Working Library 25th Anniversary Brochure

St John’s College Working Library 25th Anniversary

Contents 3 Foreword 4

Why the Working Library?

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Architecture and Design

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Staff Memories Amanda Saville Kathryn McKee Paul Everest Naomi Tiley

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Student Memories Raphael Lyne Karl Williams Joshua Simons Esther Luigi

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Working Library Renovations

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Before and After: The Realisation of the Project

Foreword Much has been written, in The Eagle and elsewhere, about the imaginative and thoughtful redevelopment of our College Library in the early 1990s, a project spearheaded by the Master at that time, Professor Robert Hinde, the Librarian, Amanda Saville, and our Architect, Edward Cullinan. The creation of a new Working Library for resident members of St John’s, and the refurbishment of the historic Lower Library, have rightly been praised for their imaginative, sensitive development of buildings at the heart of the College in order to provide a unified Library, with the collections ancient and modern all accessed through one – striking – front door.

The test of a new Library building, however, lies in its utility – in its adoption by Library readers and in its responsiveness to changes imposed by fashion, habits and new technology. In this booklet we celebrate twenty-five years of engagement and change. Through the thoughts of readers and staff, past and present, and through the inclusion of many telling photographs and other images, we chart the story of a College Library. We see collections develop, IT systems and infrastructure come and go.

We watch new roles and services as they are introduced within the Library building, and we observe a nurturing of synergies with other College departments, reflected in services now on

offer in the Working Library. We see, too, further structural adjustments, taking advantage of the flexibility so prudently built into the original Cullinan design. We record our greatest good fortune: a succession of wonderful members of staff, so many of them making a lasting contribution to what we offer, and to our departmental ethos. Most cheering of all, we see at the end of that first quarter century a Library that remains busy, and admired. Readers today may consult different works, and use different media, but they still come through that same front door, and still make use of the flexible working spaces that we offer. Reader numbers in 2016-17 stood at levels not seen in more than a decade, and in the most recent College-wide Facilities Survey over half the respondents rated our Library Excellent, while 95% considered it to be either Excellent or Good.

Twenty-five years on, the ‘new library’ is no longer new. But it still does things very well. The unchanging face of buildings in Collegiate Cambridge conceals so many changes behind those walls, and the wonderful Working Library of St John’s College is no exception to that constant rule.

Mark Nicholls Librarian

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Why the Working Library?

When the College was first built in the 16th century it consisted of only one court (now First Court), and the original Library was situated in the range to the south of the Great Gate, on the first floor. In those days, there were far fewer books, and many of them were chained to the bookcases. Following a generous donation from alumnus William Crashawe in 1615, the stock was greatly increased, and the College found it necessary to build a new library.

What we now call the Upper Library, in Third Court, was completed in 1628, and thereafter, as the collections grew, it gradually extended into nearby buildings. In the 19th century the chambers below the Upper Library (originally Fellows’ sets) were converted for library use, becoming the Lower Library, connected to the Upper Library with a spiral staircase at the west end. Traditionally, Fellows and students pursued their private study in their own rooms, thereby restricting the Library’s primary function to housing books, rather than providing space for readers. However, later in the 1930s, in order to enable students living outside College to have somewhere to work between lectures and supervisions, a lecture room adjacent to the Lower Library (F2 Second Court) was converted

The pre-1994 Reading Rooms in Second Court 4

for use as the first Reading Room. In 1966-7, a residential set (F1 Second Court) became the Reading Room extension, which housed Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Medicine volumes, and included the Winfield Room, which fulfilled the same function for Law books. These three relatively small rooms were furnished with bookshelves, tables and chairs, and accommodated no more than about twenty readers.

During the 1970s and 1980s, substantial increases in student numbers meant that reader places were insufficient. The problem was particularly serious during Easter Term, when some users took to ‘camping’ their possessions in the Reading Rooms for weeks just to keep their places. Frequent complaints were received from law students, whose subject required them to work in the Winfield Room where seats were usually occupied by readers who were unable to find places elsewhere.

The Library was also hard pressed for book storage space. In those days, fewer students were able to afford the textbooks they needed, and the departmental libraries in the University were unable to satisfy the increasing demand. Consequently, the College Library was encouraged to expand its provision of books to meet students’ course requirements. A further challenge

Access to building site via North Court

Early stage of the building work

Penrose and excavations

The Working Library taking shape

was presented by the College’s historic buildings restricting the installation of computer equipment on the scale required to meet the increasing demand on automated library services.

In view of these manifold problems, the College decided in 1986 that it needed a purpose-built working library to provide all the necessary services under one roof, rather than in accommodation that had extended piecemeal into different adjacent buildings.

The chosen site was in the southern part of the Penrose building in Chapel Court. Edward Cullinan Architects submitted their plan in an open competition, and were commissioned to take on the project. Their distinctive design included a new crossing with wings extending into Chapel Court and the Master’s Garden, and provided basements in the extensions for storage.

Robert Hinde, then Master of the College, cuts the ribbon at the official opening of the Working Library

To fund the project, St John’s launched a £7 million appeal in 1991 to Johnians worldwide. The building work started in summer 1992, and took nearly two years to complete. The new Working Library was opened to readers on the 11 February 1994.

It provided 120 reader places plus thirty computer workstations, and was designed with the capacity to store 60,000 volumes on open access and a further 60,000 in closed stacks in the basements. No further changes to the outward appearance of building have taken place since, but internal refurbishment continues apace, as reported elsewhere in this brochure.

Janet Chow Academic Services Librarian

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Architecture and Design ‘A new kind of demand for quiet areas’: The architecture of the new extension to St John’s Library

Ancillary Library spaces, sketch of 1982 by Alec Crook

©Inskip and Jenkins

On 5th March 1987 the College’s Governing Body was asked to consider a report on undergraduate reading habits, which ‘highlighted a belief that a new kind of demand for quiet areas, suitable for private study, has arisen’. At the time the Old Library contained ‘two scrubbed wood tables and some fairly old chairs’, while three rooms in Second Court served as overflow reading spaces, but these facilities were woefully inadequate.

In response to this ‘new demand’, the College considered an inventive range of solutions, from a new library in the Master’s Garden to the creation of underground book storage in Chapel Court. At first the site of Cripps Car Park was the preferred location, but by April 1989 the decision had been reached to extend the Old Library into the southern end of the neo-Gothic Penrose Building in Chapel Court. After an initial feasibility study, five architectural practices were invited to submit designs. Of these, three elevations are preserved in the College Archives.

Architects Inskip and Jenkins proposed a clean-cut, modernist infill to replace the south end of the Penrose wing, but this design was not taken forward. Perhaps problems with the roof of the Cripps Building at the time had turned the College against classic modernism.

Meanwhile, Michael Reardon, who had already advised on the feasibility of the scheme, proposed a postmodernist scheme with self-conscious medievalising details such as mullioned windows, rooftop crenellations and a steeply pitched roof with a three-storey-oriel window over the entrance.

Edward Cullinan, by contrast, took a more adventurous approach to the footprint by proposing a projecting templefront in Chapel Court matched by an apsed wing extending back into the Master’s Garden behind. The Penrose wing, left externally intact, would thus form transepts to this new ‘Temple of Learning’.

©Michael Reardon

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©Edward Cullinan ©Edward Cullinan

The last two schemes were brought to the Governing Body on 17th January 1991: Cullinan’s design gained 43 votes, and Reardon’s only 15. After a period of detailed planning, the contractors went on site in the summer of 1992.

Best-known at the time for his pioneering interest in ecological architecture and his humane domestic designs, Edward Cullinan still had no experience in designing university libraries. He was, however, widely admired for his sensitivity to historic contexts: in 1987, for example, he had begun his award-winning Visitor Centre for Fountains Abbey. He was also a brilliant draughtsman and a fervent admirer of the Arts and Crafts Movement. At a lecture in Edinburgh in the 1980s I well remember him drawing a free-hand axonometric sketch of William Morris’s Red House, working from the inside outwards – a virtuoso feat that left his audience dumbstruck.

The St John’s scheme sealed his reputation as a designer of university libraries, for it drew on all his special traits. His interest in ecological concerns inspired the provision of natural ventilation, using an economical heating-cooling system based on the circulation of air upwards to the roof-top lantern.

Similarly, his sensitivity to domestic needs elicited the provision of a variety of comfortable, well-lit reading spaces. As the architecture critic Peter Davey remarked in the Architectural

Review in 1994, ‘Internally the Library is entirely admirable.’

The beautifully crafted furnishings in carefully chosen woods reflected his enthusiasm for the Arts and Crafts Movement.

Finally, the simplicity of the T-shaped plan allowed him to achieve clarity in the spatial organisation.

The façade on to Chapel Court reveals another of Cullinan’s signature tendencies, the elaboration of external detail. Here the busy design of the ‘temple front’ perhaps attempts to pick up the richness of detailing in the Gothic of the Penrose Building and especially of the College Chapel opposite. Yet, as Davey remarked, ’For all the mannerist moves and the perhaps excessive Puginian intensity of the detailing, the building has integrity, ingenuity – and gentleness’. Generations of students who have pushed its heavy swing door and stepped over the Penrose tiles on the threshold, in search of an intimate personal space for study, revision or essay writing, have retained indelible memories of Cullinan’s ‘Temple of Learning’.

Deborah Howard Fellow in Architecture & History of Art Acknowledgement: Grateful thanks are due to Tracy Deakin for helping me to navigate the College Archives.

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Staff Memories Everything changed when we moved into the new library building in 1994 but the quiet revolution to transform our services had been going on behind the scenes for over six years.

It is hard to imagine now, 30 years on, but in 1988 the College Library was much as it has been throughout the preceding 100 years. The catalogue was a card catalogue, the borrowing system was run via a paper three-part ticket system, the books were arranged according to a nineteenth century subject arrangement and the Library closed when the last member of staff went home, leaving three ‘reading rooms’ in Second Court as the only library space in College available to students overnight and for most of the weekend.

While the library project and design teams were masterminding the design and construction of the new building, the library team was revolutionising library services. A retrospective cataloguing project was underway, as were cataloguing and reclassifying the entire Working Library into a browsable subject sequence (Library of Congress). Significantly, in order to automate all services after the move, the College purchased Dynix, our own library management system, hosted on a server at the back of the new library office.

So, as we moved from the old library to the new we did not only move into an iconic new building with space for readers, collections and staff and the ability to run new services, we also moved from the nineteenth century to the late twentieth century, from paper record keeping to an automated system, from a fixed shelf arrangement to a browsable classified sequence, from a card catalogue to banks of catalogue terminals, from closing at the end of the working day to 24 hour access.

The Cullinan Library did more than change Chapel Court forever.

It enabled the transformation of St John’s College Library into the dynamic organisation it is today.

Amanda Saville Librarian and Fellow 1988–1999

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How do you get from an outgrown library, crammed 12 shelves high in an unclassified fixed-shelf sequence, to an organised subject arrangement over five floors? From three-part, hand-written issue slips hung on pegs to a fully integrated automated system managing borrowing, searching, cataloguing, book ordering, and stocktaking? That was the challenge that brought me to St John’s, as a newly qualified librarian with the task of reclassifying and automating the Working Library, and organising the move when the new building was finished.

When I arrived on 1 October 1990, the College hadn’t even chosen an architect. During Michaelmas 1993, we started moving in. Some 36,000 books had been reclassified, barcoded, labelled, and all refiled from 21 separate classes into a single subject sequence. Our new automated management system produced essential stats for each subject.

The architects provided plans of all the shelving. Fiendish sums followed. Take 16 five-shelf bookcases 93cm wide and 11 six-shelf bookcases 76cm wide, which subjects will fit – averaging 28 books per metre – if shelves are 85% full?

Every book was assigned a new location. So many crates…

Teams of library staff at each end filling and emptying, with Maintenance shifting crates to the right floor in exact order (thank you all), praying the overworked lift didn’t break down. The builders were still working around us, wiring sockets, painting radiators. Systems were installed and tested, signage printed for every bookcase. A brief muchneeded Christmas break, then final training and orientation before we opened on 10 January. Over three years’ hard work and we had a new Library.

Kathryn McKee Sub-Librarian & Special Collections Librarian

I’ve been here a while. 15 years in fact.

Some of the things that are here now, were not when I first arrived – a big chunk of the mezzanine balcony for one. I started here as a cleaner in 2004, and can still remember turning up for interview and being faced with the indomitable door that has perplexed so many visitors. In my defence, my interview was early, and the door still locked!

I nervously crept into F staircase to ask if anyone knew how to get in, carrying the faint feeling that if I couldn’t even get into the building, the interview was probably doomed. Obviously it wasn’t, and in a serendipitous turn of events, the person who let me in that day is now my boss, having moved to the Library in 2007 with the creation of the Biographical Office.

The Library is so much part of my life that it’s difficult to envisage a time without it, and I’ve had the pleasure of working with so many lovely people. Since starting here I’ve married, had two children, divorced, but the Library is always there.

The office I work in was once a computer room that I cleaned every day – windows left open and lights on overnight as a beacon to all the insects in the Master’s garden, most of which required hoovering away, and others I probably spent too much time trying to liberate, cupped hands snatching moths while I creaked precariously on a kick-step.

The next time you come to the Library, look down at those green and white tiles under the door that you’ve trodden so many times. It took me years to discover that they are a tiling pattern discovered by Honorary Fellow, Sir Roger Penrose. I’ve often wondered how many never find out.

Paul Everest Biographical Assistant

I was lucky to have my first full-time post at St John’s Library where I was Graduate Trainee and then Librarian’s Assistant from 2006 to 2010. Since then I have worked in a few college libraries and visited many others but St John’s still strikes me as unique in having a beautiful historical library thoughtfully connected to and complemented by a state of the art modern one.

It was certainly an inspiring place to bring schools for access visits. An enduring memory is of a year 1 class bouncing up and down to demand a repeat of an activity demonstrating the spread of the Fire of London due to overcrowding. They jumped so enthusiastically I was worried that the seventeenth-century floor would give way. Working with schools and the public at St John’s ignited my continued professional interest in using collections in historic libraries, with non-academic audiences.

Space for staff is also well laid out at St John’s, facilitating the exchange of ideas and creating a strong team spirit. I didn’t have to spend money going to comedy gigs because tea breaks were always so funny. Although, I was once shocked to hear two colleagues discussing the exciting love lives of mutual acquaintances, over the kettle, only to realise that they were both fans of The Archers.

I am grateful to have started my career in such splendid surroundings. I am sure this contributed to my continuing to my current role as Librarian of Balliol College, Oxford. I am doubly indebted because I share my job with my husband, Stewart, who was Academic Services Librarian at St John’s when I met him, and this allows us to spend time with our young family.

Naomi Tiley Graduate Trainee/Librarian’s Assistant 2006–2010

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Student Memories My first thoughts about the new library were decidedly negative. I was a thirdyear undergraduate, living on the ground floor of C staircase in Chapel Court, and so when, early one morning, the lorries started rumbling through the archway five feet from my head, I felt quite aggrieved.

I think I remember that they had waited until the end of term, or of lectures, or something like that, but I wasn’t much mollified. Fortunately I stuck around long enough, as a PhD student, to use the library once it had opened, and get the compensation for the (minor) inconvenience.

I had been happy enough with the Old Library: the quirky variety of books, big tables and (I could be wrong about this) uncomfortable seats, the stairs up to the really properly Old Library above. I often used to write there, as much as read there, because of the lack of distractions. In the new place, I was nonplussed by the classification system, which seemed to be like a pointlessly ingenious elaboration, until I twigged that it was the industry standard. I remember also noticing that the places to work were much better than in the old set-up, and I used the teaching rooms too. I did this without realising that the new building was way ahead of its time. Now across other libraries in the university there is more and more emphasis on congenial work-spaces and side-rooms for group discussion, classes, computers, and so on – St John’s did this a long time before many others. I also used the new reading room of the Old Library, and that was an eye-opener too, and also ahead of its time: welcoming and generous like the American archives I’d been to, and not stuffy – or frankly hostile – like some other college libraries I’d tried to use.

Raphael Lyne BA English (1992)

As an undergraduate historian, I was generally to be found working in one of three places: the Seeley Historical Library (when I had been to lectures), the University Library (when I was researching something particularly niche) or the St John's College Working Library (when I really had to get that essay done). John's Library was definitely my favourite place of study though. It had something of a 'Goldilocks' quality to it, being neither narrow and oppressive like the stacks of the UL nor disconcertingly sweeping and open like the fishbowl of the Seeley. Instead, it was cosy and quietly reassuring, filled with nice little alcoves and plenty of natural light. It was also conveniently close to the Buttery and College Bar. This was handy when you needed a change of scenery or some downtime. For of course, not all memories of the Library are happy ones – I cannot in honesty say that I enjoyed revising for imminent exams for instance; even in Cambridge that is not a common sentiment.

However, I did have some deeply intellectually satisfying moments there. Indeed, my earliest memory of the Library dates to the second week of Michaelmas term in first year (over a decade ago now!) It was a weekday evening and I was staying up late, taking notes, all the while determined that my second essay for Dr Szreter would be a significant improvement on my first. It was gone 11pm, I had just finished the last article, and I could feel it all coming together in my head: how the different bits of evidence went together and how I would structure my argument. There was this definite crystalline moment of realisation, which I will forever associate with the Library. It was a sensation that I experienced many times subsequently at Cambridge, and thereafter, though in the world of work less frequently. But as I am actually lucky enough to be coming back to Cambridge (for an MPhil) in the near future, I know that many such moments await me once more in the St John's Library!

Karl Williams BA History (2011)

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Everybody has their own relationship to a library, a place full of memories that felt their own. My spot was a small cubby hole, on the third floor overlooking Chapel Court. It was directly across from my supervisor's office, so I felt judged, as if I could only sit there if I thought my best possible thoughts. But it was also hidden, isolated enough that it was only me, my book, and, on the best days, time stretching endlessly out ahead. I still miss all that time.

Libraries also remind you that nothing is truly your own. I eventually learned to share my spot with a friend. We'd alternate sitting there, every three or four days, and leave messages for one another. Often links to YouTube videos, sometimes a pile of books we thought the other should read. We once fell out because I told her I needed the space full-time, she said the same. I was very busy, I said. She was under a lot of pressure, she said. She won, of course. And that was that.

John's Library is special to me because it holds so many dear memories of friendship. Libraries are not meant to be extremely social places, but in my first year, I met many of my College friends because we all used to work on the top floor of the Library. At first, this was just where the law books were. Then, it became the place we came to because we knew that our friends would be there, and that we could work together. Needless to say that as it got later and later into the evening, less and less work was done. Over the course of four years, I have spent countless hours in John's Library, working, thinking, sometimes laughing with friends (and then being told off for laughing). The Library is inseparable in my memories from my time at Cambridge, from all the things I have learned and all the friends I have made.

Esther Luigi MPhil Political Thought & Intellectual History (2019)

It is strange to return to places that felt private. You were the ephemeral thing, the place is what lasts. That's what it was like going back to my spot. There was someone else, reading their book, trying to ignore their phone and think their best thoughts.

Joshua Simons BA Social and Political Sciences (2015)

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Working Library Renovations

2012 refurbishment

Gallery on Mezzanine Floor before refurbishment

The existing gallery on Mezzanine Floor extended at the south end

Ways are constantly sought by which the Working Library can improve its services and create a better working environment. It is convenient to conceptualise this modernisation in two phases. The first wave of renovations (1999-2007) involved opening up Garden Basement and Chapel Basement, both formerly closed to readers, in 1999 and 2004, respectively. Tens of thousands of additional items were consequently made available on open access. In addition, this first wave included capitalisation on the development of technology.

In 2000, the Working Library upgraded the ethernet connections and replaced all outdated computer cables, enabling readers to access the Internet from their laptops at almost every desk. In 2007, wireless connectivity was introduced, allowing students to use their laptops and to access the Internet from anywhere in the Library.

A second wave (2012-2019) has seen a renewal of modernisation.

In 2012, extensive refurbishment was undertaken to create more space to cope with the increasing number of readers showing a preference to work in the Library. The plans for this were drawn up by Freeland Rees Roberts Architects. Expansion centred on the Mezzanine Floor, with the existing gallery extended at the south end to accommodate a large working table. The central bookcases in Garden wing were removed and replaced by a further large working table. Two additional window seats were created with views to the Master’s Garden.

Further work was undertaken on the Third Floor Garden wing, where all the lower bookcases were removed from under the windows and replaced by work desks around the perimeter. The refurbishment not only increased the number of work spaces from 120 to 150, it also provided readers with a wider choice of seating arrangements.

Bookcases replaced by large table on Mezzanine Floor 12

Additional seating in Garden Wing, Third Floor

During the same year – 2012 – services were extended in response to students’ requests; a self-issue machine was installed to enable twenty-four hours’ borrowing. A new security gate was also installed inside the front entrance. The old sliding door was replaced by an automatic door keeping the entrance hall much warmer.

Over the last decade, there has been a steady growth in the audiovisual collection of CDs and DVDs, thereby placing pressure on storage space in the Audio-Visual Room on the First Floor. In 2018, refurbishment of the Audio-Visual Room was undertaken to increase storage capacity, and to create a more open and relaxing environment for readers to enjoy their favourite films. Old desks and TV were replaced with comfy chairs, bean bags, and a flat screen TV. All walls were fitted with DVD shelves, replacing the CD racks and DVD towers. The collection was also re-arranged and re-labelled to enable readers to more easily locate CDs/DVDs.

holiday. Further recent improvements to the Ground Floor include the replacement of computer stations and chairs with two comfortable sofas under the tall windows to allow relaxed reading and quiet conversation. In addition, two shiny display cases have been placed in the entrance hall to showcase a variety of interesting artefacts from the Special Collections. The ambience on entry has been transformed by additional plant pots adding pleasant greenery to the aesthetics. The whole creation blends in sympathetically with the existing surroundings and makes the Ground Floor look more spacious and welcoming.

Early in 2019, the Library entrance hall underwent a ‘facelift’ to create a more welcoming atmosphere to visitors. In particular, it was decided that the Issue Desk - being the focal point on entry – was showing signs of wear and tear, and above all was not user-friendly, being too high and too big. A new Issue Desk, lower and more user-friendly, was installed over the Easter

Janet Chow Academic Services Librarian The Library refurbishment project in 2019 was made possible by funding from the St John’s College Annual Fund.

2018 refurbishment

Audio-Visual Room during refurbishment

Audio-Visual Room after refurbishment

New DVD shelves

Old Issue Desk being removed

New Issue Desk

2019 refurbishment

Old Issue Desk

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Before and After: The Realisation of the Project

Penrose building 1885

Student workspace pre-1994, Second Court

Penrose with the Library extension

Student workspace 2019, Mezzanine Floor

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Lower (formerly Undergraduate) Library pre-1994

Lower Library 2019, Reading Room and Special Collections storage 15

Front cover: Drawing of the Working Library (Front) Back cover: Drawing of the Working Library (Rear) ©Edward Cullinan Architects Compiled and edited by Janet Chow Photos: Paul Everest; Nigel Luckhurst Publication year: 2019

St John’s College Library, Cambridge CB2 1TP Telephone: 01223 338669 Email: library@joh.cam.ac.uk https://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/library /stjohnslibcam @StJohns_Library