St John’s College Library Newsletter L
MICHAELMAS 2021
VOLUME 5, ISSUE 1
40th Anniversary of the admission of women to the College Michaelmas 2021 marks 40 years since the first female graduate students, and one Fellow, became members of St John’s. The Eagle Volume LXIX, No 290 of Easter 1982 reported this as follows:
Women have played a crucial role in shaping the College community, starting of course with our Foundress, Lady Margaret Beaufort. Second Court was later constructed thanks to another female benefactor, Mary Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury, and later in the seventeenth century the College benefitted from the generosity of Sarah, Duchess of Somerset. From nobility to domestic staff such as laundresses, cleaners and bedmakers, all integral to the running of the College over hundreds of years, the College would not have been the same at any point in its history without the contribution of women. Yet it was 470 years after the College’s foundation that the first women were admitted to membership of the College. This included Birgit Müller, who was the first female research student to have her name entered in the Admissions Register; Tami Davis,
who became the first woman to join the LMBC, and the first female cox for the club; and Mary Short, who went on to become the first female President of the SBR.
The History of the Lady Margaret Boat Club, Vol IV 1982-2010
Dr Kathleen Wheeler, the first woman to be elected into the Fellowship, had a BA from the University of Ann Arbor and a PhD from Darwin College, Cambridge, with a thesis on Coleridge's Biographia Literaria (published as a book in 1980, reviewed in the same volume of The Eagle which reports her admission to St John’s). Dr Wheeler became a College and University Lecturer in English; she is now Emeritus Reader in English Literature and an Emeritus Fellow of Darwin College.
The first female undergraduates came up the following year, and this will be celebrated by the College in 2022, but it is this term which marks 40 years since the first women were admitted to St John’s and it seems fitting that another historic announcement has been made at this time: that girls and women will be able to join our internationally renowned College Choir from next year. See www.joh.cam.ac.uk/women-st-johns for further information on the history of women at the College and links to other resources. Fiona Colbert, Biographical Librarian
Renewal of College Library award In June 2021, application was made for renewal of the Technology Excellence in Libraries Award (TEiLA), first granted in June 2020 by the Book Industry Communication (BIC), a dedicated book industry supply chain organisation in the UK. We are delighted that the Library was again deemed to be meeting the highest professional standards. Success in being granted the award requires us to demonstrate how our Library uses technologies to streamline the workflow to provide a more efficient library service. The main criteria to be met include the use of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology for self-issue/self-return of library items, security and stock checking; the employment of the EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) function in the library management system to facilitate an efficient communication with book suppliers for library orders and invoices; demonstration of how the Library supports the adoption of new technologies in its work; and how it obtains accurate, up-to-date and comprehensive bibliographic information for use by library staff and users. It is apparent from these criteria just how dependent contemporary library practices are on technology.
Of wider significance for College Fellows and students is that this accreditation award indicates that they are receiving a high quality provision of up-to-date Library services. The award also provides validation for Library staff that effective and efficient practices are being adopted, commensurate with the highest professional standards. Janet Chow, Academic Services Librarian
Interim review of accreditation of the College Archives Archive Service Accreditation is the UK standard for archive services. As defined in its literature, the Standard ‘looks at how an archive service acquires, preserves and provides access to its collections over the long term, through the management of risks and by planning for change. It also represents a pathway for the ongoing development of a service. An accredited archive service delivers within a framework of professionally recognised standards, supported by effective resourcing and management structures.’ In late 2017 my predecessor as Archivist, Tracy Deakin, supported by Kathryn McKee, Dr Nicholls, Rebecca Watts and the rest of the Library team, submitted an application for the College Archives to be awarded Accreditated Archive Service status, which was
successful. The application process is rigorous, with questions on subjects including management structure and governance, forward planning, resources (physical and financial), stakeholders, access, outreach, collections management and development, conservation, and risk management. A range of supporting documentation is required in all areas. Applicants are also interviewed. Accreditated status is awarded for six years, after which a new full application must be made to retain accreditation status. There is also an interim review stage three years after accreditated status is awarded in order to retain the accreditated status. The application was submitted in March this year, slightly later than originally scheduled due to the national Covid-19 situation. Review stage applications must demonstrate that progress has been made in the areas for action (required actions and improvement actions) identified by the Accreditation panel when Accreditated status was first awarded. The Archivist was also interviewed via Zoom. Among the positive comments made by the Accreditation Panel were that good progress had been made on managing the
College’s own records and on improvements to the website. Looking to the future, the Panel noted the key objective to ‘secure digital records for the long term’, ensuring the longevity of the
College Archives for posterity. I am delighted that the application was successful and the College Archive retained its accreditated status. Lynsey Darby, Archivist
Dissertation support from the College Library During the Covid19 lockdowns, I took the initiative to establish a virtual study group to help students structure their days and get some focused course work done. When the series of study groups ended, I wondered whether there was a further need for a similar virtual study group to support undergraduate dissertation work. Directors of Studies reacted very positively to the idea when we contacted them. I was delighted when Adam Crothers (Special Collections Assistant) agreed to help run the proposed group. Weekly sessions began from the beginning of September 2021 and we now have a fully-fledged, virtual dissertation support group.
The format is a drop-in group with no obligation to attend every session. Students are afforded an opportunity to attend a regular one or two hours of work on their dissertations and discuss their work with each other. They also have the chance to set personal targets and mini deadlines. Setting such a schedule can be especially useful as the dissertation is a substantial task with few interim deadlines; it can be challenging to maintain progress and motivation. I have enjoyed the opportunity to deliver presentations such as – ‘How to choose a topic’ and ‘How to use Library facilities to research a topic’ – to clarify the important role that Library resources play in helping students approach their dissertation design. The group provides an opportunity for students to describe their work, articulate and navigate problems. But, more than that, the group is fast becoming something rather lovely – a forum where students feel confident to speak with openness about progress on their dissertations and know that they will be received sympathetically and with understanding. The Dissertation support group runs every Thursday afternoon on Zoom from 2pm. The link is on the JCR Facebook page, or you can get the link by emailing Rebecca on rl623@cam.ac.uk Rebecca Le Marchand, Library Assistant
A tale of two religions This term’s online Library exhibition tells the story of the Huguenots up to 1598. Many people will have heard of ‘the Reformation’ (even if only from the lyrics of Six: the Musical), but they are often unaware of just how important this movement was and how much it changed the face of Europe. France, for example, a land that was almost exclusively Catholic, suddenly had a new religion, and what followed was over a century of religious turmoil and horrifying violence. Today we would call the followers of this new religion Protestants, but at the time the French Catholics gave this group a different nickname: the Huguenots. From the outset, the Huguenots faced religious intolerance and persecution by the Catholics, with the latter half of the 16th century spent locked in a succession of civil wars that wreaked havoc across the nation. Many Huguenots lost their lives as ruler after ruler took their turn trying to solve the ‘religious problem’, each Images: Henry IV, King of France and Navarre (left); A book seller burnt at Avignon for selling Bibles in the French tongue (right)
with little success. A seemingly stable peace was eventually reached in 1598, but it was a long and difficult road to get there. This exhibition uses a wide range of items from the Old Library’s collections to illustrate this first chapter of the Huguenots’ tale, with images and text coming together to help narrate each stage of the story. We meet key figures such as Jean Calvin, Catherine de Medici, and many different Henrys, as well as discovering the complex and violent narrative that frames this period of French history. We discover how the French Wars of Religion (15621598) began; how a small-scale assassination plot turned into a nationwide massacre; and how Henry and Henry managed to eventually defeat Henry. This is an absolutely fascinating chapter in French history, and the College’s collections really help you to (Hugue)-KNOW it all (I apologise for the pun). You can view the online exhibition, The Huguenots: The Story of the French Reformation, by going to www.joh.cam.ac.uk/huguenots Katie Hannawin, Library Assistant
Meet the Graduate Trainee Hello, my name is Jess and I’m this year’s Library Graduate Trainee. I’m delighted to have the opportunity to work at St John’s in such a wonderful library. When it came to applying for this post, I interviewed online, so my first day working here was also the first time I ever saw the Library in person. I have to say, it’s even more impressive than it looked on Zoom. I couldn’t believe the number of floors it had, especially compared to my own College Library which was essentially just one (admittedly quite large) room. In 2020, I completed a degree in English just down the road at Gonville& Caius College. I graduated at the height of the
If ever a book benefitted from a sub-title, this one did. The subject of Professor Linda Colley’s latest publication is the relationship between warfare on land (‘The Gun’) as well as at sea (‘The Ship’) and the writing (‘The Pen’) of constitutions. The opacity of its title notwithstanding, this is a splendid example of vivacious global history that takes the reader from Pasquale Paoli’s tenpage draft of a constitution for his native Corsica in 1755 to the first Haitian constitutions of Toussaint Louverture and the lesser-known independence fighter, Henry Christophe, crowned King Henry I of Haiti in 1811. Whilst Colley does not ignore the Constitution of the United States of America, she places it within the many others composed since the mid-eighteenth century to trace the global spread of constitutions, the similarities between the contexts in which they were drafted, and their cumulative impact on our conception of law and politics. Colley tells us she came to this subject as an outsider, given that her birthplace (Britain) is, along with New Zealand and Israel, ‘one of the very few states left in the world without a codified constitution’ (p.13). To show the power and (often unintended) consequences of various forms of constitutional writing, she considers, for instance,
pandemic, which made choosing what to do next a very interesting task. I ended up working in a wonderful bookshop for a year, which confirmed to me that whatever I did in the future, I wanted it to have something to do with books. I’d volunteered in my local public library before, but what I really wanted to do next was to work behind the scenes in the kinds of academic libraries that I’d used during my time at university. As it is, I’m not very behind the scenes at all! You can usually find me sitting front and centre on the Issue Desk, ready to help out with any queries as best I can. I feel like the amount I know about printers has increased exponentially since I started working here, and yet, every day brings a new error message I’ve never seen before! It has been really lovely to meet all the new and returning staff and students now that term is in full swing, and also to get to know what the Library is like in its more normal state. I am very much looking forward to whatever the rest of the year brings, in the Working Library and beyond. Jess Hollerton, Graduate Trainee
Catherine the Great’s composition of the Nakaz, or Great Instruction, which the Empress undertook in the mid-1760s. This document was not a constitution as such, but an endeavour to set on paper the laws and institutions of her empire and provide guidance for an eventual constitutional convention. Colley shows how the text was taken for something it was never intended to be. While the Empress copied verbatim from the political works of Enlightenment theorists, she did not limit her absolute power on paper, let alone enshrine the rights of man and woman in her code. Rather, in its diffusion in many languages her Nakaz came to be taken by some as a proposal for radical political change and was used by others as an opportunity to insert their own political aspirations in their translations, as Eugenios Voulgaris did, Colley tells us, in the first Greek edition of the volume. It stimulated ideas which were very far from anything Catherine had in mind when she took up her pen. Interesting though this and other such accounts are of the impact constitutions have had beyond their borders, the more provocative aspect of Colley’s book is her argument for the strong connection between warfare and the writing of constitutions. She not only reminds us that Napoleonic imperial conquests paved the way for many European states’ constitutions and that the Emperor even had constitutional designs for Egypt, but also argues that Napoleon’s invasion of the Iberian Peninsula contributed to spread the idea and desirability of written constitutions in South America and beyond. At a general level, there is something to be said about causal claims Colley makes. Whether one accepts them or not in specific contexts does not lessen, indeed may well heighten, the effect the book has in making its readers reflect on the origins of the global constitutional grid we live in. Sylvana Tomaselli, Fellow in History & HSPS
For comments on this Issue, and contributions to future Issues, please contact Janet Chow. Email: jc614@cam.ac.uk; Tel: (3)38662