St John’s College Library Annual Report 2017-18 The Library, St John’s College, Cambridge CB2 1TP Tel: 01223 338662 Fax: 01223 337035 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. Compiled by the Librarian’s Secretary, Angela McKenzie, with many thanks to the Librarian, Dr Mark Nicholls and the Projects Assistant, Rebecca Watts, for proofreading and advice, and the Biographical Assistant, Paul Everest, for cover design. All photographs throughout the Report were taken by Library staff. St John’s College is a registered charity, number 1137428.
Annual Report 2017-18
St John’s College Library Annual Report 2017-18 Contents
Page
The Librarian’s Annual Report
2
Staff Reports
9
Staff Training
19
User Induction
22
The Working Library
23
Library Usage
25
Annual Circulation
29
Audio-Visual Room and Seminar Room
31
The Old Library
32
The Biographical Office
41
The College Archive
48
Library Projects
51
Social Media
55
Environmental Monitoring and Control
57
Green Initiatives
59
Feedback
60
Appendix – Donors to Sponsor a Shelf Scheme
63
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Annual Report 2017-18
The 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.
Cambridge Libraries and Strategic Drivers Last year, I prefaced this Report with some reflections on the interconnected Library structures within the University of Cambridge. That interconnectedness grows ever more apparent. As a member of the Library Syndicate, I was able to comment on an early draft of a document in which the University Librarian, Jessica Gardner, set out a list of strategic drivers shaping provision of the service offered by our Library community over the next decade. Dr Gardner’s visionary work is still evolving, through working groups, consultation exercises and the formalities governing adoptions of new processes, but it is reassuring to note that several of those drivers have long been at the forefront of our minds here in St John’s, in our own strategic planning. The crucial contribution of effective outreach in reaching potential readers, the need to work in collaboration rather than in unwitting competition with departments, and other Colleges, when developing our educational offerings for young readers, and above all what Dr Gardner calls the ‘digital shift’ and its impact across resource provision are all matters considered in detail at our Away Days for many years past. The Library’s Strategic Plan sets out targeted work with specific goals in all these areas, and also foresees a much closer relationship with the UL as the principal instigator of change across the University. There is no choice here but to go forward in partnership with others, sacrificing autonomy in some areas so as to secure wider access and new opportunities for readers and staff alike. Staffing Alice Read, Graduate Trainee for 2017-18, provided excellent service across every sector of the Library during her one-year appointment, and designed a particularly accessible and attractive exhibition on Crime and Punishment, which opened in the Exhibition Area during the early summer of 2018. We wish her every success in her MA course at Sheffield. Alice’s successor is Rowan RushMorgan, a Geography graduate of the University of Glasgow, who joins his new colleagues in contributing to the staff section of this Report. Otherwise, it has not been a year of comings and goings. I have been lucky to work alongside a settled and experienced team. Early in 2018 we welcomed David Baker to the parttime post of Projects Assistant, filling a job-share arrangement with Rebecca Watts. 2
Annual Report 2017-18 One of our two Library Cleaners, Sandra Aleksiejūtė, went on maternity leave in the summer of 2018, and her duties will be covered during her absence by her colleague Catherine Shanahan. We congratulate Sandra and her partner Modestas on the birth of their daughter Austeja. Chris Krupa continues to volunteer on Thursdays in the Old Library. Chris has become, over the past ten years, a most helpful part of the Library team. Ellie Swire still brings her expertise as an archivist to bear in the School of Pythagoras, a great blessing to us given her professional knowledge and her past experience as a member of College staff. The recruitment and retention of volunteers are not always straightforward, but as the Sub-Librarian and the Archivist have demonstrated, careful selection can bring in excellent and committed people who, in return for a variety of work and perhaps a lunch at College expense, enable us to achieve goals that would otherwise be out of reach. ‘Housekeeping’, Cataloguing and Collection Development Sixteen years ago, the College took a decision that in effect committed St John’s to sharing the University Library’s central housekeeping system, so offering us the security of collective development in a crucially important resource, alongside significant financial advantages. We faced one consequence of that decision late in 2017, when the University replaced its long-established Voyager system with a new housekeeping platform, known as Alma. When the University moved, we in St John’s moved too. The logic of pulling together, mentioned earlier, has been paramount here, since Alma is a more cohesive – and dare I say a less self-indulgently flexible – system, which rightly assumes that Cambridge libraries wish to pursue similar ends in similar ways. The need imposed by this move to harmonise our arrangements with those in other Cambridge libraries has led us to make some modest changes to our rules for readers, particularly to borrowing arrangements. In practice, this has moved us towards more generous and permissive protocols: for example readers enjoy a slightly longer ‘grace period’ in which they can return an overdue item without facing a fine, while libraries now cooperate in setting standard loan periods chosen from a list of options. Here as in other areas the University urges us to establish a level playing field in our provision to students and academics across Cambridge. Our challenge is to do just that, while ensuring that the levelling processes deliver a baseline that is ‘better’ rather than ‘worse’ for most people. More problematically, many readers struggled to come to terms with the public face of the new catalogue, optimistically called ‘iDiscover’. At the time of writing, most teething troubles in this search engine have been addressed.
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Annual Report 2017-18 A very collegial matter has also received close attention from Library staff this year. Donations of funds, books, and other items, have always been crucial in the development of our collections. A glance at shelves in the Old Library reminds us that, through most of the College’s history, ours has not been a carefully-planned academic collection, full of those theological and mathematical texts close to the hearts and interests of Fellows in earlier centuries, but rather a loosely-merged combination of individual donations reflecting the collecting pursuits of Johnian alumni and other well-wishers, from every walk of life and with many different interests. Up until quite recent times, St John’s did not spend much money on the acquisition of books; given the spectacular and sustained levels of Johnian generosity, it never had to do so. Today of course we draw on the College coffers to buy essential reading materials for undergraduates embarking on the study of every tripos subject, but materials donated by those kindly disposed to the Library are still crucial, both to that end, and in the gathering together of books by or about Johnians, always an important commitment undertaken by the College Library. A summer working group of Library staff has looked at how we go about stewarding donations: how we thank donors, guide them towards supporting current collection development policies, and record their kindness. This generosity is expressed in all sorts of ways, and our processes must leave no donor in doubt as to our gratitude. Hopefully, those who support us will appreciate the new workflows in this area. The Working Environment Keeping a busy, twenty-four hour library clean and smart is never easy. And yet, twenty-five years on from the opening of the Working Library, the surroundings, fixtures and furniture still reflect well on those responsible for its care. Our Cleaners, of course, bear the brunt in term time: nine toilets and numerous waste bins are emptied promptly, floors are hoovered, recycling is encouraged, shelves are swept, and faults are reported promptly. Additionally, all staff strive to enhance rather than merely maintain. The Academic Services Librarian, Janet Chow, has replaced the chairs in our Seminar Room with a set that is both more attractive and more comfortable. The Library Assistant, Catherine Ascough, has argued successfully for the funds to refurbish shelving, seating and equipment in our Audio-Visual Room, anticipating new formats and patterns of use. Catherine Shanahan has taken the initiative in cleaning stonework leading into the Entrance Hall: the stone has changed colour completely as the grime of two decades has been scraped away. Low Energy lightbulbs are now all but universal in the Working Library. New layouts have been agreed and funded for both the Entrance Lobby and the main Entrance Hall, and the College Council have also 4
Annual Report 2017-18 approved, through the Annual Fund, the replacement of the main Library Issue Desk, to make it still more accessible for all readers. Similar efforts are of course made in other parts of the Library and Archive. The Archivist, Tracy Deakin, works with the Library cleaning staff to ensure that the Archive Centre never looks anything other than spectacular – beautifully fitted out within a lovely twelfth-century building, this must be one of the most handsome study environments in Cambridge. The Old Library Life in the Old Library is full of surprises, challenges and delights. The acquisition of unique material – personal papers, early books, and objects connected with St John’s or its members – is complemented by a steady stream of highly knowledgeable readers, keen to pick the brains of the Library staff but also willing to share their expertise in the items they come to consult. And then there is the need to live with a building four centuries old: to explore why it is that certain corners are colder, or damper, than they really should be, and how best to cope with a sudden infestation of flies. The Sub-Librarian, Kathryn McKee, and the Special Collections Assistant, Adam Crothers, would say that this is all in the day’s work. Acknowledging what they do, and pointing the reader to the very detailed pages they have provided later in this Report, I would like to highlight the importance of those Open Days in the year, such as the Open Cambridge weekend, when we bring the public into the Upper Library through the ‘real’ front door, up E Staircase in Second Court, and show off a selection of Library treasures but also, maybe more importantly, the glorious ‘swagger space’ provided by this seventeenth-century masterpiece, in its time the largest library in Cambridge. Opportunities such as these show the best of both ancient and modern – how Cambridge belies the unchanging outward appearance of its historic buildings to offer twenty-first century thinking and state of the art facilities. For the freshers who visit the Old Library on their introductory tours in October, here is an experience deliberately calculated to surprise, inspire and delight. Archives A particularly cheering development this year was the award of Accredited status to the College Archive under the prestigious scheme run by the National Archives. St John’s secured Achival Accreditation shortly after the internationally-renowned Churchill Archive Centre, and ahead of the very well-resourced University Library, Cambridge’s other representatives on this select list. This past 5
Annual Report 2017-18 summer, I have chaired a staff working group which picked up on the very positive report submitted by the Accreditation assessors, highlighted their specific suggestions for further development, and identified specific means of addressing those details. The Archivist has for example made vigorous efforts to widen still further the sectors visiting and enjoying the facilities in the School of Pythagoras, and has also pressed ahead with our online cataloguing of these collections. Biographical Office The list of Johnians grows ever longer, with upwards of 300 people being admitted annually to membership of our College. Consequently, the work of the Biographical Office is never done. It is incumbent on those working in ancient foundations, explicitly and implicitly, to remember those who went before us, and no team is more skilled at developing an institutional memory, founded on accurate facts and references relating to Johnians across the centuries. Fiona Colbert the Biographical Librarian, and the Biographical Assistant, Paul Everest, argue that the nature of such work remains broadly constant, that they continue to glean data from all sorts of sources and remain scrupulous in the ways that they store and use such data, while still offering a wonderfully helpful service when responding to the hundreds of enquiries about members of the College received each year. But in some important ways, the work they both undertake does change subtly, year on year. With the return in 2016 of detailed obituary notices in the College’s journal of record, The Eagle, there is a time-critical obligation to provide all necessary details to the Eagle’s obituarist, Colin Greenhalgh. A historically large College says farewell in this way to more than one hundred Johnians in any year, and these notices – beautifully crafted ‘brief lives’ – mean a lot to their families and to Johnian contemporaries. So the obituaries are read, sometimes very closely, and require checking and rechecking in the drafting and proofing in order to be as accurate as the immediate nature of such records allows. Colin is the first to join me in recognising his debt to the Biographical team when meeting these obligations. Exhibitions Cases in the Library Exhibition Area have again been full of interesting and precious things this year. A display on that supposed late seventeenth century ‘golden age’ of St John’s, ‘The Restoration College’, ran through the autumn months of 2017. In the spring, we staged a display of materials relating to life in the Master’s Lodge, focusing on the individuals and families who have lived in the old and new Lodges. The Student Art and Photography Competition and the Staff Photography
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Annual Report 2017-18 Competition both attracted some excellent entries, as reflected in the incredibly high calibre of the prize-winners. They had to be very good to win. The Upper Library was open to visitors during the Cambridge Open Weekend, and during the University Science Week and its arts and humanities equivalent the Festival of Ideas, the latter enlivened by a splendid exhibition displaying illustrations of mythical and supernatural beasts. Between them these one-day exhibitions drew in over 1800 visitors. Some inspirational Johnian achievements were highlighted for graduates and their families in displays prepared for the day of General Admission. My particular thanks go to Kathryn McKee and Adam Crothers for working up most of these displays. We must thank, too, our colleagues in the College’s Communications Office, particularly the Press, Publicity and Communities Officers Shelley Hughes and her successor Hazel Lawrence, for developing displays and for assisting with publicity and staffing. In the School of Pythagoras, the Archivist has again come up with a most attractive programme, including a display of records and photographs relating to women employed by the College over the past four centuries. More recently, the cases contained a dramatic aide memoire for those of us shaky in listing our kings and queens: a collection of royal grants, with examples dating from the reign of almost every English, and after 1603 British monarch from Richard I to Victoria. Captions and panels from Library exhibitions are stored electronically, so that relevant displays can be swiftly assembled in response to the needs of College, and the arrival of visitors with particular interests and from almost any part of the world. Security and Safety All risk assessments in the Department are updated annually in compliance with College policy. Fire-evacuation exercises were conducted in the Library during the Michaelmas Term 2017 and the Lent Term 2018. I have again followed the custom of reviewing the Library Disaster Response Plan and the parallel plan for the Archive Centre every September. University Challenge Johnians and others who cheered on our successful University Challenge campaign in 2017-18 will be pleased to know that the trophy has been placed on display in the Library, at the particular request of the team. We are honoured and thrilled in equal measure, and send our congratulations once again to the invincible James, John Clark, Matt and Rosie. 7
Annual Report 2017-18 A Shared Responsibility Working this year to prepare the necessary information and documentation ahead of the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation, I have been reminded again and again of the cooperation between departments that underpins everything we do in College. From a Library perspective, we work especially closely with our partners in Information Services and Systems: IT and the Communications Office, and I am also always grateful to the Development Office, the Domestic Bursar’s Office, and to the Housekeeping, Maintenance, Porters, and Tutorial Departments for all that they have done to keep the Library smart, welcoming, closely connected to our alumni, and generally well briefed on essential matters. Again I must thank the College Council’s Library and Records Committee, and the members of the Council themselves, for their guidance, their scrutiny, and their encouragement of Library initiatives. Anyone looking through the pages that follow will readily understand my wish to thank the Librarian’s Secretary, Angela McKenzie, for assembling and proofing this Report, and the Biographical Assistant Paul Everest for his magnificent photography. Mark Nicholls
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Annual Report 2017-18
Staff Reports
The Library Staff Away Day, the Gonville Hotel 2018 Top row from left to right: Paul Everest, Adam Crothers, Chris Krupa (volunteer), Mark Nicholls, Sue Rogers (IT Director and Guest Speaker), Fiona Colbert and David Baker. Seated: Catherine Shanahan, Kathryn McKee, Angela McKenzie, Rowan Rush-Morgan and Catherine Ascough
Catherine Ascough – Library Assistant From the outside it must seem that an academic library is least busy over the summer – in terms of volume of readers and number of enquiries that is certainly true, however as library staff it is a time when we are able to beaver away at projects which, often, we have been planning throughout the year. ‘I’ll do it in the summer vacation’ is a common thought that I have, and it is only when September creeps up and term approaches that I realise that once again I have been too ambitious. More often than not this is because a task has become vastly more complex and time consuming than it first appeared – for example my ongoing journal project. This started out life as a small, contained idea to tidy up the current periodicals area, and has snowballed into checking and updating the catalogue records for every journal which the Library has ever subscribed to (I would estimate over 500 titles) to make it clearer to readers which titles, volumes and years the Library holds. I think it will be an ongoing background project for a long time to come!
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Annual Report 2017-18 In my day to day tasks I have been expanding the language collection in the AV Room (which now includes materials to learn Latin, Czech, and British Sign Language), shelving, processing books, answering enquiries, cataloguing, and many other tasks which help the Library to run smoothly. I have also redesigned the AV Room – you can read more about the refurbishment on page 31. I currently spend one day a week at the School of Pythagoras invigilating readers and visitors to the exhibition, and working on projects such as cataloguing and filing. There have been some surprises this year – coming in after a Bank Holiday to be greeted by a life-size cardboard cut-out of Brian Cox being one of them – and some more expected challenges such as changing a Library Management System in January, but overall the year has flown by in a manner and speed reserved, in my experience, only for positive experiences. The inflatable flamingo that I mentioned in last year’s report has not been claimed and is therefore still resident above my desk. His temporary lodgings are starting to look ever more permanent… David Baker – Projects Assistant (part-time) I joined the Library back at the beginning of Lent Term, taking over one half to the role of Projects Assistant (a job which I still share with Rebecca Watts). Beginning a new job on the threshold of a new calendar year felt rather appropriate – even if, in my case, the new adventure I had embarked upon also involved a step backwards of sorts in the form of a welcome return to Cambridge – and I was soon thrust back into the all-too-familiar rhythms which govern life here in College. That said, however, my first couple of weeks were pretty hectic, not only because of the large numbers of returning students all gearing up for a new term, but also down to the not-insubstantial amount of disruption caused by the introduction of a shiny new library system, Alma, which was then being rolled out across the University. Indeed, the process of getting to grips with this, whilst trying to figure out whether I would still be able to carry out all the tasks mentioned in the handover notes left behind for me by my predecessor, Sam, occupied a much larger proportion of my time than it no doubt probably should have done! When asked by friends or family, I sometimes find myself hard-pressed to describe exactly what my job entails, other than to say something along the lines of ‘spinning a lot of plates’. Tasks such as gathering library usage and circulation data and cataloguing the steady trickle of donations which arrive for the Library are forever rumbling along in the background. Aside from this, the rest of my week is taken up with inching forward progress on a series of more or less finite, shorter-term projects, whilst at the same time being able to respond to circumstances and events as they arise. On the one hand, this can all feel a little disjointed; on the other hand, it is exceedingly difficult to get bored.
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Annual Report 2017-18 One major task I was able to tackle over the last nine months has been that of completing the project to catalogue the outstanding items in the Cartwright Collection and to find a way of making them accessible to members of the College community. As a musician myself (albeit an incredibly amateur one), I was thrilled to be able to put my knowledge to good use in order to achieve this, and the project also gave me an excellent opportunity to discover more about how to catalogue music. I have likewise had the chance to brush up on my archival skills in recent months, as another of my jobs has been to begin the process of scoping and weeding the Dobson Collection. As the name suggests, this represents the extensive selection of personal papers belonging to the current Master of St John’s, Professor Sir Christopher Dobson, which the Library now holds. Work on the collection is still at its early stages, although I hope to be able to report more on this project before too long – perhaps even in time for next year’s Annual Report! Otherwise, I am also continuing the work previously undertaken by Sam for Fiona and the Biographical Office, much of which involves creating and updating the records for new students on the database, and taking on whatever else is asked of me from week to week. And, when I’m not in the Library, I spend most of my time at the moment either trying to finish off my MA dissertation or chasing around a four-yearold. Needless to say, there are times when I look forward to coming to work for some peace and quiet! Janet Chow – Academic Services Librarian This has been an educative year for me – involving developmental experiences both afar and local. I visited the University of Hong Kong (HKU) between 28 and 30 August with a view to knowledge exchange with senior library staff of the University Library. The visit took two forms – first was a half-day session including tours of the main University Library and the Law Library followed by a meeting with the Deputy University Librarian, Head of Information Services, Head of Branch Library Services, and the Assistant Lending Services Librarian. The agenda was set before I travelled to Hong Kong and included the following knowledge exchange topics – the changing functions and future trends of academic libraries; resource allocation and library management; library user surveys, and complementary methods of understanding users’ needs, such as focus groups and observation. The second major purpose of the visit was to present an invited lecture/seminar on ‘Realising the potential of user surveys in improving academic libraries’. The presentation took the form of a powerpoint slides presented to the Head and Deputy Librarian, Branch Librarians of HKU, and librarians from other academic libraries. The presentation was followed by an interesting Q&A session where issues related to alternative qualitative methods of capturing user data – such as observation mapping 11
Annual Report 2017-18 of footfall, and focus groups – were discussed. Following the seminar, the Deputy University Librarian showed me a room in the Library dedicated to the new Joseph Needham collection. The University of Cambridge has contributed part of his collection to HKU, and a special collection room has been dedicated to him for use by members of the Needham Research Institute. The Deputy Librarian seems very keen to further the relationship between HKU and Cambridge, in particular St John’s College, for knowledge exchange. On a more local scale, I undertook three training courses. The first related to first aid. I am now one of the qualified first aiders in the Library (Tracy is the other). I find myself caught in a bind, however, since being newly qualified, I would like to test my skills, but that would mean one of you, my colleagues, having a misfortune! The second one is recruitment and interview training, which is designed to enhance my interview techniques for occasions such as interviewing candidates (with Mark and Kathryn) for each year’s graduate trainee position. The third is job evaluation, which involved evaluating a range of College jobs by applying a set of criteria given us, and then deciding on the appropriate grade for the position. These experiences have offered a rich diversity of professional development. Fiona Colbert – Biographical Librarian Creating biographical records for members of the College who are joining us for the new academic year emphasises the natural cycle of things. Before I even receive application and registration forms and birth certificates, I have seen articles from local newspapers around the country about school pupils getting excellent A level results, resulting in some being destined to take up places at St John’s. But a large part of my work is also dealing with the death of members of the College, and death certificates and obituaries are always a regular sight on my desk (yes, there honestly is a desk somewhere under all that paperwork!) This year I have contributed articles to the Lent and Easter editions of the Library Newsletter. In February I began with a general overview of the work of the Biographical Office, and I was asked to follow this up in May with an article on ‘interesting Johnians’. In the second article I chose not to focus on the many famous names which might spring to mind, but to emphasise that ‘ordinary’ Johnians, with apparently mundane lives and careers interesting only to their own family and friends, can be some of the most engaging enquiries we deal with.
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Annual Report 2017-18
Adam Crothers Assistant
–
Special
Collections
They said it would never happen. They were entirely unsolicited in doing so, and were wrong, and I laugh in their embarrassed and unattractive faces, with mine own. The papers of Douglas Adams (BA 1974), long a staple of the Annual Report, are, as of December 2017, catalogued. Insert staggeringly inventive ‘DON’T PANIC’ joke here. Having worked with the papers for eighteen months, I was delighted and terrified to see their descriptions, from which typos continue to be plucked, go live. And then I curated the collection’s first public exhibition for the Cambridge Science Festival in March 2018. People showed up. This too was delightful-slash-terrifying. Curating exhibitions is anyway a nervous joy, and I’m particularly animated by the challenges of composing, across captions and cases, a somewhat unifying and yet crucially inessential narrative. At time of writing I am (as well as getting the papers of George Watson, late Fellow in English, close to what some might call order) preparing one on heavens and hells for the ‘extremes’-themed Cambridge Festival of Ideas. It’s scheduled for 20 October 2018, so will have occurred by the time you read this. Perhaps you can, from your temporal standpoint, mock my hubristic belief that it might not be a disaster, although I suspect you have other things to worry about. I notice that I haven’t mentioned the months spent editing authority records on the new online special-collections catalogue. A shame, as it was only slightly less interesting than it sounds. Tracy Deakin – Archivist We received Accreditation last year and that was felt like a great pat on the back for a ‘job well done’! I’m just worried that there’s nowhere to go but down now… I spent much of last year working a series of Research Skills workshops with colleagues from three other Cambridge institutions and much of the summer on planning our inaugural Dissertation Fair. In addition to those rewarding projects I’ve managed to put all of Lady Margaret’s records on AtoM, catalogued and accessioned some other minor collections and hosted some popular exhibitions and tours.
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Annual Report 2017-18 Paul Everest – Biographical Assistant Here we are again. The Boston Ivy on New Court has turned a vivid shade of red, the conkers along the backs have been crushed underfoot, our breaths are starting to linger on the morning air as though reluctant to leave us for the cold, and it’s Annual Report time. While there is nothing particularly interesting to write about, this year has been underpinned by some rather lengthy data entry projects which I’m glad to have finally put to rest. Searching for missing Johnians has, again, been an enjoyable and fruitful experience, and I have begun assisting the Biographical Librarian in answering enquiries, which has brought me into contact with a wider range of Johnian history, and the sometimes quirky nature of those who enquire of it! Trying to crystallise the year’s work into a few short paragraphs is an impossible task, and the minutiae indescribable to anyone not intimately involved in the kind of work we do, but I am lucky to have such a varied and interesting job, even if I struggle to articulate it when this time of year comes around. Alison Hart-Arkley – Secretary to the Librarian and Head of Information Services and Systems (job-share) This has been an interesting year for me, having moved from the IT department to the Library. Colleagues here have been welcoming and helpful in explaining some of the finer points of the role, and I am gradually taking on more tasks, hopefully allowing Angela to focus on other parts of her job. Working fewer hours has given me more time to pursue my own creative interests, following the completion of an MA in Illustration and Book Arts last September. Kathryn McKee – Collections Librarian
Sub-Librarian
and
Special
This has been a year of new systems. The new library management system hasn’t impacted greatly on the Old Library’s work, though I’ve provided a second pair of eyes to check the vast configuration spreadsheets which Janet has nobly tackled. It’s good to know that records for all our rare books are available through COPAC, so special collections readers can consult our catalogue in multiple ways. The upgrade and migration of the College website to a new platform was always going to be a challenge given 14
Annual Report 2017-18 the sheer number and complexity of the special collections webpages. I felt rather like Piglet after his unwanted bath, needing to roll all the way home to get my nice comfortable colour back. We’re getting there though, and the College’s Web Officer, Louise, has been fantastically supportive throughout the process. The migration of our entire personal papers catalogue to AtoM, the software adopted last year by the Archives, was, by contrast, a delight. Inevitably implementing a modern, fully standards-compliant system has shown up some inconsistencies in practice over many years, but the ease of navigation and editing makes the task of correcting errors less onerous, and cataloguing from now on will be much more straightforward. It’s yet another area in which Old Library and Archives are working more closely together, and that benefits both services. I was thrilled to see the Archives achieving Accreditation this year, though I can claim no personal credit; success is down to Tracy’s hard work and vision. We’re now planning how we can build on that achievement. (For those who like Munros, this year’s photo was taken on Ben Vorlich. Windchill factor minus five; glorious sunshine and views!) Angela McKenzie – Secretary to the Librarian and Head of Information Services and Systems and Telephone Liaison Officer This year has been one that has involved a degree of juggling for me because in addition to my regular secretarial duties supporting the Librarian, my other role of Telephone Liaison Officer, where I am a ‘department of one’, has seen me heavily involved with the University Information Services (Telecomms Office) as they began a programme of free upgrades for all the Voice Over Internet Protocol telephones (VOIP) which have been in use throughout the University in Departments, Libraries and Colleges since 2009. The original handsets have begun to have functioning issues on a regular basis and as technology is improving all the time, they are to be replaced in batches, model by model. With over 400 handsets in use here at St John’s this has already and will for the next year or more cause a not insignificant impact on my time. So far sixty of the larger office phones have been completed and Simon Mallows, the College IT Department Network expert has been invaluable with ironing out some compatibility issues. The new handsets essentially arrive flatpacked and I assemble, check the programming and then physically install and test. This is the only time I wish our College was small and all on one level. Cobbles and multiple staircases are a challenge! [Note to self – must wear my pedometer when the next batch arrive as I will definitely smash that 10,000 step target even if I will need a new set of knees!]
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Annual Report 2017-18 In the Library I discovered that some of my colleagues are secret jigsaw fans and so periodically I have brought in a jigsaw from home for the coffee table. During coffee breaks there is much concentration from those of us that are keen to see a puzzle completed, often followed by a sigh of satisfaction as a tricky bit is finished. I might add that we have to contend with the possibility of sabotage from one or two (who shall be nameless) who are not fans. Extra pieces from another puzzle being added or temporarily missing pieces are distinct possibilities! Finally I should mention how glad I am to have Alison Hart-Arkley working in the Library on Fridays covering my Librarian’s Secretary work. It is very reassuring to be able to leave a number of tasks for her to do which I can’t fit in in my four day week, especially with telephones taking up a lot of time presently. Having mastered the intricacies of the Library Google calendar and the Librarian’s pattern of work within the complexities of his three College roles she is invaluable in keeping things ticking over in my absence. Rowan Rush Morgan – Graduate Trainee These past few months have been a bit of a whirlwind for me! After graduating in the summer, I moved down to Cambridge, a place that only ever existed in my mind as far away and very flat. Going from studying in libraries to working in one has so far been a fantastic, and challenging, experience. In the two months I have been at John’s I have already learnt so much, though I am still waiting for the day I manage to remember all of the innumerable keys needed for the everyday working of the Library. Life as a graduate trainee is incredibly varied, and when I’m not answering enquiries from readers I am cataloguing acquisitions, updating social media, creating new displays and carrying out environmental monitoring. I am lucky to be gaining experience in the archive too, currently I am spending one day a week cataloguing records of the Lady Margaret Boat Club and learning a whole host of boating terms in the process. I also work with the Biographical Librarian, keeping the biographical database up to date with the fascinating lives of current and former Johnians. Some parts of library work are admittedly a little less glamorous however, for example trapping and recording pests in the archives, but I can now proudly add ‘bug identification’ to my CV! Within my role I am making the most of training opportunities. So far I have undertaken cataloguing and Alma training, which whilst puzzling at first, have been 16
Annual Report 2017-18 very rewarding. I have also made connections with the other Graduate Trainees, with whom I am fortunate enough to spend time visiting other libraries in Cambridge and beyond. My experience at St John’s so far has been very rewarding, and whilst at first I may have stuck to Janet and Catherine like a lost duckling, I am now at home at the Issue Desk and look forward to the start of term as well as the rest of the year ahead. Catherine Shanahan – Library Cleaner Wow! My first year as the Library Cleaner has flown by. I couldn't have wished for a friendlier welcome from my new colleagues and I am grateful for their ongoing support. St John's College Library is a wonderful place to work, to be surrounded in the Working Library by tomorrow's Doctors, Scientists, Lawyers and their ever-changing modern technology, and be seconds away from the Old Library, and its wealth of rare books, manuscripts and art works, some created by their predecessors. Along with the usual daily cleaning duties, this summer has provided me with the ideal opportunity to spring clean the Audio-Visual Room. It has been lovingly redesigned by Catherine Ascough and a skilful team from the Maintenance Department. There is never a shortage of books and shelves to clean and this year I have concentrated on the John Hall Law Library. At the end of each term the lull in Library users gives me time to check and replace light-bulbs. It is also the best time to practice the dark art of cobweb combat! Sometimes I am not sure if I am winning that particular battle. I have also assisted the JCR Welfare Officer, Coralie Nelson, to implement a new scheme, whereby free feminine hygiene products are available in all Library toilets. I was more than happy to contribute my time to this forward-thinking scheme which makes the College a better place for all women. I have taken a particular interest in this scheme due to my teenage daughter, who has been educating me in feminist issues including period poverty, which the scheme seeks to overcome. The staff social events, such as the Christmas Party, have been thoroughly enjoyable and extremely well organised. I appreciate everyone who works so hard to make them possible for my colleagues and I. Rebecca Watts – Projects Assistant (part-time) Reading through my last year’s report, I found myself somewhat surprised, and not unimpressed, by my list of work-based achievements for 2016-17. This prompted the question: have I accomplished anything in 2017-18? Resolving the hundreds of issues identified by the Working Library stock check was a hangover from last year that required several months’ 17
Annual Report 2017-18 attention (and approximately a million trips up and down the stairs). Weeding and reboxing of the extensive Goody Collection was also a continuation, and I was pleased to finish boxing the papers from three large office filing cabinets, which I gather had been ‘temporarily’ placed in the Lower Library approximately a decade ago. The rest of my work this year has been predominantly administrative. As a natural organiser (read pedant) I was nominated Secretary for the ‘Donations Process Flow Working Group’, which convened during the summer to discuss and refine the processes by which we deal with donations of all shapes and sizes to the Working Library, Old Library and Archive. Earlier in the year I coordinated the creation of a memorial to one of our late benefactors, Professor Joseph Zund, in the Upper Library’s oriel window. I also undertook a couple of research projects, leading to the production of a ‘Guide to pictures in Wordsworth Room’ (for reference by staff and visitors) and a report on the possibilities for documenting and showcasing the College’s watercolours collection online (more on this, we hope, next year). Alongside these tasks, and grappling with Alma, I have digitally indexed the minute books of the Library Committee (1883–2001), updated the complete range of Library ‘Subject Guides’, and liaised with colleagues in the Development Office to administer the ‘Sponsor a Shelf’ scheme.
18
Annual Report 2017-18
Staff Training The implementation of a new Library Management System across the University (Alma) brought with it a training requirement for all those staff who use the system in their daily work. All staff also undertook statutory updates in fire safety training, whilst new staff also participated in ladder training and dignity at work sessions. First aiders received necessary refresher courses. The College also provided updated training for those involved in recruitment. Staff benefited from a range of free and low-cost training available locally, whilst updating key skills and knowledge by attendance at courses and conferences run by professional bodies. The Away Day provided a valuable opportunity for all staff to participate in planning for the coming year, to consider strategic objectives, offer suggestions, and to discuss policy and practice in a supportive open forum. Staff member Librarian Sub-Librarian/ Special Collections Librarian
Training Recruitment & selection Disaster planning and salvage Overhead scanner training Alma fulfilment Alma cataloguing Discovering collections, discovering communities (DCDC17) Special Collections lecture: Chinese books Recruitment & selection AtoM webinar
Provider SJC CCCC Covergold CUL CUL TNA/RLUK
Academic Services Librarian
Alma fulfilment Alma cataloguing Alma acquisitions First Aid Recruitment & selection Collection development seminar CLIPS system training (Alma) Visits to the libraries of Royal Holloway, King’s College London, and the London Library.
CUL CUL CUL SJC SJC NAG CUL n/a
Archivist
ARA training day Art and archives Gerald Aylmer seminar
ARA AMARC TNA
Projects Assistant (DB)
Alma cataloguing Archives for librarians Digital humanities training Dignity at work Working with students with mental
CUL LiT LiT SJC LiT
19
Cost 15.00 free free 61.98
Emma
free
SJC Artefactual
free free free free 252.00 free free
free 20.00 free free free free free
Annual Report 2017-18 Continued…
health conditions Managing donations Using Special Collections in Exhibitions
LiT LiT
free free
Projects Assistant (RW)
Overhead scanner training Alma fulfilment Alma cataloguing Intro to desktop publishing Handling difficult people
Covergold CUL CUL UIS LiT
free free free free
Graduate Trainee
RDA & AACR2 MARC21 e-books training Alma fulfilment Alma cataloguing Microsoft Access Libraries@Cambridge conference Ladder training Digital humanities training Dignity at work Python 3 introduction
L@C L@C L@C CUL CUL UIS L@C SJC LiT SJC UIS
free free free free free free free free free
Biographical Librarian
Camsis Academic Structure training
UC
free
Biographical Assistant
Camsis Academic Structure training
UC
free
Library Assistant
Alma fulfilment Alma cataloguing Alma acquisitions Microsoft Access Libraries@Cambridge conference Making libraries accessible Ladder training Dignity at work Teaching skills Working with students with mental health conditions CLIPS system training (Alma) AtoM webinar
CUL CUL CUL UIS L@C DRC SJC SJC LiT LiT
free free free free free free free free
CUL Artefactual
free free
Disaster planning and salvage Overhead scanner training Alma cataloguing ‘Particles of light’ the legacy of Henry Bradshaw (conference)
CCCC Covergold CUL CUL
15.00 free 30.00
Special Collections Assistant
20
Annual Report 2017-18 Part-time Cleaner (SA)
Ladder training Dignity at work
SJC SJC
-
Part-time Cleaner (CS)
Ladder training Dignity at work
SJC SJC
-
ALL staff
Departmental Away Day Fire safety awareness
SJCL SJC
TOTAL
AMARC ARA Artefactual CCCC Covergold CUL DRC Emma L@C LiT NAG RLUK SJC SJCL TNA UC UIS
499.99 £893.97
Association for Manuscripts and Archives in Research Collections Archives & Records Association Artefactual (developers of Atom archive management system) Cambridge Colleges Conservation Consortium Company who supplied the overhead scanner (training inc. in purchase price) Cambridge University Library University of Cambridge Disability Resource Centre Emmanuel College Cambridge Libraries@Cambridge Librarians-in-Training National Acquisitions Group Research Libraries UK St John’s College St John’s College Library The National Archives University of Cambridge Cambridge University Information Service
Besides receiving training, Library staff have participated in the delivery of a range of professional training for colleagues across the University and beyond. The Library Assistant was part of the team organising the Libraries@Cambridge conference in January 2018. The Archivist was instrumental in setting up a UK AtoM users group, which held meetings in Cambridge and York in 2017-18. The Archivist and the Special Collections Librarian presented an introduction to the AtoM archival management system, covering its functionality, set-up, and data migration issues to archive staff across the University. The Special Collections Librarian repeated her training session on using special collections materials in exhibitions for the Librarians-in-Training programme. Kathryn McKee Sub-Librarian
21
Annual Report 2017-18
User Induction As in previous years, the Library induction session was held for all of our first-year undergraduates in the Old Divinity School on the Saturday afternoon before the start of Michaelmas Term 2017. The induction introduces students to essential information including Library rules. All first-year undergraduates attended, and they were enthusiastic to know more about the Library in general, and especially their borrowing privileges. Library tours were arranged for all new undergraduates over a three-day period from the following Monday to Wednesday. These were arranged by subject group, with Library staff each taking three or four groups of students at staggered times. The thirty-minute tour covered both the Working Library and the Old Library. Students have 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. Library staff also demonstrated how items can be borrowed and renewed using the self-borrowing machine, and further explained details of the fire procedure and the security system. A set of library leaflets, maps and useful subject guides were also handed out before the tour. In Michaelmas Term 2017, the Library ran a series of training sessions (for new students but separate from the induction tours) entitled Make the most of your Library. These included a thirty minute session running in the first two weeks of term introducing basic topics, such as how to search the catalogue, how to find a book, which libraries can be used, and the importance of avoiding plagiarism and infringing copyright. The feedback from those students who attended was very positive. Further into term in November 2017, three ‘bitesize’ fifteen minute sessions were offered on the topics of referencing, finding journal articles, and using the University Library. These were designed to answer some of the most common questions we receive, as well as encouraging students to use more of the resources available to them. The idea behind these brief sessions is to maximise information, without students taking too much time out of their studies for a training session. Unsurprisingly the session on referencing was the most popular out of the three, as this topic is particularly important to students. Aside from the formal training programmes, we also offered one-to-one sessions in response to student requests. We encourage students to ask whether there are any specific areas of library provision that they need more detailed help with, and if so, we encourage them to arrange one-to-one sessions. We then prepare tailored sessions to meet their specific needs, address their questions, and in some cases, provide relevant materials for the students to take away. Janet Chow Academic Services Librarian
Catherine Ascough Library Assistant
22
Annual Report 2017-18
The Working Library For the first time since it was opened in 1994, the Working Library has a regular volunteer. We welcome Rebecca Le Marchand, who started in September and will be working one day a week. Rebecca is an English and Art History graduate, who has been working as a bookseller for over ten years. She will be involved in many of the functions of the Working Library, thereby gaining useful skills and experience, all of which should stand her in good stead as she forges a new career in librarianship. Besides helping Rebecca in her new career, a positive light is cast on the Working Library in affording rich training opportunities, not only for the Graduate Trainees we welcome each year, but for others wishing to retrain or start a library career. Responses to the 2017 Library User Survey revealed that library users expressed a preference for conventional methods – rather than social media – as a means of being kept informed of Library news. Accordingly, the concept of a termly Library Newsletter was born, the first of which appeared in Michaelmas Term 2017. There have been two more issues since, all of which have received enthusiastic and positive responses from across the College. Members particularly liked the informative nature of the articles, and commented on the high quality of production. All College members receive issues electronically, and each issue is archived on the Library website. I am especially grateful to the Master, the Librarian, Fellows and colleagues for their interesting articles and continued support as we maintain the high quality of the Newsletter going forward. Following earlier installation of new lighting on all main floors of the Library and in the Library Office, the last cycle of new lighting installation has been completed this summer. The Library Seminar Room, the Audio-Visual Room and the landing area of each Floor have now been fitted with new lighting. In addition, new lights have been fitted above the bookcases outside the Biographical Office on the Mezzanine Floor. Two substantial refurbishing projects in the Working Library are important to mention. The first concerns alterations to the Issue Desk and rearrangement of seating and re-location of photocopying to make the Ground Floor more welcoming. This is due for completion by summer 2019. The second is the recently completed refurbishment of the Audio-Visual Room on the First Floor to provide a more spacious and relaxing environment for users to watch films or listen to music.
23
Annual Report 2017-18 As Collections in the Working Library have continued to increase, some of the shelves on the main floors have reached their full capacity. Catherine (Library Assistant) has carefully identified books shelved on the main floors that are either old editions or duplicates, and with the help of the previous Graduate Trainee, Alice Read, she has relocated many of these to the Basement to free up shelf space on the main floors. The new library management system Alma went live in January 2018, switching over from Voyager. The new system is centrally managed by the University Library and is used by other Cambridge College libraries. Before Alma went live, preparation work such as data migration was carried out by the team at the University Library; College libraries conducted a number of tests and checks to make sure correct data were being migrated, and borrowing groups and rules were set up correctly. Overall, Alma offers many new features which were not available in Voyager. Library of Congress authority headings are included in the resource management (cataloguing) module; and budget and financial management is available in the acquisition module. It will take time to exploit the new system to its full potential, but we must try to do so. Janet Chow Academic Services Librarian
24
Annual Report 2017-18
Library Usage Statistics for the number of Library users and visitors accessing the Library are collected throughout the academic year using an electronic counter positioned next to the entrance of the Working Library, from which a reading is taken at 9am every day, Monday-Friday (except during unstaffed periods). These figures are recorded in a spreadsheet and analysed to give us a relatively accurate idea of how the Library is being used by the College community, beyond counting the number of books borrowed, and to enable direct comparisons to be made with trends in footfall in the Library in previous years. 42290 4213740314 35743
36135 36182
Entries to the Library
34120 33848
34090
2015-16 13682 11010 10621
18532 18109 17855
2016-17 2017-18
6346 64367239
Figure 1. Three-year comparison of entries to the Library by term
The past academic year saw an overall decrease in visits to the Library, from 152,712 visits in 2016-17 to 144,356 in 2017-18. Figure 1 shows the pattern of Library visits over the past three years. The variations between Full Term and vacation are just as one might expect, with Easter Term standing out as the busiest. There was a general reduction – of about 5.1% on average – in the number of visitors entering the Library in all three terms, above all in Lent and Michaelmas Terms, compared with figures for 2016-17 broadly, this mirrors trends noted elsewhere in Cambridge. Interesting to note, however, is the upward trend in visits during the Christmas Vacation in 2017-18 (7,239) compared to 2016-17 (6,435), as well as the significant decrease in visits during the Easter Vacation in 2017-18 (11,010) when compared to the previous year (13,682 in 2016-17) – however, this still represents an increase of around 3.5% on the 2015-16 total (10,621). These figures tie in with an ongoing downward trend in Library visits over the past five years, as illustrated in Figure 2 below (although it is worth noting the exceptionally high usage figures for 2016-17). However, it would seem that the most dramatic fluctuations in the numbers of visitors accessing the Library typically occur outside term time. This may be because students choose to stay in College and use the Library at different times each year, either to catch up on study time just after the end of term or coming back to College early to prepare for the rigours of the term ahead. 25
Entries to the Library
Annual Report 2017-18
151171
152712
150287 147621
144356 2013-14 2014-15 2015-16 2016-17 2017-18
Figure 2. Five-year comparison of total entries to the Library by academic year
Michaelmas 2017
6884
Term
In addition to monitoring footfall, the Library also gathers data on the usage of our collections and services during the fifth week of each term in order to provide a more detailed snapshot of life in the Library during the busiest periods of Full Term. This includes the numbers of books issued by staff as opposed to by the self-issue machine, the number of enquiries made to staff at the Issue Desk, and a tally of the numbers of books cleared from desks each day, as well as more detailed figures of the number of entries made to the Library during staffed and unstaffed hours.
6399
Lent 2018
3571
3389
Unstaffed entries Staffed entries
Easter 2018
11318
0
4932
10000
20000
Number of entries Figure 3. Week 5 Library entries by term, 2017-18
As you can see from Figure 3 above, the numbers of entries to the Library in Week 5 throughout the year remained high, with the pattern of Library entries during staffed and unstaffed hours in Michaelmas and Lent Terms staying very similar. By contrast, the proportion of visitors accessing the Library outside of staffed hours almost doubled in Easter Term, with the total number of visits to the Library rising to 16,250 for that week alone (although this still represents a decrease of around 3.6% on the total for the same week in 2016-17, which saw 16,861 Library visits). It is, of course, at this point in the year when the examination period proper begins to kick in, with large numbers of students revising in the Library to all hours.
26
Annual Report 2017-18
227 182 204
Term
Michaelmas
Lent
Easter
151 129 122
2015-16
139
2017-18
2016-17
77 96 0
50
100
150
200
250
Number of Enquiries Figure 4. Three-year comparison of Week 5 enquiries by term
2017-18 was another busy year for staff at the Issue Desk, with the number of enquiries in Week 5 increasing once again following a relatively quiet year previous to this, even if they did not reach the high numbers recorded for 2015-16. Unsurprisingly, Michaelmas proved to be particularly hectic, as it is during this period that each new cohort of students arriving in College are still familiarising themselves with the Library. The relocation of the IT Helpdesk into the Library from September 2017 may also have had an effect on the numbers of students coming to enquire at the Issue Desk.
Maths, Science (Q)
General Interest
Language and Literature (P, Z)
Music and Art (M, N)
Education (L)
Philosophy, Psychology, Religion (A, B)
Medicine, Veterinary Medicine (R, S)
Geog., Anth., Sociology, Economics, Politics (G-J)
Engineering (T)
History, Archaeology (C, D, E, F)
Law, Criminology (K. HV)
Reference
Statistics for the numbers of books cleared from desks during Week 5 can also reveal clues about which sections of the Library collection experience particularly heavy usage without necessarily being borrowed. Many of the books in certain subjects may never leave the Library, for instance, either because they are only for reference or because they represent textbooks which students are more likely to use in the Library itself. Table 1 below shows the total numbers of books cleared in Week 5 (over all three terms) for the past three years, according to broad subject categories corresponding to the classification scheme used in the Working Library.
2015-16
30
1
66
11
0
16
1
18
1
30
38
0
2016-17
52
1
125
21
0
21
4
59
11
28
55
10
2017-18
41
2
80
52
1
28
14
97
4
19
43
2
Table 1. Three-year comparison of total numbers of books cleared in Week 5 over all terms, by subject.
27
Annual Report 2017-18 Those subjects which saw a high level of usage, according to this measure, were Geography, Anthropology, Social Science, Economics and Politics (G, H, J), Language and Literature (P, Z), Music and Art (M, N), Maths and Science (Q), and Law and Criminology (K, HV). The numbers of books cleared from desks for the subjects Education (L) and Engineering (T) remained low, either due to the fact that relatively few students read these subjects or that those who do prefer to borrow items for use elsewhere. Intriguingly, the number of books cleared from the History section of the Library has gradually decreased in recent years, although these are still among the most borrowed items in the collection.
David Baker Projects Assistant
28
Annual Report 2017-18
Annual Circulation Library borrowing levels, based on frequency counts of items borrowed, have dropped to 14614 in 2017-18 compared with 17,464 in 2016-17. Although it is difficult to identify a clear cause (or causes) for the drop, there are four possible reasons. First, students chose to borrow more items from other sources, such as their Faculty Libraries/University Library although borrowing figures elsewhere also appear to have fallen; secondly, they may have been inclined to use books more for reference purposes and/or complete more work within the Library; thirdly, the availability of electronic books has continued to increase, demonstrating a trend towards a growing usage of electronic books; fourthly, and perhaps most telling, an increase in students reading subjects that require less textbook borrowing. Issues 25000 21363 20000
15000
20063 1883718812 19031 17305 17070 16821 15976
19313
14037 14082 13575
21481 18648 17464 14614
10000
5000
0
Figure 1. Library Borrowing – Annual Circulation
Given that the overall circulation figures fell, it is to be expected that many individual subjects saw a decline in borrowing compared with previous years. However, there was a mixed picture with some subjects actually increasing borrowing. For 2017-18, the three most borrowed subjects were History, English and Classics. The borrowing figure for History increased from 1576 (2016-17) to 1899 (2017-18); whereas English, in second place, saw borrowing drop slightly (1505) compared with 2016-17. Classics (967), for the first time, overtook Economics (892) and became one of three most heavily borrowed subjects, in third place. 29
Annual Report 2017-18 Besides History, other subjects experiencing an increase in borrowing in 2017-18 were Philosophy, Physical Sciences, Maths, Biological Sciences, Theology, Linguistics, HPS, and Law. It is worth noting that the borrowing figure for MML saw a significant increase from 510 (2016-17) to 922 (2017-18). However, there were falls in borrowing in 2017-18 for HSPS, Art & Architecture, Medicine, Anthropology, Music, Engineering, and Geography. Among these subjects, both HSPS (720) and Music (275) experienced a significant drop in borrowing compared with 2016-17. The borrowing figures for Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Veterinary Medicine and Education remained low as the College has small numbers of students taking these subjects. 2000 1800
Circulation of books by subject area in 2016-17/2017-18
1600 1400 1200 1000 800 2016-17
600
2017-18
400 200 Archaeology Criminology Asian & ME Studies Education Vet Medicine Law HPS Linguistics Geography Engineering Music Anthropology Medicine Art & Architecture Theology Biological sciences Maths MML (inc. ASNaC) Classics Physical sciences Philosophy HSPS English History Economics
0
Figure 2. Circulation of books by subject area
Janet Chow Academic Services Librarian
30
Annual Report 2017-18
Audio-Visual Room Once again the Audio-Visual collection has grown, thanks to the generous donations of Dr Terence Denman (PhD 1985) and some sustained purchasing by the Library Assistant – the entire collection now totals over 2400 items. Of these there are more than 700 CDs, and nearly 40 items of language learning material. The DVD collection stands at over 1600 DVDs – more than enough to allow a student to watch one every night for four years! However while the collection has grown over recent years, the room has not. In Michaelmas Term it was decided to update the furnishings in the AV Room to make it a more modern and comfortable space in which to watch films, as well as adding more space to house the growing collection. We removed the desks, existing shelves, and DVD towers to open up the room, and designed the space as more of an informal study area rather than an extension of the desk space available around the Library. The new shelving units are much narrower than before so that the DVDs and CDs sit flush on the shelves rather than sliding about, and are large enough to house many years of expansion. The desk chairs have been replaced with beanbags, and new comfy tub chairs are to follow (at time of writing). The walls have been painted white, and a new flat screen TV/DVD combi has replaced the old, heavy TV so that films are clearer and easier to view. Considering how cramped the room was feeling as the collection outgrew and overflowed the shelving space available, the transformation has been remarkable. Thanks are extended to the Maintenance Department for their many hours of hard work. Below is a before and after comparison.
Before
After
Seminar Room The Seminar Room has been well used again this year, with over 450 bookings logging over nearly 2000 hours of booked use, and has been host to teaching, study sessions, staff meetings, and interviews. The room was block booked by the Library as usual during Easter Term to ensure fair use of the space, which was a success. This year the old desk chairs were replaced by meeting room chairs, giving the room a more formal feel when hosting meetings and interviews, while still enabling it to be used as extended study space during Easter Term. Catherine Ascough Library Assistant 31
Annual Report 2017-18
The Old Library Statistics
Readers consulting special collections material Visitors taking a tour of the Old Library * Letters filed E-mail responses to enquiries Reproductions of special collections material processed outside College Onsite professional photography *** Reproductions of special collections material processed in-house** Permissions granted to reproduce special collections material in published works Use of special collections material in connection with biographical work
2017-18 286
2016-17 313
2015-16 378
1345
1036
1124
11 1371 0
10 1160 1
19 1355 0
4 ½ days 874
415
2 half-days 393 91
75
104
35
30
23
* Does not include visitors at public open days or children attending educational visits. ** Includes reproductions of material to answer biographical enquiries. *** When professional photography is needed, wherever possible we now arrange for a photographer to come on site rather than taking fragile and precious items elsewhere.
While reader numbers are a little down on last year, the number of students consulting the collections for their studies is most gratifying. Exactly one hundred individual appointments were made by students to work on special collections material (45 of these were for doctoral students and 55 for undergraduate and masters students). The number of reproductions processed in-house this year includes some substantial whole documents, so the figure does not fully reflect the staff time involved. The overhead scanner is proving effective in fulfilling some requests for high quality images for publication, and indeed broadcast. An image of Sir Humphrey Repton, from the frontispiece of his work on landscape gardening, was featured in an edition of Gardeners’ World on BBC TV in July. Purchases The Noel Marshall fund has enabled us to purchase a particularly interesting selection of material this year. Alfred Domett’s commonplace book sheds light on the interests of a little-known, but quite remarkable Johnian: a poet and friend of Robert Browning, Domett was briefly Prime Minister of New Zealand. Autograph letters from Wilberforce and Beaton highlight key aspects of their very different careers, while Hugh Casson’s charming sketches of London scenes add a modern Johnian perspective to our existing strengths in material on the capital. The two published 32
Annual Report 2017-18 works, Lyrical tales and De imitatione Christi enhance the Wordsworth and Yule collections respectively. Mrs Mary Robinson. Lyrical tales (London, 1800). £1000. Purchased from Bernard Quaritch, July 2017. Alfred Domett. Manuscript commonplace book. £1500. Purchased from Blackwell Rare Books, November 2017. William Wilberforce. Autograph letter to Captain John Fortescue, 1794. £1250 + VAT. Purchased from Bernard Quaritch, November 2017. Thomas à Kempis. De imitatione Christi (Cologne, 1622). £2250. Purchased from Bernard Quaritch, April 2018.
De imitatione Christi. Yes, it really is that small.
Hugh Casson. [Original artwork] Sketches of London, etc. 1972-77. £1750. Purchased from Blackwell Rare Books, May 2018. Cecil Beaton. Three autograph letters to George Cukor. 1937-63. £3200. Purchased from Antiquariat INLIBRIS, June 2018. Donations We are grateful all those who have given material of relevance to the College and our collections, and especially appreciate items of key Johnian interest given this year. Mrs Margaret Green Papers, medals and certificates relating to her late husband, James Alexander (Sandy) Green (Matric. 1947). 33
Annual Report 2017-18 Dr Christopher Stray Two boxes of papers relating to Benjamin Hall Kennedy (BA 1827). Simon Bradley Hugh Sykes Davies The papers of Andrew Melmoth (uncorrected publisher’s proof copy). Mrs Hilary Ward Framed print of Lady Margaret Beaufort belonging to her late husband Humphrey Ward (BA 1942). David Priest Herbert M. Vaughan Samuel Butler : a paper read before the Library Association at its annual conference meeting at Eastbourne. 1923.
B. H. Kennedy
Richard Sykes Papers of James Stanley Bezzant (Fellow 1952-67) from the collections of Stephen Sykes. Lady Mustill Papers of Michael John Mustill, Lord Mustill of Pateley Bridge, Honorary Fellow. Kenneth Walton Richard Wilkes (1691-1760) An historical essay on the dropsy (1777). Visits and classes Adult group visits Manuscripts class for the Villiers Park Educational Trust (Aug. 2017) Groningen Summer Academy (Aug. 2017) German visitors with Dr Midgley (Sep. 2017) Letchworth adult education group class on the history of the book (Sep. 2017) Wordsworth conference (Sep. 2017) Australians Studying Abroad Tour (Oct. 2017) Japanese vistors with Stephen Teal (Nov. 2017) Peopling Poetic Anthologies workshop to see MS N.31 (Feb. 2018) Arttours group: guided treasures exhibition (Feb. 2018) Beaufort Society: tours of Life in the Lodge and Douglas Adams exhibitions (Apr. 2018) St John’s College Finance Department staff (June 2018) Juvenile groups and educational sessions Choir of St Christopher’s School, Virginia (Feb. 2018) Tuxford Primary Academy, Nottinghamshire. Tudors session (Apr. 2018) Sixth-formers from India with Dr Leake (July 2018) Colchester Royal Grammar School (July 2018)
34
Annual Report 2017-18 University teaching English first year undergraduates class with Ruth Abbott (Oct. 2017) English MPhil students MSS classes (2) with Joanna Bellis (Oct. 2017) English MPhil students research methods classes (2) with Ruth Abbott (Oct. 2017) English MPhil students Romanticism classes (2) with Ruth Abbott (Oct. 2017) Anglia Ruskin University Photography MA class (Nov. 2017) ASNC classes on the Irish Psalter (MS C.9) (Nov. 2017) MML MPhil students medieval manuscripts with Anne Cobby (Jan. 2018) York University BA class in Bible illumination (Feb. 2018) York University MA class in medieval maps and diagrams (Feb. 2018) MML Undergraduates medieval manuscripts with Anne Cobby (Mar. 2018) The number of school visits this year was unusually low, for a variety of reasons. Two of our regular schools had to cancel booked visits due to local circumstances, and we were unable to find a mutually convenient date for another. The vacancy for the College’s Schools Liaison Officer meant that we did not provide any educational sessions this year as part of wider College visits for access groups. On the plus side, use of the special collections in university teaching continues to flourish. A variety of adult groups also participated in educational sessions.
David and his harp, from MS. D.30
Events The Upper Library was open for Open Cambridge on the Friday and Saturday afternoons, with an exhibition of treasures, bringing 675 visitors through the door in five hours. The Upper Library was open for the Festival of Ideas on Saturday 28 October with an exhibition on mythical beasts attracting 607 visitors. For the Science Festival an exhibition Douglas Adams: Life in the Universe was held on Saturday 24 March, with 534 visitors, many of whom spent a considerable time studying the exhibits. The Upper Library was open with an exhibition on Johnian achievements for new graduates and their families following Congregation. Visitors were particularly excited to see the University Challenge trophy on display. The Upper Library hosted a reception prior to the Michaelmas Entertainment in 2017. Warm sunny weather (a rarity in May!) meant that it was not needed for the Port Latin Feast in 2018.
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Annual Report 2017-18 Conservation and preservation Philip Bolton continues his programme of conservation book-cleaning of the Upper Library’s collections one day a week from April to October (during winter months the light is too poor to work effectively). Removing dust regularly ensures that the environment is inhospitable to pests, and his steady progress through the collections should mean that any issues requiring attention are discovered in a timely way. Books previously infested with bread beetle were checked during the extreme summerheat for any new grubs, but none was found. Typically hatching occurs when heat and high humidity combine, and this summer was dry. Monitoring will continue. The Conservation Consortium is still working on the rebinding of the Chinese almanack S.14 which underwent substantial paper repairs as part of the Chinese books project in 2016-17. Repairs have been carried out to five early printed books : Ii.3.19, Gg.2.6, C.15.19, C.15.13, and Ee.11.28, all of which were ‘A2’ priorities on our conservation list. Staffing changes at the Consortium mean that some of our hours for 2017-18 will be carried forward into 2018-19. In August 2017, the Conservation Consortium organised and delivered training in Cambridge (attended by both Special Collections staff) on disaster preparedness and practical salvage techniques. In response to a request by a manuscript reader, and in collaboration with researchers at York University, the Conservation Consortium took samples (using a non-invasive technique often employed cleaning manuscripts) of manuscript A.1 for DNA analysis, which it is hoped in the long term may help to determine the origin of the animals used to make the parchment. MS A.1 is a Hebrew manuscript known to have been written in 1260 and to have been present in England a little more than a decade later. It is not known where the manuscript was made, and its origin is of key interest to those studying it. While it may take many years for a sufficient dataset of DNA from medieval sheep to be accumulated to MS A.1 Hebrew Bible determine the probable location of the manufacture of a particular manuscript, sampling now makes future analysis and comparison possible. Tobit Curteis Associates have continued to monitor environmental conditions in the Old Library, in particular a range of potential insulation options being trialled on the north wall of the Lower Library. Conditions were monitored for a complete year prior to any treatment, and a further year with treatments applied, to gain an accurate picture of how the environment operates in all seasons. We expect to receive their report this autumn. No recurrence of mould has appeared in the Lower Library, but it has been an exceptionally dry year. 36
Annual Report 2017-18 A full stocktake of the Upper Library was carried out in 2017-18. One late-nineteenthcentury tract remains to be located: W.A. Whitworth’s Is it peace?: words of encouragement for anxious souls (1881). The search for the misplaced volume will continue. We are glad to report that all other works are present and correct. Exhibitions in the Library Exhibition Area Michaelmas Term A Golden Age? St John’s College and the Restoration.
Christmas Vacation Staff photography competition: Time Off. Curated by the Librarian’s Secretary, Angela McKenzie. The theme chosen for this second annual competition was Time Off and there were many more entries this year with different interpretation of the theme. Three retired members of staff: left to right Colin Shepherd (Head Custodian), Jane Jones (HR Officer), and Peter Rodgers (Head Gyp) were invited to judge the anonymised entries. The winners, shown below were presented with their cheques by Dr Nicholls and the display of the photographs was enjoyed by visitors to the Library, Fellows and staff.
Winner - Louise Hanzlik (Web and Internal Communications Officer)
Second - Claire Watkins (Assistant to the Fellows’ Steward)
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Annual Report 2017-18 Lent Term Life in the Lodge: The story of life in the Master’s Lodge over the last five hundred years.
Easter Term Student Art and Photography Competition. Curated by Angela McKenzie.
Some of the varied entries in the Black and White Photography section
Summer Vacation Crime and Punishment in Early Modern Britain. Curated by Alice Read, Graduate Trainee 2017-18.
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Annual Report 2017-18 Loans Reproductions of a map and nineteen photographs from the Samuel Butler Collection were displayed at the Specus Corallii in Trapani, Sicily, from 26 September to 22 October 2017 for the exhibition Samuel Butler’s route : geographies and anthropologies in the Odyssey. The exhibition complemented an international academic conference held at Trapani in September. The portrait of Matthew Prior by Alexis Simon Belle was displayed at Versailles for the ‘Visitors to Versailles’ exhibition from October 2017 to February 2018. It transferred to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in March 2018, returning to St John’s in August 2018. An imaginative portrait of Lady Margaret Beaufort as a young woman is being loaned to Christ’s College for display in their Hall during the Michaelmas Term 2018 as part of a celebration of forty years since their first admission of women. Advance planning is underway for various items from the Special Collections to be displayed in the Matthew Prior Fitzwilliam Museum’s ‘Eat, feast, fast’ exhibition from October 2019, and for the loan of a portrait of Elizabeth I to the Theatre, Shoreditch from October 2020.
Projects and cataloguing Christmas saw the completion of the cataloguing of the Douglas Adams papers. Following some useful data clean-up work, Adam has now turned his attention to George Watson’s papers, sorting and listing of which is well underway. Several smaller accessions have been added to the catalogue of personal papers in the course of the year, and descriptions of a few remaining uncatalogued post-medieval manuscripts have now been added to the Library’s website. A major development for personal papers collections within the Library was the migration of the catalogue over the Christmas Vacation from Janus to a standalone online system running on AtoM open source software: the software already adopted for the Archives catalogue. Janus has been an invaluable finding aid for 39
Annual Report 2017-18 archive collections across Cambridge for many years, but the system has reached its natural end-of-life, and no longer meets developing needs. The University Library has been investigating possible replacement systems since 2016, but their deliberations have been delayed significantly by the project to replace the Library Management System, and there is still no clear timetable for a new system. Adopting AtoM has enabled us to offer simultaneous searching of papers within the Library and Archives, to catalogue more efficiently using current international standards, and crucially also to make progress with long-held aims to export records to major national aggregated catalogues. A first test load of records to ArchivesHub took place over the summer, results of which are being analysed. (If and when Cambridge implements a new system, it should be possible to export records to that too.) AtoM’s ease of navigation and editing has also enabled us to enhance existing data, in particular improving name authority records: a project which Adam completed during the Lent Term. The migration and redesign of the College’s website in early 2018 involved significant work to ensure that all special collections pages, in particular the substantial and complex index and descriptions of the medieval manuscripts, were formated correctly. The new site provides easier navigation on smart phones and other small-screen devices. Work on the new medieval manuscripts catalogue progresses; further contributors have been approached to write descriptions for manuscripts in their particular fields. Media The BBC filmed the Great Bible in the Upper Library in August 2017. An interview with the new ViceChancellor was filmed in the Upper Library in September 2017. Photographs of ASNC student Nicola Ibbott were taken for the College’s annual donor magazine The Marguerite in October 2017. Maria Laura Jefferis was filmed in the Upper Library in May 2018 for a video produced as a follow-up to the ‘STEM in song’ competition held at St Catharine’s College, aimed at encouraging greater female participation in STEM subjects at HE level. The Special Collections Librarian was filmed by the University Communications Office for promotional material for the Old Library in June 2018. Kathryn McKee Special Collections Librarian
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The Biographical Office General overview The table below offers an insight into the volume of biographical information received and correspondence generated over the last year, concerning members of the College from the sixteenth century to the present day. Action Biographical material received Biographical Archive consulted Items filed in Biographical Archive Emails and letters sent Proactive research
2017-18 4169 651 527 3791 2402
2016-17 4290 736 557 3751 2813
2015-16 4188 749 571 2913 2739
Gathering, recording, and verifying information is a large part of the work that goes on in the office, as well as using that information to answer enquiries. The majority of this work is carried out by the two full-time members of staff in this office, but data inputting and checking records for students who came up in 2017-18 has been undertaken by David Baker, Library Projects Assistant. Despite only starting part of the way through the academic year he has made excellent progress on those records, and it is pleasing to see this getting back on track again after a period of that role being vacant. David has also been inputting degrees conferred on our students. The Library Graduate Trainee 2017-18, Alice Read, also assisted with biographical work, particularly relating to student involvement in clubs and societies, mentions of Johnians in the media, and other data entry and research work. Biographical Enquiries Alumni and researchers, such as academics, biographers, and genealogists, often report how delighted they are that the College has such excellent records covering all aspects of the lives of Johnians. The number given earlier in this report for emails and letters sent regarding biographical work (3791) includes correspondence related to enquiries, and is indicative of the amount of work which goes in to not only recording information about Johnians, but also answering questions relating to them. The pattern of enquiries completed this year is shown below, along with the previous two years’ figures for comparison. Century Sixteenth Seventeenth Eighteenth Nineteenth Twentieth Twenty-First More than one century/Other Total
2017-18 14 7 9 48 321 45 10 454 41
2016-17 9 12 14 55 293 35 19 437
2015-16 5 10 13 61 275 33 10 407
Annual Report 2017-18 Enquiries dealt with in the last year included ones relating to the following Johnians (dates in brackets are of admission to the College):
Henry Briggs (1577-8), mathematician and former Fellow of the College. Matthew Heather Quantock (1799), former scholar who drowned, aged thirty, in a skating accident. James Ogilvy Fairlie (1827), founder of the Open Golf Championship. Harry Samuel Lewis (1881), author and community activist who worked at Toynbee Hall.
When information has been requested on several hundred Johnians over the course of the year it is difficult to select ones of particular interest, especially as some of the most absorbing enquiries relate to individuals who are not the famous names most people will associate with the College (we were asked about William Wilberforce (1776), William Wordsworth (1787), and Patrick Brontë (1802), amongst others, in the last year too – but that is true almost every year).
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Annual Report 2017-18 There are also more general subject areas which the Biographical Librarian is asked about regularly, and this year has been no exception, such as:
Earliest Chinese members of the College Black students Women at St John’s Johnian cricketers Members of the College featured on the War Memorial in Chapel.
Other subjects we have provided information on over the last year include:
Johnian Members of the House of Lords Senior Tutors of the College Senior Wranglers in the nineteenth century Del Squared V Club Singaporean Johnians.
To select just two other projects for particular comment: Johnian code-breakers at Bletchley Park The Biographical Librarian is asked on a fairly regular basis about this subject, but this year there was a question she had not been asked before relating to those who were involved in intelligence work during World War II having previously served in World War I. The same volunteer from Bletchley Park who asked this question also provided a full list of those they were aware of who studied at Cambridge. College and subject data was missing in many cases, but the Biographical Librarian was able to rectify that for them in relation not only to Johnians but other Cambridge alumni 43
Annual Report 2017-18 too. In the course of that work it transpired there was one Johnian who we had not previously been aware worked in intelligence. Obviously the nature of that work meant that it was kept secret at the time, but over the years many did reveal what role they played in the War. However not everyone did, so occasionally we still discover new and interesting details. University Challenge It was mentioned in last year’s Annual Report that the Biographical Librarian had been doing some work on Johnian participants in University Challenge. This started in March 2017 in response to an enquiry from a Johnian, before we knew that the College would be represented in the 2017-18 series. The work became more important as this year’s team moved forward in the competition, with us reaching out to other Johnians who had taken part in the show or had memories of watching the competition – either on television or as a supporter in the studio. As a result of this research the College’s Communications Office were able to write informative news articles with accurate statistics which fed in to the large amount of press coverage in the lead up to, and after, the team’s first win for the College (the trophy is proudly displayed in the Library). A student writing a piece for The Eagle has also drawn on the information for her article published in this year’s volume.
The assistance of several Johnians, matriculating over a period of fifty-five years, contributed to this project. There were recollections from some of the members of the St John’s team to take part in the very first series, in 1962-3, who agreed it was not taken as seriously back then as it is now with a more clearly defined selection process and training regime of quizzes against other college teams, watching old episodes, and being assigned topics to cover before filming. Tales were told of journeys up to Granada Studios in Manchester via car or train (seen as a great adventure, with 44
Annual Report 2017-18 expenses paid, hotel and meal), and building a rapport with Bamber Gascoigne. The amount of social media interest in the winning team this year shows it is a very different beast now; with the way team members look sometimes gaining as much online commentary as their ability to answer questions correctly. As with so many aspects of our work, not only has it taken a while to pull all the information together, but there is still some data to add and further research to be done. The Eagle includes an appeal for further information on past team members so, depending on the response, more work on this may be necessary over the coming year.
Honours and Learned Societies Every year, we monitor announcements by the country’s foremost learned societies and organisations for news of elections to fellowships and prizes awarded, and also the biannual Queen’s Honours lists, trawling thousands of names on the lookout for Johnians. While the list below is by no means reflective of the extent of Johnian achievement this year, it highlights that members of the College continue to be represented among the most respected of professional bodies, and in receipt of some of the most important honours.
2 Knights Bachelor 2 Commanders of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) 1 Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) 1 Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) 1 Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) 1 Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) 2 Fellows of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) 45
Annual Report 2017-18 This information is consistently fed through to the Communications Office, for dissemination via the College website and social media, and to the Master, who personally writes in congratulation – often prompting a surprised and delighted response. This year was particularly special, however, with the announcement in the Birthday Honours list that the Master himself had been awarded a knighthood for services to Science and Higher Education. Two other Johnians were mentioned in the same list, and they are both Honorary Fellows, each being named for their Services to Music. The baritone Simon Keenlyside (1980) received a knighthood and the composer Thomas Adès (1992) was appointed a CBE. Recognition such as this emphasises the calibre of those elected to positions by the College. Missing Johnians Most years we endeavour to locate alumni with whom we’ve lost contact – ‘missing’ Johnians – ahead of the year’s reunion events in June and September. As the invitations are dealt with by the Assistant to the Fellows’ Steward, using data from the Development Office’s database, this is an inter-departmental affair, and requires starting work quite some way in advance of the events themselves in order to leave plenty of time for response. This can be as straightforward as typing a name into Google then firing off a quick email, or it could be trying that name with any number of potential leads we have on record to try to make the connection. We’ve managed to trace people via their primary schools, birthplace, and the subject they studied. While the Johnian dinners are the driver for this research, there are clear benefits to increasing the level of alumni participation by reconnecting them with St John’s, most obviously in terms of the Development Office and their fundraising endeavours, but also in a wider alumni relations sense – this kind of work regularly sees us not only reconnecting Johnians with their College, but also with each other.
June Events
September Events TOTALS
Years invited
Total number of missing Johnians
Found: deceased
Found: contacted with response
Found: contacted without response
1973 1974 1979 1980 1993 1968 1986 1987
126
7
25
35
% of those contacted now reconnected with St John’s 42%
77
0
18
20
47%
203
7
43
55
44%
Of a total of 203 missing alumni from the eight years invited back in 2018, The Biographical Assistant successfully identified or contacted 98, and from that, 43 Johnians will now be in receipt of publications, mailings and invitations who previously weren’t.
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Annual Report 2017-18 Deceased Johnians The Biographical Librarian’s work recording the death of members of the College continues. Most are recent deaths (sometimes relatives even get in touch the same day a Johnian has died), but some died many years ago without the College having been informed. We have recently become aware that Norman Douglas Pringle (1902) was killed in action at Gallipoli on 10 August 1915 (his name has now been included on a list of names to be added to the War Memorial in the future). The deaths of 140 members of the College were either reported to this office or discovered by us over the last year, and for 113 of these members information needed to be prepared in order to pass it to the Obituaries Editor, Colin Greenhalgh (1960), so that he could write obituaries for inclusion in The Eagle. These statistics relate to those who died up to 31 December 2017; since then 78 deaths have been recorded, and 68 of those will be passed to Colin to appear in next year’s volume.
The assistance of the Graduate Trainee in completing daily checks of announcements in the press is important in noting not only the death of Johnians but also their partners, parents and children, in order that the Biographical Database can be updated with such information. The Biographical Office continues to encourage Johnians to supply information regarding their career, family, and any significant achievements for the College’s records in general, but this is also a great help when the time comes for preparing obituaries. A small number of Johnians even prepare their own obituary prior to their death and ask their family to pass it on to us after they have gone. Fiona Colbert Biographical Librarian
Paul Everest Biographical Assistant 47
Annual Report 2017-18
The College Archive
London Poverty Map from College Mission Collection
Statistics Research Visits: Thirty-six researchers consulted material from the Archive Collection from 1 August 2017 to 1 August 2018. Researchers looked at material from a variety of collections: Lady Margaret’s papers, the records of the Hospital, the Council and Committee Minutes, maps and documents related to College estates and gardens, tutorial and staff files from the nineteenth century and items related to the College’s clubs and societies. Tours & Exhibitions: Sixteen tours have been organized for individuals, staff, students and groups. Five exhibitions have been advertised and displayed in the Reading Room cases for this period; topics have included College silver, College charities, Women Staff and the Crown.
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Annual Report 2017-18 Number of letters filed 2017-18: 4 Number of e-mail responses to enquiries 2017-18: 450
Preservation Repairs to Archive Collection items undertaken by The Conservation Consortium: SJAR/6/1/1/4: Register of Fellows, Officers & Scholars (vol.4 and vol. 6) SB4/3: Rental 1600-19 SJGR/3/2/2/2: Standing Orders Scrapbook Preservation priorities: The Special Collections Librarian and Archivist are working together to schedule material from both collections for preservation. Exhibitions and Visits The popular College staff exhibitions continued with a look at women staff from the seventeenth century to the modern day. Additionally, this summer marked the opening of an exhibition advertised and promoted to visitors to the College, The Crown, featuring royal documents from Richard the Lionheart to Queen Victoria.
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Donations The Archive Centre has received a number of items from Johnians and members of the public for the College’s archival collection during 2015-16:
Sandy Black (1982): LMBC and Henley Photograph Album Professor G. M. Blackburn: Debating Society box May Ball 1928 (photograph) Alex Barrett: Sports teams photographs 1942-3 John Coombs: College pocket and silver buttons 1941-3
Significant Developments
The Archive Centre was granted Accreditation by The National Archives in November of 2017.
Tracy Deakin College Archivist
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Library Projects Working Library Stock Check: Issue Resolution Last year I reported on the successful completion of the Working Library stock check. This is a biennial event that involves waving the ‘Digital Library Assistant’ (a handheld device) in front of all the shelves, over the course of many hours, in order to obtain a list of all the items that aren’t where they should be (i.e. are missing) or that are where they shouldn’t be (i.e. have been misshelved), or that in some other way cause the DLA to beep and flash. Once we have obtained the list, the really confusing work begins. For items identified as ‘missing’ we must go to the shelf to check whether they really are missing. (Sometimes the DLA fails to scan some, due to the number of barcodes it is processing simultaneously and/or the speed/angle at which it’s being waved around). In addition to the 88,106 items the DLA did manage to scan, 2847 items were flagged up as ‘missing’ (i.e. not scanned). To resolve these issues, we went to the 2847 shelf places in question and looked, with our human eyes, for the ‘missing’ items, eventually concluding that only 348 items were actually missing. The DLA also flagged up 206 items as being shelved in the wrong location. In these cases the results only specify the general location in which the item was detected (e.g. ‘Mezzanine Oversize’), and so to resolve these issues we had to look along all the shelves in the specified location in search of the misshelved item. We managed to track down and reshelve 190 of these items. The whereabouts of the other 16 volumes remain a mystery, though the system reassures us they are there, somewhere. In addition to stock checking the main collections, at the time of submitting last year’s report I had recently commenced a manual stock check of the 17,000 items shelved within the Garden Basement three-number classes. Armed with grit, determination, a clipboard and a pencil, I methodically worked my way along the shelves and down the lists (approximately 300 pages thereof), checking that items were in place and that the barcodes in the volumes matched the barcodes on the list. A few hundred volumes were found to contain a style of barcode no longer used for the borrowable collections; each of these volumes had to be brought up to the office and given a new barcode, which also necessitated updating the corresponding item record in the database and reprogramming the volume’s security tag. Overall, 165 items (0.97% of the total checked) were identified as missing. This represents a higher percentage than we would accept for the collections as a whole, and is partly 51
Annual Report 2017-18 explained by the fact that some areas of the Basement stock have not been comprehensively stock checked since the move into the New Library in 1994 (in other words, the figure represents losses incurred over the course of more than two decades). We also suspect that some of these items will turn up in other, as yet unfathomed (by me at least), areas of the Basement – such as the ‘Chapel Basement Oversize’ section, which also uses three-number classmarks, and the extensive run of basement journals, into which volumes originally shelved in Garden Basement may have been moved over the years. The Basement stock check has therefore proven a useful exercise in resolving historical anomalies in the cataloguing of those parts of the collection that weren’t barcoded during the 1989-93 Reclassification Project. Goody Collection The work of weeding and reboxing the extensive collection of papers presented to the Library by Sir Jack Goody (1919-2015) and his executors has continued, with particular focus on processing the contents of three large filing cabinets – crammed with research and teaching notes, academic papers and correspondence – that had been deposited in the Lower Library some years ago. All the papers had to be straightened out (Professor Goody’s approach to filing was, shall we say, ebullient) – and transferred into twenty-nine large archival boxes, which were then united with the rest of Goody Collection in the Divinity School basement. I also spent some time reboxing and listing the audio-visual items found elsewhere in the collection. These include several boxes of Jack Goody in 1969 5mm slides bearing photographic images used by Professor Goody in the course of his many lectures on anthropology and African studies, as well as a significant number of audio reels and cassette tapes that capture some of the spoken languages, songs and cultural events Goody was privy to during his many field trips to Africa. These audio materials are currently undergoing digitisation, in the hope that their unique content can be preserved in a format that will enable their use by researchers in the future. Index to the Library Committee Minutes As a side project over the course of the year I have chipped away at the task of creating a computerised index to the minutes of the Library Committee. From 1883 to 2001 these meeting minutes were kept by hand, and, filling four large bound volumes, they contain a wealth of information about the history of the Library’s buildings, services and collections. Without an index, however, the information is of limited value. I began by typing up a copy of a partial, card-based index that had been created during the 1980s, and I then refined and expanded the computerised document to include items from the two most recently filled volumes. 52
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As well as recording the administrative business routinely discussed by the Library Committee over a period of 118 years – with staffing problems, security/lighting/ heating issues, and provision of technological resources being among the most frequently debated topics – the minutes also document important information about the collections, such as the preservation and conservation work undertaken, and the loan of specific items for exhibitions hosted by external institutions. The new index has already proven useful to staff fielding external enquiries – an interesting example being a plea for information from Lancaster Museums concerning the provenance of a Roman altar, loaned to them in 1983 by Ribchester Museum, which until 1967 had been a feature of the Old Library (presumably the result of an intrepid Johnian having dug it up and presented it The Working Library viewed from the Old Library to the College some time in the nineteenth century). There remain, however, a handful of references in the earliest volume that we are still puzzling over. If anyone knows what ‘coils’ are – items for which, it was decided in 1884, new cases ‘would prove both useful and ornamental’ – please don’t hesitate to inform us! Rebecca Watts Library Projects Assistant
Cartwright Collection This year saw the completion of the project to catalogue and make accessible the large collection of music which came to the Library in 2013 through the extremely generous bequest of Johnian Christopher Cartwright (BA 1958). The collection consists of just over 370 volumes of scores and sheet music, and includes a complete set of the Neue Bach-Ausgabe, several volumes of the Neue Liszt-Ausgabe, and a number of other collected editions of works by composers such as Chopin, Handel, Beethoven and Schubert. Accompanying these is a substantial selection of sheet music, a large proportion of it by composers of the Baroque and early Classical periods, representing work for harpsichord, organ, piano, recorder ensemble, and chamber orchestra. Amongst the collection donated by Cartwright was an early edition of Handel’s overtures in an arrangement for harpsichord from around 1760, which is now in the Old Library. 53
Annual Report 2017-18 The initial phase of processing and cataloguing the Bach- and Liszt-Ausgabe volumes having been completed by my predecessor Sam in the period leading up to spring 2017, one of my first jobs upon joining the Library was to tackle the rest of the bound volumes and to sort and catalogue the loose items of sheet music. The decision was also taken to reclassify the collection according to the Library of Congress scheme used for the main Music section in the Working Library, whilst keeping it shelved separately in the Basement. Aside from the somewhat timeconsuming process of reclassifying those volumes which had already been catalogued, this part of the project went relatively smoothly, with the result that all of the bound scores had been made available on the open shelves for consultation and borrowing by College members by the start of June 2018 (the only exceptions being those items which, because of their age, have been placed either in the closed access section of the The Cartwright Collection in situ in the Basement Basement or the Old Library). Meanwhile, the sheet music collections have also all been boxed, catalogued and processed, and can now be found on iDiscover. Although these have been placed in closed access and are only available for consultation in the Rare Books Reading Room, most of these are borrowable upon application to Library staff. David Baker Library Projects Assistant
John Williams Coat of Arms (an achievement)
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Social Media Twitter Twitter continues to be a popular method of engaging both with College members and visitors, allowing easy access to information. Since August 2017 the follower count of the St John’s Library Twitter page has risen by 200, bringing the total count to 1200 followers. Those who follow the @StJohnsLibCam account are regularly kept up to date with details of upcoming events, announcements of closures, maintenance work and much more. Increasingly Twitter acts as a platform to engage with other institutions too, including bookshops, departments and libraries across Cambridge and beyond. These engagements widen the audience of the St John’s Library page and also allow mutual sharing of relevant information to followers, who otherwise may not come across it. Library staff will continue to tweet regularly, providing timely and concise information for followers.
The Library Twitter Account in October 2018
The Library Facebook ‘Likes’ figure in October 2018
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Annual Report 2017-18 The ‘likes’ count of the Facebook page @StJohnsLibCam has steadily increased since October 2017, now at 115 likes. However, Twitter remains the Library’s most popular form of social media. The St John’s Library Facebook and Twitter profiles share a unified design, and Facebook similarly offers a space to share news and announcements to engage with College members and visitors in a way that is relevant and easily accessible. The usefulness of Facebook particularly lies in the ability to share longer, more detailed posts than would be possible within a tweet. At the start of the academic year students are encouraged to follow social media to keep up to date with the Library.
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Environmental Monitoring and Control Environmental problems within libraries, such as excessive light radiation, pests, damp, and mould, can cause significant damage to collections. These can be quite easy to ignore, building up slowly over time, until eventually items require specialist expensive repair. In order to properly preserve the wealth of items within our collections the Library undertakes monitoring, carefully tracking changes in environmental conditions. Responsibility for environmental monitoring in the Working Library lies with the Library Assistant and the Graduate Trainee. These tasks provide a much needed break from our computers, and allow us to visit some lesserseen locations, particularly the Master’s Lodge and the Old Divinity School. Environmental Monitoring in the Working Library Environmental conditions in the Working Library are monitored using Tiny Tags. These small devices take readings at ten-minute intervals, recording maximum and minimum levels of temperature and humidity. This data is then downloaded on a fortnightly basis, and entered into a spreadsheet, from which any causes for concern can be identified. Within the Working Library there are five tags: three in the Basement, one on the First Floor, and one on the Third Floor. Additionally, one tag resides in the Old Divinity School basement, and another in the Master’s Lodge. Carrying all five tags at once back to the computer is a fine juggling act! Whilst on the whole temperature and humidity have remained stable, a particularly warm summer resulted in a period of very high temperatures, with the highest maximum temperature in a number of years, of 42 degrees Celsius, being recorded on the Third Floor. The Third Floor however, is an area known to be frequently hotter than other areas. Environmental Monitoring in the Old Library Light radiation levels in the Old Library are monitored on a weekly basis. A small handheld device is used to record UV and visible light (LUX) in particular areas of the Library. Excessive light radiation can cause the fading of pigments and structural damage to paper, parchment and leather, therefore a number of measures are in place to protect the Old Library Collections. Windows are fitted with UV filters and blinds, fragile materials are stored in a manuscripts cabinet, and display cases holding sensitive items are covered when not in use. Sensors are in place to record temperature and RH (relative humidity) in three locations in the Upper Library, three in the Lower Library, the Manuscripts Store, and the Rare Books Reading Room. Ambient temperature and RH are also measured 57
Annual Report 2017-18 outside the building for comparative purposes. Data are logged and can be downloaded in-house and by Tobit Curteis Associates, who are also recording additional data from their insulation test areas in the Lower Library. Periods of highest RH were seen during the summer and autumn of 2017. From November onwards, RH remained below 60%, only rising again towards the end of May 2018, and predictably being highest on the cold north side of the Lower Library, and adjacent to the Oriel Window overlooking the river in the Upper Library. Throughout the critical winter months, when mould has in some years broken out in the Lower Library, the levels remained comfortably well below risk levels. The environmental control system in the Manuscripts Store has worked well this year, with only one brief failure, rapidly resolved, during the peak of the summer’s high temperature. The breakdown in the College boiler rooms in January and subsequent drop in heating levels throughout the Old Library is clearly seen in the data. The temperature in the Reading Room only rarely reached 20 degrees before the end of May. While freestanding heaters were used, they could only be deployed during staffed hours and struggled to mitigate the diurnal drop in temperature. It is hoped that the replacement of boilers over summer 2018 will be effective in providing a better working temperature for staff and readers. The School of Pythagoras Archive Centre
We had some slight issues with temperature control on the First Floor this year, but Maintenance managed to find the problem and repair it quickly so that the optimum environmental conditions were restored. Rowan Rush-Morgan
Catherine Ascough
Tracy Deakin
Graduate Trainee
Library Assistant
Archivist
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Green Initiatives Recycling Bins The Library continues to provide multiple recycling bins on all floors. They accept plastic, aluminium, paper and cardboard. From all the rubbish collected in the Library, approximately one third is recyclable. With a little more care and attention this could easily rise to half. Unfortunately the recycling bins are often contaminated with food waste, which is surprising as I am sure I have seen a number of signs stating food is not to be consumed in the Library! Unfortunately we have had to abandon the use of our little green compost bin in the Library Office as the food waste was attracting unwanted vermin to the compost heaps in the Master’s Lodge Garden where we emptied it! We do however have a new bin specifically for disposable coffee cups which can be put on the compost heap. Batteries The recycling bin for batteries which is a Cambridge City Council initiative, supported by the College, is kept in the entrance foyer and continues to be successful. When full the contents are added to those collected elsewhere in College and then delivered to the College Maintenance Department for removal. The Writing Implements Recycling Programme During this year, collection points for used pens of all types have been set up in College by the Domestic Bursar’s Office, including one on the Library Issue Desk and another in the Library Office. The pens collected are recycled rather than ending up in landfill, thus helping to reduce plastic pollution. The proceeds from recycling the pens goes to Centre 33, which is a local charity providing free and confidential support and information for young people. Catherine Shanahan Library Cleaner
Angela McKenzie Librarian’s Secretary
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Feedback Comments received by the Biographical Office General
Thank you again for your assistance and for extending the professional courtesy to me, when, no doubt, there were other pressing matters to be dealt with. Thank you SO much for all your suggestions; this is tremendously helpful. I may in due course have to get in touch again. Your little note really touched me! How kind and thoughtful you are. Thank you very much for your reply. And so prompt! Your record keeping and mastery of the contents is impressive. Thank you for this amazing find! The photo is a golden nugget in our family research. We have never seen what he looked like until this time. With our sincere appreciation. Thank you very much indeed for a wealth of information that far exceeds what I was expecting. I am most grateful to you for your help, which will of course be duly acknowledged. As you will realise, research means trying every door ... even if you can only open it a chink then some light might shine through and illuminate another direction to follow. I do thank you very much for all your efforts and for your diligence. You really are a star – a rock star – the way, like a terrier, you have worried away at this matter. You are a great asset and you understand so well the nature of the College of St John the Evangelist in the University of Cambridge. Bravo, dear Fiona! And warm thanks as usual. Thank you very much for taking so much trouble and time to show us round yesterday, and for answering more questions, and for suggesting further reading. It was wonderful to see St John’s buildings from the inside, and the outside, and extraordinary to see where my father and grandfather had had rooms. Of course the highlights were the registers and the photograph you had found me. Very many thanks. My profound appreciation for your always splendid help. I have begun to warm to the memory, having responded to invitations to return – which I was surprised and pleased to receive. The contact with you and our exchange of material and ideas has made a huge, positive difference to my perceptions. Thanks so much, Fiona! I feel like a lost sheep that's been found! Wonderful! Thank you so very much. Sadly I never met my grandfather and this will help me to get a clearer picture which I can share with the family. Thank you so much for taking the trouble to reply so comprehensively to my email. The information you have forwarded to me is invaluable and provides me with an insight into the family. Thank you very much indeed for this wonderful information. I've shared it around my family. We really appreciate the effort, and are most grateful.
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I would be delighted to renew contact. Thank you so much for tracking me down. Thank you for giving me an opportunity to reconnect with St John's. Dear Paul (or should I say ‘Sherlock’) …Yes – you found me. I did my MPhil at St Johns...One of the best years of my life. I have very fond memories of Cambridge. I’ve just had a message from … where I worked for 17 years, to say that you’re trying to track me down as a ‘Missing Johnian’. I applaud your skills! Thank for you getting in touch – looks like you did a fair amount of detective work, which I appreciate. Thank you for taking the time and trouble to track me down. I’d be delighted to reconnect with St Johns. Thank you for your diligence in finally smoking me out! I cherish my experience at St John's and look forward to returning to College someday. Thanks for getting in touch. I’m glad I fall into the ‘missing’ category and not the ‘unwanted’! I was amazed to hear from you. I loved the College.
Special Collections
I wanted to say a personal thank you for your very full and enthusiastic introduction to the Library and its wonderful collection. I hope you don't mind if I contact you again and possibly bring another group. Your knowledge and enthusiasm for your subject is outstanding and it would be good if you would share it with others. So, again, very many thanks. I came away from Cambridge feeling uplifted! Thank you very much for the magnificent file of images you sent. I am really impressed! They are amazingly beautiful. Thank you so much for your swift and extremely helpful reply. It is very good of you to have gone to the trouble of checking the volume in the way you describe and of providing me with that image. I am most grateful to you. Thank you very much for your highly efficient handling of my request. It is greatly appreciated. Thank you so much. It is a pleasure to work with such a speedy, efficient and generous partner to share a greater knowledge of all our collections and their history. Thanks SO much! Lovely sumptuous images! They will work a treat. Thanks SOOO much for this nearly instantaneous reply! This will indeed give me what I need, just perfect. I just wanted to say thank you for all your help for my recent research visit. I found the visit incredibly helpful and productive. This was made possible by all your advice prior to my arrival, as well as by the support offered during my visit. If only the Bodleian and the BL were so efficient and reasonably priced, we would really be on to something. Thank you so much for your super helpful and prompt and positive reply! 61
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Thank you so much for kindly providing these additional measurements and explanations – all terrifically helpful. Many thanks for showing my visitors round and for digging out a couple of Indian memorabilia. Much appreciated. Many thanks for responding to my email so promptly and positively. Thank you so much for your informative reply – and your nice simple requirements! Thank you enormously for your help yesterday! Thanks for your prompt, friendly, and useful reply. I'm most grateful to you for going to so much trouble. It's helpful to me to know this. The visit has provided us all with a lasting memory of such an important institution and your tour was one of the highlights of our day in Cambridge.
Comments on Archive Exhibitions/Research Visits/Tours/Online Material
Many thanks again for your help and advice this morning. And for showing some interesting items to Elizabeth, she really enjoyed the visit too! Thank you so much for these scanned copies. Absolutely perfect! Many thanks for this and the prompt reply ... it has filled in a little more of the jigsaw !!! What a brilliant exhibition of the Female Staff! We so enjoyed it and thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us about the Archive Centre and the exhibition. Many thanks for showing us the Old Library yesterday. A most interesting exhibit and a wonderful building. Thank you very much for preparing for our visit last Wednesday. Having the documents ready made it so much easier to get through them in the time available and being able to take photographs means I can continue to sift through the information at home. You have a wonderful building to work in which added to the experience – once we found it, of course! Fascinating! Many thanks. Tracy – many thanks to you and your colleague for your assistance today. It was much appreciated Fantastic! Words cannot express the sincere gratitude I feel for your willingness to help me find out about my British ancestry.
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Appendix 1 – Donors to Sponsor a Shelf Scheme We are most grateful to the following donors for their generous support of this scheme in 2017 and 2018: Bill Ball FIMechE (Mechanical Engineering) Patrick Field (Linguistics and Languages) Dr Peter Hacking (Medicine) Christopher Joseph (Historical and Human Geography) John R. Morris (Engineering) Nicholas Wood (British History and Politics from 1980 onwards) Paul Cockerham FSA (Art History) Richard Tomlinson (Classical Archaeology and Classics) Garth Lindrup (Private International Law) David M. Wright (Geology and Earth Sciences) Alan Daniels, in memoriam Reginald W. Daniels (Economics and Social Sciences) Dr John H. W. Shaw (Victorian Poetry) Julian Davies (History) Tazim Jaffer (Physics) Ian and Fumiyo Boulton (Chemistry) Hugh M. F. Barnes-Yallowley (Political Economy) Irene Vest, in memoriam Michael John Vest Kirsten Paige (Music) Isobel Smyth (Plant Biology) Greg Lowden (Modern History) Barbara Goodman, in memoriam Henry Goodman (Computer Science)
Lion from a stained glass window
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