"Shhhh... in other languages": My experience of working in libraries in different countries

This blog is from our October event, "Shhhh... in other languages": My experience of working in libraries in different countries". Many thanks to Emily Green for writing it for us.

Our speaker for the October meeting of CILIP Thames Valley was Marina Sotiriou, Library Assistant at the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust. Speaking about her experiences of working in different countries and libraries, Marina delivered an entertaining and informative presentation entitled “Shhhh…in other languages”.

Having studied library and information management in Greece, Marina worked first for the Library of Visual and Applied Arts at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the Library of the 21^st Ephorate of Byzantine Antiquities in Corfu. Following these interesting posts, she made a bold move to the UK; working first at Belfast Metropolitan College before taking up her current role. By this time, Marina’s varied experience meant she had already worked with numerous library management systems, classification systems, library structures and colleagues.

Based on these experiences and some detailed research, Marina was able to summarise the key differences between Greek and UK libraries across sectors. Describing health, school, public, and academic libraries, she provided an interesting insight into the strengths and challenges present in each country.

Drawing on personal experience, she then turned to those skills that she considers particularly important when working in different countries. Perhaps most striking was her emphasis on the importance of flexibility and her enthusiasm for constantly learning and meeting new people with different approaches and ideas.

Following Marina’s presentation, an opportunity for questions developed into an informal chat amongst attendees about the current state of UK and Greek libraries across sectors. Sharing our thoughts and experiences on the issue rounded off the evening well.

Emily Green – Assistant Librarian, University College, Oxford

Visit to the Wellcome Collection Library

On 7 July members of CILIP Thames Valley met at the Wellcome Collection Library in London for a tour organised by Sonja Kujansuu, one of our event officers. Many thanks to Ruth Dabbs for her account of the visit!

Our tour guide was Danny, who had worked at the Library for 18 years. He knew all there was to know about the library, plus a few interesting facts! First, he gave us some background. The Wellcome Library was founded to house the collections of Henry Wellcome, a US pharmacist and philanthropist, who was interested in packaging, design and topography, though not necessarily medicine, and would buy William Morris books for inspiration. In 1880, he joined his college friend Silas Burroughs in setting up a pharmaceutical company, Burroughs Wellcome & Co. They were one of the first to introduce medicine in tablet form under the 1884 trademark 'Tabloid', as previously medicines had been sold as powders or liquids, and is thus credited with inventing  the word. Henry died in 1936 and his money was used to set up the Wellcome Trust with the aim of benefiting human kind. The Trust is worth £18bn and gives away around £600-700 million in grants every year, specialising in backing the most innovative projects.

The Library exists as part of Wellcome Collection, and is funded by the Wellcome Trust. It has 80 staff working in cataloguing, systems and digitisation and content covers medicine and many other facets related to it such as plants, food, gender, sex, complementary health and physical and mental health. Most of the collection is on-site, although a small collection is off-site in Cheshire. The Library is free to join and open to all. The collections cover items from 20^th and 21^st centuries and older historical items. There are many wondrous items such as numerous historical pamphlets on advertising, drugs and annual reports, plus comics and criminology, and plans are afoot to digitise this collection. A mix of the Barnard system and The National Library of Medicine are used for cataloguing, which makes it quite complex and only the librarians are trusted to return a book to the shelf!

The Wellcome Library was a real eye-opener and we were also informed about The Wellcome Trust exhibitions, such as the recent ones on the Voice and another one on Consciousness. The galleries are open late on a Thursdays and on the first Friday of month, you can enjoy a cocktail too. The Library also run talks and recently hosted talks on Vegetarian Restaurants in Victorian London and The Dangers of 18^th Century Cosmetics!

Post-tour, we retired to the Bree Louise for a spot of networking and a pint!

Visit to Eton College Library, 12 May 2016

The following post has been kindly supplied by Jeremy Crumplin, who joined other members of CILIP Thames Valley on a visit to the Library at Eton College.

A group of 15 library staff met early on a Thursday morning at Eton College to visit the library. We met the Librarian, Rachel Bond, and her colleague Mandy Smith, who introduced us to the library and some highlights from its collections.

It is unusual to have a rare books library in a school – this was originally the private library of the Provost and Fellows, and boys were not admitted until the early 20^th century. (There is another library to support day-to-day teaching; some departments also have their own libraries.) Eton College was originally a religious foundation, so the early collections were largely theological. The library was initially chained, with the books physically attached to the premises. It moved to its current space in the late 17^th century, and grew thanks to donations from generations of Provosts and Fellows. By the end of the 18^th century, the library included around 20,000 volumes and the book stacks were full. Consequently there was little change for around 150 years. In the 1960s, the library began collecting again, focusing on Old Etonian authors and items with an Eton connection, as well as material related to Thomas Hardy. The library also began to actively support the curriculum; there is now an optional sixth form course relating to the library collections. There are now 4.5 (full-time equivalent) staff, all rare books specialists, supplemented by periodic visits from project conservators.

A selection of items from the collections was on display, including: 
 

• The oldest western manuscript in the library, an anthology of Latin poetry dating from around AD950, written on poor quality skins with occasional irregular holes.

•   The original manuscript of Thomas Gray’s poem Elegy written in a country churchyard, including numerous amendments and sections which were not present in the finished work.

• A book featuring the earliest known image of Eton and Windsor, dating from the reign of Henry VI.

• A book from the original chained library, still retaining its paper label protected by a translucent horn shield.

• The first one-volume edition of Tess of the d’Urbervilles with a letter from Thomas Hardy.

• An original manuscript letter from Lord Byron, and a forgery purporting to be written by him.

•  The original manuscript of Susan Hill’s novel The woman in black.

•   The oldest manuscript of all, a fragment of a 9^th-century Koran. This was a recent acquisition, and relevant to the curriculum as Arabic is taught at the College.

•  Artefacts from the First World War collection, including a trench map, scrap books and letters from the trenches. These are used to support the teaching of history; a new teaching course has been introduced this year based on this collection.

• A lock of Sir Isaac Newton’s hair.

• A manuscript including the only English Medieval reference to Robin Hood (all the other Medieval sources are Scottish).

On the floor above the library, there is a small gallery space, currently housing an exhibition of Shakespeare-related artefacts, marking the 400^th anniversary of his death. The display includes examples of the first four folios and several other early editions, as well as the first folio edition of the work another Elizabethan playwright, Ben Jonson and an 18^th-century forgery of a play purporting to be written by Shakespeare. Also on display were artefacts relating to Shakespeare’s plays and characters throughout the last four centuries.

We were very grateful to Rachel Bond, Mandy Smith and their colleagues for showing us around and preparing the displays. The library is open to readers by appointment and details can be found at http://www.etoncollege.com/CollegeLibrary.aspx.