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Newsletter for UCL Library Services
By Debs M Furness, on 8 June 2016
We’ve decided this newsletter needs a new name, as we’ve been “Library Newsletter” for far too long now!
So we’ve scratched our heads and come up with this shortlist:
We’d like to know your thoughts so you can email us at library@ucl.ac.uk or take part in our Twitter poll at @UCLLibraries.
Happy voting!
By ucylr22, on 6 June 2016
We’re always happy to hear your feedback on our services, as well as suggestions for improvement, and over the last few years we’ve made some changes based on your comments and requests:-
You asked us to keep libraries open all night every night, and since Easter, the Main and Science libraries and the Cruciform Hub haven’t closed.
You asked us to create more study spaces so we now have the Senate House Hub which provides 144 learning spaces, including study rooms for individual use, collaborative work rooms, and rooms with sofas equipped with PC and AV. Since 2014 the Cruciform Hub has provided over several hundred study spaces with power and Wi-Fi access as well as rooms for teaching and computer work. Other works include:-
LASS refurbishment and installation of new desks – 10 spaces
We were asked for special areas dedicated to postgraduate study and research so we gained some temporary space in Main Library until the Research Grid opened in the Science Library earlier this year with 74 seats equipped with many features requested by graduate students during consultation at the design stage. We also manage the Graduate Hub with 51 spaces behind the Print Room Cafe as well as liasing with UCL ISD on increasing capacity in the Postgraduate Cluster in the Science Library.
Another burning issue is the lack of toilet facilities, as evidenced in this e-mail complaint:-
“I am writing to you as a UCL graduate student who is spending countless hours in the main library. The fact that it is open for 24 hours is amazing, as well as the number of study spaces and other services. The main problem is however the sheer lack of toilets.”
So, as part of a UCL Estates programme to improve toilet facilities, we will be inaugurating the first gents toilets (ever) and increasing provision for female toilets in the UCL Main Library. We will refurbish the toilets in the Science Library as well, and all of this will be done for the new academic year in October 2016.
Looking further ahead, we look forward to the opening of the New Student Centre with 1,000 extra study spaces and showers (and plentiful toilet provision) in 2018-19.
By ucylr22, on 6 June 2016
Angela Young, Information Skills Trainer at the Royal Free Hospital Medical Library, was one of twenty four inspirational women from across UCL selected to feature in an exhibition to mark International Women’s Day 2016, Women at UCL: Presence and Absence. Angela was nominated by colleagues who have been inspired by her innovative approach to designing and delivering information skills training, including leading innovation sharing events across UCL Library Services, by the passion she has for her work, the support and mentoring she provides to staff members, and by her demonstration that it is possible to have both a successful career and a family life by working flexibly to achieve her goals.
Three additional colleagues were nominated for how they have inspired their colleagues and are also profiled in the booklet:
Rachel Nelligan, Customer Service Manager Main Library and Wilkins Building, was nominated for her managerial skills, exhibiting care, encouragement and support towards colleagues.
Breege Whiten, Acting Central Customer Services Manager, was nominated for her role as a supportive and inspirational manager and for being a role model, always striving to improve services and encouraging staff to develop their skills and career.
Nazlin Bhimani, Research Support and Special Collections Librarian at the UCL IOE Library was nominated for her innovation and her infectious passion for using emerging technologies to promote historical collections and placing them in the research arena. Nazlin also recently received a Provost’s Teaching Award, as well as being nominated in the Outstanding Researcher Development category of the Student Choice Teaching Awards.
Fran, Robbie, Sharon, Simon, Breege, Makeba, Nadia, Max and Gillian are all members of our LASS Library Team and they were also nominated in the Student Choice Teaching Awards in two categories, Outstanding Support for Teaching and Outstanding Personal Support. We are particularly pleased about these endorsements because the SCTA initiative is student led and comprises solely of the opinions of the students themselves.
Benjamin Meunier, Assistant Director (Public Services), Kate Cheney, Head of Site Library Services & Bernard Scaife, Librarian, Institute of Education
By ucylr22, on 6 June 2016
I am delighted to report that the UCL Library Services Leadership Team has been shortlisted for the prestigious Times Higher Education Leadership and Management Awards 2016, for demonstrating best practice during the 2014-15 academic year.
The Outstanding Library Team award recognizes outstanding work in library and information-services departments. The fact that UCL Library Services is recognized by being shortlisted is a great tribute to the work of the Leadership Team, whose role it is to oversee the preparation, communication, delivery and maintenance of the UCL Library Services Strategy. More broadly, it is an accolade at a national level for the tremendous work of all Library Services staff in delivering the strategy and meeting the challenges of providing high-quality information services in a research-based university of the size of UCL.
To be shortlisted for a THELMA is already a significant achievement. Congratulations to all involved in securing this recognition for our outstanding work as a department. The awards ceremony is due to be held on 23 June.
Benjamin Meunier, Assistant Director, Public Services
By ucylr22, on 6 June 2016
I am an E-Resources Librarian, part of the team that looks after UCL’s access to e-journals, e-books and databases. Managing the huge range of e-resources that UCL Library Services provides access to is really interesting – there are always new developments to get to grips with! I have been working in libraries since 2002, in universities but also in government departments and a Magic Circle law firm.
My main responsibility is UCL’s growing collection of e-books – working with subject librarians to expand and develop the collection; making sure the e-books can be found in Explore and through SFX@UCL; looking at usage and other statistics to see where we need to increase e-book coverage; and evaluating different purchase models and e-book websites.
UCL’s usage of e-books more than doubled in 2014-15 compared to 2013-14 and 2015-16 looks set to be even higher. I look after the day-to-day running of the various E-books on demand@ucl projects and it is exciting to see how popular these have been – for example, between September 2015 and April 2016 there were nearly 140,000 chapter accesses through our Cambridge University Press evidence-based acquisition project.
There are two other E-Resources Librarians: Mike Jones who looks after e-journals and Sarah Gilmore who looks after databases. We are more than ably supported by two Senior E-Resource Assistants, Anun Rodriguez and Mark Kluzek. If you have any questions or problems relating to e-resources, you can contact us using our online form.
Anna Sansome, E-Resources Librarian
By ucylr22, on 6 June 2016
Institute of Archaeology Borrowing Ledger 1944–1947 (Photo UCL Institute of Archaeology)
Founded in 1937 as part of Mortimer Wheeler’s ground-breaking institution for the practical training of archaeologists, the UCL Institute of Archaeology Library is one of the foremost libraries for Archaeology and Cultural Heritage in the world. In 1986, following the merger of the Institute with UCL, the Institute of Archaeology Library became part of UCL Library Services.
Although the history of Archaeology is a vibrant area of research, little attention has been paid to libraries, which played a key role in the development of the subject and its community from its earliest days. Surviving letters and documents in the Institute Library Archives, Annual Reports and the Institute’s Management Committee Minutes allow the rich and varied history of the Institute’s library to be reconstructed in fascinating detail.
Histories of Archaeology tend to focus on famous academics, but here we have rare glimpses of the ‘hidden’ agents also fundamental: booksellers, publishers, librarians, curators, administrators and even students. They spring to vivid life: exchanging, buying, and stealing books, teasing, grumbling, squabbling and sharing news, grieving for friends; immediate and accessible in their emotions and actions. Pride of place must go to the four formidable women who built the library into an international institution: Dame Kathleen Kenyon (1906-1978); Joan Du Plat Taylor (1906–1983); Geraldine (Gerry) Talbot (1908–2000) and Heather Bell (1920–). Kenyon and Taylor were both also highly influential archaeologists, Taylor famously establishing the pioneering discipline of Underwater Archaeology from the Library Office.
For more about the Library’s history and colourful characters, including Colonel Browne, its first librarian, adept party fund-raiser and lover of Kipling’s poetry, see the full online article in Archaeology International 18 (2015): ‘The Institute of Archaeology Library 1937–1986: Collections, Communities and Networks’.
Katie Meheux, Acting Librarian, UCL Institute of Archaeology Library.
By ucylr22, on 6 June 2016
Queen Square Library ‘s recent exhibition: A Letter in Mind was a unique art event with all proceeds going to the National Brain Appeal, which is a charity dedicated to raising vital funds for The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queen Square, London. Since the charity began in 1984 they have raised over £40m for state-of-the-art equipment, major building programmes and life-saving research. The exhibition showcased 30 anonymous works, including those by high profile artists and celebrities and the full gallery of works is still available. Exhibitions are held in Queen Square Library, 1st Floor, 23 Queen Square until June 2016, and the next one will be Manhandling the brain: Psychiatric neurosurgery in the mid-20th century.
By ucylr22, on 6 June 2016
One of the many key roles of a Subject Liaison Librarian is collection development. In Art, this involves being on the ball as things are often published in small editions and go out of print very quickly. I was therefore pleased to get my hands on a copy of this new reconceptualisation of Marcel Duchamp’s legendary book-object Boîte-en-valise.
Duchamp devised his ‘box in a suitcase’ in the years leading up to WW2 so that he could easily transport his ‘complete works’ at any time. This miniature museum has become one of the most important and enigmatic pieces of modernist art and will serve as contextual material for the many critical texts we have on Duchamp, one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. It is a very lovely thing indeed.
Elizabeth Lawes, Subject Liaison Librarian for Fine Art, History of Art & Film Studies
By ucylr22, on 6 June 2016
As part of the Connected Curriculum, UCL Geography students have the opportunity to research and write about objects from UCL Special Collections. Last year, one student, Gabriel Pogrund, selected some items from the vast Gaster Archive, the papers of Rabbi Dr Moses Gaster (1856-1939), an important Jewish and Zionist leader and scholar.
Gabriel went on to present a session with Hebrew & Jewish Studies Librarian Vanessa Freedman at the Limmud Conference – a festival of Jewish learning and culture that takes place every December. He came up with the inventive idea of using ten objects to illustrate the many facets of Gaster’s long life and work. For the conference we had to make do with digitised images, but we gave the talk again here at UCL, with the original objects on display.
We chose a range of objects, including a commemorative coin, a pin, a photograph, a menu, a visiting card, some letters, and a book review. The UCL talk proved popular, and the room was packed with academic and library staff, students and members of the public, and feedback was very positive. This is just one example of how we use our rich and varied Special Collections as a resource for both teaching and public engagement.
You can see some objects from the Gaster archive in our Digital Gallery. If you would like to discuss using any of our material in your teaching, research or for public engagement activities, then contact our Rare Books Librarian.
By ucylr22, on 6 June 2016
Last term saw Special Collections being used extensively in projects pursuing the Provost’s Connected Curriculum initiative aimed at introducing taught-course students to learning through research. Related public events included ‘The Life Of Moses Gaster In 10 Objects’, a joint student-librarian presentation, described elsewhere in this newsletter, on the fascinating Anglo-Jewish Gaster Archive.
Small Press Project Exhibition North Lodge
Other Connected Curriculum projects involving the collections included one at the Slade School of Fine Art’s Small Press Project, for which staff and students produced their own work based on Special Collections’ rare C20th Small Press and Little Magazines Collections. Thanks to the hard work of Liz Lawes, the Librarian who curates these collections, Sarah Pickering (Slade Teaching Fellow in Photography), and Lesley Sharpe (Slade Teaching Fellow in Print) the project culminated in a conference exhibiting both Slade and Special Collections’ works side by side. The event was attended by artists and academics from art colleges across London and beyond. Items displayed from our collections included work by Andy Warhol and an early piece of student writing by Angela Carter. We even got to meet a relative of a founding contributor to one of the key titles in the collection. In partnership with UCL Museums & Collections Liz Lawes was also involved in a project with MA Museum Studies students which involved them writing a report on Blast magazine as a result of their object-based study for the Collections Curatorship module.
We were proud to note that UCL’s Teaching And Learning Conference over the Spring break included four talks by academic staff on Special Collections’ collaborations for the Connected Curriculum initiative: From Codex To Kindle, a module for languages students exploring the nature of the book inspired by a wide range of Special Collections specimens, after which some students went on to volunteer with Special Collections to prepare exhibitions on this theme for the UCL Senate House Hub; a module for Scandinavian Studies using photographs, letters and other archival material from Special Collections as a basis for language-based projects; a course on Fin de Siècle and criminology history, for which students wrote a thoughtful blog after studying Special Collections items from the collections of Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton (some of which were digitised for a Wellcome Library project); and the BASc’s object-based learning module, for which students presented online exhibitions based on their research on individual items from the collections. Many thanks to all the Special Collections team for the hard work it takes to make these and the term’s other teaching collaborations successful.
Other events included contributions to talks at the Courtauld Institute’s exhibition of Botticelli’s Dante drawings (we hold a copy of the 1481 printed edition of the Divina Commedia with Botticelli’s illustrations) and a research workshop with a London Library staff member on Dante incunabula, following last year’s highly successful four-day festival celebrating the 750th anniversary of Dante’s birth.
For the summer term we have an exciting programme of free events and exhibitions open to the public, as well as planned contributions to exhibitions at London’s Globe Theatre and in Barcelona and Aragon in Spain. If you would like to see some of our collections up close, try choosing from the list below.
Wednesday 11 May, 1-2pm, Rock Room, Room 4, 1st floor corridor, South Wing, UCL, Gower St, WC1E 6BT. Drop in.
Wednesday 25 May, 1-4pm, Art Museum, Main Building, UCL, Gower St, WC1E 6BT. Drop in.
Friday 27 May, 1-4pm, Art Museum, Main Building, UCL, Gower St, WC1E 6BT. Drop in.
Dictionaries, forgeries and school aids marking the Shakespeare400 anniversary of 2016.
Main Library, UCL Gower Street, London, until 15 December 2016
Examples of the range of Special Collections’ medical material, from the first illustration of a leg amputation through Vesalius’ ground-breaking Renaissance anatomy textbook to more recent cartoons
UCL Cruciform Hub, Gower Street, London. Permanent.
Research-based projects put together by students volunteering with UCL Special Collections, illustrating their tools, techniques, and thoughts on using rare books and archives alongside digitised and e-books.
UCL Senate House Hub, 3rd floor Senate House, Malet Street, London, from 23 May 2016 (access to UCL staff and students only)
Dr. Tabitha Tuckett, Rare-Books Librarian
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