8 minute read
Shelf service
From bespoke help with obscure research requests to induction tours, five of the Member Services team explain the role they play in the Library community
Photography by Catharina Pavitschitz
Yvette Dickerson’s favourite place in the Library is what she calls her “Harry Potter corner – a desk under the stairs on the mezzanine level in Fiction where nobody can find you. It’s a complete hideaway when I’m writing. I try not to pout if it’s in use. It reminds me of when I was younger – I used to hide behind the curtain to read on the window seat under the stairs at home.”
Yvette, who joined the Member Services team five years ago, came from working in the library at SOAS University of London. She sees her role as being a “pathfinder”; giving members a nudge in the right direction when they come to her with questions about their research. “People know that if it’s out there, I’ll find it,” she tells me when we meet in the Library’s offices. “We’re incredibly well-resourced on every type of subject, no matter how obscure.”
That might be a 1950s guide to Europe for travellers on a shoestring budget that’s full of charming antique restaurants – a favourite find of Amanda Stebbings, the Head of Member Services, who joined the staff following 20 years in public libraries where she specialised in running skill sessions and acquiring new books – or an 1845 book called Wild Flowers and their Teachings. “It’s about British wildflowers with excerpts from poetry,” says James Devine, who joined the Library’s staff on a year-long graduate trainee programme in 2017, beginning with Member Services. “But rather than illustrations it has mounted, dried examples of flowers, and it’s just a beautiful book – approaching botany in this very literary way.”
Wild Flowers and their Teachings (1845)
Member Services encompasses all the everyday tasks that keep the Library running – fetching books and returning them to shelves, sending out postal loans, answering enquiries, providing training and advice to members on how to use the Library’s resources. A good librarian should never simply say no when asked if the Library has a book, Yvette explains: “Always make sure that you’ve given them something to lead them on.” Recent conversations with members about their research have prompted the Library to “beef up” in areas as diverse as punk and Japanese fashion, and Yvette has been delighted to bring her knowledge of the political and social struggles in the 1970s and 1980s, such as Rock Against Racism and LGBT liberation movements – which she modestly calls “potted histories”, though she studied them at university – to the table.
She says the membership has become more reflective of the diversity of modern-day London in recent years, which only adds to the collections’ depth. As James says, this continues the Library’s evolution over decades. “I’m very fond of the literature section. I think that really reflects the 20th-century history of immigrants moving to London and becoming members of the Library – all of the French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian collections.” He now works in Collections Care as a Stack Manager, rehousing books that need to be moved into the safes or special collections, planning shelving layouts and identifying titles that need to be sent for restoration work.
James Devine, now Stack Manager in Collection care, at his desk
In recent years, as well as the membership becoming more multicultural, there has been an influx of younger members joining, says Michael Booth, the Library’s longest serving current employee. He started working here in 1978, at age 18, intending it to be a temporary job while he applied for art school. “I tried for a couple of years to do that. Then when that didn’t happen, by that time I’d sort of become part of the place.” Of those early years, he mostly remembers the Library being far smaller – “If you wanted to speak to a colleague, you could just go across the hall” – as well as the “quite formidable members. Even the head librarian was scared of them; he used to quickly disappear or duck behind the desk. There was one particular woman that always announced herself with a loud belch as soon as she entered the Issue Hall.”
Nowadays, there’s a sociable feel to the Library, Yvette says: “People come as shy members just sticking to themselves, and the next thing you see, they go to lunch with another member. That’s really heartening. I think I’ve seen romances, too.”
Amanda Stebbings. Head of Member Services, by her desk
She describes it as a “hangout” away from university and the home, where young people can concentrate more easily – in a city where space is at a premium. Being a friendly ear, she says, whether that’s hearing the “horror stories” about members’ flatmates or just having a casual chat, is what makes it a community. “We know that for older members we may be the only conversation they’ll have for the day, so we don’t mind making a little bit of a fuss of them.” This personal touch is what makes The London Library so different to many public libraries, explains Samantha Gibson, a Library Assistant who answers day-to-day enquiries and works on postal loans to members, quaintly still known as Country Orders, as well as inter-library loans. Her 10-year anniversary of working at the Library was in June.
“When I first started we had an elderly artist who lived in France and wasn’t on the internet. We always looked forward to getting her letters and phone calls – it would be whatever she’d read in the news. She had heard the artist Walter Sickert might have been Jack the Ripper, and so she wanted to know about that, and then the next day she had read that she should be doing pelvic floor exercises, so wanted more information. She kept us on our toes.”
Yvette Dickerson, Member Services Librarian.
Photo: Suzie McCracken
Building these relationships begins during induction, which Amanda points out aren’t just for new joiners; members can request one at any time to reacquaint themselves with the Library’s myriad rooms and discover unfamiliar sections. “Induction is important because it introduces members to someone on the staff who they know,” she explains. As James puts it: “It’s always best to teach a man to fish. That has been very rewarding.”
Amanda reaches for a more unusual metaphor when describing the team’s purpose: “We are a spider, because we’re a first point of contact for members. So anything that’s happening in the Library – on our ‘web’ – we need to know about.” No two days are the same, she adds: “I might think I’m going to be contacting ex-members who’ve still got books, but I could end up running around the building, checking what the temperature is.”
This means she typically has less time to assist with research, but she does tell me of one request which illustrates the kind of detail the team deals in. Asked by a member which titles an ordinary person might have had on their shelves during the English Civil War in the 1640s, Amanda at first thought, “‘Where on earth do I start with it?’ Fortunately, I love social history, and there are a lot of books that have fantastic bibliographies. I ended up being able to give this member some diaries of a yeoman farmer who collected books.”
A copy of The Two Gentlemen of Verona by William Shakespeare from the collection of miniatures that James Devine helps to look after
Library Assistant Samantha Gibson weighs books for postal loans
In 2023, she is looking forward to working on more schools outreach. Twenty London state schools are currently given subsidised membership of the Library, so that students can carry out research for their Extended Project Qualification, a part of the AS level curriculum in which they are tasked with producing a report on any topic they choose. Amanda picks three or four books to guide them towards relevant sections, but tangents often occur, as is the way in the Library’s stacks.
While the job has become less physically demanding than in Michael’s early years, when the Library’s antique book lifts – now electric – operated on a pulley system, it’s still a busy role. So during a stressful day, where do they go for a quiet moment? Gone are the days of cigarette breaks and snowball fights on the roof 40 years ago, but one place remains the same.
“The Back Stacks haven’t changed since I first walked through the door when I was 18,” he explains. “You have that same smell of the old books – it always has that atmosphere that I still remember.” •
Michael Booth in the Back Stacks
Alex McFadyen is an arts and culture writer based in London
