at the deep end, and it has undeniably been a challenge at times, but I truly couldn’t ask for more delightful colleagues. I’m very lucky, and very grateful.

Other than the daily bustle of the Working Library, my first project has been helping to reorganise some documents relating to benefactions made to the College by William Cecil. (Who I recently learned, in a rather bizarre twist, is in fact my very-very-distant great uncle!) It’s been a fascinating introduction to the Archives, as well as a useful lesson in indenture origami. At the other end of the chronological spectrum, I’ve been getting to grips with modern cataloguing – I wouldn’t say that the MARC21 coding language and I are exactly friends yet, but I’m working on it. I’m excited to get stuck into some more training soon, and hopefully a cataloguing project in the Old Library. In the meantime, I look forward to becoming an expert on the many, many foibles of the Library printers. Every day’s a small adventure!

Janet Chow | Academic Services Librarian

This last year saw a gradual return of the Working Library to normal operations since the COVID pandemic in 2020. With most of the COVID restrictions removed, I was able to focus more on my day-today work.

In November 2021, I attended a six-session ‘Leadership and management training course’ run by the College. I came away with useful tools and techniques in terms of building team cohesion, keeping team members engaged and maintaining their wellbeing.

Earlier this year, I worked with other Cambridge librarians to organise an online ‘Oxford and Cambridge (OxCam) Librarians Conference’. This online conference replaced the in-person one originally planned for March 2021, but which was cancelled due to the pandemic. The online conference spanned across three half-days so that people could attend either part or all of the conference. Topical issues, such as ‘decolonisation’ and ‘diversity and accessibility’, were central themes. In all, about 130 library staff from Oxford and Cambridge Libraries attended. This being the first such online conference we have organised, it was gratifyingly well received. Feedback was very positive. We have already started to plan the next OxCam conference (possibly adopting a hybrid in-person/online model) due to be held in early 2023.

I am delighted that the Working Library has been awarded accreditation for another year. The accreditation scheme offers an opportunity for library staff to demonstrate their expertise in

implementing beneficial technologies to improve library services. It provides an incentive to seek continuous improvement, and acknowledges that readers in College are receiving the best provision of Library services.

Nancy Cleaver | Library Cleaner (part time)

I joined the team in January 2022 from Housekeeping and so far, I’ve enjoyed the experience. Everyone’s been welcoming and helpful in different ways, especially my colleague Catherine. I like the arrangement of the Working Library and found the Old Library and Archives fascinating and very impressive.

There have been a few unusual events: after Easter we kept finding jelly babies all over the Library, and recently the radiator in the Old Library started leaking and we had to manage the ever-increasing flood for 20 minutes until it got fixed. I am looking forward to a ‘normal’ year in the Library hopefully with no COVID restrictions and increased busy-ness.

Fiona Colbert | Biographical Librarian

In this space last year I reported that I had been responsible for the biographical records of our alumni for over twenty years, first in the Johnian Office (now the Development Office), then in the Library. Little did I know that the biographical work would be moved again by the time I came to write my piece for this year’s Annual Report.

I have always liaised closely with the Library, and when we were moved here in 2007 it was described in the Annual Report as a beneficial restructuring which enabled both the Biographical and Development Offices to focus on our different areas of expertise. This year we were informed we would be reunited. Whilst remaining physically in the Library near the records we need to consult and maintain, organisationally we are now part of the Alumni Relations team of the Development Office. So this will be my last contribution to this publication.

Further details of the work which has been done over the Biographical Office’s last year in the Library is recorded later in the pages of this publication. I hope that recording details of the lives of people who have been members of St John’s over the centuries, and answering requests for information about them, is something which will continue to be valued by the College going forward.

I must take the opportunity to thank the many excellent Library staff it has been a pleasure to work alongside over the years, especially those who have done research, data entry, or answered requests from researchers relating to the biographical records. Much work has been done, many friends have been made, and much cake has been eaten. Fortunately cake has already been enjoyed with staff in our new department!

Adam Crothers | Special Collections Assistant

Despite how ludicrously cold it is in the Rare Books Reading Room for most of the year – during the summer heatwave there was a cosmic irresistible-force-versus-immoveable-object thing going on at the external walls – warmish bodies have been, I assure you, here present! How fine to welcome humans back to the Old Library after its being too long the haunt of librarians and chairs. Research visits! Manuscript classes! Public exhibitions! A pleasure, too, to have got to know Sarah Gilbert during her manuscript-cataloguing project, and a relief that she managed to secure another Cambridge job and so hasn’t gone too far away; I understand the University Library expect to have her thawed out by 2026. It’s sad, though, losing colleagues, and one hopes the transfer of the Biographical Office to the Development Office will be undone swiftly so that we can count Fiona and Paul among the Library team once more. In the meantime, lucky old Development Office, says Adam.

Anyway: lots of classic Old Library business in the last year, and long may it continue. Nothing if not a failed academic, I also appreciated the opportunity to be Rebecca L’s backing band for the dissertation support group: it was a delight to work with students regarding study techniques and ace prose styles, and to see the experiment yielding rewards (and indeed awards).

For devoted Annual Report readers keeping track of the autobiographical stuff: no finished novel yet, but they do say that procrastination in the form of planning additional novels is half the battle. Sigh. Poetry ticks along, though, as it will insist upon doing, and I did get married; life post-wedding has been, as hoped, pretty much the same as before but more so. Hurrah. Our honeymoon was in Iceland, a tremendous country whose history largely involves natural disasters obliterating swathes of the populace. It was an appropriate venue for catching, at last, COVID. Which wasn’t terrific, but fortunately we were mightily vaxxed up and didn’t have the scarier symptoms.

The photograph I’ve chosen to represent my nice old face this year was taken at Jeff Wayne’s The War of the Worlds: The Immersive Experience, which was one of the joys of my stag do and frankly my life. (I’m the one in the hat; my lovely wife is behind me. Ahahahaha. Remember the ’70s?) Highly recommended; and a lesson, if you focus on the Martians, in how an attempt to corrupt an established order, without nuance and in the name of conquest, will, because of your myopic lack of basic research, ultimately result in your embarrassing downfall. Come on, Thunder Child!

Lynsey Darby | College Archivist

This is the third start to a new academic year I’ve witnessed since coming to St John’s, but due to the COVID-related circumstances of the last two years, and having spent the previous seven working somewhere that didn’t keep academic terms, it’s the first time in nearly a decade when I’ve noticed the ‘buzz’. Perhaps by next year I’ll have got over the contrast of a new [academic] year beginning as an old [calendar] one is ending, and not want to use this space to whitter about falling leaves and migrating birds. (Though not only did I see a large flock of lapwings at the weekend, but a pair of stonechats, right on cue).

This year’s new departure for me has been running palaeography sessions, to which any student, or indeed staff member, who is interested can come along. These take place over Zoom, using digital images from the archives, and participants simply take turns to read a few lines, with me chipping in as-and-when with more-or-less useful comments or pointers. I am resisting calling them ‘classes’ as I don’t pretend to have the sort of expertise to talk about palaeography

as an academic subject; the intention is simply to give people the opportunity to practise a skill which will help them to read original source material. It also gives me an opportunity to find items in the archives which have some interesting content, although sometimes they lead to more questions than answers: what, for example, did the Princess Elizabeth in 1545 want to discuss with John Taylor (Master of St John’s) when she commanded William Bill to tell him to come to her the next time he was in London?

Otherwise, the year has involved the usual mixture of archives work, records management, and data protection. Amongst other things, I foolishly chose July to spend quite a lot of time sorting files in a cellar elsewhere on site and trundling them in batches across the Bridge of Sighs and into the Archives Centre on a sack barrow (pausing so as not to ruin too many tourist photos), which was hot and dusty but a change of scene and hopefully burned a few calories!

Paul Everest | Biographical Assistant

This is the eighteenth time I have written one of these. Eighteenth! Sadly, it is also likely to be the last, as in the summer of this year reorganisation moved the management of the Biographical Office under the auspices of the Development Office. We remain in our office in the Library, and will dutifully decorate it at Christmas for the festive wellbeing of all those who require, but we are now just in the Library, rather than of the Library. Aside from this, nothing major has changed – I have researched and processed a huge volume of information on our alumni – checking published sources, lists of awards and elections, scanning news items sent to us by our Communications Office, and dealing with updates sent in by Johnians themselves, and will continue to do so for our new department!

It is strange to be writing about no longer being part of the Library whilst still very much in it, and I’m sure I’ll still have to cobble together a cover for this publication and provide some photos here and there in future, but I’ve been part of this department for a long time. Eighteen years… Does that now qualify me as an honorary member of Library staff? I hope so; it is a lovely place full of lovely people.

Katie Hannawin | Library Assistant (part-time)

Here we are again, another year has flown by and I am not entirely sure where it went! So much has happened since the last Annual Report, from getting to grips with my new role as Library Assistant, to the library entering into a post-COVID era, as well as going back to university to obtain my Master’s in librarianship. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed every part of this year, and it’s lovely to get a chance to reflect on everything that’s happened.

Settling into my new role of Library Assistant was luckily not too difficult – the most complex part of the transition was probably moving my multitude of post-it notes from one desk to another! It’s been really interesting taking on a different library role, as where the Graduate Trainee is a very people-facing role, I now find myself much more in the background; slowly chipping away at longer-term projects to help improve our services. These have included helping to weed currently over-crowded sections of the Main Collection, creating a new classification system for one of our basement collections, and helping with book donations that the Library receives. Over the course of this summer I have also conducted a stock check, which is normally done every two years but hasn’t been done since 2019 as a result of the pandemic. 93,000 books and many, many hours of scanning later, I am now in the phase of ‘hunt the “missing” book’ and hopefully will be able complete this by early Michaelmas

Term (I say “missing” because more often than not the books are actually where they should be, the scanner just didn’t register them…).

Alongside working in the Library, this year I have also been undertaking my MA in Library and Information Studies at UCL, and so have been travelling to London once a week for classes. Going back into education after a three-year gap was interesting at first, but I soon managed to get back into the swing of things. The course itself has been absolutely amazing, and I have especially loved the combination of working whilst studying – it’s been great to be able to take what I am learning at university and put it into a real-world context straight away. I definitely feel like I have come a long way in librarianship as a result, and am really looking forward to continuing this development when classes start again in October.

Rebecca Le Marchand | Library Assistant

This year has seen me stepping out of my comfort zone and taking on new challenges.

Over last summer, I decided to take the online study sessions that I set up during the pandemic and turn them into a dissertation support group for undergraduates. I set one up with the invaluable help and support of Adam and we ran it for the whole of last academic year. Running this group once a week saw me do my first ever bit of slightly formal teaching. The first presentation I gave scared me a LOT! However, the feedback was great and so I continued, getting slightly less nervous each time. These sessions quickly became the highlight of my week and I was really touched when it turned out that, for many of the students who came, they were a highlight of their week too. The feedback that Adam and I received from students about this group was overwhelmingly positive and lovely to read. I was nominated for a Student Led Teaching Award in April because of this work and I was extremely surprised to go on to win it! This was such a special thing to have happened and I am so grateful for it.

This year I also helped to set up and host the second ever Forum for Assistant Library Staff. This was an online forum and it involved a lot of work. I was the main host of the event and I have to say, it was terrifying! The technological challenges combined with trying to keep everything running to time was quite a stressful combination of things to manage. But we did somehow manage it and I felt very proud of myself afterwards. I was also asked this year to give a speech in person at the Cambridge Teaching Forum about libraries and students’ sense of belonging. This was the first time I had ever given any kind of speech! I made something very simple that only had two slides but it went down very well. Everyone very kindly ignored the fact my hands were so obviously shaking!

I feel that my experiences this year have definitely increased my confidence and given me a deeper understanding of the kind of librarian I would like to be.

Kathryn McKee | Sub-Librarian and Special Collections Librarian (Acting Head of Department until 30 June 2022)

It’s been a strange year with some real highs and lows. Another year without Mark at the helm meant taking on a lot more management, which is time-consuming, but it has all gone fairly smoothly, and looks to continue for the foreseeable now that I’ll be reporting to the Senior Tutor. I’m conscious of just how lucky we are to have the current team, and am relieved that we have managed to fill the Administrator role after a long hunt for the right person. On the Special Collections front it has been lovely to see reader numbers increasing as the year progressed and readers enjoying being able to consult material in person again. Being in a vulnerable health category, and having to continue to take precautions and avoid face-to-face activities whilst so much of wider society was behaving as if COVID were no longer a threat, has presented challenges, but the support and understanding of my lovely colleagues has made it possible for me to work safely. I thank them so much.

It was a joy to have Sarah working on the medieval manuscripts over much of the past year, and seeing significant progress being made on the new catalogue after a long period in which the project had stalled. Although in theory she was just compiling physical descriptions, she discovered so much more in the course of that work: additional provenance, new information on contents, links between manuscripts, and that was a real bonus. I learned a great deal from her. I wish we could have kept her on for longer, but the Annual Fund isn’t set up to cover multi-year projects. It has given the catalogue a much-needed kick start though, and shown what it is possible to achieve. My next objective is to investigate alternative sources of funding to re-employ her at some future date if at all possible, as she has just the right combination of skills and knowledge to complete the project.

While I usually appreciate any excuse to handle the books, the rock-bottom low point of the year has to be packing and listing hundreds of mould-affected volumes. It’s disheartening still to have this problem after so many years of trialling different mitigation measures. I can only hope that now that we are testing the expensive and invasive measures that we had hoped not to need that a permanent solution is in prospect, and that I’ll never need to mention mould in an Annual Report again.

Meg Norman | Library Administrator

I type this on day four of my new job as Library Administrator, having come to the role after spending the past year providing care to a very small but demanding individual, so it’s exciting to be back in an office setting, speaking to grown-ups.

On taking up this new challenge, what better way to get to know the Library and those in it than to jump right in and compile an Annual Report? One small aspect of this task was to make sure that the spelling of COVID, Covid, and other versions there-of, was uniform throughout the report, and in doing so I learned a little bit, which is apt considering our setting. A quick internet search found an article from The Guardian, titled COVID or Covid? The comfort of pedantry at a time of national crisis, by Elisabeth Ribbans which touched on the fact that COVID-19 is an acronym and it is common practice for media to only capitalise the first letter of acronyms, causing much confusion for those (like myself) trying to get it right but finding consistently inconsistent examples at every turn. For the purposes of this report we have opted to use the World Health Organization’s formatting, but drop the ‘-19’. Pedants and grammar sticklers, please feel free to write in to point out any ‘Covids’ I’ve missed.

Moving from things cerebral to things physical, this week I was able to tag along on a student tour of the Working Library and also to pay an awed visit to the famed Old Library. My guilt-complex reared its head as I noticed multiple books in the Working Library’s general interest section which are in my own bookshelf at home, as yet unread. I have been in the past a compulsive book buyer but, regrettably, not much of a book reader of late, so I hope the Library won’t be rescinding my job-offer. It feels good to be in a place that reminds me what a privilege it is to have all this history, information and diversion at our fingertips and I look forward to seeing what further treasures it holds.

Catherine Shanahan | Library Cleaner (part time)

Dare I say it? I think we are pretty much back to normal after the ‘COVID years’! There are a few changes to our cleaning schedule that we will continue to implement, such as daily sanitizing of all work spaces. That may sound like it should be a given but unfortunately, pre-COVID, Library users didn’t always clear their work station in-between visits. Particularly during busy times work stations were treated as an extension of people’s own personal space, often being covered in copious amounts of paperwork, cuddly toys, plants, blankets, pillows, to name but a few objects. Library users are now strongly encouraged to remove all their belongings when they are leaving the premises, other than for a short break. This creates a fairer, cleaner and more respectful environment for all users! I imagine it must be very frustrating to walk up and down multiple flights of stairs and be unable to find a seat because someone has left their belongings behind for the day. Anyway, I thank everyone who has followed these guidelines, and I am happy to say this is very much the majority.

In January of this year I was joined by a new co-worker, Nancy Cleaver! Nancy is a welcome addition to our dedicated Library team. A very hot summer has encouraged us to tackle book cleaning in the basement, where it was mercifully cooler! We are now all ready to start another year maintaining a clean and welcoming Library.

Staff Training

This year saw staff participating in a mix of online and in-person training and development, with online courses continuing to offer a low-cost and convenient option for a wide-range of topics. Senior staff undertook a six-session management development programme organized by the College, which has developed and refreshed essential knowledge and has provided a toolkit of skills to manage, motivate, and support their teams. The Academic Services Librarian served on the organizing committee of the biennial gathering of Oxford and Cambridge library staff, which for the first time was delivered virtually, attracting well over 100 attendees and extremely positive feedback. Graduate Trainee, Jess Hollerton, gave an excellent presentation at the event, and designed the event’s stylish logo (see right).

Staff member Training

Sub-Librarian/Special Collections Librarian Management Development Programme

Provider Cost

CEDDigital preservation update CUL free Unbound: exploring accessibility in book exhibitions CENL free Data Protection update

OIS free Competency guidelines for rare books and special collections professionals IFLA free OxCam conference (lightning talks) CCLF free Working with images at scale: an introduction to IIIF CDH free

Academic Services Librarian Management Development Programme

CEDFirst Aid SellwoodUnderstanding libraries with qualitative techniques CPD25 £90 OxCam conference CCLF free

Librarian’s Secretary Archivist

OIS free Advanced Data Protection iHASCOGraduate Trainee Cataloguing L@C free CATALOG website training CH free OxCam conference (lightning talks) CCLF free

Data Protection update

Biographical Librarian Management Development Programme CEDData Protection update OIS free

Biographical Assistant Library Assistant

Part-Time Library Assistant

Reflective practice workshop

CCLF free OxCam conference (lightning talks) CCLF free Cambridge Teaching Forum CCTL free

Decolonising workshop free Introduction to the Codicology of Medieval Manuscripts

LIPS £95

LIPS £285 Oxm conference CCLF free

Introduction to the Cataloguing of Medieval Manuscripts

Special Collections

Assistant

Part-time Cleaner (CS)

Part-time Cleaner (EC)/(NC)

ALL staff Departmental Away Day

SJCL Free Fire safety training iHASCO -

TOTAL £470

CCTL Cambridge Centre for Teaching and Learning, University of Cambridge

CCLF Cambridge College Libraries Forum

CDH Cambridge Digital Humanities

CED Cambridge Executive Development

CENL Conference of European National Librarians

CH Colin Higgins

CUL Cambridge University Library

IFLA International Federation of Library Associations

iHASCO Health and Safety & Compliance Online

L@C Libraries@Cambridge

LIPS London International Palaeography School

OIS Office of Intercollegiate Services

Sellwood Sellwood Training

SJCL St John’s College Library

UC University of Cambridge

UIS Cambridge University Information Services

Kathryn McKee Sub-Librarian

A useful toolkit of skills

The Working Library

The last twelve months have seen a gradual return of the Working Library to pre-COVID operation. In-person Library inductions resumed at the beginning of the Michaelmas Term 2021. The half hour tour covered both the Working and the Old Library. Students had the opportunity to familiarise themselves with the layout of the Library, the facilities and resources available, and in particular, the location of materials related to their own subjects. In reverting to normality, the Working Library switched back to 24/7 opening hours at the end of the Lent Term, and full seating capacity was restored.

After nearly twenty years of use, the life of the people counter (located at the entrance to the Library) finally expired. A new infrared sensor was installed in October 2021. The updated technology enables us to keep track of Library occupancy in real time, providing data on numbers at any time – both as snapshots and over any time periods we choose. It provides information on the busiest and quietest times. As a management tool it is useful for planning the least disruptive times to commission building work, and to decide when more or less seating capacity

is needed. In this regard, the new sensor has already proved useful during COVID for ensuring that occupancy capacity in the Library is at a safe level, and for tracking demand for additional seating.

It is now five years since the inauguration of the Library Newsletter. Since the first edition in 2017, the Newsletter has gone from strength to strength, covering new developments and information on the Working Library, the Old Library and the Archives section of interest to College members. My sincere gratitude goes to all Library staff and Fellows who have contributed to the Newsletter over these years.

Following a three-year cycle of stocktaking of the whole of the Working Library collections, the summer 2022 part of the stocktaking exercise has been ably led by our part-time Library Assistant, Katie Hannawin. Significantly, undertaking a full stock check such as this enables us to identify all missing items across the entire Library, and to start the process of replacement where appropriate.

I am delighted that the Working Library has once again been awarded accreditation for another year. The accreditation scheme offers an opportunity for library staff to demonstrate their expertise in implementing beneficial technologies to improve library services. It provides an incentive to seek continuous improvement and acknowledges that College members are receiving the best possible provision of Library services.

Regarding the fabric of the Library building, upgrades have recently been made to heating and hot water supply. In summer 2021, new pipes and a hot water cylinder were installed in the Library Basement Plant Room, the purpose of which is to keep hot water at a consistent temperature to minimise heat loss. Additionally, during summer 2022, all the radiators in the Library received new valves to improve the regulation of heat around the building, and to make it more energy efficient.

Improvements have also been made to the AV resources. Rebecca Le Marchand (Library Assistant) has overseen growth in the collection made possible by kind donations from Dr Terence Denman. This year the focus has been on expanding and diversifying the film collection, and on consolidating and tidying the CD collection. All the CDs featuring the St. John's College Choir have now been arranged on a separate spinner and organised chronologically by year of recording so that Library users can locate a particular concert they may have attended or appreciate how the sound of the choir has changed over the decades.

Janet Chow Academic Services Librarian

Library Usage

The number of Library users and visitors accessing the Library is now recorded throughout the year by a digital sensor positioned at the main entrance. This is a new system, which has replaced the people counter used in previous years. The digital reading is now available in real time online, enabling us to view the number of people currently in the building, as well as halfhourly, daily and weekly totals of visitors to the Library. The daily totals are recorded in a spreadsheet, and this gives us an idea of how the Library building has been used by the College community over the past year.

TOTAL NUMBER OF ENTRIES TO THE LIBRARY

144,356 139,840 76,572 30,701

83,478 2017-18 2018-19 2019-20 2020-21 2021-22

Figure 1: Five-year comparison of total entries to the Library by academic year

Figure 1 (above) illustrates the total number of visits to the Library annually over the past five years. It is still rather difficult to compare the previous academic year with any that have gone before. Even though the figures for the last three years have all been affected by the COVID outbreak, it should be noted that COVID affected each year in different ways and to different degrees. During both academic years 2019-20 and 2020-21 the Library experienced some periods of complete closure. In 2021-22, although the Library was not closed completely for any extended period, it remained closed to users after midnight until 25 February when we returned to a 24/7 access model. This means that, although the overall number of visitors to the Library increased in 2021-22 compared to the preceding two years, there is still some way to go before visitor numbers reach pre-COVID levels.

Figure 2 (below) breaks down the total number of entries to the Library over the past three academic years by term.

TOTAL NUMBER OF ENTRIES TO THE LIBRARY

32,099 6,210

17,020 1,729

11,097 1,420 0 0

17,954 7,953

35,184 1,149 0 1,932

2019-20 2020-21 2021-22

26,939 11,883

8,880 4,166

Figure 2: Three-year comparison of entries to the Library by term, 2019-22

It is not possible to draw meaningful comparisons between this past academic year and previous years because the Library has again been open in a variety of ways. However, by comparing the termly figures for 2021-22 to those of the preceding two COVID-affected years, it can be seen that, as the Library gradually reduced restrictions, the number of visitors began to rise. The only term last year where the Library was open 24/7 was the Easter Term, and there we see a corresponding substantial rise in the number of visitors to the Library when compared to the Easter Terms of both preceding years and to the previous two terms of 202122. This is very encouraging to see.

It is worth noting, however, that although the Library was back to 24/7 access during the Easter Term, some restrictions remained in place: there was still very limited access to the Old Library, and the Mezzanine floor of the Working Library remained a designated mask-wearing floor. Both of these factors will have had some impact on the number of visitors coming through the doors of the Library. It may also be true that students had got used to studying in their rooms over the last two years and didn’t change their habits even though it became possible to do so. It should also be mentioned that many students continued to fall ill with COVID throughout the past year, and were required to self-isolate along with their housemates as a result. This will also have had a significant impact on student numbers in the Library.

In addition to monitoring footfall throughout the year, we also gather data on footfall and other Library services during Week 5 of each term. This provides a more detailed snapshot of life in the Library during the busiest weeks of term. This year’s Week 5 data indicates the return of some trends seen in the data from pre-COVID years. It was not possible to report the footfall data for Week 5 staffed and unstaffed hours in the previous Annual Report as there

MICHAELMAS TERM CHRISTMAS VACATION LENT TERM EASTER VACATION EASTER TERM SUMMER VACATION

were essentially no unstaffed hours during the COVID pandemic. However, there has now been one full term (Easter Term 2022) where the Library has been open 24/7 and unstaffed throughout the night, so there is some data to look at. Figure 3 (below) compares the number of entries to the Library during staffed and unstaffed hours in Week 5. The terms where no figures are recorded represent terms during the COVID pandemic when the Library was not open 24/7

Unstaffed entries Staffed entries

EASTER 2022

LENT 2022

MICHAELMAS 2021

EASTER 2021

LENT 2021

MICHAELMAS 2020

EASTER 2020

LENT 2020

MICHAELMAS 2019

0

0

0

0

0

0

4640

4879

1816

3078

2853 3156

Figure 3: Number of entries to the Library in Week 5 by term, 2019-22

It is interesting to note here that, while the total number of entries remains lower, the percentage of entries during unstaffed hours in Easter Term 2022 (61.1%) matches the percentage of entries during unstaffed hours in pre-pandemic terms (60.7% in Michaelmas Term 2019 and 60.1% in Lent Term 2020). This is an encouraging ‘return to normal’ sign from the data, indicating that studying during unstaffed hours is just as popular as it was before COVID

Figure 4 (below) compares the number of items from our collections issued to students using the self-issue machine with the number of items issued by a member of staff. This data is collected during Week 5 of each full term.

Figure 4: Items issued in Week 5 by term, 2019-22

As might be expected, the overall number of items issued is still lower than it was before the pandemic. This may be due to a number of factors, including an increase in the use of e-books, limited access to the Library during some of last year, and the number of students in selfisolation. What we do see in the 2021-22 data is a return to the pre-pandemic trend of selfissued items far outnumbering staff-issued items. This is to be expected, since the self-issue machine was available for use throughout 2021-22 and users obviously felt confident enough to return to the Library and get books for themselves instead of using the click and collect service offered by staff during the pandemic.

In a similar way, the data for the number of enquiries to the issue desk in Week 5 (Figure 5 –page 21) also indicates a return to trends seen in pre-pandemic years.

Figure 5: Enquiries in Week 5 by term, 2019-22

Once again, the figure for enquiries to the issue desk in Michaelmas Term 2021 (125) is similar to that of Michaelmas Term 2019 (110). Figure 5 also shows a similar figure recorded for Lent Term 2019 (91) and for the most recent Lent Term of 2022 (131). It is interesting to note just how big the difference is between the number of enquiries to the issue desk during the pandemic and in this academic year which we experienced as something more like ‘normal’. The biggest difference would be that the students no longer needed to book a study session this year and so didn’t need to go to the desk to sign in. The printers and self-issue machine were also freely available for the whole of the year (during opening hours), so students didn’t need to ask staff to fetch books for them or enquire about printer use. Quite understandably, as the Library was operating with fewer restrictions in place, this resulted in a lot fewer questions to staff about those restrictions. Figure 5 also shows the ‘usual’ drop in enquiries during Easter Term, indicating the students’ increased confidence in how to use Library services by that time in the academic year. We expect these figures to be broadly the same next academic year, subject to any further restrictions relating to COVID

Traditionally, the final set of data gathered during Week 5 of full term has been a count of the number of books cleared from desks or trolleys by staff each morning. This count is then broken down by subject area as a way of illustrating how the collections are being used inside the Library. However, we have decided that gathering this data over an entire year rather than just over one week each term will give a more accurate picture of how the collections are being used, and the data from the forthcoming academic year will therefore be included in the next Annual Report.

Rebecca Le Marchand Library Assistant

Annual Circulation

The borrowing levels (based on frequency counts of items borrowed) in the last academic year (2021-2022) have increased from 8,237 to 11,159 (Figure 1). The increase is largely due to a gradual return to normality since COVID, with many students returning to College for the whole of the academic year. A further explanation of the increase is that the Library reverted to 24/7 opening hours in the Lent Term which has encouraged more borrowing outside of staffed hours.

Figure 1. Library Borrowing – Annual Circulation

Since the overall borrowing figures have increased, it is not surprising that borrowing figures increased for most terms, except for Michaelmas. There is no apparent reason why the borrowing figures in Michaelmas Term are down compared to other terms. It could be the lingering effects of COVID and seating capacity remained reduced, so students were less inclined to work in the Library and borrow books. As shown in the termly borrowing figures for the past three years (see Table 1 – page 23), the borrowing figures for Lent Term, Easter vacation and Easter Term in 2021-22 show a significant increase compared to the previous year (2020-21).

2021-22 2020-21 2019-20

Michaelmas Term 2788 3617 3975

Christmas vacation 638 290 374

Lent Term 3406 1612 3754

Easter vacation 841 238 483

Easter Term 3104 2065 35

Summer vacation 665 415 225 Total 11442 8237 8846

Table 1. Borrowing figures for the last three academic years by term

Figure 2 presents data on the circulation of books by subject. For 2021-22, there has been an increase in borrowing in many subjects compared with the previous year. The three most heavily borrowed subjects were MML, followed by English and History. There is a significant increase in borrowing in MML– from 606 to 1,472 (2021-22); English also saw a noticeable increase in borrowing – from 666 to 1,221 (2021-22).

Circulation of books by subject area in 2020-21/2021-22

Figure 2. Circulation of books by subject area in 2020-21 and 2021-22 Janet Chow Academic Services Librarian

2021-22 2020-21

User Education

Inductions

In-person Library induction tours were held from Monday to Thursday in the first week of the Michaelmas Term 2021. There were six Library tours (three in themorning and three in the afternoon) each day, each lasting about twenty minutes. Students had the opportunity to familiarise themselves with, and ask questions about, the layout of the Library, the facilities and resources available, and in particular, the location of materials related to their own subjects.

At the request of the College Senior Tutor, we adopted a different format for organising the tours from our customary practice. Instead of specifying times for subject-based tours, the tours were voluntary, with students able to book them on Moodle. Consequently, student groups were a mix of different subjects.

Of 126 students who booked tours over the four days, 108 actually attended. On reflection, this new format for conducting tours was not successful. The number of students taking advantage of the tours was lower than expected, particularly in subject areas most populated with students, such as History, Mathematics, Economics and Engineering. Subsequently, some students requested Library staff to organise tours specifically for their own subjects. In view of last year’s experiences, we have decided to revert to our original format for Library tours, namely, groups that are timetabled and subject-based.

Janet Chow

Academic Services Librarian

Dissertation Support Group

This year we decided to turn the virtual study groups that we offered during the pandemic into something more permanent. We felt that the structured

work, positivity and peer support that was evident in these study groups would lend itself well to a dissertation support group. We decided to create something that was a combination of guided study sessions with some teaching elements. It ran once a week throughout the whole academic year, with extra sessions (requested by students) in both the Christmas and Lent holiday periods. The sessions were staffed by Rebecca Le Marchand and Adam Crothers.

The group was set up as a drop-in group with no obligation to attend every session. It gave students an opportunity to do a regular hour or two of work on their dissertations and discuss their work with each other. It also gave them a chance to set personal targets and mini deadlines for themselves. The group also benefited from some specific presentation sessions, each one focused on a different aspect of dissertation research or writing.

Some students started attending early on in the summer, but many more joined as the new academic year began. By the Easter holidays the group had 24 members. About 10 of these students attended most of the group sessions. A few students chose not to attend the study sessions but instead receive support by email and copies of the presentations. We also had some MPhil and PhD students attend who appreciated the structured time and sense of community within the group.

The group was a place where students could chat about how their work was going, articulate their problems and thereby clarify things for themselves. The students were tremendously supportive of each other, and the group quickly became a place where they felt safe to speak with honesty and always find sympathy and understanding.

The students who were involved in the group completed an anonymous feedback form after the sessions finished in June 2022. The feedback was very positive indeed. The vast majority of students found the sessions to be of the right length and frequency and they found that they got lots done. The presentations were also really well received with most students rating them at 4 or 5 out of 5 for relevance

and usefulness. Everyone who filled in the feedback form said that they would recommend the group to other students.

Rebecca Le Marchand won a Student Led teaching award as a result of this work.

Rebecca Le Marchand Library Assistant

The Old Library

Statistics

2021-22 2020-21 2019-20

Readers consulting special collections material* 169 6 206

Visitors taking a tour of the Old Library** Numbers unavailable 0 873

Letters filed 5 1 3 E-mail responses to enquiries 1291 987 1077

Reproductions of special collections material processed outside College 0 0 6

Onsite professional photography ½ day 2 days 3 days

Reproductions of special collections material processed in house*** 2342 1700 1478

Permissions granted to reproduce special collections material in published works 61 86 61

Use of special collections material in connection with biographical work 21 15 27

*The reading room was open to local readers during August 2021, and then re-opened to all readers from 1 September. COVID safety measures meant that only one reader at a time was admitted. Numbers remained low initially for the first part of the year, picking up towards the latter part of the Lent Term. From mid-May two readers were admitted simultaneously.

** The Upper Library remained closed to visitors while it was in use for storing furniture removed from the Working Library. The last chairs were removed on 18 March 2022. Work on the Lower Library environmental conditions prevented access via that route, but the Upper Library was opened on a dropin basis for the College community on Wednesday afternoons throughout the Easter Term. Numbers were not counted.

*** Includes material reproduced to answer Biographical enquiries.

Of the 169 reader sessions booked, 64 (38%) were occupied by students, three quarters of whom were PhD students. 29% of reader sessions were taken up by overseas readers: two thirds from North America and a third from Europe. Although the overall figures remain understandably lower than in pre-pandemic years, the proportions both of students using the collections and of overseas readers are comparable with those experienced prior to 2020. The main difference is the complete absence of scholars from Australasia and Asia.

Requests for copies of material from the collections continue to rise, perhaps reflecting the fact that many scholars are not currently travelling to see items in person, but also the increasing ease with which copies may be made.

Purchases

Thanks to the Noël Marshall Fund it has been possible to purchase a range of interesting material, either relating directly to Johnians or building on particular strengths of the collection.

Perrin plantation papers (3rd instalment). John Morten £6996, plus £240 for additional significant documents from the same collection.

Galart de Monjoie Éloge historique et funèbre de Louis XVIe du nom, roi de France et de Navarre (1797). Formerly owned by John Fiott Lee. Purchased from Bernard Quaritch, £750.

William Sterndale Bennett No.2 of Six Songs with English and German words (1842). Purchased from Simon Beattie, £100.

William Sterndale Bennett Twelve Songs with English and German words (1842). Purchased from Simon Beattie, £40.

John Trusler, London adviser and guide (1786). Purchased from Susanne Schulz-Falster Rare Books, £1800.

William Wilberforce. Two autograph letters (1806). Purchased from Maggs & Co., £2500.

Donations

We are grateful to all our donors for their generosity. This year has seen some particularly welcome additions to our collections of the personal papers of Johnians.

Martin Weiler

Archives of Wilfred Henry Woollen (1903)

Chris Davies

Papers and books by Professor D.V. Davies, Fellow of St John’s 1937-48

John Leake

Papers relating to the admission of women

Ernie Lees

Matriculation photograph 1956

Ian Kay

Autograph letter of Sir Harold Jeffreys

Chris Fletcher

Further glass plate negatives taken by Richard Yapp

Richard Griffin

Papers of Roger Griffin

Robin Bunce

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy television scripts, belonging to camera operator Roger Bunce

John Kerrigan

Hugh Sykes Davies Petron (Swedish translation)

Sir John Smiley

Autograph letters from Sir Cecil Beaton to his family

Liam Sims

Framed print of the Upper Library by Gertrude Hayes, ca.1911-12

Ian Smith

Notes taken by William Wesley Ellison at lectures delivered by Glanville Williams during the 1930s

Professor Peter Clarke Personal papers

From the estate of Victor Perry Geneva Bible (1608) Foxe’s Acts and monuments (1684)

Visits and classes

Limits on numbers in the reading room to maintain COVID safety meant that only a small number of classes could be run this year. Once the chairs stored in the Upper Library were returned to the Working Library it became possible to accommodate group visits again though.

Manuscripts class for MML postgraduates (split into 3 groups) (January 2022) German Islamic students with Dr Morag Morrison-Helme (March 2022) Attingham Trust ‘From College Library to Country House’ study course (April 2022) HPS seminar on Heberden’s Materia Medica Cabinet (June 2022)

Conservation MA students from West Dean College (June 2022) Delegates from the Privacy Laws and Business conference (July 2022)

Papers of Professor Clarke, newly boxed and sorted.

Events

‘Weigh me the fire’: The Elements of an Old Library. Exhibition for the Cambridge Festival, April 2022. All 125 available places were booked.

Peterborough Cathedral online history talk ‘The Lindsay Psalter’ given by Sarah Gilbert and Kathryn McKee 16 June 2022.

A public exhibition From Babel to the Babel Fish: Transmission, Translation and the Technology of Language was displayed for Open Cambridge on 10 September 2022, attracting 336 visitors.

Preservation

It has been a challenging year for preservation. Unfortunately 2021-22 saw the worst mould outbreak to date in the Lower Library, as relative humidity maintained high levels throughout the summer months of 2021. Harwells were brought in to treat the worst affected materials, taking 64 boxes of books away for irradiation and specialist cleaning, at a cost of around £12,000. The Library’s bookbinder, Philip Bolton, has allocated extra hours to book cleaning to work through the remaining books in situ, as not all of those that were badly affected could practicably be removed for treatment. From August we have also had volunteer help for one day a week. A working group was formed, comprising members of the College Maintenance Department and consultants Tobit Curteis and Oliver Caroe, plus the Sub-Librarian, to identify a solution to the problem. All freestanding bookcases have now been moved away from the outer walls (necessitating the removal, crating, and reshelving of over 11,500 volumes of rare books, and over 1500 archive boxes) in order to create an air gap. Following a full survey, a temporary air-handling system was installed by Munters in early June, with ducts run through existing windows to plant in Third Court to regulate the relative humidity within the building.

Initial B from the Lindsey Psalter

Volunteer, Jess, using a conservac to remove mould from volumes.

The effectiveness of this has been monitored over the summer months, when conditions are most conducive to the formation of mould, to inform the design of an effective permanent system. Settings were adjusted throughout June to try to control the relative humidity, though the system was briefly disabled in early July when extreme diurnal fluctuations were observed which themselves would be damaging to the collections. The trial was extended into October following system breakdown in September. Recent years have shown that a control system is going to be essential to preserve the collections as global warming brings more extremes of temperature and humidity. At time of writing, the books which were irradiated and cleaned by Harwells have just been returned, and will be reshelved in those areas where cleaning is complete.

High summer temperatures mean checking the Upper Library for bread beetle larvae. A combination of high temperatures and high RH produces ideal conditions for hatching, and while the summer of 2022 saw extreme temperature, it was also exceptionally dry. Previously infested volumes were checked after each high temperature incident, and a single live larva was found. The volume has now been sent to Harwells for freeze-drying.

The Conservation Consortium continued to work through ‘A2’ conservation priorities, carrying out conservation on 12 early printed works:

Hierocles of Alexandria, two works, 1654 and 1655 (Aa/G.26.20)

Sermons (Ee.6.2)

Multi-item volume (G.14.25)

Multi-item volume (Gg.4.7)

Multi-item volume (Gg.6.2)

Thomas Clarkson, An essay on the impolicy of the African slave trade, 1788 (H.8.47)

The temporary air-handling unit for the Lower Library

David Jenkins, The works of that grave and learned lawyer Iudge Ienkins, prisoner in Newgate, 1648 (I.13.29)

Euclid, The elements of geometrie, 1570 (Kk.2.7)

Simon Stevin, Les oeuvres mathematiques, 1634 (Kk.2.46)

William Austin, Devotionis Augustinianae flamma, or, Certaine devout, godly, and learned meditations, 1635 (P.2.15)

Simon Patrick, A commentary upon the books of Joshua, Judges and Ruth, 1702 (Qq.10.6)

Arnobius of Sicca, Arnobii Afri Adversus gentes libri VII, 1651 (Ss.5.18)

Consortium staff also provided advice on the appropriate treatment for the mould outbreak in the Lower Library, together with cleaning supplies to treat the affected shelves.

Exhibitions

The Huguenots : the story of the French Reformation (online only) Michaelmas 2021, curated by Katie Hannawin.

From January 2022 in-person exhibitions were staged again (though online versions were also produced to give access to a wider audience).

Women and their books. Lent 2022 (a reduced version of this exhibition was restaged in the Old Music Room for the Johnian Dinner in July)

The Student Art and Photography Competition went ahead for the first time in three years. 55 entries were received.

Time and space. Summer 2022, curated by Jess Hollerton. (This exhibition will remain on display throughout the Michaelmas Term 2022 to allow more students to appreciate it, as it provides such an attractive introduction to the range of books in the Special Collections.)

Loans

No exhibition loans took place in 2021-22, but after a lull due to COVID, requests are now being received again.

Projects

Excellent progress has been made on the project to digitize papers from the slavery collections, uploading images to the Cambridge Digital Library along with transcriptions. Adam has completed high-resolution scanning and all images and data have been tidied, so everything is ready to load once the CUDL is able to do so.

St Bartholomew's Day Massacre 1572

Three medieval manuscripts from the Library’s collections underwent scientific pigment analysis by the Fitzwilliam Museum staff in 2022 as part of an AHRC funded project ‘The pigments of British illuminators 600-1660’. It is hoped that a fourth will be analysed in the autumn of 2022.

The Great Bible was transferred to the Hamilton Kerr Institute for a day in August to undergo XREF analysis, for research by Dr Eyal Poleg and Dr Paola Ricciardi into the production and ownership of this unique volume.

Significant progress has been made on the new catalogue of medieval manuscripts, thanks to a grant from the College’s Annual Fund, rolled forward from 2020-21, which enabled us to employ a cataloguer for eight months specifically to work on the physical descriptions of the manuscripts. During the time available it proved possible to complete such descriptions for about a third of the collection, concentrating on the older manuscripts, and those with bindings that were particularly unusual or difficult to describe. In the course of the necessary research into the materiality of the volumes, significant new information has been uncovered regarding the provenance and content of the manuscripts, which will inform and enhance their full cataloguing. In addition, templates and protocols have now been put in place for the cataloguing of the remainder of the collection.

Looking ahead, the Library is participating in a Wellcome Trust funded project, ‘Curious Cures in Cambridge Libraries’, the purpose of which is to digitize, catalogue, and conserve over 180 medical manuscripts in Cambridge (including eight from St John’s) and to transcribe approximately 8,000 medical recipes in full.

Staffing

Dr Sarah Gilbert was appointed Medieval Manuscripts Cataloguer on an eight-month contract from November 2021 to June 2022. (We hope to see her again in 2023 as she is now working on the Curious Cures project at the UL.)

Following the end of her one-year contract in July, Jess Hollerton, the 2021-22 Graduate Trainee, has volunteered one day a week to assist with conservation cleaning in the Lower Library.

Media

BBC Northern Ireland filmed items from the Archives and Special Collections in the Hall for a documentary about Patrick Brontë. December 2021.

On 2 March 2022, the colours of the Ukrainian national flag were projected onto the Bridge of Sighs from the Lower Library.

The Communications Department photographed Douglas Adams’s teddy bear in the Upper Library for Towel Day in May 2022.

Kathryn McKee Sub-Librarian and Special Collections Librarian

The Biographical Office

General Overview

The College’s statutory aims are the advancement of education, religion, learning and research, and the work of the Biographical Office has continued to contribute to all those areas. We have helped students and academics at this College and at schools and universities around the world whose research has led to their interest in individual members of the College, or groups of people which include Johnians, from the sixteenth century to the present day. We regularly support the work of other departments who are all in different ways performing key functions in the College, including the Master’s and President’s Office, Communications Office, Chapel and Choir Office, and the Development Office. Each term the Library Newsletter, circulated to the College community and published online, has highlighted aspects of our work with articles including ‘40th Anniversary of the admission of women to the College’, ‘Johnian Winter Olympians’, and ‘Learned societies and lists: awards, prizes, medals and lectures’.

Over the years, staff working on biographical records have been in the Library, the Johnian Office, then back in the Library since 2007. From July 2022 we continue to be housed in the Library where the Biographical Archive and other materials we need to access are held, but in terms of staff structure we now fall under the Development Office, reporting to the Head of Alumni Relations.

The table below offers an insight into the volume of biographical information received and correspondence generated over the last year from 1 August 2021 until 30 June 2022, after which point we were no longer part of the Library establishment. The previous three full years’ figures are provided for comparison.

Action

2021-22 2020-21 2019-20 2018-19

Biographical material received 2700 2971 4099 4021

Biographical collection consulted 530 470 559 611 Items filed in Biographical collection 365 978 235 515 Emails and letters sent 4284 6100 5019 3816

Proactive research 1200 1575 2390 2415

Most of the work of the office continued to be carried out by the two full time members of staff, but with some assistance from the Library Graduate Trainee 2021-22, Jess Hollerton, the Library Assistant, Katie Hannawin, and the Special Collections Assistant, Adam Crothers, whose support until June was much appreciated.

Biographical Data Entry

As with any other year, data entry has been a big part of our undertaking, forming the spine that provides stability to the rest of our tasks. Inputting information supplied to us at the beginning of someone’s admission to the College, monitoring their academic progress and extracurricular involvement, and following their subsequent career and contributions to society. Even after registering their deaths, we continue to find out new information about them.

The accurate recording of facts and detection of discrepancies between sources is an important aspect of our work, and the reason this is necessary is demonstrated when

members of the College community, or those within the University or further afield, require details which are as accurate as possible, often at short notice. The source and date of material received makes it possible to ensure accurate data is not overwritten by an erroneous update. Johnians themselves sometimes provide incorrect information about their own lives via a CV on which they have inaccurately recalled dates, for example. This can be detected if we still have the information on record which was recorded back when they were a student, or at an earlier stage in their career. When facts are unclear it can lead to time spent checking resources to establish a definitive answer.

We have stayed on track with our rolling task to check Who’s Who annually in order to ensure no Johnian entrant goes for more than five years without having their entry thoroughly checked, in addition to performing a full check for every Fellow and Honorary Fellow each year. Despite verification by the person themselves, the entries often throw up challenges to information the Johnian has provided to us in the past. We have also updated the records of every known Johnian member of the clergy from Crockford’s Clerical Directory, a task we aim to complete on a biannual basis, having already laid good foundations in the past and consolidating the information this year.

Johnian successes in the arts and sciences continue to be monitored by way of the learned societies and important international awards, including the biannual Honours lists.

We continue to note student involvement in College and University clubs and societies, however societies all work to differing schedules on a variety of media platforms, if they even publicise their committees or membership anywhere online at all, so thanks to those societies who maintain excellent, chronological webpages! This ongoing task is only approachable in a piecemeal way but does allow us to capture important aspects of a student’s wider involvement whilst at Cambridge. The information has proven useful in supporting work towards events targeted towards those with a particular interest, often associated with

anniversaries. For example, the Adams Society’s forthcoming centenary has involved work from this office.

Biographical Enquiries

The fact we have one of the best biographical collections of its kind, often complimented by researchers and envied by other institutions, is thanks to the efforts of Fellows, Masters, Librarians, and others who have compiled, maintained, and added to the Biographical Archive since the eighteenth century, and as we continue to do. The enthusiasm of researchers is infectious, and we always try to do our best to help them, but the level of detail we can supply depends on what we have on record - which in some cases may be detailed but can sometimes be sparse (especially if we are going back to the 1500s). The assistance of researchers who approach us for help and in turn provide us with new information is much appreciated. Some detective work is sometimes required in order to even identify who the researcher is interested in, for example, a matriculation photograph donated to a museum where the writing at the top is faded so it is not immediately clear even which year group it is, so to identify the donor who was connected to someone on that photograph is difficult; or requests to identify someone mentioned in a letter who may have been called Henry or Herbie and may have studied economics and may have rowed for the LMBC. We often impress people by managing to succeed despite being provided with very little to go on.

The requests received by this office primarily concern individual Johnians, but some are more wide-ranging, dealing with several members of the same family or those with shared interests, achievements, or experiences. For example, The Eagle 2022 includes an article (pp.14-17) mentioning past work relating to Johnians from the North of England. Other requests have related to members of sports teams, those commemorated on the War Memorial, and alumni

of certain schools (in connection with a visit aimed at widening participation at Cambridge we identified twelve former pupils or masters from the nineteenth century onwards). It is also pleasing to note that some help we provided is leading to an internationally renowned expert in his field undertaking a research project relating to a group of Johnians who were at the forefront of advancement in a key area integral to changing the course of a key event in history. Our response to enquiries takes data protection and privacy into account.

Over the last year the office has dealt with several enquiries in connection with the admission of women to the College. Michaelmas 2021 marked 40 years since the first female graduate students, and one Fellow, became members of St John’s, and the first undergraduates came up in 1982.

The pattern of enquiries completed this year is shown below, along with the previous three years’ figures for comparison.

Century 2021-22 2020-21 2019-20 2018-19

Sixteenth 12 9 11 15

Seventeenth 9 10 10 13

Eighteenth 11 10 11 14

Nineteenth 48 43 51 53

Twentieth 240 257 334 348 Twenty-first 25 24 39 45 More than one century/Other 15 9 10 12 Total 360 362 466 500

The figure is comparable with last year despite not quite covering a full year, as mentioned above. The number of emails, phone calls, letters and visitors seeking assistance remain broadly the same – higher than the figure above for completed work as there continues to be a backlog of requests, the workload of the office preventing it being possible to catch up. It is still the case that those with urgent requests receive a response in a timely fashion, often the same day, and those working towards deadlines are prioritised, but it is frustrating we are unable to deal with all requests promptly. Some changes outlined below may help with this eventually.

Deaths and Obituaries

The table below compares figures regarding the death of members of the College recorded over the last three years.

Deaths recorded

2021 2020 2019

Total number 170 162 160

Included in Alumni obituaries section of The Eagle 2022 145 134 137

The process for recording deaths and the time-consuming and detailed work to ensure that the College’s records are up to date and that details put forward to assist in compiling obituaries are accurate, has been described in previous years’ reports. An example of the effort that has been taken to verify information this year includes the Library Assistant, Katie Hannawin, using her French language skills to correspond with a deceased Johnian’s old school. The volunteer obituary writers Colin Greenhalgh (1960), Obituaries Editor since 2015, and Tim Jones (1974), Assistant Obituaries Editor since 2020, have invested a good deal of time and effort in the process, and their dedication is appreciated. Their contribution ended

this year, with The Eagle 2022’s alumni obituaries section (pp.98-154) being the last to be compiled by them with the assistance of this office.

This decision was made after the year covered by this Report, but as the Biographical Librarian’s work towards obituaries for The Eagle 2023 commenced in January 2022, correspondence with relatives since that time will be revisited and they will be advised of the new procedure for supplying obituaries to the Editor. The full effect of the College’s decision on this will not be felt until next year, but by then much less time will be spent in contact with relatives of Johnians. For some examples of the positive feedback received from families see the appropriate section later in the Annual Report.

The image above is a wreath made by Ann Couldrey, daughter of Peter Clark (1947) who died in December 2021 (see The Eagle 2022, p.104). The origami flowers made from maps were a fitting tribute to someone who first visited the Map Room at the Royal Geographical Society at the age of 16, describing it as ‘nearly paradise!’, and years later became Keeper of that Map Room. The Biographical Librarian’s correspondence with the families of Johnians, and the opportunities it has afforded to expand the College’s records of its members (and come across some lovely things like this), has been one of the things she has found most rewarding over the twenty-one years she has been the main College contact for relatives of deceased Johnians.

Fiona Colbert

Paul Everest Biographical Librarian Biographical Assistant

The College Archive

Reading Room and Enquiries

210 enquiries were received and answered in the year beginning 5 October 2021, with responses in a significant number of cases including the supply of low-resolution digital images. In the Reading Room, 280 files and items were produced for 50 people over the course of 69 visits. Research topics included: Lady Margaret Beaufort’s household accounts; early 16th-century paper manufactured in Cambridge; investments in the South Sea Company; the histories of particular properties once owned by the College, and aspects of the careers of individual former Fellows who are the subject of dissertations.

Cataloguing

Senior Bursar’s account books, 1534-51, and Junior Bursar’s account rolls, 1586-1768, are now listed on the online catalogue. Work on the ‘governing records’ section of the online catalogue relating to the foundation of the College has been completed, meaning that the Foundation Charter now has the reference ‘SJGR/1/1’. Pre-1511 records relating to the dissolution of St John’s Hospital have been catalogued as part of the ‘SJHO’ collection, but are unpublished pending completion of cataloguing of the rest of that extensive collection. The section relating to benefactions to the College by William Cecil, Lord Burghley, his wife and descendants has also been completed and published. Work on the very large ‘estate records’ section continues, with hundreds more records added to the online catalogue, but in draft form pending finalisation of the overall arrangement of the whole section.

Agreement between Lady Burghley and St John's College, 1581 (ref: SJGR/5/3/2)

Preservation

The following items have been treated by the Cambridge Conservation Consortium:

SJGR/1/4 – Bishop of Ely’s charter of confirmation of the foundation of St John’s College, 1514. The charter was surface-cleaned, gently flattened, and a presentation box to house it custom-made, with housing for the seal to keep it from moving when the box is carried.

SJCS/22/6/20 – cricket score book, too badly water and mould damaged to be produced for researchers. Dirt was removed, damaged paper stabilised and infilled with Japanese tissue, new endpapers made and the volume rebound. 

SJAR/8/1/3/1 – Dean’s order book, 1806-95. The binding has been repaired and strengthened, torn pages repaired, the paper surface cleaned, and loose fragments rehoused.

SB16/11 – Senior Bursar’s accounts ledger, 1927-29. Historic water damage resulted in the separation of book block and binding; the cloth covering the boards was completely detached and water damage had weakened the paper. Damaged paper was stabilised and infilled with Japanese tissue, pages were surface-cleaned, new endpapers were made, the spine strengthened, and the volume rebound.

SB16/10 – Senior Bursar’s cash book, 1893-1933. Damaged binding; surface dirt. The volume has been cleaned, paper repaired, and a new binding made. 

SB1/67 – Senior Bursar’s list of subscribers and subscriptions to The Eagle, 1895-1924. Historic water damage resulted in the separation of the book block and binding; spine piece was lost; paper damaged; cloth covering the boards completely detached. The volume has been rebound and the paper repaired and cleaned.

The Consortium is currently conserving photographs of the Lady Margaret Boat Club dating to the 1920s, removing them from their frame, which will include separating one from the glass of the frame, to which it had become stuck due to water damage.

Other Activities

Weekly palaeography sessions have taken place since February, held via Zoom so that students can attend from anywhere, including from home during the holidays, and using digital images of documents in the archives. Documents from the 16th and 17th centuries written in English are used (with the occasional smattering of Latin).

The archivist has researched, selected images, and written text for two information banners on the subjects of ‘Lady Margaret Beaufort’ and ‘Early Benefactors of St John’s’, the latter featuring Roger Lupton, Lady Mildred Burghley, and Sarah, Duchess of Somerset. At the time of writing, proofs have been designed by a professional team who are now approaching manufacturers. The creation of the banners is timed to coincide with the fortieth anniversary of the admission of female undergraduates to St John’s and it is envisaged that, while based in the Pythagoras Building, the pull-up banners will be displayed in other parts of College when various events are taking place. A PowerPoint presentation, for display on the existing screens in the Working Library and Buttery, is being prepared on the subject of the history of women and St John’s more generally, including aspects of what the earliest statutes had to say on the subject and attitudes in the 19th century towards female students.

A pair of May Ball tickets from 1929: blue for a gentleman’s ticket and pink for a lady’s! (ref: SJCL/4/1/5)

Gifts

The following items have been received, with grateful thanks to their donors:

Photographs from album of Douglas Sargent (BA 1900), 1897

Rowing photographs, 1925 and 1926

St John’s College sports jacket, 1930

Foundation Dinner menu and seating plan, 1936

Lady Margaret Boat Club jacket, tie, cap and scarf, c. 1949

Dinner menus: Coronation 1953; May Ball 1953; Hockey Club 1952 and 1953

Lady Margaret Boat Club, Captain’s Book, 1966-87

Copy of rowing training diary of David Sturge (BA 1969), 1973-76

DVD of Hugh Sykes Davies (Fellow, 1933-84), 'The Don's Tale', BBC East documentary 1981

Copies of the texts of sermons made by Dr Kenneth Budden (Fellow, 1947-2005) and Prof. Roger Griffin (Fellow, 1962-65 and 1972-2001) at the Commemoration of Benefactors services, 1981 and 1987

Pig Club papers, 1984-2001

Memorial service for Dr Frederick Sanger (BA 1939), 2014

Order of Service for Choral Evensong in commemoration of the quincentenary of the birth of William Cecil, the Lord Burghley, 2021

May Ball programme, poster, and wrist bands, 2022

Regular accessions from within College include audio recordings of the Hinsley and Linacre Lectures.

Lynsey Darby College Archivist

Environmental Monitoring and Control

Working Library Environment

In the Working Library, we use small electronic sensors called ‘TinyTags’ to monitor the temperature and relative humidity (RH) at five different locations: the Third Floor; the First Floor; and all three main sections of the Basement. (There is also a sixth tag in the Basement of the Old Divinity School, which is discussed further in the Old Library Environment report.) As usual, thanks to dead batteries and the like, we do not have a complete set of data for the year, but we can nevertheless build a clear – and mildly concerning – picture.

Temperature has been fairly consistent with previous data. With the windows still open for ventilation in many places, the First Floor continues to be the coldest part of the Library, recording the lowest temperature overall this year – a pretty inhospitable 12 degrees – and lows of 15 even in August. In the same fortnight in August, the Third Floor recorded a maximum temperature of 39 degrees, so there has been considerable variation.

Thankfully, our Basement storage areas have remained relatively stable temperature-wise, but the same cannot be said for the RH. As Kathryn explains in the Old Library Environment report, readings over 60% are cause for concern. With the exception of the Closed Basement (highs of 65%), all 5 of our other monitoring sites have recorded maximum RH readings of 70% or more. The highest of these was 77% on the First Floor last October. For the main collection of modern student texts, this is obviously concerning enough, but since we hold extensive collections of older books and Special Collections material in the Basement areas, the humidity levels in the Working Library are turning into quite an urgent issue.

Caroline Ball Graduate Trainee

Environmental monitoring in the Old Library

Temperature and relative humidity are monitored continually at three locations in the Upper Library, three in the Lower Library, the Manuscripts Store, and the Reading Room. Readings can be accessed by the Library and by Tobit Curteis Associates, who have been acting as consultants since 2014 to advise on conditions in the Lower Library, where various mitigations have been trialled to reduce the effects of high humidity. It is now clear that passive and lowintervention measures are not going to be effective, and active air-handling will be required.

The graph (page 41) shows the Lower Library readings over July-August-September 2021. The bottom lines are temperature (scale on the right) and the top relative humidity (scale on the left). RH peaked at 79.6% on the north side of the building, but it remained consistently over 65% in all three locations throughout the summer. 70%+ rings serious alarm bells,but anything over 60% has the potential for mould outbreaks, particularly where mould has been experienced before. The Old Library report gives more detail on the widescale mould outbreak which followed, and the temporary air-handling solution which has been in place over the summer of 2022. Full evaluation of that system has yet to be completed.

It should be noted that the Special Collections also use a storage area in the Old Divinity School Basement, which houses significant collections of personal papers. (Initially set up as an area to receive and sort new collections before they moved to the Lower Library, this has become permanent storage by default, as there is no space to which collections can now move.) Worryingly, monitoring shows that this basement too experiences prolonged periods when RH rises above 70% and thus poses a significant risk to the material stored there. Storage space and environmental conditions are issues which the Historical Collections Committee will need to address as a matter of urgency.

Kathryn McKee Sub-Librarian and Special Collections Librarian

School of Pythagoras Environment

Environmental conditions in the Pythagoras Building have been mostly stable this year, with a small number of short-lived exceptions such as when a leak in the boiler room external to the building but serving it and others had to be repaired. In the first half of 2022, the relative humidity percentage was in the 30s to mid-40s and in the second half (to date), in the mid40s to mid-50s. Apart from a few days in June, the temperature was within the recommended parameters of 18-20 degrees, sometimes rising to 21 or on one occasion 22 degrees in the Upper Strong Room. At the time of writing the temperature in the Upper Strong Room is 17 degrees. There have been no significant issues with insects: some silverfish were found in traps in March but are otherwise less prevalent than last year, and a discovery of what may have been booklice was made in a trap set on steps leading into a storage area but none were found in the storage area and there has been no recurrence. A trap on the same set of steps was found one morning to have been half eaten by a mouse which almost certainly came in under the nearby external door, but the mouse was not found and presumably went out the way it came in.

Lynsey Darby College Archivist

Digital Activities

This year has been a busy year for the Library with regard to our digital output. We have continued to keep the website up to date with our latest opening hours and information on the services that we are running (now mostly returned to our pre-COVID arrangements). Although in-person exhibitions have now resumed, digital versions of each exhibition have still been curated and uploaded to the website in order to make them accessible to anyone unable to visit the Library. These include: ‘Women and their Books’; ‘“Weigh me the fire”: The Elements of an Old Library’ (Cambridge Festival 2022); and ‘Space and Time: An Early Modern Tour’. These are all available to view on the Library website.

Whilst the website is still important, our biggest digital focus this year has been on improving our digital communications. Following last year’s successful development of our Facebook outreach, we decided to conduct a ‘Social Media Survey’ during Lent Term 2022 in order to better understand the social media habits of our students and subsequently be able to better engage with them. The survey was intended to highlight which platforms students use to find information and also identify how they would like to receive communications from us.

Coordinated by our then Graduate Trainee, Jess Hollerton, an 11-question Google Form was circulated via an all-students email. By this method, the primary respondents were likely to be undergraduate students who might not already follow us on social media, which was the demographic we were most interested to target. Before the survey closed, it was also posted to our Twitter and Facebook pages.

The survey received 95 responses from a relatively representative proportion of each year (Figure 1). The data revealed that, of our current communications, all-student emails, College Bulletins and cross-posts to the JCR Facebook group were the most common ways of receiving Library news. However, the key finding from the survey was that, although Facebook was still widely used, Instagram was by far the most popular social media platform amongst those surveyed (Figure 2). This outcome was repeated in the figures for how patrons would prefer to receive Library communications, and, unsurprisingly, the most requested improvement to the Library’s social media offering was to create an Instagram account.

The Library Online Exhibitions webpage banner, September 2022

Figure 2: Most used social media platform

Consequently, at the end of May, we launched our new Instagram account (stjohnslibcam). This has been very well received by our students, with over 100 followers already, and regular engagements with our posts. We have found this a really useful way of getting information to our students quickly, and have also enjoyed being able to engage more informally with our student body by making use of interactive features such as stories and polls. We are really looking forward to expanding our outreach on this platform even more next year.

Katie Hannawin Library Assistant

Figure 1: Respondent demographic

General Feedback

I have really enjoyed and appreciated the generosity and friendliness of your college and its library!

The webpage is excellent. I have been comparing different Colleges, and your access is so good. Congratulations!

Library Newsletter

I have just been reading the latest Newsletter (Vol 5: 3) and wanted to express my appreciation of it, and of all the Newsletters, because they are always interesting, informative, sometimes challenging, and confirm my satisfaction in contributing £100 a year to the Library funds. Please commend all the contributors.

What an excellent newsletter! Thank you for putting it together – I enjoyed reading it.

A good document giving lots of information about Library activities thank you

A short note to say I have just read the Library Newsletter and thought it was brilliant, so many things I did not know. Whilst I realise that this is aimed at Students, it is a great read.

Working Library

Thank you so much for creating a wonderful environment. I studied here all year and couldn’t have done my exams without it! Thank you! [Note attached to a box of chocolates]

Dissertation Support Group

The group had a unique sense of community and the chats at the breaks made me so happy and positive, and I could work more effectively.

Thursday afternoon sessions have been invaluable to my confidence and enjoyment of it all. I will miss them.

It was so lovely and encouraging. You gave the group a really supportive atmosphere. As a year abroad student, it was also a good opportunity to touch base with the College.

It was such a good way to encourage yourself to do the dissertation in more manageable chunks instead of putting it off and having to rush.

The presentations have been something I have returned to when stuck – and not just in regard to the dissertations – they have been useful for my thinking more widely.

The presentations were great – some really good advice, and also always very engaging and wellprepared.

I feel like I should credit the dissertation group at the end of my dissertation! I couldn’t have done it without you!

Special Collections

Thank you so much for the super prompt and complete reply. I cannot remember such a request being so speedily fulfilled by any other institution. Bravo.

That's not only helpful, it's instant. Some other permissions I've sought have taken months of repeated imploring to get a response. Thank you sincerely for being so immediate and helpful.

Superb detective work! The second document you sent me is precisely what I was looking for – and more.

This is extremely kind and goes far beyond what I hoped or expected. Many thanks for the speed of your response.

The last time I was in contact was back in 2020, on the day you closed down for the pandemic. You very kindly carried out some manuscript checks for me even though it must have been a very stressful time, for which I am very grateful as it contributed enormously to my now finished PhD.

Thank you so much for these useful photographs and your *incredibly* rapid response. Your description is coherent, useful, and generously given.

This is such rich information and helps with all sorts of questions.

Wow, that is so incredibly helpful. I am grateful for your time and assistance here, and am thrilled to finally see an inscription that I’ve read about for over 20 years

You have been a godsend Kathryn. FYI, you have earned a much deserved note of gratitude in my book for which I'm doing this research.

On this the 21st anniversary of the death of author Douglas Adams I was privileged to read his papers. How well catalogued they have been. Thank you.

On the talk given by Sarah Gilbert and Kathryn McKee

As part of @peterborocathedral’s History Online series, I attended a lecture on the Lindsay Psalter given by @sarahxgilbert – As a lay medievalist and Anglo-Saxon fanatic, it was very interesting and wonderfully expounded. Ic Þancie Þē

A brief note to say how much I enjoyed your paper yesterday evening, an excellent introduction to a variety of topics, from which I certainly learnt a lot.

Exhibitions

Huguenot exhibition

I thoroughly enjoyed [the] exposition of what went on, and the illustrations from the books and manuscripts in the college's collections were beautifully complementary. It's a shame I won't be able to see it personally... but I was very pleased indeed to benefit from the transfer into an online presentation

Art & Photography competition

Love the exhibition – such talent! The lobster belongs in the Tate for sure!

Fantastic photos! Keep up the good work!

Excellent work, everybody!

Space & Time exhibition

What a glorious collection. Such a delight to read. Thank you 

Wonderful space and time exhibition – super collection of texts. Fascinating astrolabes!

Thought provoking. Fantastic!! Biographical Office

Deaths

Having dealt with banks, utility companies etc your email is so much more ‘human’ than the standard ‘please accept our condolences’. I don’t expect sympathy from strangers but just that extra sentence that acknowledges that there is a huge amount of tedious phoning and letter writing to be done goes a long way. So thank you for taking that extra moment with your reply!

Wow! You are the most diligent and caring person I know. Thank you so much for all the information and guidance. You have done so much for us…above and beyond in fact. You make such an amazing positive difference to everyone who seeks your help.

I am so grateful to you for providing all his biographical information - it made it much easier to craft a tribute to him.

At a very difficult time for our family your kind words and patient guidance is appreciated.

Enquiries

You have been tremendously helpful. I knew more within half an hour of contacting you than I have been able to discover over the last year of my research. I cannot thank you enough.

This is the most helpful ‘holding reply’ I have ever received. To think there may be more to come is exciting, as what you have already sent is much more than I was already aware of. How thoughtful of you to go to all this effort to ensure I have precisely the correct details for my book. The work you do is fascinating and the service you provide is second to none.

Archives

If it weren't for the kindness of you and other librarians/archivists I could not have completed the book.

Thanks so much for taking the trouble to search through the Book Club minutes. Interesting!

Archives/Special Collections/Biographical Office combined

Just a short note to say thank you so much for arranging such an informative and interesting tour for me yesterday. It was a real privilege to be offered a glimpse of your impressive work.

Appendix – Regular Donors

We are most grateful to the following donors for their generous and ongoing financial support in 2021 and 2022. This list includes those who contribute through the Sponsor a Shelf scheme to support the acquisition of new books in specific subject areas.

Bill Ball FIMechE (Mechanical Engineering)

Ian and Fumiyo Boulton (Chemistry)

Paul Cockerham FSA (Art History)

Dr John Crompton

Alan Daniels, in memoriam Reginald W. Daniels (Economics and Social Sciences)

Patrick Field (Linguistics and Languages)

Barbara Goodman, in memoriam Henry Goodman (Computer Science)

Simon Holmes

David Hughes

Christopher Joseph (Historical and Human Geography)

Professor Edmund King

Garth Lindrup (Private International Law)

Greg Lowden (Modern History)

Marika Mikuriya

John R. Morris (Engineering)

Dr Michael Neiditch

Michael O’Hara

Professor Stefan Reif

Christine Schoenzart

Dr John H. W. Shaw (Victorian Poetry)

Irene Vest, in memoriam Michael John Vest

David M. Wright (Geology and Earth Sciences)

A full list of donors to the Library is published annually in The Eagle