Page 7 - Keble Review 2014

The Keble Library
what role do libraries play in the 21st century? What makes the ideal Oxford College library and how do we achieve it for Keble? These are the questions which inform and direct
our work on a daily basis. Open 24/7 and 365 days per year, and bringing many different disciplines together in one place, the Library is at the heart of the intellectual life of Keble. Selecting material for Keble Library is part of the process whereby tutors shape students’ understanding of their disciplines, and Library collections reflect
the expertise and research interests of the Fellows and the College. The relationship between Subject Tutors and Library staff is central both to developing the Library’s working collections and in ensuring that the Library meets the changing information needs of its users. Increasingly emphasis is placed on providing support to students,
as we assist them to navigate through the mass of resources, both print and electronic, that are available to them, and to evaluate the information they find.
The Library is thriving. 13,325 books were borrowed in the last 12 months, using the Library’s state-of-the-art self-issue system, with the most popular loans being in Physics, Medicine, Economics and Biological Sciences. 1,508 new books were added to stock in the same period. Book requests are routinely filled in under a week – we are the envy of many other College libraries in this respect. The Library is full to capacity in busy Trinity term. In the last academic year, a record 668 students patronised the successful Night Learn initiative, a Library-run alternative informal learning space for study, discussion and group work. Mindful that this is our students’ home Library, as well as covering all of the academic subjects offered by College, we also offer a collection of classic fiction, DVDs of classic and foreign language films and documentaries, and books on study skills and writing style, personal finance and travel.
Complementing the 50,000 items in the working Library are 14,000 items in the Special Collections. Included in the historic collections
are bequests of early printed books and manuscripts, as well as
the personal library of John Keble and other material invaluable for research into the history and literature of the Oxford Movement.
The digital display outside the Library shows images from the Special Collections and Archives alongside information on Library and College events and current affairs. In November 2014, the display will include a digital roll of honour, compiled by the College Archivist, recognising
all the Keble members and staff killed whilst serving in the military and naval forces during World War 1 (www.keble.ox.ac.uk/about/ past/keble-and-the-great-war/roll-of-honour-1914-1918).
The Library’s collection of illuminated medieval manuscripts, which attracts scholars from around the world each summer, is one of the finest in Oxford outside the Bodleian. Of all the manuscripts in the collection, MS 49 represents perhaps the College’s greatest treasure. Known as the Regensburg Lectionary, it was produced in southern Germany between 1267 and 1276 to provide devotional readings for a community of Dominican nuns. As a tribute to the scholarship of the late Malcolm Parkes, lecturer and Fellow in English from 1961- 1997 and the University’s first Professor of Palaeography, the Library is currently fundraising to digitise this hyper-illustrated 13th century book (www.keble.ox.ac.uk/alumni/supporting-keble/talbot- fund/RegensburgLeaflet.pdf).
In recent years the most significant donations of material have been of contemporary literature. In 2007, the College received over 3,000 books and plays on contemporary theatre from the library of producer and drama critic Martin Esslin, whose daughter Monica was a student at Keble from1979-1983. In 2013, Yvonne Wall, widow of Stephen Wall, Fellow and Tutor in English at Keble from 1964-1990, donated items from her husband’s personal library, including first editions of his own works and copies of books that he had edited. The donation of the personal poetry library of poet, critic and Keble Old Member Ian Hamilton (1958) will be celebrated with a launch in the Library in Michaelmas Term. These unique collections are of benefit not only for Keble students but for the wider University.
Libraries are intensely personal places and books are meant to be used. One of the highlights of our work is facilitating the introduction of current students to the historic resources in our care, whether in the form of workshops on the medieval manuscripts or in impromptu seminars using the Library’s extensive collection of early editions of Dante’s Divine Comedy. The English student who popped his head round the door of my office asking if we had a copy of Milton’s Paradise Lost for his current essay wasn’t expecting to be handed a first imprint of the first edition of 1668, but I think I made his day.
Yvonne Murphy
College Librarian
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