On Thursday 28th April, CILIP TV ran a visit to the Special Collections Department at the University of Reading. The following account of the trip has been very kindly supplied by Sophie Dorman:
Our
trip to the special collections at the University of Reading began with some of
us having an informal chat while we waited for everybody to arrive. The
different people in the tour group came from a wide variety of backgrounds and
careers so it was really interesting listening to everyone’s different
experiences.
Our
guide for the event was Erika Delbecque, one of the librarians for the
University Museums and Special Collections Services. The event began with a
quick introduction and a tour of the building. The special collections service
shares a building with the Museum of English Rural Life (which was
unfortunately closed during our visit), and the building was originally a hall
of residence for the students at the university. As such, it was not at all
purpose built for a library, and it was very interesting to see how the staff
had made the most of the space they had available. Our tour took us to the
Reading Room and into a room which housed the Samuel Beckett collection. There
were several other rooms which contained other collections as well. After the
tour we sat down for a short talk about the service and the collections which can
be found there.
The
collection has many strengths, including children’s books, the history of
publishing, and rare books about science and medicine. Erika explained that
their collection development policy generally focussed on building on existing
strengths rather than developing new ones. However, since the existing
strengths already cover an extremely wide range of subjects the librarians find
that very academically diverse groups of students and researchers make use of
the service, and users are not limited to one or two areas of study. We also
found out more about the acquisitions process, with many books being donated to
the collection but others being especially picked out and purchased by the
library. It was interesting hearing about the compromises that had to be made
in order to house the special collections in the building, including how a
separate area needed to be built in order to provide things like climate
control for the preservation of rare books.
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| Photo courtesy of Jeff Howarth TUC Library Collections | |
The
highlight of the event for me was the showcase of some of the items in the
collection. These included a 15th century printed book still with
its original binding (and with contemporary notes written in the back!), one of
the Orlando (The Marmalade Cat) books by University of Reading alumna Kathleen
Hale, and a souvenir from the Great Exhibition. We had plenty of time to
examine and ask questions about these items, and were even allowed to take
photographs. Once the event had finished we also had the opportunity to have a
look around the special collections’ Ex Libris exhibition, which concerned
marks of ownership in rare books.
All
in all it was a very rewarding trip, and I found it especially interesting as I
have an interest in special collections but currently work in an environment
which is very far removed from what we saw on the trip. A big thank you to
Erika for being our guide and to Sonja for organising the event.
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