The College Record 2022

I typed catalogue cards on an ancient Hermes (awful inky typewriter ribbon) which
were then hand fed through metal rods in the wooden drawers so that students
could flick through them by author or title to find the book they needed. The books
which were catalogued came almost exclusively from Blackwell’s (now subsumed
by Waterstones) following a civilised exchange in an office off the Norrington Room
entirely dedicated to making the life of Oxford college librarians a happier one.
Articles
Now you can sit plugged into a laptop anywhere in College, in a coffee shop, in the
world – link to the internet and search all the Oxford Libraries, including Queen’s.
If the book is in the Bodleian you can recall it to a reading room of your choice or
opt to have a chapter scanned and delivered to your in-box. Or read the entire text
online. You can search what seems like an infinite amount of electronic resources,
some hobbled by legal restrictions, refine search terms and distil still further all in a
matter of moments. A snapshot of the changes includes firewalls, scams, passwords,
open access, databases, online reading lists, licensing, multifactor authentication,
viruses, digital media, GDPR & RFID security to manage the stock.
Books are still very popular – people do like to possess a book. I order and pay for
books online, they arrive by courier on a 24hr clock and we can have them on the
shelves hours after they have been requested much to the relief of the students.
The tunnels running under Back Quad provided desiccated storage conditions
on roller racking for the antiquarian collections. The manuscripts stored behind
the ornately carved cupboard doors in the Upper Library. The Law Library was
housed at the end of the basement underneath Back Quad, closeted behind a
balding velvet curtain in a crude attempt at sound proofing. Now there is a custombuilt
Vault as part of the New Library which provides environmentally controlled
storage for the archives and special collections. Law Reports and the like are all
available electronically (until such time as the funding is removed). The Library office
in retrospect was a truly ghastly working environment certainly compared to the
wonderful light-filled space we now occupy.
Access to the Library was through an oak door, the security system relied on
students being recognised and greeted by a member of the Library staff. The Library
was locked on a key at 10pm during term time and available for a few hours at the
weekends. The door is still in use but bolted into place, with an intercom and a
proximity card reader attached with an alarm bell to summon the porter on duty.
There are book security panels, CCTV and a loud alarm should you take books out
illegally. Books can be borrowed on the self-issue machine – no human interaction
required. Students are required to have their University ID card with them at all
times – in case they need to prove their identity.
The wellbeing, welfare, and mental health of students is a constant focus and
rightly so. There is a whole new vocabulary and meaning around how students are
College Record 2022 | The Queen’s College 101