Adventures with a giant pineapple

Yes, a giant pineapple.

 

Kew’s giant pineapple!

Yesterday was the latest of my trips to other libraries – this time to Kew Gardens’ Herbarium, Library, Art and Archives.  For non-botanists (ie me before yesterday) a herbarium is a collection of preserved plant specimens, and as expected Kew’s is one of the best.  The herbarium and the library are interconnected throughout the building, and it was fascinating to see the evolution of the organisation as reflected in the architecture – a little like my own library in that respect.

The 2010 extension, Wing E.

We were met at reception by Marc, this year’s library graduate trainee.  His tour was so comprehensive it would be impossible to do it all justice here, so I’ve whittled my notes down to a few highlights.

I seem to be stalking the Globe…

I should preface this visit write up with a disclaimer – I am a massive fan of the Globe, and know far too much about it, so I’m probably going to give you all far too much information about things that aren’t relevant. Apologies!

The weather was thankfully nice for our visit to Shakespeare’s Globe Library and Archives on April 23rd, Shakespeare’s birthday! We met in the newly opened foyer, sadly not early enough to sample the delights of the equally new café but there’s always time for that later in the season. I’m due back at the Globe at least once a month until October, so I’ve got lots and lots of opportunities to have a look at the shop and try all the food.

In which I do my tour guide impression (again)

Recently I was asked to give a tour to my counterparts from the Cambridge and Anglia Ruskin libraries.  It was a bit nerve wracking, to be honest, because I completely forgot my summer’s worth of experience in tour giving, and that was for children so I’m not exactly sure that it would be useful.  Although I have found myself using the tour guide voice on occasion, so something stuck!

They were a lovely bunch, very tired from all the walking they’d been doing – we were their last stop on a busy day – and I really did enjoy showing them round.  It forced me to really look at the library again, and think about how far I’d come since I started.  Since we’re spread out over a few buildings, and everything was built at different times, it’s a very strange library to navigate.  Once you’ve got the basics down you’re alright, but people have a tendency to turn a corner and get completely lost. (For some bizarre reason, that never happened to me, but apparently I have inherited my dad’s completely spooky sense of direction, so.)

It was also nice to see people reacting to the library.  We have a number of “ooo” moments, from taking people out onto the very grand main staircase, showing them the fancy art room, and especially bringing them out onto the grille floors of the back stacks, where you can see right down to the basement through the floor.  We’ve got some lovely photos of us here and the third and fourth images give you some idea of what I mean.

As a result of the tour, and after some fab feedback from one of the trainees (thanks, if you ever read this!) I have since been asked to take over some of the public tours we run once a month.  

(One of the trainees wrote up the visit here and the library seemed to do its usual job of both impressing and confusing visitors!)  I’m not sure when this will be starting, or how many I’ll do, but I’m really flattered to be asked!  It also means that I’ll be getting a couple of hours of TOIL every month, so yay for slightly longer weekends! On a slightly related note, I have 8 hours of TOIL to take now, I should probably get on that… 

 

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

There’s a choice that’s been running through my mind ever since I decided to go for the MA at UCL – full time or part time?  Both have their advantages (and their dedicated advocates), and both could have suited me, said I a few months ago.

After much deliberation (there were lists.  Many, many lists) I applied for the full time. I wanted the full postgrad experience, I wanted to dedicate my waking hours to one thing and one thing only, and even during the hours of the part time job I knew I’d have to get I still wanted to be defined as a postgrad,  wanted to not do the sensible thing for once in my life. I thought I had the funds, and there was a chance that it would work out and I could just go for it.

That sort of attitude would have been perfectly fine, admirable even, a few years ago, when funding was plentiful and rents in London only cost an arm and a leg, not your liver and spleen as well (a slightly tipsy comment on the price of cocktails from a friend of mine, which I am determined to adopt for my very own.  I like the word spleen.).  But nowdays it’s just not feasible, as the AHRC has given out their last lot of funding and postgrads flood the charity sector looking for help.

And until recently, I still would have been able to manage it. It would have been hard, and tiring, and I’d still have had to have found a full time-ish job after the teaching terms ended, but I could have done it.

Unfortunately, life got in the way, and some things changed for me.  So I’ve had to make a choice.  My options were to cripple myself with debt and work a full time job while doing a full time MA, or do the sensible thing and throw myself onto UCL’s mercy and attempt to go part time so I can actually find time to sleep.  Sort of a no brainer, put like that!

Thankfully, the wonderful people at UCL were able to help, and hopefully I’ll be offered a place on the part time MA.

It’s not how I wanted to do this, I was very much looking forward to graduating next year and getting myself into a professional post in a speedy fashion (ahh, optimism.), but I think it’ll work out for the best.  I’ll be able to afford to eat, for one thing, and I’m rather fond of sleeping.  Plus I’ll hopefully be able to take what I learn on the course and apply it at work, and vice versa (one from my lists!).

This is all a rather fatalistic view of things, I know, but the situation in London is a little more dire than the rest of the country due to the stupid rents, which not only impact me next year but also mean I can’t build up my savings this year.  In fact, that would be one top tip I’d give to new grad trainees, or anyone thinking of doing the MA or the MSc in the future – SAVE YOUR MONEY.

Anyway.  The moral here is be very prepared, and then prepare some more, London is expensive, and the people at UCL are a particularly awesome brand of wonderful.

Graduate trainees on tour

We’ve started our round of visits to other libraries with an absolute cracker, the House of Commons Library.  Here follows my write up!

Our tour started in Portcullis House, over the road from the Houses of Parliament, where we were met by Dora Clark, Head of Reference Services for the House of Commons Library.  Portcullis House is a lot nicer than it looks from the outside, with a glass roof, trees and water features, and a very nice looking café that visitors can’t use. Shame. Clearly I will have to try to work there someday, I saw some very nice looking cake. (I may make career decisions based on the availability of cake. It’s as valid a criteria as any!)

Dora pointed out the Member Centre, which her department runs in conjunction with IT services.  It’s a quick reference stop for Members and their staff, and as it’s right next to the main part of Portcullis House it gets used quite a lot as Members go between briefings and meetings in the rooms further up the building.  She also explained that only a small part of the staff are based in the library proper – some work in the Member’s Centre, and others work in Derby Gate, opposite the Treasury. They employ over 100 people altogether, including the team of huge team of subject specialists and researchers.

Date stamps and papercuts

I’m back from my week off! And, in a stunning turn of events, about to start a five day weekend.  One of the (many) benefits of working in a private institution is that we shut for every bank holiday, so I get the odd day off at semi regular intervals.  It’s a perk.

This post will actually live up to the entire blog’s name, which I must admit I was not expecting! At the beginning of the week, when I was going searching for some missing books, I managed to slice my finger open on the missing book list. I managed not to bleed on any of the shelves, but it was a challenge. (If you think that’s impressive, I also once tore my knuckle on the lid of an ink pad. I’m still not sure how I managed that.)  So I’ve spent the rest of the week wondering how paper can be so deadly. And why the missing book list hates me so much.

We go looking for missing books every day.  We have a monthly list that grows by an average of three to five books going walkies per day, and at the end of the month the list is transferred to cards, which are added to the motherload of missing book cards.  It’s a few inches thick.  When we’re really quiet, some brave soul will take the whole pack and disappear into the stacks.  They usually return.  We do have one member of staff who can make books that have been missing for years suddenly turn up – I suspect sorcery.  It’s one of the downsides of a library that never weeds, we can have books that went missing decades ago after being mis-shelved, and we’ll only find out when someone wants it.

In a moment of utter excitement, which soon died, we got new date stamps this week.  Our previous set up was the standard (I imagine) date stamp and ink pad routine.  We now have super shiny self inking date stamps (The COLOP 2100/4, to be precise. Yes, I looked it up. I’m training to be a librarian, details are important!), and they are large and make a loud/pleasingly clunky noise when you stamp.

I did think this would solve my ongoing problem where I return home after work to find I’ve stained at least six fingers with ink. but seeing as today I somehow managed to stick two fingers on the mostly concealed inkpad, I’m beginning to think there isn’t a date stamp in the world that won’t get me somehow.

Unfortunately, after much testing, we’ve found that they don’t really fit in our smaller books, and we’re still trying to get used to aiming with them.  Obviously it’s not a huge difference, but it does change things on the Circulation Desk! 

I’m also getting into the swing of the blogging malarkey, not that you’d notice.  I have a few blog post ideas lined up, including a write up of my recent foreign cataloging session, as well as write ups of some of the library visits coming up in April. (Spoiler – there is an ever increasing chance that I could get to see the Globe library and Archive. As in Shakespeare’s Globe. I am resisting the urge to scream a lot.)  So hopefully soon there will be a good mix of reflective posts and more chatty ones like this!

Thoughts on Folios

As part of my graduate traineeship the library has been putting on sessions with the other departments, and this week we met with the Preservation department. It was a really interesting session in terms of content, learning about the library’s policies and strategic thinking on preservation issues.  It was also incredibly exciting, in a kid in a sweet shop way.

The HoD had brought out different examples of bindings to show us – vellum, cloth, even some wood – and at one point she plonked a book down in front of me and said ‘And this is our Fourth Folio’, at which point I screamed internally.  My coworkers are very well aware of my Shakespeare feelings, so they were all looking for my reaction – I looked very excited, apparently, and I am only grateful I didn’t hyperventilate.

It was a Fourth Folio! Right in front of me! I could have hidden it under my cardigan and taken it home! (Which I would of course never do, being a responsible future librarian.  Plus my home is not really ideal for storing paperbacks, never mind the slightly controversial edition of the Bard’s works.)

The library also holds, amongst other things, a first edition Erasmus, an edition of Chaucer that was hand bound and hand chased by William Morris, lots and lots of books that have shrapnel damage after the library was hit during WWII, and a first edition of Henry VIII’s rebuttal of Luther that earned him the title ‘Defender of the Faith’, which came out and was bound while Henry was married to Catherine of Aragon .  Like I said, incredibly exciting.

We also spent some time in the Preservation Studio, with the conservator showing us bits and pieces.  The library does as many in-house repairs as possible, so it’s an amazing space to be in, especially for the crafts-minded.  I will admit to having a soft spot for cutting and sticking, and some of the work is a very grown up version, with very specific non damaging tools.

The session did not help with my inability to pick a field to persue.  After spending the afternoon around books, old books with history and stories beyond the text they contain, after seeing them stripped down and rebuilt and cared for so lovingly, how could I want to do anything else?

And yet… A part of me has to be practical.  Rare book jobs are few and far between, especially nowadays.  And digital resources are a massive growth area, so I’ve still got time to ride the wave and run into loads of awesome opportunities on the way.

So I guess, like a lot of things in life, that it’s going to be a balancing act.  Finding a job role that allows me to grow, and to improve, that lets me live in London and not subsist on instant noodles and toast, but also one that lets me get back to the very core of the profession, beautiful wonderful books.  And maybe I’ll win the job lottery and find a job that will let me loose on the rare books sometimes!

Let’s get this party started…

I’ve got a bit of a funny relationship with blogs.  Having devoured blog after blog while researching librarianship as a career path, and again when applying for my librarianship MA, you think I’d be gung ho about the whole thing, but somehow whenever I try to contribute there’s a disconnect between my brain and my hands, which suddenly refuse to type.  But this time, I am determined to persevere.  Who knows, maybe an aspiring baby librarian might one day find this all useful?

An introduction might be in order here.  My name is Sarah, and I’m currently working as a graduate trainee in a subscription library in London.  It’s a fascinating place to work, very different to anything I’ve ever experienced!  Come autumn I’ll be a ragged student again, working for my Library and Information Science MA (I am enjoying a regular paycheck while it lasts!), and after that?  I honestly can’t say.

Every time I learn about a new aspect of ‘being a librarian’ (a ridiculously varied term, in my opinion) I want to do that, and only that, for the rest of my career.  Which is slightly dangerous, because a month ago I swore I wanted to be an academic librarian, then last week I decided cataloguing was my only love, and until about lunchtime today I was certain I wanted to work in rare books.  But I figure that now is the time to be so indecisive, so I’m going to enjoy this while it lasts!  (This will probably last until my housemates get sick of me wittering on and on about my new-found ultimate forever this time career goal.)  I’m also pretty sure that being this enthusiastic about everything is a sign that I’m in the right discipline, which is a bonus!

This here blog is partly a way for me to communicate with the wider online community (and to wrench me out of my lurking state!), partly a place to get my thoughts in order about what I want to do, and partly documentation so that I can look back later and see just how far I’ve (hopefully) come.

So let’s just wait and see!