Final Thoughts

Made it! So, in the end, what do I think?

Image by Ralf Kunze from Pixabay

I did this as a way of trying to stay connected with my library, its collections and its people.

Did it work? 

Maybe for a handful of the posts - let's not forget, this was an archive prompt list originally, so some of the posts worked better than others. I enjoyed the library people one, although I spent far too long on Canva trying to design a tree and not enough time actually thinking about the people I'm currently not seeing. And it was fun to rifle through a few of the items I'd brought home with me, trying to find something to match each prompt.

I definitely feel that I lost momentum towards the end, whether it was lockdown fatigue, prompt fatigue or a combination of the two I don't know. But I'm pleased that I still stuck it out - even on weekends! Hopefully I'll feel it has more value when I return to work (which I hope will be in a few months).

Communication and sharing

I thought it was quite interesting though that I didn't see many people share their own responses to the prompt list. I'm not an archivist, and don't follow huge numbers of archivists on Twitter, but I did expect to see a bit more takeup - though I guess lockdown has affected us all, and certainly not all equally. It must be pretty hard trying to share magnificent pieces in your collections if they've not already been digitised or available on the web before lockdown.

Would I do it again?

I do like prompt lists, whether I decide to stick with the prompt or not (see Something Scary). I need a breather from posting every day though! Give it a year and we'll see. Or maybe less time, but definitely let's have the weekends off in the future.

Verdict

Woohoo, and Phew, in that order. And give me a beer.

Why Libraries?

Last one! Can't believe it's been an entire month of lockdown blog entries. And obviously we were in lockdown before that. I was off sick from 12th March, I thought with tonsillitis but who knows? - I know I've never had tonsillitis so bad before. I then came in while still ill but the museum was closed in order to collect materials to work from home on 17th March and a couple of subsequent days. We started full social distancing with all the family (the toddler was still going to nursery that week) on Saturday 21st March, so this is officially Day 41, though as you can see in some respects I'd started before that.

So now I come to Why Libraries?, the last prompt. Here I want to mention something which has been gaining traction in library circles, called "Vocational Awe". This phenomenon was first coined by Fobazi Ettarh in a wonderful article here, which really should be mandatory reading. TL:DR:

Vocational awe describes the set of ideas, values, and assumptions librarians have about themselves and the profession that result in notions that libraries as institutions are inherently good, sacred notions, and therefore beyond critique. I argue that the concept of vocational awe directly correlates to problems within librarianship like burnout and low salary. This article aims to describe the phenomenon and its effects on library philosophies and practices so that they may be recognized and deconstructed.

I think it's really important, even more so now, to understand this, and to prevent it. But I think it extends to not just libraries but schools and healthcare too. By calling something a vocation we're allowing it to overrule any sort of common sense approach to things like ...ooh, how about decent pay or reasonable working hours? It's like calling the NHS "heroes" - because obviously a medal is sufficient token of our appreciation that they've been dying due to a lack of PPE that could have been fixed by a competent and ethical government.

So to get to the point, why libraries isn't because libraries are amazing, and do amazing work, and we should all stand up for all libraries, everywhere, because they are all perfect. They're not. They're imperfect spaces filled with imperfect people and imperfect situations. But they're still useful for what they can (and should) be doing - connecting people with information. And that's what I enjoy doing. I love sharing what I discover in the library, and I hope you've enjoyed some of the things I've shared here.

Library Goals

I think goals have probably changed a lot in the 6 weeks of lockdown. Before the lockdown, my goals were to keep the library ticking over, to catalogue everything, to increase readership, to finally have a clue about what stock we have and where, and dispose of the unwanted material in a sensible way. If I were overreach, my goals would be to have a new reading room which is spacious and welcoming, always open and always full! To have shelves which people could browse once again, and full of interesting things. To make the link between the material on the shelves and the objects in the museum much clearer.

Now?

We have no idea what we're returning to. We know that the "normal" of pre-coronavirus can no longer exist. Museums need visitors to survive, so many want lockdown to end as soon as possible, but the last thing we want is a second wave, so there will no doubt be measures that we'll need to take. So what will my goals be then?

I think a lot of the higher goals are gone - always full is great when there aren't deadly viruses about. I suspect we'll need to be a lot more stringent about visitors, and stop anyone who doesn't have an appointment from coming in. Appointments will have to be stricter on time, so that there's no overlap between people and will we still be able to have our volunteers coming into the same space?

Documentation is still a big thing though, so the cataloguing will continue, the collection management... And I still dream that one day we might even do a stocktake!

Library Inclusion

Nearly there now!! On the one hand, hurrah!! But on the other hand...how did it take so long to get to this subject?! It's such a hot topic, I sort of feel like we should have covered it maybe a couple of weeks ago...

Venus Noire : black women and colonial fantasies in nineteenth-century France / Robin Mitchell

There's a notable lack of diversity in libraries, museums and Oxbridge.

I know of one, maybe two non-white librarians in the university, and one of them will be retiring this year! And the reputation of "pale, male and stale" precedes museums (we've had 3 different directors in the last decade, and all of them fit the stereotype).

Witnessing slavery : art and travel in the age of abolition / Sarah Thomas

The university is making small inroads into addressing the problem of lack of diversity in HE - Stormzy's scholarships are a big-name success, but there are little ones too, like the English Faculty Library had a "Twitter takeover" where students who aren't white discussed how they felt about the curriculum and what the lack of representation meant to them. And I've definitely seen an increase in the number of black students visiting the library over the years, so hopefully things are gradually starting to head in the right direction.

The Creative Case for Diversity is a good start - it's about building in ways of improving diversity to make them as embedded into museum practice as possible. To that end we're doing things like working with Magdalene Odundo, and getting other artists, particularly BAME artists, to engage with the museum's objects.

Boston's Apollo : Thomas McKeller and John Singer Sargent / edited by Nathaniel Silver

There's also the decolonialisation aspect of museums. One of the really meaningful exhibitions we had recently was one by Matt Smith: Flux: Parian Unpacked, which set a number of busts of 19th century figures against a backdrop of wallpapers featuring British atrocities - the Irish potato famine, the Opium Wars and the subjugation of India.

And it doesn't stop outside the library door! I've been working on our collection, trying to put together a number of resources for staff. The pictures are of some of the books in this collection. Obviously it's a work in progress, very much so, but you've got to start somewhere!

On decoloniality : concepts, analytics, and praxis / Walter D. Mignolo and Catherine E. Walsh

Library Hacks

I don't really have any particular library hacks. I went on a bit of a trawl through a search engine, having a look at the things they considered library hacks - and some of them were great ideas! I loved some of the ideas on this list, like having a list of the classmarks for difficult topics, and reading down fines. I particularly love the grab bag idea - that would definitely help me decide what to read next!

But most of these don't work for my library.

I don't have fines, the library is reference-only, so there aren't any borrowing hacks. Browsing is already impossible due to the fact that all the books are on closed access to readers, and most are very different sizes and shapes than the standard fiction book size, so don't lend themselves to being upended to allow for easier reading of the bottom shelf.

I guess if I were to try and give advice about the library where I work, the biggest thing I would say is:

TALK TO A LIBRARIAN!

If there's one thing I've learnt, it's that every library is different. Every library has its own foibles, borrowing limits, ways of setting out everything. Even efforts to standardise everything across the university's libraries have been met with limited success, because the way readers use resources is different; for example, people don't borrow a score and set of parts from a music library to read for an essay to be submitted that week, they're usually required for much longer, so music loans have always traditionally been for months at a time.

So my library works very differently from most of the libraries in Cambridge. Because everything is on closed access, I have to fetch it all. Because I'm on my own in a building with priceless objects, I have to keep the room secure. So it's hard to explain to readers that they can't just turn up, classmark in hand, and expect to find a book on the shelf and borrow it - I know that's how their libraries work, but I just can't do the same for them here. I try to couch it in positive terms: reference-only means no one else will have borrowed it before you, for example, but really, the best way to manage expectations is to have talked in advance!

Something Scary

I'm going to completely ignore the prompt today. We've got all the scary we can deal with at the moment, and I think it's time to revisit something Stephen Fry once talked about on QI - Room Lovely (the antithesis of Room 101).

So I'm going to list a few of my favourite things, and things that are making me smile or bringing me comfort. Hopefully you've got a list of these things too, and no matter how short the list might be, or how trivial you think some of the things on it might be, I hope it brings you comfort too.

Crochet is a relaxing - and productive - way to spend time!

1. My family, and the fact that I've got my nuclear family here in lockdown with me. My bonkers children make me smile most days, even though there are the usual hair-tearing moments!
2. Crochet
3. Sitting by a window so that the sun shines on my feet
4. Watching the birds in the garden
5. Mashed potato
6. Catching up more often with people precisely because we can't meet face to face anymore
7. Seeing the results of less traffic in pictures - like seeing the Himalayas clearly for the first time in years
8. Reading
9. Not having to commute - I have three extra hours a day now, and this really has been a balm to my soul
10. Cat memes - a perennial favourite!

Himalays rising above a north Indian city - via TrailMagazine

Surprisingly, music hasn't made it onto the list. I haven't felt up to playing music since lockdown began, which is really weird, but I just don't think I'm in the right mental place for it, which is annoying since I have a lot more opportunity to do it now!

What's on your Room Lovely list? Why not share in the comments?

Fashion

Cardies, glasses and hair in a bun, right? Simple! Done.

It's not that far from the truth when I'm at work - I tend to wear jeans because the basement is kinda filthy and I don't wear my smartest clothes at the moment because with a toddler around I'll come to work and find someone has left toothpaste on my shoulder, or Rice Krispies on my sleeve, so on the top a short-sleeve top and cardie tends to be the uniform.

Since lockdown it's a whole different ballgame though - no readers, no uniform! So at the moment only my team (which is a hotch-potch of research facilitator, registrar, exhibitions officer and assistant director) get to see me. I still wear jeans because I live in jeans (slobby tracky bums are just a bit too slobby for me), and then they've been subjected to my personal fashion taste, which mainly runs to retro kids tv and American sports.

So we've had Dungeons & Dragons, Seattle Seahawks, Rainbow Brite, He-Man, NY Mets, Transformers, MLP: Friendship is Magic, Battle of the Planets, Yankees... I don't know if anyone follows Gyles Brandreth on Twitter, who's been wearing a different jumper every day for lockdown. I could probably manage much the same with my t-shirts!