I was all set to blog about the Librarian’s Last Tuesday, but my lunchtime discovery makes all that stuff about library owl mascots and jazz CDs seem rather trivial!
There I sat, half-heartedly eating my sushi, when it occurred to me that I hadn’t yet looked to see if my forthcoming book is advertised on the publisher’s website yet. I practically dropped the sushi in surprise (it wasn’t Boots’s best effort) when…
There was my book looking at me! It’s the first time I’ve seen the title on the cover that I chose a few weeks ago.
I haven’t even seen the proofs yet, and I’m still indexing it, but it’s really exciting to see its outward appearance.
Okay, it was the Performing Arts Librarian’s Last Tuesday. But it was also the last Tuesday before I cease to be a partially-seconded researcher. In eight days I’ll be a part-time Post Doctoral Research Fellow. Still indexing the forthcoming monograph!
Was it because I enjoyed, The Premonition, by Banana Yoshimoto? Or does Audible (Amazon) somehow know I’m a librarian? I don’t buy books on librarianship…
In any case, it’s not surprising that when this title came up as a new suggestion, I’d be drawn to it! Haven’t I spent 42 years hoping people would find what they were looking for in the library?
It’s an interesting idea: a series of individuals are drawn to visit a community library. It’s staffed by a nervous but friendly trainee and a mysterious, large, middle-aged former special-needs teacher turned librarian (with a penchant for Japanese honey dome cookies, and a felting obsession). We encounter each library visitor at a crisis point in their lives. A girl wanting a more challenging job; a woman demoted during maternity leave; a man dissatisfied with his work; an unemployed artist; and a newly-retired man each consult the librarian for book recommendations, receiving a couple of perfect choices, and an apparently random children’s book, along with a bonus gift.
In each case, the random book and felted object help them to realise three truths: that there is always more than one way of looking at a situation; there are always other choices of direction; and that everyone draws their own message from any particular book.
Whilst the characters seem unlinked apart from these common threads, the final chapter does gather them together loosely. It’s a gentle, thoughtful, sequential book rather than one with a grand denouement.
As such, the reader is left feeling less that it all came together in the end, than that each character had found a way to resolve something that had been troubling them. Less of a ‘Wow!’, more of a quietly satisfied, ‘Yes, I enjoyed that.’
Aoyama’s choice of characters is ingenious. The librarian and her trainee are deftly and likeably characterised as a bit oddball, but happy in their environment, whilst their searching patrons – all new library users – are defined in such a way that the reader is sure to relate to some aspect of their collective predicaments.
And the three truths that I mentioned? Well, as I said, the third was that everyone takes their own message from a book. You’ll have to read it!
In the closing pages of my second monograph (currently at the publishers, pending approval of the revisions and then copy-editing), I comment on the changing approaches to folk music in the late 1950s and 60s. So, when a colleague presented me with a pile of music which used to be in the library, but needed recataloguing (don’t ask!), my immediate reaction to this book was, ‘Aha, see, I was right. Look how different this is to Mozart Allan, James Kerr’s and Bayley & Ferguson’s folk song collections!’
As a scholar, I smiled with satisfaction as I noted that even the COVER of Folk Sing: A Handbook for Pickers and Singers was more modern – huge white letters on a half-black, half-red background. As for ‘pickers and singers’: well, we didn’t have ‘pickers’ in any of the dozens of Scottish publications that I’ve been writing about! Guitar/accordion chords as an addition, assuredly, but not usually melody, chords and no keyboard line. And as for the term, ‘pickers’? No. A more savvy friend informs me that the book came at the end of the skiffle revival, which according to Oxford Music Online was particularly strong in the UK:-
“While the skiffle revival of the 1950s embraced the USA and Germany, it gained most ground in Great Britain. […] Donegan and his imitators enjoyed considerable popularity until about 1959, when skiffle gave way, both in the USA and Europe, to ‘beat’ music and to rock and roll.”
This song book was published in New York by Hollis Music in 1959, but distributed by Essex Music (4 Denmark Street) in London, and this particular copy was actually sold from a shop in Aberdeen. Notwithstanding this, it mainly contains American repertoire with just a few British songs and a single French one for good measure.
I examined it inside-out and backwards, observing contentedly that they indicated the names of the composer/arranger/lyricist above each song, along with which publishers owned the original copyright.
Then I sighed. This morning I had noted with pleasure that already this month, I’ve submitted a revised manuscript for my book, written a librarianship-ish article and two musicology abstracts, done a peer-review and a radio interview, with a research talk coming up to round off the month. That was my research-self.
But what I was supposed to be doing now, was cataloguing this anthology, not studying it.
‘Recataloguing’ means that I have already catalogued the book at some stage in the past … yawn!
The librarian part of me spent half this afternoon re-cataloguing it and copy-typing 150+ song titles from the contents list. It’s certainly useful – it means people will be able to find the songs – but it’s not nearly as rewarding!
I’m a Librarian and a Postdoctoral Researcher. (My secret skill is, basically, finding things!) I’ve just finished writing my second book – and I guess I’m lucky. I wasn’t dependent on the British Library. It’s too far away for me to visit more than infrequently.
I keep coming across social media comments that “the British Library is doing nothing.” That they’re not taking the situation seriously. That “nobody knows what’s happening.” I don’t work at the British Library, but I do feel heartily sorry for anyone working there. They’ve been victims of a serious cyber crime, for heaven’s sake, and I’m sure that they’ve been taking the best advice about cyber security in light of the attack. It’s the kind of thing where they won’t want to divulge too much of what has been done, for fear of copycat crimes, but at the same time, we the public (especially scholars and academics) all know the end result. We can’t use their catalogue or their e-resources. Visitors have to wait whilst librarians look things up in paper and card catalogues, and with the best will in the world, the service isn’t quite what we’re used to. It’s devastating.
It’s not that the British Library hasn’t tried to keep us up to date:-
Rachel Cooke’s letter to the Observer, link retweeted by the Guardian
Chief Executive Sir Roly Keating has since released an update (11 January 2024) on Restoring our Services
Additionally, a recent Computer Weekly feature provides some of the technical information that many people have been waiting for: British Library cyber attack explained: What you need to know (By Alex Scroxton, Computer Weekly Security Editor, 9 January 2024)
I think what worries me is that people may not know about other ways of finding information. Certainly, if the British Library is the only holder of a particular document, then you’re up the creek without access to that document. If the only way you can access a database, or a digitised copy of a rare document, is via the British Library, then similarly, you really are in a bind at the moment. I know. As a researcher myself, I know.
We’re Here to Help
But are researchers and students asking their own institutional librarians? And conversely, are library organisations saying, often enough (on social media and elsewhere), that librarians are happy to help wherever they can? OK, ‘often enough’ is as long as a piece of string, but say, several times a week? Are we the librarians telling our own patrons in our own libraries?
And if you’re stuck looking for information, are you aware where else you can look?
Options and Alternatives
If you’re at an academic institution in the UK, there is SCONUL Access. That gets you into other libraries as well as your own.
Anyone can look at Jisc Library Hub Discover to find out whether there are copies of books elsewhere in the country. You can find books in the British Library, sure, but also in dozens of other academic libraries, and other big libraries. Yes, databases and other online resources like journals etc, are generally restricted by licence to people AT a particular institution, but you can still sign up to SCONUL Access and go to look at books and other hard copy material in other universities etc.
Have you tried your big city public library?
Are you aware that inter-library loans can be obtained from nearly all libraries except the ones that have a legal deposit responsibility? They don’t just come from the British Library. Your university or college library can organise this. Public libraries do inter library loans too.
Have you looked on Internet Archive or Hathi Trust for digitised copies of older material? Even Google Books?
Ask a Librarian!
Have you consulted your own specialist librarian to see if they can think of other ways you can get to see that crucial book or article?
Have you looked at ResearchGate and reached out to scholars directly, if there’s a particular article that even your librarian hasn’t been able to source?
Now, I’m just one small academic librarian/postdoctoral researcher in one small academic institution. I can’t help everybody! But please, please, do reach out to your librarians. We can’t replace the invaluable, much-loved and extraordinarily well-resourced British Library, but we can certainly help you make sure that you haven’t left other stones unturned, that might be able to provide at least some of what you need?
Seriously, why do we do year-end reviews? To show the world what we’re most proud of? Quite possibly. To convince ourselves – and the world – that really, we’ve been very busy and deserve a pat on the back? Perhaps so. I took to the internet to find out why businesses do reviews, and why a career-minded individual might do one of their own.
Consulting the Experts
Braze.com said that year-end reviews offer the chance to ‘create distinctive content’; to ‘build loyalty’ and to remind the world what your particular business does best. To that end, obviously you log milestones, achievements and events. You use multimedia formats, and draw upon customer data. This all makes sense, although I don’t know that I, as an individual, can do all these things. (No customers, for a start!)
I tried again, and found a Harvard Business Review posting about, ‘How to create your own “Year in Review“. There’s plenty of sound advice here, suggesting that I should pause and reflect upon successes and failures; lessons learned; proudest achievements; who has helped me most; how my strengths have helped me to succeed; and whether there’s anything I wish I’d done differently. This is much more introspective, and certainly valuable advice. Whether I’d want to blog about all these headings is a moot point, though.
For me, I have an extra conundrum. I shall be retiring from the Whittaker Library at the beginning of July. I hope to continue the research element of my work, though. So – in one sense I’m writing a career-end review, as far as librarianship is concerned, but it’s not a career-end review for me as a researcher.
The Harvard Business Review suggests using your diary to capture key events on which to reflect. I spent a few minutes doing just that, yesterday. Immediately, I realised that there’s one thing I’m proud of over everything else, and that is that although I spend 85% of my time as an academic librarian, my 15% as a postdoctoral researcher is actually highly productive.
What do I do best? I get things done.
‘She’s a Librarian’
I confess, I don’t like hearing this! It makes me feel as though my research activity is dismissed as dilettantism – that I don’t do badly, considering research isn’t my main role. On the other hand, a fly on the wall would point out that yes, I do spend the majority of my time as a librarian.
Jazz CDs – not a Highlight
So, what did my diary exercise reveal? I’ve catalogued a lot of jazz CDs. This causes me to feel quite a bit of resentment, because I know our readers don’t generally listen to CDs as a format, so all my efforts are to very little avail indeed. Maybe that’s one of the things that I wish I’d done differently. It’s not a high-priority task; however, I am conscious that I don’t want to leave the backlog to my successor. And that’s why I do this dreadfully tedious and repetitive activity!
Equality and Diversity: Stock Development
What I’m more proud of is my efforts to get more music by women and composers of colour, into the library, and most particularly, to ensure that our staff and students know just how much of it there now is in our stock. With a colleague from the academic staff, I’m concocting a plan to raise the profile of this material.
I also suggested maybe there might be a prize for diverse programming …
And I just heard – there is going to be such a prize – it really is happening. A red letter day!
For me, a particularly proud moment was being invited to attend a Masters student’s final recital in June, at which one of these new pieces was played. It was a piece requested by a member of staff – I don’t think it was me that actually stumbled across it – but I certainly sourced it, catalogued and listed it. Whilst I’m heartily sick of cataloguing, I do take pleasure in stock development, and in ensuring there are ample means of discovering the music once we have it.
In September, I was gratified that one of our performance departments reached out to me to request more materials by under-represented composers – a sign that the message is getting through, and that staff appreciate that the library really is trying to help.
Since October, I’ve also been broadening the stock of music inspired by climate change and ecology, including songbooks for school-children, since we have a number of music education students. That pleases me, too.
What else? Dealing with donations to the library, some eagerly received and others needing sifting through. Weeding stock to ensure there’s room for new material, and ensuring that tatty material is removed or replaced depending on how much it’s likely to be used.
User Education
Some things are cyclical – most particularly providing initial library introductions, and later talking to different year-groups about good library research practice. In June, I gave a talk about bibliography to the Scottish Graduate School of Arts and Humanities, which attracted far more of an audience than I’d ever dreamt of!
Queries, and Research-Related Activity
I’ve also dealt with queries – such as one from a Polish librarian, or another from an elderly enquirer wanting to trace music remembered from childhood. And I talked about my research activities at a library training session, even though I was rather afraid of wasting colleagues’ time going on about something that might not feel very relevant. (This autumn, I also obtained and catalogued – in detail – a book of Scottish songs that I have written a book chapter about. It would be dreadful, wouldn’t it?, if someone read the chapter but couldn’t find the song-book in the library!)
Professional Activity
Professionally, I managed the comms for the IAML Congress in Cambridge this summer (with a little bit of help from mascots Cam, Bridge and Don and a couple of fellow IAML (UK & Ireland) librarians, and I think it went quite well. The stats for the blog and Twitter (“X”) rose gratifyingly during this period. I went to a couple of days in Cambridge, but I didn’t speak this time.
IAML Congress mascot Don
A Researcher with Determination
Early on in 2023, I was gratified to receive an LIHG (Library and Information History Group) Bursary to attend a conference at the University of Stirling between 17-19 April, which was about Reading and Book Circulation 1650-1850. This was to be the first of two major successes this year, for I was also elected the inaugural Ketelbey Fellow in the Institute of Scottish Historical Research at the University of St Andrews. I’ve written extensively about this experience in other blog-posts, so I won’t duplicate it here. However, I can’t resist reminding myself of highlights!
Researching key documents in Martyrs’ Kirk Reading Room
Attending both fortnightly research lectures, and ISHR pub lunches on alternating weeks
Many enjoyable hours concentrating on my book revisions – with a view of the sea!
Twilight from my window, St Katharine’s Lodge, St Andrews
We’re not going on a (sniff!) Summer Holiday …
Being a researcher for 15% of the time is not easy – there simply isn’t the time to do all I want to do. Far from ‘dabbling’ in research, I take this side of my work very seriously indeed. I might have been a librarian most of the time, but I have devoted far more than the designated 10.5 hours a week to my research activity! I took annual leave in the summer to get my book draft completed, and took more annual leave to enable me to spend two, rather than 1.5 days researching in St Andrews. I’m doing it again next week; the book revisions must be completed and submitted very soon, and if the only way I can do it is by taking holiday, then that is what I must do.
In January, I wrote an article for the Glasgow Society of Organists, about a Paisley woman organist and accompanist whom I’d discovered during research over Christmas 2022. Even though it wasn’t for a scholarly journal, it was research done to my usual standard, and I’ve drawn upon that research in one of the chapters in my forthcoming monograph.
I’ve peer-reviewed an article, a book manuscript and a grant application. Considering all that I’ve had on my plate this year, I’m quite proud that I did manage to do these things. I don’t attend reading groups, and I’m not always able to attend research-related events that fall in ‘library time’ – I don’t want to give the impression I’m skiving off library work! But I do want to feel part of the research community, and that was precisely what was so magical about my Fellowship in St Andrews. For those two days a week, I was a researcher, pure and simple.
Roll on 2024! What am I going to do differently?
I’m looking forward to the summer. I feel I’ve been a librarian long enough. I’ll miss doing the user education, and rising to the challenges posed by unexpected or unusual queries. I shan’t be sorry to quit cataloguing, particularly jazz CDs!
I don’t actually have any ‘retirement’ plans as such. Apart from having more time to spend on my role as Honorary Librarian of the Friends of Wighton in Dundee. Whilst I live on the other side of Scotland, at least I shall have more opportunities to leap on a bus or train to get to Dundee Central Library to look after the repertoire that I love.
Little old lady? Not me!
Not Entirely Retiring!
I don’t feel remotely like a little old lady! I hope I’ll continue as a postdoctoral researcher in my present institution, but I’m also keeping my eyes open for any other part-time opportunities that I could pursue alongside that. ’Actively looking’, is the phrase, I think.
With a colleague in another institution, we’re cautiously planning a new research idea. And I also have strands of research that I commenced for my book, but hope to pursue in greater depth once this book is safely further along the publication process. Watch this space.
One of those chains of enquiry where one thing leads to another! Should I need to know later, here’s the Oxford Music Online entry for the choral society for which Husk was librarian:- Sacred Harmonic Society | Grove Music
Husk was the Librarian of the Sacred Harmonic Society, and corresponded with William Chappell. Having heard of him through researcher Alice Little, I looked him up in Oxford Music Online, just in case I needed to know about him later:-
Karen McAulay, Musicologist 