Hello all!
I'm a professional librarian, and I work in an academic library in the UK, in a very historic higher educational institution. I work both in the reading rooms and 'behind the scenes' doing cataloguing for online collections. I've also worked in law firm libraries and have done a little bit of volunteering in museum libraries.
If anyone is interested in asking questions about the job or career, do ask away!
I'm a professional librarian, and I work in an academic library in the UK, in a very historic higher educational institution. I work both in the reading rooms and 'behind the scenes' doing cataloguing for online collections. I've also worked in law firm libraries and have done a little bit of volunteering in museum libraries.
If anyone is interested in asking questions about the job or career, do ask away!
Me!!
About the job…
For those very old books, here in the country we used to have a ‘Master’ in binding and the art of printery. Not the Master degree, but a master in handcraft-ship (Brevet de Maîtrise).
As a librarian in a historical school (if it is Oxford, Cambridge or St Andrew’s doesn’t matter) you must get in touch with very old writings as well as the restauration of those. Are there still bookbinders and book printers doing the old traditional handcraft?
That makes me think, I have a French dictionary that has been printed exactly 100 years ago. What is the oldest book in your library?
About the job…
For those very old books, here in the country we used to have a ‘Master’ in binding and the art of printery. Not the Master degree, but a master in handcraft-ship (Brevet de Maîtrise).
As a librarian in a historical school (if it is Oxford, Cambridge or St Andrew’s doesn’t matter) you must get in touch with very old writings as well as the restauration of those. Are there still bookbinders and book printers doing the old traditional handcraft?
That makes me think, I have a French dictionary that has been printed exactly 100 years ago. What is the oldest book in your library?
Yes - we have a conservation department, who restore and stabalise the very old and precious books. I've never worked in that area - I'd love to, but I didn't even know it existed as a potential career until it was already too late for me - but I have visited it on a couple of tours and what they do is fascinating. Patching holes with rice paper, deconstructing bindings and redoing them, etc.
Oldest book is a bit difficult, since due to the nature of the institution we have antiquarian artifacts including (bits of) Roman scrolls and cuniform tablets. The oldest things you can probably call books as we'd know them do include early medieval religious manuscripts. That said, our own collection didn't survive the reformation, as it was destroyed and dispersed for being 'papist superstition'.
In my personal library I have some books printed in the Victorian era, though they wouldn't be considered rare books.
Oldest book is a bit difficult, since due to the nature of the institution we have antiquarian artifacts including (bits of) Roman scrolls and cuniform tablets. The oldest things you can probably call books as we'd know them do include early medieval religious manuscripts. That said, our own collection didn't survive the reformation, as it was destroyed and dispersed for being 'papist superstition'.
In my personal library I have some books printed in the Victorian era, though they wouldn't be considered rare books.