| a bibliographical newsletter Issue 2 January 2018 |
Well, a second issue of the newsletter has seen the light of day. Perhaps its frequency will be semi-annual but I have not yet ventured to include it in the periodicals section of the Devon bibliography. Relatively little time has been devoted to the Devon bibliographical project this year, nor do I know how much longer I will be able to maintain it, but some progress has been made as the following sections show.
Books about Devon and the Westcountry published in 2017 and 2018
The greatest changes in the bibliographical database over the past six months are for current publications in 2017 and 2018. Coverage is admittedly patchy. Most records in the British National Bibliography have been covered and additional pre-publication records obtained from Amazon and other sources. Free distribution material has been selectively listed and passed to the Devon Heritage Centre. Some attempt has been made to seek out on-line documents, particularly local authority publications which are poorly distributed and not picked up by BNB, but what is included here can be considered as a small sample only. Websites are separately listed in the Devon web archive as, like periodicals and newspapers, these are continually evolving sites as opposed to fixed documents. It is hoped to bring the format and presentation of the website records into line with the rest of the bibliography.
Books about Devon and the Westcountry published in 2017 and 2018
The greatest changes in the bibliographical database over the past six months are for current publications in 2017 and 2018. Coverage is admittedly patchy. Most records in the British National Bibliography have been covered and additional pre-publication records obtained from Amazon and other sources. Free distribution material has been selectively listed and passed to the Devon Heritage Centre. Some attempt has been made to seek out on-line documents, particularly local authority publications which are poorly distributed and not picked up by BNB, but what is included here can be considered as a small sample only. Websites are separately listed in the Devon web archive as, like periodicals and newspapers, these are continually evolving sites as opposed to fixed documents. It is hoped to bring the format and presentation of the website records into line with the rest of the bibliography.
Record format
The record format has been consolidated. Records are now held in tab delimited text files. This is a platform free format which can be imported into a wide range of software. At present the records are held in Excel spreadsheets and also edited in Notepad, Word and other text processing software. The web listings are generated directly from the Excel files, sometimes with the addition of format coding. This means that in effect the database is archived in sections directly onto the internet and the source code can be copied and pasted into applications by researchers. It can also be crawled by web archiving services, which do not always cover database content. Not all records are yet fully integrated into the final record format, although most will display adequately.
Images
It has been decided to remove most images from the website and replace them with links. This is for a number of reasons. As the links are not to thumbnails but to full size images this can significantly slow the speed of loading. Large numbers of images can also result in an unhelpful form of presentation. There have also been problems in permission to display full sized images. Links will be made either to images taken or downloaded for the project, to avoid the problem of changing URLs or else to the website where they are located with a brief note in the link text of the intellectual property rights. These have been assigned to the holding institution, publisher or creator as appropriate.
Place listings
These are being introduced to the website following the recovery from internet archives of a series of listings generated in 2001. They provide more bibliographical detail and subject information for some 20,000 records up to that date than was available in the skeleton records previously available or from most current online catalogues. They will be integrated with the main listings but in the meantime they show how hundreds of communities across the county have been covered by the bibliography. An example from the start of the alphabetical bibliogazeteer: places starting with A.
Illustrations
The visual image has been much in the air recently. At the April meeting of the Friends of Devon's Archives Robin McInnes lectured on visual sources in Devon for the changing history of the coastline, emphasizing (perhaps a little too much) the importance of topographical prints. On 28 April 2018 FODA's spring conference at Torquay Museum the theme is the non-written record with Tom Greeves speaking on early Devon photographs and Tom Greeves is also to be the subject of the next in the series Desert Island Documents, organised by the Devon and Cornwall Record Society on Saturday 10 March 2018 at 3pm in Exeter Guildhall when he will be in conversation with Todd Gray.
Partly with this in mind a web page has been put together as part of the Devon bibliography dealing with the Devon photographs of Francis Bedford (1816-1894). This listing attempts to provide a key and framework for dating the Devon photographs of one of the earliest photographers to publish photographic views of the county. They are based on the assumption that each time he visited the county he started in the north, perhaps arriving by steamer from Bristol or Wales. From 1863 after his royal tour to the Middle East, he visited Devon most years and the negative numbers do appear to indicate a recurring circuit from north to south across the county. The collection of Bedford's negatives at Birmingham have not been approached to confirm this hypothesis and any information from historians of early photography would be welcomed. Full details of subject and physical description have yet to be provided. It is hoped to mount similar pages for topographical prints and Francis Frith photographs in the course of 2018.
Medieval manuscripts
The future of local studies documentation across Devon
The news that Libraries Unlimited are to take over the provision of public library services in Torbay highlights problems in maintaining the provision of local studies information across Devon. While public libraries are busily and successfully reinventing themselves, this scenario does not cover certain categories of collections: major reference collections, rare book collections and above all the local collections that in regions across the country echo on a local level the work of the British Library – whose involvement with local publications is limited. These collections are a mixture of printed archives and museums of the book, often with unique materials, but while their best location may be with archives in a heritage centre, the techniques of running them are related to traditional librarianship and they require dedicated qualified or experienced staff or cooperation with other library services. There are also differences in the approach to the materials between librarians and archivists, the way in which they are listed, the means of tackling subject analysis, the need to cover information provision on a day to day basis – recording the present – and the coverage of areas which are peripheral to archives, the natural environment, socioeconomic conditions, arts and literature etc.
This page last updated 22 January 2018
Place listings
These are being introduced to the website following the recovery from internet archives of a series of listings generated in 2001. They provide more bibliographical detail and subject information for some 20,000 records up to that date than was available in the skeleton records previously available or from most current online catalogues. They will be integrated with the main listings but in the meantime they show how hundreds of communities across the county have been covered by the bibliography. An example from the start of the alphabetical bibliogazeteer: places starting with A.
Illustrations
The visual image has been much in the air recently. At the April meeting of the Friends of Devon's Archives Robin McInnes lectured on visual sources in Devon for the changing history of the coastline, emphasizing (perhaps a little too much) the importance of topographical prints. On 28 April 2018 FODA's spring conference at Torquay Museum the theme is the non-written record with Tom Greeves speaking on early Devon photographs and Tom Greeves is also to be the subject of the next in the series Desert Island Documents, organised by the Devon and Cornwall Record Society on Saturday 10 March 2018 at 3pm in Exeter Guildhall when he will be in conversation with Todd Gray.
Partly with this in mind a web page has been put together as part of the Devon bibliography dealing with the Devon photographs of Francis Bedford (1816-1894). This listing attempts to provide a key and framework for dating the Devon photographs of one of the earliest photographers to publish photographic views of the county. They are based on the assumption that each time he visited the county he started in the north, perhaps arriving by steamer from Bristol or Wales. From 1863 after his royal tour to the Middle East, he visited Devon most years and the negative numbers do appear to indicate a recurring circuit from north to south across the county. The collection of Bedford's negatives at Birmingham have not been approached to confirm this hypothesis and any information from historians of early photography would be welcomed. Full details of subject and physical description have yet to be provided. It is hoped to mount similar pages for topographical prints and Francis Frith photographs in the course of 2018.
Medieval manuscripts
At the end of 2017 the blue plaque to Thomas Bodley on the corner of High Street and Gandy Street in Exeter unaccountably slipped its moorings, fell to the ground and was shattered. It is hoped that the Exeter Civic Society will replace it during 2018 and the rededication should provide an opportunity to celebrate the greatest librarian Devon has produced. In 1602 he managed to wheedle more than eighty manuscripts from the Cathedral Library - a great loss to Exeter, but it is probably thanks to his actions that Exeter has, albeit scattered to the four winds, one of the finest surviving medieval libraries in Britain. In connection with the events surrounding the relaunch a sort of prequel to the Devon bibliography has been added, a listing of
Devon medieval manuscripts,. This listing takes the story back more than 500 years before the introduction of the printed book into Devon. Its nature however is considerably different. It aims to list manuscripts owned by Devon libraries or individuals, produced in Devon scriptoria or written by Devon authors in the period up to the dissolution of the monasteries. The content is based on surviving manuscripts as well identifiable works recorded in medieval library catalogues or inventories, and other documentary sources. It is in the early stages of compilation and is an extension of the concordance of the medieval inventories of Exeter Cathedral with surviving manuscripts originally attempted in 1987.
There are many problems involved in identifying and listing medieval manuscripts in a format which is compatible with printed books. Medieval cataloguers were often vague about providing details of author and title, or describing the full content of compilation volumes. Works were often wrongly attributed and authors were listed under a bewildering variety of names. This has given rise to problems in assigning standard headings for authors, a problem compounded by the fact that for medieval writers (a period united by the common language of Latin), present-day cataloguers across Europe have very different ideas of how to refer to an individual, as reference to the CERL thesaurus demonstrates only too clearly. I have tended to use the Latin form of the name, except for English writers but have not been entirely consistent in this.
The resulting list, which is still in the early stages of development, represents something very different from the listing of printed and published documents. Being limited to manuscripts once listed as being in Devon libraries or by Devon writers, it represents a cross-section of all European knowledge of the period. It reveals an international coverage, with the common language being Latin, with few works in English or French or by English writers, nor is there any significant level of content relating to Devon. It should be pointed out that many of the service books were not held in the library but in the church itself or the side-chapels, nor does this listing at present take account of archives, which were normally kept in the treasury or a similar location.
There are many problems involved in identifying and listing medieval manuscripts in a format which is compatible with printed books. Medieval cataloguers were often vague about providing details of author and title, or describing the full content of compilation volumes. Works were often wrongly attributed and authors were listed under a bewildering variety of names. This has given rise to problems in assigning standard headings for authors, a problem compounded by the fact that for medieval writers (a period united by the common language of Latin), present-day cataloguers across Europe have very different ideas of how to refer to an individual, as reference to the CERL thesaurus demonstrates only too clearly. I have tended to use the Latin form of the name, except for English writers but have not been entirely consistent in this.
The resulting list, which is still in the early stages of development, represents something very different from the listing of printed and published documents. Being limited to manuscripts once listed as being in Devon libraries or by Devon writers, it represents a cross-section of all European knowledge of the period. It reveals an international coverage, with the common language being Latin, with few works in English or French or by English writers, nor is there any significant level of content relating to Devon. It should be pointed out that many of the service books were not held in the library but in the church itself or the side-chapels, nor does this listing at present take account of archives, which were normally kept in the treasury or a similar location.
The news that Libraries Unlimited are to take over the provision of public library services in Torbay highlights problems in maintaining the provision of local studies information across Devon. While public libraries are busily and successfully reinventing themselves, this scenario does not cover certain categories of collections: major reference collections, rare book collections and above all the local collections that in regions across the country echo on a local level the work of the British Library – whose involvement with local publications is limited. These collections are a mixture of printed archives and museums of the book, often with unique materials, but while their best location may be with archives in a heritage centre, the techniques of running them are related to traditional librarianship and they require dedicated qualified or experienced staff or cooperation with other library services. There are also differences in the approach to the materials between librarians and archivists, the way in which they are listed, the means of tackling subject analysis, the need to cover information provision on a day to day basis – recording the present – and the coverage of areas which are peripheral to archives, the natural environment, socioeconomic conditions, arts and literature etc.
So, what is the position of local collections which originally formed part of the public library service across Devon?
The Westcountry Studies Library was transferred to the South West Heritage Trust with no designated staffing, the withdrawal of support services and a drastically cut bookfund. The Trust has done wonders with a collection taken on without any endowment. It is redesigning the library catalogue and acquires some of the key historical publications that are appearing, but many periodical subscriptions have been dropped and microfilming suspended without access to digital archives, nor are periodicals indexed or digital resources listed. On 19 January the on-line catalogue listed 116 Devon publications for 2017 compared with 110 for Somerset (the comparative figures for 2016 are 142 for Devon and 127 for Somerset). However these figures include many undated items and the Devon figures are swollen by the free publications that individuals have brought in. These are considerably lower figures than for earlier years.
Barnstaple local studies did not form part of service that was transferred to SWHT and remains at present with Libraries Unlimited. SWHT cannot take it on without some endowment (there is an analogy with the National Trust) and in the present climate, if it does, the resources for its care in a separate location will be minimal. LU has no designated local studies staff. In 2017 according to its newly relaunched catalogue it acquired about 70 Devon titles for the county, most of them lending copies. However in Exeter interest has been shown by individual staff for the early printed book collections and imaginative projects have been undertaken, so there may be a spark that could be kindled for local studies collections.
Torquay local studies is a major collection for the south of the county with extensive catalogues and an excellent tradition of indexing, much of which is accessible online. For 2017 its catalogue records about 30 items. Once transferred to LU its fate will probably be similar to Barnstaple.
Plymouth remains independent and its catalogue records about 30 Devon publications for 2017 but it is unclear whether this includes the local studies collection. There are of course ambitious plans in progress for a heritage centre, but the footprint of local studies in this is unclear.
Bideford, Tiverton, Newton Abbot and other branches also have significant local studies collections as well as boxes of parish files supplied by the Westcountry Studies Library who also advised on the acquisition of iems of local significance. The fate of the branches under LU remains unclear.
So whatever the final destination of local studies collections, the present prospect for the development local studies resources across Devon remains challenging to say the least. In many communities the most active collections are in museums or community archives, but access for researchers is often restricted and cataloguing standards variable. In Exeter the Devon and Exeter Institution is the most active local studies resource in the county at present but again public access is limited.
Perhaps the long-term answer is a shared jointly funded resource which could co-ordinate searching for, ordering, cataloguing and distribution of local studies reference materials across the county and also cooperatively index periodicals, theses and digital resources relating to the region. It could serve museums and community archives as well as libraries and enlist volunteers to assist in indexing. It could be attached to a library in Devon, perhaps one of the universities as the research potential could be immense and their interests cover many aspects of the community, past and present. It could also work towards a union catalogue or bibliography of resources – a Devon Union List for the digital age. The Digital Humanities Lab at the University of Exeter might be a suitable host for such a resource. Such a project might also attract lottery and other funding, especially if local community involvement were highlighted. In other words a good old-fashioned local studies librarian, based within the county.
Pie in the sky perhaps, but the present situation is certainly not tenable for equitable county-wide coverage of local studies across one of the largest counties in England.
This page last updated 22 January 2018
