V Libraries

V LIBRARIES

COLLEGE LIBRARY. This has been an eventful year for the College Library. Our new Deputy College Librarian, Annie Gleeson, began work at the end of April 2014. She brings a valuable range of skills, including a detailed knowledge of the Heritage circulation system. She has already taken steps to improve the Library’s responsiveness to book requests, and is currently exploring the use of social media to promote new holdings. Physical improvements to the Library are also taking effect: window-seats have been recovered, new waste-paper bins have been installed, and a periodic ‘deep clean’ established to prevent the build up of dust. In the summer, worn carpeting was replaced, the table and desk-tops renovated, and paint-work redecorated. Mrs Gleeson is working on projects of shared concern with the new Libraries Assistant, Sophie Connor, and the new Deputy Pepys Librarian, Catherine Sutherland. A blog has been started which will make available our Library news to all members of the College and more widely.

The Library received a number of gifts, including a major donation to the collection of Kipling books, made in memory of her late husband by Mrs Millie Johnston-Jones. Mr Robinson and Professor Boyle also have made substantial donations of books to the College Library.

PEPYS LIBRARY. During 2013–14, the Pepys Library attracted 73 scholars to work on the collection, as well as 2893 members of the public at the regular opening times. In an expanded provision for pre-booked tours, we welcomed 26 groups (including school groups) with 397 visitors. It is always a pleasure to see members of the College in the historic Libraries and this year we had 16 special openings for College events (reunions, general admission etc). During the year, the Pepys Librarian gave 28 specialist talks on aspects of the collection to groups, seminars and conference delegates.

The papers of Mr Robert Latham, editor of the Diary and formerly Pepys Librarian, which came to the College in 1995 after his death, have been assessed, sorted, arranged for readers’ use, and catalogued by Dr Hyam and Dr Hughes. The papers will be stored in the Pepys Reference Library.

Miss Sutherland, the Deputy Librarian (Pepys and Special Collections) has reviewed the small bookstall for visitors to the Library; and we now offer several attractive cards depicting the Pepys Library and some of its treasures, as well as other items, which are proving popular with visitors.

OLD LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES. It is probably true to say that there have been more visitors to the Old Library in the past twelve months than in the whole period since it was located in its present rooms in 1850. Though partly owing to an initiative to welcome scholars more actively, this is most properly attributable to an imaginative series of exhibitions which revealed the astounding store of treasures in the historic holdings of the College. During the year, 63 readers

worked on materials from the Old Library and Archives, with the diaries of A C Benson and Dean Inge, as well as our small but important collection of medieval manuscripts, attracting particular attention.

The following exhibitions were mounted in the Old Library, attracting a total of 576 visitors:

Traces of Italy in the Old Library. Maps of Genoa and Florence from Georg Braun, Civitates Orbis Terrarium (1572) 20 September to 13 October 2013: ‘Traces of Italy in the Old Library: Maps and Early Printed Books of Italy’, curated by Dr Hughes to coincide with a conference run by Dr Stoddart.

9 November to 18 November 2013: ‘Masters of Magdalene, 1713 to 2013, Waterland to Williams’, curated by Dr Hyam.

The Art of the Scribe and the Printer. Notice the Chinese scrolls displayed, from the I A Richards Collection. 16 January to 30 January 2014: ‘The Art of the Scribe and the Printer: some of the treasures of the Old Library in manuscript and fine printing’, curated by Dr Hyam.

13 February to 15 February 2014: ‘The Old Library: Work in Progress’: curated by Dr Hughes, to show current conservation projects.

7 June to 24 June 2014: ‘The College and the Great War, a Centenary Exhibition’, curated by Dr Hyam.

The Battle of the Somme, 1916, taken from a photograph album compiled by George Turner, the brother of Francis Turner, Fellow, and displayed at the ‘Great War’ Exhbition

The Old Library was open for members of the College and their guests on four Thursdays before dinner during the Michaelmas and Lent Terms, and also welcomed a visit from the Buckingham Society.

Dr Hughes has overseen the production of a revised catalogue of the fortyfive medieval and early modern manuscripts in the Old Library, updating M R James’s catalogue (1909) and making it available online from October 2014. Dr Wang is producing a hand-list of the Chinese scrolls in the I A Richards Collection. Miss Sutherland and Miss Connor have begun a programme of cataloguing the books of the Old Library on to the Newton catalogue.