Seventeenth Century Benefactors Books

One of the things I love most about teaching is the opportunity to engage with subject areas that neighbour my own research interests.

In recent years I’ve been fortunate to supervise dissertations by several students working in Oxford and, in supporting the development of their research, to gain a deeper awareness of some of the libraries in the university system there.

One of these dissertations was further developed into an article. The Bodleian’s Binders’ Book is just one of the many manuscript resources that record library practices in the Early Modern period. Such manuscripts have local interest within the city but an obvious significance in library history more widely.

Tonight’s library history seminar discussed another group of library records – the benefactors’ books maintained by most of the colleges from the early 17th century. The speaker, Dr William Poole ( New College), provided an introduction to these sources, which he sees as useful in connecting the history of intellectual ideas and the history of the book. He provided us with examples in which we can trace the vernacularization of scholarship; the shift from manuscripts donated as working documents to their donation as antiquarian objects (e.g. Books of Hours donated after the Reformation); the specialisation of particular college collections (e.g. Plant Science at Magdalen); and, from the 1630s, when the Anatomy School Museum was founded, the separation of non-book collections from books in libraries.

The influence of Bodley can be seen: the Bodleian benefactors book was begun in 1602 and displayed prominently, with clear instructions on whose names would be entered in it and whose would not. In 1604-5 All Souls’s benefactors book was begun. Bodley himself was influenced by practices at Leiden, a model for various practices at the university at that time.

The seminar demonstrated how provenance information can be of local significance while exemplifying techniques with wider application. The organisers recorded Dr Poole’s paper, and so I hope it will be available as a podcast soon – certainly it will be useful for Historical Bibliography students as an example of how provenance research techniques can be used by scholars.

If you could not make the seminar and are looking for resources on this topic, ahead of the podcast’s becoming available, here are some listed on Dr Poole’s handout:

Jonathan Bengston. ‘Benefaction Registers in Oxford Colleges’. Library History 16 (2000), pp. 143-52.

Arthur MacGregor et al. Manuscript Catalogues of the Early Museum Collection, 1683-1886. (Oxford, 2000-2006).

Paul Morgan. Oxford Libraries Outside the Bodleian. 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1980).

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Image: bookshelf at Christ Church, Oxford, taken on a visit during last year’s Rare Books and Special Collections Group Conference.

“Good Feeling and Brotherliness”: the Society of Public Librarians

Earlier this week Dr Michelle Johansen gave a seminar for the Institute of Historical Research on the leisure activities of the Society of Public Librarians, based on its archive at the Bishopsgate Institute.

Too much information was shared in the two hour session to be represented fully in a short blog post, so what follows represents only a few of the things that struck me. I’m interested in the topic because I’ve been looking into the old Library Association exams, and, as one of the main organisations that functioned outside the LA in its early years, I was interested to hear Dr Johansen’s findings.

In the course of its 35-year existence (1895-1930) the Society included over twenty chief librarians working in London libraries and living across the city, mostly in its suburbs. Most members remained active for 5-20 years, and most had been born in London and then trained on-the-job in libraries outside the capital. (The complex history of establishment of free, rate-assisted libraries in London meant that while the Libraries Act 1850 led quite quickly to public libraries’ being established across the country, in the capital public libraries as we would recognise them today did not come into existence until the 1880s).

The men who formed the society were, as Dr Johansen put it, “simultaneous producers and consumers of leisure activities,” arranging lecture series and classes, book groups and salons, often staying on the premises late into the evening to support these activities. As a result of this, “the line between public and private” and between work and leisure is hard to draw. Dr Johansen also made the point that whereas for many people and groups of people, the home was the locus for leisure, for these men their workplace was the centre of their activities outside of work.

Of course, we are tracking their activities via the Society’s archives, so we have to remember that they may have also taken part in other common activities, such as attending the theatres, music halls and, later, the cinemas, been interested in sports and / or taken part in other social events in their local area, such as those centred around churches.

However, based on the evidence of the SPL archive and the length of time that members stayed in the society, it is safe to conclude that they were men who enjoyed what Dr Johansen termed “rational recreation.” There were three regular fixtures on the SPL social calendar: the Summer Outing; Winter Social and Annual Dinner. These involved a mixture of society business and social activities, and the archive contains group pictures of the librarians, their wives and families.

So, what were society members like?

Future Skills and Future Roles

As a professional discipline, it’s vital that Information Studies syllabi are in touch with practice. I’m really thrilled, therefore, to be attending my first ever Umbrella conference, and delivering a paper in its stream on “Future Skills and Future Roles.”

I’m looking forward to seeing the other papers that have been accepted in this stream (and, before then, to the uklibchat session at Library Camp London on ‘Design Your Own Library and Information Qualification‘). For now, here’s the abstract of my paper, which will be published in the proceedings (Facet, 2013):

Taking up the theme of ‘standards and qualifications that society can trust,’ this paper explores the role of practitioners in the education of the next generation of information professionals.

After a brief review of alternative models of praxis in LIS qualifications, including the old Library Association exams and the US model of library schools based alongside university libraries, the impact of communities of practice on career entrants is explored.  The extent to which information professionals are involved in the MA LIS is highlighted; the roles they play as guest lecturers, sessional lecturers and external examiners; and the influence they exert as employers of newly qualified librarians.

Finally, this paper argues that when we talk about ‘knowledge transfer’ and ‘links between research and practice,’ information should flow in both directions: from academe to practitioners and vice versa. It is asserted that the aim should be a virtuous circle of professional education that evolves to meet current and future information service needs. In this model, practitioners identify research issues; academics conduct research (ideally collaboratively with colleagues in practice); research-led teaching at Masters level encourages new professionals to focus on real-world issues in the application of their research skills; new professionals become research-engaged practitioners who identify research issues; and repeat ad infinitum.

With new international cataloguing code Resource Description and Acccess (RDA) being implemented, a brief case study from UK cataloguing is presented, and ways in which practitioners and academics are working together to create new knowledge are demonstrated.

At the conference itself, I’ll present a shorter version, highlighting how practitioners are and can be involved in the delivery and evolution of the MA LIS.