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‘There is no university without its students’

By Leah Johnston, on 16 October 2023

On the 25th September a new exhibition, ‘Generation UCL: 200 Years of Student Life in London’, opened in UCL’s Octagon Gallery. The exhibition explores two centuries of student life at UCL, placing them at the centre of the university’s history. Mounted in anticipation of UCL’s bicentenary celebrations in 2026, it also marks 130 years of Students’ Union UCL, one of the largest student-led organisations in the world. Material has been contributed by UCL Special Collections, UCL Museums, Students’ Union UCL, and UCL alumni.

Photograph showing one of the exhibition lightboxes. It reads 'Without its students' in white font on a background of collaged photographs of students, all coloured in chartreuse and lilac. It sits above the first case in the exhibition which shows glimpses of some of items on display, including a blazer, photographs and documents.

A photograph of one of the lightboxes in the exhibition stating that there is no university ‘without its students’.

The exhibition is part of the wider Generation UCL research project, which looks to explore the lives of UCL students and present them as the real ‘founders’ of the university.

Over the past 9 months, members of the Special Collections team have been working alongside Professor Georgina Brewis and Dr Sam Blaxland, of the Generation UCL team, to select and prepare material for display. Fifty of the items featured in the exhibition are taken from the University College and IOE archive collections, making it one of the largest Special Collections exhibitions in recent years.

Photograph showing a member of the team installing some of the items in one of the exhibition cases. The man wears a green t-shift and black trousers, and has his back to the camera. He is perched half-way up a step ladder and is surveying the items already installed in the case.

Members of the North Star team installing Institute of Education items

Items included range from official UCL publications and records, such as student record cards, files and calendars, to union and society magazines and posters. Thanks to a recent donation by Students’ Union UCL of the collection of UCL alum, Professor Mark Curtin, we have had the opportunity to display a number of objects too. These include a 1940s blazer and silk scarf worn by Geography student Enid Sampson, a UCL Botany department microscope, academic medals and union badges.

Other objects were uncovered in the process of putting together the initial longlist. A visit to the College Archives silver store back in April resulted in the discovery of a full set of 1950s cutlery (including fish knife!) that had been used by students at Bentham Hall.

Photograph showing a full set of silver cutlery arranged in an exhibition cabinet. The cutlery is arranged in a dinner setting with a mint green plate and bowl in the centre. A black and white 1920s cartoon sits behind the place setting.

Bentham Hall cutlery on display alongside a 1918 Union Magazine cartoon, showing diners crowding around Refectory menus.

With a vast amount of material to choose from the process of shortlisting was tough! However, some clever design on the part of Polytechnic studio meant that we have also been able to display material that would otherwise have been left out. The two arches that lead into the gallery have now been covered in digitised copies of publications, posters, adverts, and invitations, which were created for, or by, UCL students. If you are in the space, see if you can spot a Student’s Guide to Computers from 1996, an advert for a 1960s Pink Floyd gig and a 1981 Student Survival guide with the title ‘Don’t panic: it’s too late anyway!’.

Photograph showing part of an archway into the Octagon Gallery at UCL. The archway is painted white and is completely covered in digitised images of UCL publications.

A snapshot of one of the arches leading into the Octagon Gallery

The exhibition is open now until August 2024 and is free for all to attend. For more information about the creation of the exhibition visit the exhibition project page.

Brenda Salkeld and Eleanor Jacques: the lost letters of George Orwell

By utnvsea, on 28 June 2023


More than a decade ago, the family of Eleanor Jacques discovered a cache of papers hidden in a handbag in a garden shed. On the envelope was written ‘Letters to be destroyed’ and upon opening them, they found handwritten letters to Eleanor from George Orwell, who had been her next-door neighbour in Southwold, Suffolk.

At an event in 2018 to celebrate the discovery of these letters, another sensation was created when an audience member announced that she had at home letters from Orwell to her aunt, Brenda Salkeld, also a Southwold neighbour.

 

There had long been rumours of the existence of these letters amongst Orwell scholars, who hoped to uncover more correspondence with these long-standing female friends. Through serendipity, both sets emerged with a year and were purchased by Richard Blair, Orwell’s son. The letters have now been placed in the Orwell Archive in UCL Special Collections, catalogued and digitised for public access, with the kind permission of the Orwell Literary Estate.

 

 

What is so special about the letters?

The letters span a long range of time, 1931-1949, and continue throughout both of Orwell’s marriages – to Eileen in 1936 and Sonia in 1949. They reveal new details about Orwell’s life in the 1930s – including his overlapping romances, his love of ice skating, and his struggle to write and publish his first novels. They also show that the two women, whom he met while staying with his parents in Southwold, had a profound importance in his life lasting long after his romances with them appear to have ended. Eleanor would go on to marry one of Orwell’s best friends, Dennis Collings.

In a letter to Brenda in 1940, four years into his marriage with his first wife, Eileen O’Shaughnessy, and as a German invasion appeared imminent, he wrote: “It’s a pity … we never made love properly. We could have been so happy. If things are really collapsing I shall try and see you. Or perhaps you wouldn’t want to?” Orwell also wrote to Brenda from his hospital bed (at University College Hospital), sending his last letter four months before his death in 1950, just as he was about to marry his second wife, Sonia Brownell.

The letters also reveal something of Orwell’s writing practice. D.J. Taylor, who helped to track down the letters and has just published an updated biography of Orwell, said:

“In terms of improving our understanding of Orwell’s work, I have a strong suspicion that his letters to Eleanor reminiscing about their country walks at Southwold may have inspired similar passages describing Winston’s affair with Julia in Nineteen Eighty-Four.”

The collection is also notable for the playful drawings Orwell added in the margins of his letters to Brenda, something that is rarely found in his other correspondence. They include images of Billingsgate Fish Market, windmills and the infamous ice rink.

The bulk of the letters have not been publicly available before.

The George Orwell collections at UCL

The George Orwell Archive has been a cornerstone of UCL Special Collections for over 60 years. Deposited by his widow in 1960 and built up over subsequent decades, it is the main resource for Orwell scholars around the world. Comprising manuscripts and typescripts, diaries, notebooks, letters, photographs and family material, including the papers of his two wives, Eileen and Sonia. UCL also holds substantial book collections relating to Orwell, including books owned by him and rare editions of his works.

Anthony Davis Book Collecting Prize: Interview with LSE Library

By Ching Laam Mok, on 24 May 2023

At UCL Special Collections, we look after collections that, as a whole, tell a larger story about our shared history and culture. Some items may have a high monetary value, but many like the 1970s workbooks preserved in our Baines Archive, collectively help us understand the history of education 

Open book showing an abstract illustration of a back bone and a child's description of the illustration. Child's handwriting is very difficult to read.

‘Book of Bones’ from our Baines Archive.

Preserving history doesn’t depend on past collectors. Student Book Collectors play an important role in capturing a snapshot of history. Collections like the 2020 winner “Books that Built a Zoo” allow us to understand the intersection between children’s literature and animal conservation. “Read my Genders: A Trans for Trans Collection” captures the voices of modern-day transgender writers and advocates.  

But you don’t just have to take our word for it. Chelsea Collison, Learning and Engagement Officer at LSE Library, has written about her favourite collection and how it helps her better understand history.  

Tell us a bit about yourself!

I’m the Learning and Engagement Officer at the London School of Economics Library where I work closely with the curators to tell the stories of the collections to a wider audience. I do this via workshops schools and public events for university students and beyond. I specialise in using learning outside of the classroom to increase public awareness, appreciation, and curiosity for heritage, history, and nature.

Outside of work, I enjoy exploring the outdoors whether in the urban parks within London or further afield during travels outside the city. Growing up in Florida, I spent my formative years playing in the waves on the eastern coast, hiking through swamps and tree canopies, or paddling around the crystal blue springs. These memories along with an early job as an educator at a natural history museum have developed a deep feeling of awe and wonder for nature in all its forms.

Woman standing between library shelves, looking at a book behind her.

Chelsea Collison, Learning and Engagement Officer at LSE Library is looking at collection items.

If you were applying for the Anthony Davis Book Collection, what would you submit?

If I were applying for the Anthony Davis Book Collection the theme would be women in natural history. In what has historically been a male dominated field, it’s important to learn about the women who have contributed to biodiversity sciences despite the many social and cultural barriers they were up against. Examples includes works by Mary Anning, Rachel Carson, and Maria Sibylla Merian (to name just a few!). I have a particular interest in scientific illustration as I’m always impressed by the level of observation skills and detail required for creating something that is scientifically accurate and not just pretty.  Of course, I also enjoy these works because they are also beautiful and serve as inspiration for my own artwork! Although natural history is not something that is a specialty for LSE, there are still some gems on this topic to be found within The Women’s Library collections! Some other examples can be found on the Biodiversity Heritage Library Flickr page

Stack of library books about women in natural history

Chelsea would submit a collection of women in natural history if she was applying for the book collecting prize.

How do you choose what to add to your collection?

I would want to build a collection that would represent a wide range of ecological biodiversity within the books and illustrations (botany, mycology, entomology, etc.) but also a diversity of the women represented. I would place special interest in books that highlight geographical areas that are special to me including Florida, and now England, which have both experienced high levels of environmental degradation meaning many of species represented in older books and illustrations may now be extinct.

Red book with a gold embossed flower on the cover

One of the items Chelsea picked.

What does this collection mean to you?

To me, this collection would tell two hidden stories, one of people and one of place. The story of people would highlight the often forgotten or unknown women of science and their important contributions to the field. The story of place would highlight impacts of environmental degradation and climate change by showcasing illustrations of species that no longer exist in these places we have come to call home.  

Thank you very much to Chelsea for talking to us! If you’d like to learn more about LSE’s Library collection, visit their website.

If you have a collection of books, postcards, leaflets or other print items that tells an important story to you or a subject your passionate about, consider applying for the Anthony Davis Book Prize! Details of how to apply, and more examples of other books collections, are available on our blog 

Hidden in Plain Sight: Why Liberating our Collections matters

By Sarah S Pipkin, on 20 April 2023

The following is by Rozz Evans, Head of Collection Strategy and co-chair of the Library Liberating the Collections Steering Group. It was originally published in the introduction to our 2023 Exhibition Catalogue “Hidden in Plain Sight: Liberating our Library Collections” and has been slightly edited for the purposes of the blog.

Striking cover of 'Black Orpheus 20' with an intricate pruple and black design

Black Orpehus 20, part of the 2023 Main Library Exhibition

UCL Library Services holds a rich and diverse range of collections containing almost two million printed items (alongside an extensive digital library). These collections comprise both Special Collections (a term that we use broadly to describe our rare books, archives and records)  and Teaching Collections. As Head of Collection Strategy, I work closely with our Head of Special Collections, Sarah Aitchison. We are responsible not only for the development, care and curation of our collections, but also for ensuring that we prioritise our effort and resources in the form of money, staff and space. An important aspect of this is our commitment to uncovering the hugely diverse material within our existing collections, enabling us to give a  voice to those who have been historically less visible.

As an institution, UCL has been very public about its commitment to addressing issues  around Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) for some years. Arguably the most high-profile work has been around eugenics, UCL’s part in  its history and its enduring impact.

However, institutional effort goes far wider than this. For example, UCL was one of the first institutions in the UK to set up its Liberating the  Curriculum project in 2016 to improve the inclusivity and diversity of its reading lists. One of the outcomes of this was a community of  practice, bringing together colleagues from across the university who are working in this area; this now has a broader remit than the original  project.

Cover of "Early Efforts by the Misses Moss of the Hebrew Nation, aged 18 and 16"

“Early Efforts by the Misses Moss”

It is this group that inspired the name of our Library Liberating the Collections Steering Group (LLTC), which we set up in July 2020 to plan, monitor and oversee our work in this area. We have developed an action plan based around three key themes of Description and Visibility,  Collection Policy and Communication and Engagement.

‘Liberating’ is a term that already has currency in UCL and beyond. It conveys an active approach to this work and its broadness  demonstrates how this group is working to uncover, identify and promote a more inclusive collection in relation to all under-represented  voices. This means that although there will be specific projects in the realm of decolonisation, for example, the remit is broader than race and  racism. We feel strongly that it is important not to use terminology such as decolonisation as a shorthand for wider issues around diversity and inclusion.

UCL Library Services’ collections were initially built from departmental libraries, gifts, donations and bequests, supplemented by some  purchases. In the library’s earliest accessions registers it is clear that the focus was on generating teaching collections and filling shelves. This meant that there was no strategic approach to developing a collection, and therefore was primarily reflective of the status of donors. This is  very different to how we acquire material today. This involves a much more selective, considered and proactive process, governed by clear  and transparent collection policies that are available on our website.

Cover of the New Tribe, which shows three abstract figures wearing crowns

Our newly reclassified copy of “The New Tribe”

This also means that in some cases – particularly in our older material – our collections tend to reflect historic bias and structural  inequalities in the university and in the society of the time. These include a normalisation of white, male, Western-centric theories, views,  experiences and opinions. This certainly does not mean that we do not hold material which relates to under-represented authors and  communities. However, it has become apparent that many of the systems and processes traditionally used by libraries in the curation,  management and description of the collections serve to perpetuate systemic bias and can make it difficult to discover this material. For example, the widespread adoption of international cataloguing standards, such as Library of Congress Subject Headings, makes it difficult to  challenge or change the use of outdated or discriminatory language in catalogue records.

We are also aware that our collections include content that is now considered discriminatory or harmful, and we must be explicit that its existence in our collections does not represent UCL’s current views.

Traditionally libraries have hidden behind ‘neutrality’ as a way of  preserving objectionable content without proper contextualisation, regardless of the harm it can cause to our academic and cultural  understanding of these items. However, their historical importance means that we cannot simply remove or delete such items from our  collections. Instead we are looking at how we can contextualise such material, acknowledging where necessary the harm these items might do to some of our users and alerting them to problematic content where we can. Pairing re-contextualisation with a celebration of previously ignored voices allows us to have a fuller understanding of our history and culture.

Cover of "Girls Education: What do you think?"

“Girls Education: What do you think?”, part of the Mariana Foster archives collection

Working in this space tends to require a lot of background research and reflection before any work can begin, much less before the books and other materials are made available for use. “Hidden in Plain Sight” does not represent a finished project, but sets the scene for ongoing investigation,  discovery and promotion. Staff and volunteers have been working for many months or years, and this will continue to be the case. In the next few years we hope that more of our collections – already full of interesting stories, diverse voices and differing perspectives on colonialism –  will be accessible to students, staff and researchers. “Hidden in Plain Sight” is thus a teaser of things to come.

We hope that this exhibition also embodies a spirit of hope and excitement, as well as an ongoing commitment to ensuring that UCL Library’s collections are truly reflective of the richness and diversity of our shared history.

For more information on the history of UCL Library Services, check out our 2019 Exhibition catalogue “From Small Library Beginnings: a brief history of UCL Library Services.”

Hidden in Plain Sight: Liberating our Collections” is on display in the Main Library Stairwell and 1st floor until December 2023. Exhibition items and catalogue are also available online.

‘Well really, have we come to that?’: Excerpts from UCL’s LGBT History

By Sarah S Pipkin, on 15 June 2021

Colin Penman, Head of UCL Records, writes about the internal documents that sheds light on the history of LGBTQI+ student life at UCL. 

 

In March 1972, Jamie Gardiner, a PhD student in the UCL Department of Mathematics, now a lawyer and human rights activist in Australia, founded the Homophile Society, or Gaysoc at UCL.  As far as we know, this was the first gaysoc to be founded in a UK university and affiliated to its student union.

This Thursday, 17 June, Dr Luciano Rila, who – appropriately – teaches in the Mathematics department, will give a talk on Zoom, ‘Gaysocs: a brief and incomplete history’ partly based on the registration file that is preserved in the College archive to help tell that story.

I don’t want to cover the same ground as Luciano, but thought it might still be interesting to share a few images from that file, and why we have these records (and why we don’t have others).

Regarded as an object, the file is as dull as every other UCL administrative file of its time.  It’s one of many others recording the registration of affiliated societies, the kinds of societies that students have always liked to form: political and social, serious and frivolous.  But this file is a bit different.  The title of this piece comes from a letter written by Dick Bishop, Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, to the College Secretary, Arthur Tattersall, demanding to know ‘Who decreed that it is in the general interest that the College should be identified with sexual predilections in this way?’

Internal letter about the approval of UCL's 'Gaysoc'

UCLCA, Secretary 180/155 fol. 6

And J.T. Aitken, Professor of Anatomy, was ‘disturbed … I cannot understand why people should be allowed to make a parade of their aberration’.  Tattersall shared these concerns, and involved the Dean of Students, Professor Eric Brown, who wrote to the President of the Union, Pete Johns, about the ‘risk of offending individuals in the College’.  Fortunately, Johns declared his absolute opposition to suppressing Gaysoc, suggesting that the authorities should surely be more concerned about those societies that were based around socialism and anarchism, which are dedicated to ‘overturn[ing] the whole fabric of society itself’.

 

Discussion of the approval of UCL's Gaysoc

UCLCA, Secretary 180/155 fol. 15

As I’ve said, we have records of a lot of these societies, because there happened to be an established process for authorising them, which meant the central bureaucracy kept files meticulously, with reference numbers, information about who has consulted them, everything properly attached, and every page numbered.  They are usually very slim files, containing only one or two pages, just recording the foundation, subscription, office-holders and so on.  The Gaysoc file, on the other hand, contains a whopping 22 pages, and it’s not hard to see why: nobody cared much about the Northerners’ Society or the Brewing Society, but some members of UCL were definitely alarmed by the ‘Homophile Society’.

In other words, it’s only where there’s been some kind of trouble that there’s a bit more information.  And this is how an institutional archive like the College archive tends to work.  We have a lot of registers, minutes of Council and other administrative bodies, staff and student personal files and so on, because that’s our main function.  But there are other aspects of life at UCL that, in the past, we were never required to preserve, the unofficial side that would tell us more about how life was actually lived.  The Gaysoc file happens to contain a Freshers’ Week programme for 1972, which I think is unique in this series of files:

Gaysoc Freshers Week Programme

UCLCA, Secretary 180/155 fol. 7

It was originally preserved as evidence of ‘concern’ about ‘homosex’, but now it can tell other stories, about gay social life at this time, about links with the Gay Liberation Front and Campaign for Homosexual Equality.  We are lucky to have in the College archive other material that tells these unofficial stories of staff and student life at UCL: rag mags, periodicals, campaign literature, photographs.  But these have come to us in a really unsystematic way, sometimes without any context.  For example, we don’t know why we have a copy of this wonderful poster by Alan Wakeman, published by Gay Sweatshop:

Poster on 'What exactly is Heterosexuality'

COLLEGE COLLECTION C9

or this terrifying account of gay-bashing, in a 1976 leaflet:

Description of students attacked at a Gaysoc event

COLLEGE COLLECTION C9

We’ve recognised that this has implications about representation in the archive, that doing only ‘top-down’ collecting silences important voices and stories.  We have a rich collection in the College archive, but will certainly be doing more ‘ground-up’ collecting to ensure those voices can be preserved and heard for the future.

 

To learn more about UCL Records, check out their main pageTo book a ticket for ‘Gaysocs: a brief and incomplete history’ please visit their Eventbrite page

Conserving the UCL Islamic Treasures: Masnavi-I Akbar Sultan: MS Pers/1

By Angela Warren-Thomas, on 29 May 2020

UCL’s Special Collections contains UCL’s collection of historical, academic and culturally significant works.  It is one of the foremost university collections of manuscripts, archives and rare books in the UK. Included in its holdings is a collection of Islamıc manuscripts, Masnavi-i Akbar Sultan (“Romance of the Sultan Akbar”), (MS PERS/1), is one of the manuscripts in this collection.

The conservation of this manuscript was carried out by Fatma Aslanoglu, Project conservator 

Figure 1 UCL Special Collections The Masnavi-i Akbar Sultan

The Masnavi-i Akbar Sultan by Mír shams al-Dín Faqír Dihlavi originally written by Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi (1207-1273), is a copy of part of the Mesnevi poem collection.  Written in Persian using carbon ink and Ta’liq calligraphy, the manuscript contains a poem written for Sultan Akbar in 1749.  Bound in an Islamic style using the Lacquer technique, the book came to the conservation department because the binding was very tight, causing restricted opening and making access and handling for any purpose unsafe.

 

Figure 2 Opening limit due to tight binding

A preliminary examination of the manuscript determined that it had undergone previous repairs, the binding was now too tight compressing the textblock preventing free opening, causing distress and damage. It was decided to rebind the manuscript thus alleviating these problems, and ensure safe access to this important collection item. It appeared that during previous repairs, the original covers were reused but the leather on the spine had been replaced. Figure 2 shows the extent to which the manuscript opened without undue force.  In addition to the problems created by the spine repair, superficial dust, separation of the text block and cover, tears, and stains were noted, along with fragility of the end leaves due to the acidity present in their paper, these conditions contributed to different but significant deteriorations in the manuscript.

The first step was removing the cover from the text block.  The leather covering of the spine consisted of two pieces of leather, one attached to the left board and one attached to the right board. This is a typical characteristic of Islamic bindings and made it easier to separate the covers from the text block.  The spine leather removal was carried out using Methylcellulose to hydrate the adhesive, allowing easy mechanical removal.

Figure 3 Removing the cover and spine from the textblock

It became obvious as the removal of the binding progressed that the manuscript had not been fully disbound during the old repair. The original leather spine covering was still present under the new leather added during the repair. The sewing appeared untouched but the original primary endband sewing and endbands had been renewed.

Figure 4 Original spine residue (left) old repair primary endband thread (right)

The original leather and adhesive – probably ciris, a traditional paste made with the root of a yellow asphodel -were still preventing the manuscript from opening fully.  Using Methylcellulose, the spine was hydrated, and the residue removed.  The original spine lining, a typical characteristic of Islamic bindings, and adhesive was then removed from the text block.  After removing all the original leather adhesives and lining from the spine, the text block started to open fully.  This allowed the original sewing of the text block to be preserved.

Figure 5 Spine leather residue (left) textile lining (mid-left) residue cleaning process (mid-right) spine diagram (right)

Figure 6 Spine after residue clean

With spine cleaning complete, the tie-down sewing and endbands added during the repair were removed.  The text block had three sewing stations, in some of the gatherings; some threads were detached or broken.  New thread was attached to the existing thread and the sewing repaired using the original sewing holes.

Figure 7 textblock sewing consolidation

During the old repairs, new end papers were attached; the paper used for these is now known to be highly acidic therefore, a decision was taken to remove them from the textblock.  Fabriano paper was used to create new end leaf papers.

The original textile spine lining was not strong or wide enough to hold the text block because its width had been trimmed during the old repair.  A new textile lining was adhered to the text block with excess left along the front and back joints, for later reattachment of the boards.

Following the repair and stabilisation of the textblock spine, it was now possible to proceed with the dry cleaning of the textblock using a soft hake brush.

Paper repairs were carried out using re-moistenable Japanese tissue paper (Japico 0.02/3.8g – Using 4% (w,v) Methylcellulose).  These two processes were completed after the spine-lining repair because the spine and sewing were so sensitive to opening and closing.

Another form of paper repair undertaken was the removal of paper layers adhered to the folios from the adjacent pages.  The delaminated pieces were removed mechanically with local humidification and a spatula.  They were then reattached to their original places using 4% Methylcellulose.

Figure 8 Paper repair

The new spine lining was trimmed at the head and tail of the textblock.  An additional traditional leather core was added to the head and tail of the spine to further stabilise the structure.  The primary endbands were sewn through the spine lining.  It was decided to not re-use the endband created during the old repair.  An endband with a chevron pattern was added.

Figure 9 Primary endband (left) chevron patterned endband (right)

A barrier between the spine and the text block, using the hollow back method, was created using Japanese tissue and pasted with wheat starch paste (1:6).  This technique ensured that the manuscript would be able to open comfortably and therefore prevent any further damage to the gilded decorations present on all the pages.

 

After the textblock treatments, the boards were reattached to the text block.  The spine lining extensions were positioned within the original board layers using wheat starch paste.

Figure 11 Reattaching covers to the textblock

The spine leather was then pasted onto the hollow back present on the spine with wheat starch paste. Japanese tissue appropriately toned using Schmincke acrylics was added to the inner joint, the final process carried out to complete the conservation.

Figure 12 Attaching leather to spine (left) adding inner join with coloured Japanese tissue (right)

Working on The Masnavi-i Akbar Sultan manuscripts was a rare occasion to work on non-Western binding structures and a first-hand learning experience under the expert guidance of Fatma, for the conservators at the Conservation Department.

For more information about this manuscript please visit the UCL Special Collections page.  (https://ucldigitalpress.co.uk/Book/Article/2/9/48/)

NOTE: Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, we are unfortunately unable to provide an image of the final state of conservation.  We will update this article with a photograph as soon as possible.

 

Bridging the Digital Gap (Part II)

By isabelle.reynolds-logue.13, on 18 July 2019

In my last post I explained what I have been up to for the last 9 months as the Bridging the Digital Gap trainee at UCL. Now, I will show you some of my favourite digitisation projects so far…

The UCL College Collection

The UCL College Collection contains, among other things, photographs of the exterior and interior of UCL buildings.

This photograph looking towards Gordon Street (Gordon Square is signified by the trees in the background) features some graffiti from the mid-twentieth century: ‘Merry Xmas. Love peace anarchy.’

Technicians seen posing on the ruins of the Great Hall at UCL in the 1950s.

The issue desk at the Main Library post-1951.

Bomb damage to the Main Library after the Second World War.

The Little Magazines Collection

The Little Magazines Collection was set up in 1964 to gather together little magazines from the UK, North America, Commonwealth and Europe. We have defined Little Magazines as “those which publish creative, often innovative work, with little or no regard for commercial gain.”

Cover of ‘Gargoyle’ Number Two, 1921.

A page from ‘The Owl: A Miscellany’ 1919.

Jewish Pamphlets

I worked on a joint project with Dr. Maria Kiladi to digitise the Jewish Pamphlets Collection.

One challenge with these was that some pamphlets were read from right to left, when in Hebrew, as opposed to ones written in English. Another challenge was that I am unable to read Hebrew, so with pages entirely in Hebrew it was not easy to know which way round they were supposed to be. Additionally, the pages containing Hebrew characters were automatically rotated by the OCR software when generating PDFs, so I had to manually go through these and change them individually.

The entire collection can be found in our digital collections repository.

The cover of one of the pamphlets.

Library Exhibition

Again working alongside Maria, we digitised material that was going to be on display for the exhibition, ‘From Small Library Beginnings: a brief history of UCL Library Services.’ The photographs are online but were also printed in the exhibition catalogue.

1935 Block Plan of University College London.

Dante’s Divine Comedy

This copy of Dante’s Divine Comedy features illustrations that go across a double page spread. This is not straightforward to capture with one camera pointing down towards the item, as the print is not flat, and cannot be made flat. There was also a problem of shadow appearing in the centre along the gutter. In order to capture the print as best I could, I ended up taking two separate images, on of each side of the book so that there is even illumination, and merging them in Photoshop.

You can read more about this item in this related blog post.

Slade Archive Reader

Finally, the Slade Archive Reader is now available as four fully digitised, searchable PDFs.

My first thought was, why, if this is a printed, word processed document, do we not have a digital copy already? Unfortunately this is often the case with older word processed material. So, we have the task of re-digitising something that was already digital! Once we began looking at the volumes, it was clear that digitising the Slade Archive Reader would not be without its fair share of challenges. Primarily, the four volumes are bound quite tightly, which made it hard for me to keep the pages flat when photographing them. This curvature of the pages leads to a distortion of the text, which in turn makes it difficult for the OCR software to pick up.

You can browse all of our digital collections online.

UCL Special Collections is committed to making digitised content available online. Although every effort has been made to identify and contact rights holders, we recognise that sometimes material published online may be in breach of copyright laws, contain sensitive personal data, or include content that may be regarded as obscene or defamatory.

If you are a rights holder and are concerned that you have found material on our Digital Collections repository for which you have not given permission, or that is not covered by a limitation or exception in national law, please contact us at spec.coll@ucl.ac.uk

Bridging the Digital Gap (Part I)

By isabelle.reynolds-logue.13, on 16 July 2019

I joined UCL in October 2018 as the Bridging the Digital Gap trainee from The National Archives. I have been learning about all things digital in relation to archives, working with UCL’s Special Collections and the Institute of Education archives. In order for me to produce meaningful work with the material, I first needed to understand a bit more about archive repositories and what they contain. As part of my training, The National Archives runs a Moodle course where I have learned about archives, records and repositories, as well as about a key problem facing holders of archives today: digital preservation.

My work so far has ranged from cataloguing to digitising material. A key part of my work at UCL has been digitisation. I photograph or scan original items so that they can be put online and be made more accessible to a wider audience. In addition to accessibility, digitisation aids in preservation. The copies of the original items generated through digitisation are archived so that we have a digital version in case anything happens to the original, or if, for example, it becomes too fragile for readers to view in person.

A digitised photograph of the Wilkins portico from the UCL College Collection c1900s.

Most of the time I use a Canon EOS5D camera alongside a Kaiser RS1 copy stand and lights for digitisation. For some material I use an Epson12000XL flatbed scanner. Some items cannot be completely flattened for scanning, for example rare books, as this would cause severe damage to the item. In these cases, I will always use the camera and copy stand. In digitisation, we aim to get the most true to life image of the item whilst handling and moving the item as little as possible, in order to cause the least damage or deterioration to it. As digitisation requires handling and placing items in particular ways, we must liaise with the conservation team prior to digitisation, to make sure the item is in a suitable condition to be used. If an item is badly torn, falling apart, or very dirty, for example, it would have to be conserved before digitisation.

Once all of this is sorted out, I capture the photographs in RAW before editing them in Adobe Photoshop and saving them as high quality TIFF files for archiving, and JP2 files for use online. For some items with text, it is possible to use OCR software such as Nuance to generate searchable PDFs. However, some text proves too tricky for the software to pick up, for example unusual fonts or handwriting, so we don’t use it every time. However, we have begun to work with the OCR for handwriting software, Transkribus, so watch this space!

Now that you have an overview of what I have been up to, stay tuned for the next post where I will show you some of my favourite projects so far…

Paper Trails Conference Programme 4th July 2019

By Nazlin Bhimani, on 7 June 2019

We are delighted to announce the programme for this year’s Paper Trails conference which has been jointly organised with Dr Andrew W M Smith (University of Chichester). The conference focuses on the lives of our research material which often go unmarked, lost between the gaps in disciplinary boundaries and narrow definitions and the full programme is below. You can register for the conference here.

PROGRAMME

09:15-09:45 Registration

09:45-10:00 Welcome

10:00-11:30

PANEL 1. (Beyond) The Margins:

Cath Bannister (Sheffield): Annotating the Opies: Teachers’ Notes and Marginalia in Children’s Responses to Iona and Peter Opie’s Survey of Folklore of Schoolchildren.

Michael Durrant (Bangor): Lost, Found, and Lost Again: The Messy Histories of Bangor’s ‘Cranmer’ Bible (c.1540)

Chloe Ward (Sheffield) Counting cards — Exploring the Contexts of Historical Archaeological Archives

11:30-11:45 BREAK

11:45-13:15

PANEL 2. Lives Overleaf:

Elizabeth DeWolfe (New England): Agnes Parker, Miss Johnson, Jane Tucker, and Me: Archival Layering, Received Narratives, and the Spy Who Hid in Plain Sight

Katrina Goldstone (Independent): A Photograph. A Scrapbook. Three Large Cardboard Boxes: The Lost World of Irish Radical Writers in the Thirties

Hannah Parker (Sheffield): The Emotional Lives of Letters: Encountering Soviet Letter-Writing in the Archive

13:15-14:00 LUNCH

14:00-15:15

PANEL 3. Responding to the Archive:

Kim Martin (Guelph): Stories of Serendipity: Reflections on Studying the Research Habits of Historians

Sarah Grange (Brighton): Improvising with the Archives

15:15-15:30 BREAK

15:30-17:00

PANEL 4.Archival Sleuths:

Will Pooley (Bristol)

Quest for the Absent Narrator: A Criminal Paper Trail in Alsace, 1925

Alexandra Steinlight (IHR): From ‘Paper Monster’ to Relic: The Jewish Card File in Post-Holocaust France

Lotte Fikkers (Leiden) & David Mills (QMUL): The Archive in the Fish Cellar

17:00  Thanks and Close

UCL Special Collections Launches Lates Programme

By Helen Biggs, on 11 March 2019

We are excited to be launching a series of evening talks for 2019, starting this month and running through to the next academic year.

We’ll be hosting sociable, relaxed after-work events,  perfect for anyone who is interested to come into UCL to learn about the wonderful rare books, archives and manuscripts that we hold here.  Each evening will present a particular topic or theme; talks and collection displays with wine, soft drinks and nibbles for all.  What more could anyone want?!

Our first Late will be ‘Protest!  Voices of dissent in art and text’.  Guest speakers Egidija Čiricaitė and Susannah Walker will join us to explore this theme through their fascinating research and corresponding collection items.

Although all of our Lates events will have academic research at their core, they will be accessible and are open to all aged 16+.  We hope you can join us for the first of what will be a regular series of talks and evening events to inspire, intrigue and amuse!

Get your ticket now!

Protest! Voices of dissent in art and text

Date: Tuesday, 26th March, 6.15-8pm
Venue: UCL Haldane Room, Wilkins Building, Gower Street, WC1E 6BT

The Small Press Project: In Conversation with Egidija Čiricaitė and Liz Lawes

The Small Press Project from Slade School of Fine Art takes inspiration from UCL Special Collections’ small press collection each year. This year’s project, Visions of Protest: BLAKE THE MARCH, has been used as a critical lens through which artists, academics and students can focus on what connections exist between the democracy of print, their aesthetics and the autonomy of artists’ books and publishing. The project is formed through a programme of workshops, performances, screenings, talks, collaborations and interdisciplinary practices involving non-academic institutions and the public.  Egidija Čiricaitė will be in conversation with Liz Lawes, our very own small press collections expert (and UCL’s Subject Liaison Librarian: Fine Art, History of Art and Film Studies).

Egidjia Čiricaitė publishes books, exhibitions, and book related projects.  Although firmly based within contemporary artists’ books practice, her varied interests can be loosely divided between book history and contemporary metaphor theories (in linguistics).  Egidija is co-curator of Prescriptions project of artists’ books and medical humanities (University of Kent). She is co-curating Artists’ Books Now events at the British Library and is currently studying for her PhD at the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL.

Printing Peterloo

On the 16th August 1819, a peaceful protest for electoral reform at St Peter’s Fields Manchester was suppressed. The large crowd, assembled to hear the orator Henry Hunt, were charged on by the local yeomanry cavalry resulting in casualties and injuries. The events became known as “Peterloo”, an ironic reference to the Battle of Waterloo of 1815. This was a pivotal moment in the histories of democracy, protest and “working class politics.” Peterloo inspired political pamphlets, poetry and caricature and most recently Mike Leigh’s film of 2018. This session will consider the memory of Peterloo in print using objects from UCL Special Collections and The British Museum.

Susannah Walker was a Teaching Fellow in History of Art at UCL from 2014 to 2018 specialising in Print Culture and Romanticism, and is currently working as a curator in the British Museum’s Department of Prints and Drawings. Her recent work has involved cataloguing and researching a range of political pamphlets produced in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars.

Wine (or a soft drink) and nibbles are included with your £3 ticket. Click here to book your place.

Ten Lords A-leaping

By Vicky A Price, on 19 December 2018

We can go one better than the traditional ‘ten Lords’ and offer you ‘one royal’…

We’re not going to lie to you, this one is a bit tenuous. But we couldn’t resist the opportunity to share one of our most successful outreach projects to date.

Thousands of children have been involved in an immersive First World War education programme that UCL Special Collections have played a key role in delivering. This was part of the Shrouds of the Somme project, one of the major centrepieces of Armistice commemorations that took place at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park from Thursday 8 to Sunday 18th November this year.

The Shrouds of Somme project is the brainchild of Artist Rob Heard, who has spent the past five years making more than 72,000 small shrouded figures, each one representing one of the men killed and never recovered from the battled field at the Battle of the Somme. On Thursday 8 November, each of the shrouds were laid out as a graphic reminder of the scale of sacrifice they made in the Great War. The installation welcomed just under 3000 school pupils as well as around 85,000 members of the public.

Photographs of the Shrouds of the Somme installation and artist Rob Heard, courtesy of the Shrouds of the Somme.

UCL Special Collections teamed up with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and UCL Institute of Education’s First World War Centenary Battlefields Tour Programme to create free online teacher resources, worksheets for visiting schools and a programme of workshops for schools in the neighbouring Olympic Park boroughs (Tower Hamlets, Hackney, Waltham Forest and Newham). Special Collection’s Education Coordinator, Vicky Price, delivered 33 workshops, visiting 12 schools and reaching almost 1000 pupils.

Pupils at Randal Cremer Primary School in a workshop delivered by UCL Special Collections.

Resource packs for Shrouds of the Somme workshops.

The workshops combined historical enquiry with creative writing and used primary resources from UCL‘s College archive. Through exploring archival items like Rosenberg’s student record and a publication of perhaps his most famous poem, Break of Day in the Trenches (in Poetry: a magazine of verse. Vol. IX (3), December 1916 [reprint edition, 1966], STORE Little Magazines), pupils learnt of the poet Isaac Rosenberg, who had been a student at the Slade School of Fine Art. He grew up in a Jewish working class family in Mile End and went to art school to become a painter. When war broke out, he volunteered to fight, sending poetry back to the UK from the trenches. He was killed in France in 1918.

But where does the royalty come in? (I hear you say). Well, we were honoured to be invited to attend a visit by The Princess Royal at the installation site. Vicky Price (UCL Special Collections Education Coordinator) shook the Princess’ hand and explained the work we had done alongside pupils and the Head Teacher from the Bobby Moore Academy.

The Princess Royal meets Vicky Price from UCL Special Collections, alonside pupils and Head Teacher Dr Foley from Bobby Moore Academy at the Shrouds of the Somme installation.

Cataloguing Mysteries: Engravings of the Electors of Bavaria

By Harriet S, on 15 November 2018

Retrospective cataloguing can be a great way of unearthing treasures in UCL’s extensive collections. Few other librarians will be so systematically working through a subject or donation from many years ago, and many of the texts are hidden until cataloguing, with only the bare bones of an online record or in some cases nothing at all.

The most recent mystery comes from the unlikely source of 20th century art books being catalogued for storage. Amongst the unremarkable, modern volumes was a small book of engravings. The only text included in the book is instructions from the bookbinder in German (“An den Buchbinder”), and nothing about the text gives much of an idea of its publication or provenance.

An afternoon with UCL’s conservators revealed some probable dates, as the book uses rag pulp paper so would likely have been produced before the widespread adoption of wood-pulp paper (circa 1837), and the binding has many 18th century features such as red bole edges and French Style laced boards, alongside some more recent elements. Already the book was looking to be much older than its shelf-mates.

Perhaps the most unique identifier at this stage was a watermark of the coat of arms of Bavaria, and a letter (M? W?) visible below it. The database of watermarks at Memory of Paper described a similar watermark on a music manuscript at Bayerische Staatsbibliothek but without any image available, the only option to verify the watermark was to contact the library directly and request one.

By some coincidence, the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek was conducting watermark research at the time and were kind enough to send an image, verifying that this was indeed by the same paper-maker: Matthias Weitenauer, active 1763-1773. However, as the final engraving is of Karl Theodor, who only became Elector in 1777, the book as a whole would have had to come together after Weitenauer’s presumed working period. So, other than the knowledge the book was not created before the paper it’s printed on, an exact date was still not forthcoming.

To get a more concrete date, the priority was to identify the engravers. 2 out of the 62 engravings were signed: Weissenhahn Sc[ulpsit], likely to be Georg Michael Weissenhahn (1741-1795) who engraved portraits in this period, although none of this book’s portraits seem to be discoverable online. It is likely that the other 3 engravings in a similar style are also by Weissenhahn, which left a mere 57 unaccounted for!

Searching for specific engravers of these very popular subjects is no mean feat, and it wasn’t until a Google Image matching search on the engraving of Carolus Crassus (“Charles the Fat”!) that the rest of the portraits could be reasonably ascertained to be by German 17th century engraver Wolfgang Kilian. Once identified, his engravings could be found in a number of works, including Excubiae Tutelares Serenissimi Principis Ferdinandi Mariae Francisci Ignatii VVolfgangi (Monachii : Leysser, 1637) and Ain und sechtzig Königen und Hertzogen auß Bayern Bildnussen (Munich : Johann Wagner, 1655). None of these also contained the Weissenhahn engravings, however.

An exhaustive search for both engravers, and a trawl through sales records of books finally led to the book itself: Geschichte von Baiern: (zum Gebrauch des gemeinen Bürgers, und der bürgerlichen Schulen) by Lorenz von Westenrieder, 1786. The instructions to the bookbinder appear to tally with the plates’ location in the text, and all plates from both engravers are accounted for. Again the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek is conspicuous as the only public institution holding another copy of the work.

The provenance of the book was also initially unclear – presented “by two old students to commemorate their association with the college” it seemed to give no indication of who these students actually were. Only by examining other books with the same label could the donors be discovered to be Adolf and Nellie Wohlgemuth, early 20th century psychology students at UCL (and Adolf, later, a lecturer).

To go from no information at all to knowing both the plates’ origin and the book’s most recent provenance feels like a huge achievement. Yet on some level the book remains a mystery. Why did this particular group of plates never reconcile with the text? How did Adolf Wohlgemuth, born in 1868, come across this 1786 volume? Maybe Wohlgemuth or his family only ever purchased the plates. Or perhaps a former owner decided to get text and plates bound separately, but if so the text volume has never been found at UCL.

 

Summer School a Success!

By Vicky A Price, on 15 August 2018

Last week saw UCL Special Collections hold its first Widening Participation Summer School. For four days, a group of twelve 17 year olds from in and around London explored archives, rare books and manuscripts here at UCL, guided by colleagues within Special Collections.

We had brilliant time, and were impressed with the students’ ability to link collection items to areas of their own knowledge and contextual understanding. We also spent a day at The National Archives, visiting their current exhibition, Suffragettes vs. The State, and discussing the notion of authenticity in relation to exhibition interpretation.  The participants then got to work researching collection items from UCL Special Collections, developing interpretation for a public exhibition on the final day.

You can see examples of their work in this video:

We would like to thank everyone at Library Services for accommodating the group, whether that be in the Science Library or the Institute of Education Library, and for Special Collections colleagues who offered their time and expertise.

Transparency can be tricky. Conserving UCL’s iconic buildings plans and drawings.

By Angela Warren-Thomas, on 29 June 2018

Written by Laurent Cruveillier on June 29, 2018

The College Plans, belonging to the Records Office Collections within UCL Special Collections, Archives and Records Department, are housed in part at the National Archives and in part at UCL. They are architectural plans and drawings of several landmarks of the UCL campus, such as the Cruciform, the Rockefeller Building of the “New” Chemistry building.

If most of these plans and drawings, dating from the end of the 19th and early 20th century are in stable condition, some show conservation pathologies that prevent their usage by students, scholars or the public, or would impede their handling for digitization and cataloguing purposes.

They present naturally occurring conditions in working documents, such as pin holes, folds, dirt and smudges, creases… but these objects are also often torn, cockled, warped, and bear historic repairs, many of which are made with pressure-sensitive adhesive tape that needs to be removed. Those conditions are worsened by the fact that most paper substrates are brittle, particularly the different kinds of tracing paper.

A conservation campaign was then launched to stabilize as many records as possible. The work started with surveying 485 items of the collection, and identifying the unstable ones.

The plans and drawings were prioritized according to their state and their relevance for the curators of the collection, and were treated according to a protocol aiming at stabilizing them with minimal intervention:

  • Setting of tears using wheat starch paste
  • Repairs and consolidation of regular paper objects using different thicknesses of remoistenable repair tissue prepared with wheat starch paste and methylcellulose.
    Some of the tissue was toned with black acrylic paint for the repairs over black media on the recto of objects.
  • Repair and consolidation of tracing paper using remoistenable tissue prepared with Isinglass: a fine protein adhesive prepared using swim bladders of sturgeon fishes.
  • Adhesive removal using poultices prepared with methylcellulose and ethanol, or heated spatulas and other solvents.
  • Structural infills
  • Photographic and written documentation:
    Condition and treatment records
  • Housing in polyester pockets.

These interventions were carried out by paper conservators at UCL Special Collections Conservation Department, and also involved the participation of UAL – Camberwell College MA Conservation intern students, who were given the opportunity to add working collection objects treatments to their portfolios while learning and practicing different techniques, such as preparing Isinglass, removing adhesives or repairing tracing paper.

Priority was given to stability for handli

ng purposes, also respecting the nature of each substrate. For instance, repairs on tracing paper were done with extremely thin tissues to avoid being visible by transparency. Due to their aesthetical value, some objects were nevertheless given extra care, with the usage of toned tissues for repairs and infills. One plan with a large lacuna even received an infill digitally produced to minimize the visual impact of interrupted lines.

In the images, one can see the detail of record Ref. Nº ROC 86, a drawing for a decorative swag of the Board Room in the Rockefeller building before and after conservation. It was extremely rewarding for the conservators to discover that the ornament was still in place. As recommended in writing on the May 1907 document, the sculptor hadn’t “adhered” exactly to the drawing, but his execution of the motif still allowed super-imposing the final result with architect J. Carmichael’s vision.

Gone but not forgotten: Fred Bearman, Preservation Librarian

By ucylgmf, on 27 January 2017

Fred Bearman obituary photo

The moving piece below was written jointly by Fred’s partner, Fred himself, and Tabitha Tuckett, and has been made available for us to share here, along with the image.

Fred Bearman (13 December 1949 – 11 December 2016)

Fred Bearman was a leading educator in rare books and archives who, in a remarkable career that spanned half a century, inspired generations of conservators, librarians, archivists, students and members of the public in the UK, across Europe, in the USA and beyond.

Born in 1949 in Essex, he began his career at the age of 16 as a trainee conservator at the Public Record Office in London (now The National Archives). Taking courses on day-release at Camberwell College Of Arts and the London College Of Printing, in addition to the in-house training programme, he soon became Senior Conservator. He was to work there for 26 years, for many of which he supervised the central London conservation studio, focusing on the conservation needs of The National Archives’ pre-1800 books.

Fred’s work involved some of the UK’s most iconic manuscripts: he was part of the team that rebound Captain Bligh’s log-book from HMS Bounty, not to mention the conservation of Magna Carta, and he was presented to HRH Queen Elizabeth II in recognition of his work on the Domesday Book for its 900th anniversary. He also began, at The National Archives, to demonstrate the skills as a leader and communicator that were to distinguish his later career: he devised a new conservation-training programme, and set up a survey of historic book-bindings and book-structures, the result of which was the establishment of a handling and preservation policy for The National Archives.

From 1990 Fred acted as Preservation Advisor to the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC. There he conserved the Folger’s renowned collection of Shakespeare’s first folios (all 92 of them), and catalogued many of the library’s fine bindings, work that culminated in his co-curating a significant exhibition and co-authoring its catalogue.

In 1992 he moved to the USA full-time as Head of Conservation and Collections Care at Columbia University Libraries, New York, where he took responsibility for conservation across all twenty-nine of the University’s libraries, and was also involved in a major conservation project of early bibles and the historic Hussite Gradual Hussitussite graduat Chelsea Theological Seminary, NY, as well as acting as consultant for Christie’s and many other organisations.

Returning to the UK in 1997, Fred Bearman became Director Of Conservation at Camberwell College Of Arts. As Course Director for BA and MA courses, his authoritative but warm and encouraging teaching style inspired a new generation of book conservators in the UK, as it had earlier at The National Archives and in the USA. He was to maintain his links with fresh intakes of Camberwell conservation students for the rest of his career.

It was during this period that Fred established the preservation programme for the library of the Monastery of Saint Catherine, Sinai, Egypt, the world’s oldest continuously operating library, work that Nicholas Pickwoad subsequently took on. Fred was also engaged as a preservation adviser to several EU-funded projects, including at Mekerere University Library and Archive Collections in Kampala, Uganda. There, in addition to giving advice, he provided on-site training for staff. Back in the UK, Fred maintained a serious commitment to supporting training in the profession, and became Assessor for the Professional Accreditation for Conservator-Restorers (PACR) of Icon, the Institute of Conservation.

He also maintained his work at the bench. From 2004 until 2006, he worked as Rare-Book Conservator in the Book & Paper Conservation Studio, Dundee University Library, treating material of great international significance that came into the studio from libraries, archives and private collections across the UK. Fred also worked with book conservator Lizzy Neville at her Kentish Town studio, acted as consultant on the Iveagh Bequest at English Heritage’s Kenwood House in London and for the library of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, and worked as Head Of Conservation at Shepherds in London, one of the oldest bookbinding companies in England.

In 2007 Fred moved to University College London as Preservation Librarian across the University’s many libraries. These included one of the foremost university collections of rare books, manuscripts and archives in the south of England, and Fred spent the rest of his life researching, teaching and writing on these historic collections, while managing the Library Services’ preservation and conservation needs. The latter included the move of over 600,000 rare items into temporary storage at The National Archives to facilitate building plans. This project illustrated Fred’s prodigious gifts as a natural leader and communicator: only he could have persuaded over 100 volunteers that wrapping seemingly endless quantities of books in archival paper – a requirement of the move – was both important and a privilege. And he did so with such fascinating insights into the unique historical collections being wrapped, and took such an interest in everyone working on the project, that it inspired career decisions and a love of rare books in many of those volunteers. It was while at UCL, close to his 65th birthday, that he was diagnosed with the cancer from which he died in December 2016.

Fred Bearman was both a naturally gifted public speaker and a superb teacher, having the ability to turn any apparently stuffy or arcane field into an exciting and accessible subject, whether lecturing for the National Archives in Washington, USA and the Bibliographical Society of the UK, or teaching early-profession conservation students at West Dean College and guiding undergraduates at UCL in their first ever encounter with a medieval book. His own outstanding achievements, combined with his refusal to be restricted by his dyslexia and partial deafness, inspired confidence in students and colleagues dealing with their own adversities.

Sometimes Fred compared teaching to performing. Indeed, in his youth he showed a remarkable ability as a performer of early dance, ranging with ease from the medieval period to the eighteenth century. As a young man he worked as a dancer for Nonesuch Dance Group and the Renaissance Dance Company, both associated with the early-music revival of the 1970s, and helped run workshops in early dance for schoolchildren in some of the most challenging inner-city schools under the auspices of the former Inner London Education Authority.

His skill in linking the historical context in which books were made with a professional’s understanding of their physical construction, together with having the courage to ask deceptively simple but entirely new questions, led to ground-breaking publications such as those on girdle books and chemise bindings, and on laced overbands and stationery bindings. He had a keen sense of wit, but also a remarkably down-to-earth ability to hit the proverbial scholarly nail on the head.

Fred had a great love of Classical music, stretching from Bach to the Romantics and beyond, with a particular passion for Beethoven. He was a keen gastronome, an ardent museum-goer, and a staunch socialist and trade unionist. His warmth and generosity in encouraging those around him to fulfil their own talents, while reminding them to enjoy every minute of it, will be sorely missed. He is survived by his partner of four decades, the modern-art historian and preeminent scholar of Abstract Expressionism, Dr. David Anfam.