 | a bibliographical newsletter Issue 35 September 2024  |
In April 2003 transferred under a TUPE arrangement from the University of Exeter to the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Healthcare Trust, becoming an honorary fellow of the Peninsula Medical School.
Attended courses run by the University of Exeter IT department and Library and by the Southwest NHS Libraries group, participated in several conferences, seminars and exhibitions, including speaking on electronic journals at an event organised in June 2000 by the North Thames NHS Regional Library and Information Development Unit. Produced an exhibition of relevant resources for an academic evening for researchers in both the NHS and the HE sectors, organised by the School of Postgraduate Medicine and Health Sciences of the University of Exeter. Researched and prepared a presentation on web-based resources for the Exeter Parkinson's Disease Special Interest Group.
Personal interests included assisting with the compilation and publication of the Exeter working papers in book history. Excellent command of French, both written and oral, maintained by attending advanced degree level courses at the University and by strong personal links with French friends both within and outside the library profession. Studied German through Exeter University's Language Centre, and gained a certificate at intermediate level.
The above is based on Jill's CV, updated in April 2003 discovered when sorting her personal papers and detailing much that I never knew about her professional life. Reconciling the various demands on Jill in the medical library proved extremely stressful and in 2001 she received counselling from a member of the panel which had produced an important national report on medical libraries, who was staggered at the pressure she was under. She was therefore pleased to retire in 2005 and set out on a series of tours of Europe in a camper van which lasted until 2019. She contracted ocular shingles while travelling in Germany in 2012 and this eventually manifested itself in mixed vascular dementia and Alzheimer's in 2022. She died 2 July 2024.
A number of you attended the celebration of her life on 24 July and I have received many words of comfort and appreciation, and charity donations in her memory have exceeded £1,100, even before I match it.
Taking stock
It is time for me to
move on, to return to the outside world and to take stock of many things, both
personal and professional.
Like me, Jill was a librarian, starting her career in public reference libraries and moving on through university libraries to medical librarianship. Like me, she was passionate about providing accurate information to researchers and library users, and marshalling the resources to make this possible. In the 1990s she established the Exeter Medical Library’s website with links to medical information world-wide, and also provided access to printed resources on-site, both to the NHS, and students and researchers in two universities. She also shared my interest in book history, helping me to prepare the medical section in the “From script to print to hypertext” exhibition at RAMM in 1999.
There is a great wealth of medical literature in Exeter, written over the past two millennia. In 2016 a booklet and exhibition Sickness in the archive drew attention to the resources in Exeter Central Library, including the extremely rare An exact survey of the microcosmus by Johann Remmelin (1670). I had discovered and acquired this as a donation for Exeter Library in 2002, photographing it to preserve it until this delicate flap book could be conserved and presented to researchers and the world at large. I have decided that it would be appropriate for me to adopt this book in her memory, perhaps with a full digitisation that would make it possible to lift the flaps to reveal the nerves, blood vessels, muscles, skeleton and inner organs. Exeter Library runs an Adopt a book scheme which will make this possible.
An exact survey of the microcosmus, 1670. Visio tertia. Courtesy Devon Libraries.
More taking stock
In 1955 an earlier exhibition Medical art and history in Exeter had revealed the treasures, not just in Exeter Medical Library, but also in Exeter Cathedral Library, the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital, the Devon and Exeter Institution and Exeter City Library. This exhibition gave a wealth of information on how the collections had grown up over the centuries and the involvement of local health practitioners and researchers, book collectors and librarians in the organic growth of this remarkable memory store of medical knowledge.
I was delighted therefore to pick up in memory of Jill a
copy of the catalogue of this exhibition at the Topsham antiquarian book fair
in August at the bargain price of £3.50. The copy contained markings of the
Westcountry Studies Library but the bookseller reassured me that they had been
legally acquired, along with the many other Devon items on his stall, three of
which I also purchased. It puts me in a bit of a quandary and I think, as as a
former employee of Devon Library and Information Service, I will have to take
them into the Devon Heritage Centre and let them apply their “Withdrawn” stamp
and date neatly to the verso of the title pages to show that I have not been
feloniously taking stock. Perhaps the bookseller should also be supplied with a
stamp for the sake of his own good name. I wonder what else of the Westcountry Studies Library's stock, and stock records for that matter, have been disposed of by South West Heritage Trust.
Devon bibliography
The continuing outage of the British Library resource guides following the Russian-inspired cyberattack almost one year ago affects work on the Devon bibliography at both ends of the timescale. For the earliest period, from 1470 to 1800, the temporary search facility for the English Short Title Catalogue provided by Print & Probability has its limitations while since October 2023 the weekly PDF listings of items received on legal deposit at the BL has not been issued by the British National Bibliography. For many months I have not been able to visit bookshops, tourist information centres and other sources of community information (much of it free), and links to online versions do not appear on the Westcountry Studies Library catalogue. The BNB in any case listed little of this locally produced grey literature.
An important run of printed medical literature has just come to light when I was helping Simon Timms to prepare a pamphlet to accompany the unveiling of a blue plaque to Margaret Jackson in September, a run of 35 annual reports of the Exeter and District Women’s Health Association (DRO Ref 7086G/1/1/1-35). This is extremely rare; the only other set I have located is in the Museum für Verhütung und Schwangerschaftsabbruch (Museum of Contraception and Abortion) in Vienna – did you know such an institution existed? They have actually digitised their entire set. It is sobering to think that many of the items that I list are far rarer than the Gutenberg Bible or the First Folio of Shakespeare, and far more valuable than either of these to record the heritage of local communities across Devon. Local heritage Collections are in effect miniature versions of the British Library, but without the benefit of legal deposit.
I am currently adding the many scattered reports of Exeter Archaeology for hundreds of sites across Devon, a large number of them deposited in the Devon Record Office but without full bibliographical records. These are frequently cited in publications but copies can be difficult to track down in libraries.
The 100,000 plus records in the Devon bibliography are based on early catalogues of the Westcountry Studies Library, salvaged from internet archives such as the Wayback Machine, many of the records since upgraded to a simplified Resource Description and Access (RDA) standard, an internationally recognised format, with a gazetteer and thesaurus under development to group communities and subjects into broader categories for listing. Apart from books, pamphlets, grey literature and ephemera, it also includes periodicals, newspapers, maps, prints, published photographs, theses and periodical articles – all very much work in progress, being added to weekly until the British national bibliography suffered its ransomware attack in October 2023.
For example a recent visit to Upton Pyne on Heritage Open Days retrieved three unrecorded local pamphlets published in 2022 and also the September issue (no. 373) of Speke up: parish magazine of Upton Pyne & Cowley and Brampford Speke, an indication of how much is being missed - including some wonderful puns. It is all too much for a single person to maintain, so I am throwing in the sponge in order to have more time for other projects. I have had interest from a couple of institutions that might be interested in hosting it, so I am tidying up what I have, producing a draft PDF file for 2023 publications with the format based on the late lamented British National Bibliography weekly listings. I will also continue work on the gazetteer and thesaurus and produce other test topographical and thematic listings drawn from the series of Excel compatible spreadsheets which hold the data.
Ideally an integrated on-line database should be the aim, and I had been working towards this with the catalogue of the Westcountry Studies Library, which also held many local records for other public libraries in the county. This taking stock of the more than 100,000 records I have gathered over more than forty years will take several months. Hopefully it will be completed within fifty years of my arrival in Devon in 1977 to initiate the cataloguing of the Westcountry Studies Library.
Digital legacy
More taking stock therefore, with further thoughts prompted by my recent intimations of mortality: what will happen to my own digital heritage, which includes the Devon bibliography, hopefully something to be handed on to be continued rather than disposed of? It also includes other databases relating to book history, both of the Westcountry and other parts of the world. In October I hope to complete the transfer of my digital and paper documentation of the Lower Normandy book trades in the 18th century to the Bibliothèque Alexis de Tocqueville in Caen.
Devon's heritage collections in Devon's public libraries
I am increasingly concerned over the decline of Devon's public heritage collections over the past decade, and I should point out that I am not pointing the finger at current personnel. The blame lies firmly back in 2011 and the ignorance with which the restructuring took place. This is eloquently described by a participant in an anonymous blog Devona: speaking up for Devon's libraries. The results were inevitable and it is difficult to see how things can improve.
Exeter Library's "adopt a book" initiative featured large on the "White gloves experience" which I attended as part of Heritage Open Days. The presenter revealed that there are no professional librarians in Exeter Central Library and that they had simply produced fifteen books, including some that had been restored through the initiative, about which they had some information, one for each of the members of the public attending the experience. I also learned that the initiative comes from individual members of staff and does does not form part of the public library service agreement reached between Devon County Council and Libraries Unlimited. Apparently the heritage collections do not form part of the service agreement and permission is required for any work to be undertaken, even if the funding is donated. I had hoped to announce my adoption of the Remmelin volume to encourage others to consider making similar donations, but the volume is not listed in their catalogue and could not be located. The staff care about and realise the importance of the collections, wish that there was more specialist knowledge about them, and are also concerned about the storage conditions.
The decision to abolish all specialist posts in 2011 left Devon with the embarrassment of the Westcountry Studies Library. Shelves of dusty old books, getting in the way of providing a dynamic lending service. The answer: send them out of the city centre to join the Record Office who had lots of other old documents, sell off the library building, give them a derisory book fund and wash your hands of them. Of course no designated staff went with the collection. Stock intake collapsed, as I ascertained when I felt impelled to recommence the Devon bibliography. Devon County Council withdrew its website support, losing the Etched on Devon's memory project and 5,000 web pages (some of which have been recovered from web archives). Then the South West Heritage Trust, based in Taunton, took over management of the Devon Record Office and Westcountry Studies Library (now rebadged West Country Studies Library - continuity does not even extend to the name of the collection. They provide a staff member who comes down from Taunton one day a week. I have discovered that more than 100,000 stock cards, the library's archive, built up over more than a century, which contained information on provenance never included on the on-line catalogue, appear to have been discarded: "They were taking up a lot of room and nobody knew what they were" I was told. As mentioned above, books with Westcountry Studies Library markings have been appearing on the open market with no indication that they have been withdrawn from the collection - the bookseller who acquired them in an auction sale is very uncomfortable about this and I have had comments from other researchers who wonder what is going on.
Nor do Libraries Unlimited and the Southwest Heritage Trust seem to work together. Among the half-dozen shelves of local studies books in Exeter Central Library I noticed a 540 page volume written and published in Carmarthenshire by David T. R. Lewis: A history of the Edwinsford and Clovelly Communities: the Williams, Drummond, Cary, Hamlyn, Fane, Manners, Asquith and Rous family owners donated by the author in 2017. I am sure, from the limited number of copies listed in JISC and WorldCat that he never intended it as lending stock but for permanent deposit in the local studies collection.
I understand that the South West Heritage Trust was contacted after I pointed out that about 175 books in the Westcountry Studies Library had been transferred to the Cage at some time before the restructuring. SWHT said they did not want them back. Admittedly many of them were Italian books from the collection of the Devon historian Ethel Lega-Weekes, appropriate to transfer, but this should have been properly documented in both catalogues. But there were also ten editions of Sir Walter Raleigh's History of the world dating from between 1614 and 1677, part of the T.N.Brushfield collection, the rest of which remains in the Devon Heritage Centre.
Local heritage library collections in the county, both in the public sector and elsewhere, should pool their meagre resources and work together to ensure that there are duplicate copies of as many local publications as possible, preferably stored in separate locations in case of disaster as, since austerity, the Devon Heritage Centre no longer has the resources to maintain the documentation and preservation of the county’s published archive on its own. I am therefore in active discussion with other bodies in the county as to the most appropriate place to deposit my bibliographical legacy, and I will be generating updated listings covering the years from 2000 to 2024 and experimenting with topographical and thematic listings, now that I have more time to take stock.
The book makers
Not a book about betting offices, as the subtitle makes clear: a history of the book in 18 remarkable lives. It is written by Adam Smyth, professor of the history of the book at the University of Oxford and was one of the presentations at the first day of the Budleigh Salterton Literary Festival on 18 September.
He uses case studies of people involved in the production and dissemination of books, a printer, a binder, a typographer, a paper maker, a librarian, those involved in a wide range of books from worthy tomes and private press books, to zines, popular literature, extra-illustrated books or cut-and-paste. He realises the importance of ephemera, fragments from bindings, printer's waste or proofs, the need to document copies to reveal their provenance, their journey through time, the annotations of earlier readers. He has a practical knowledge of traditional printing, having run a hand-press and knowing the trials of composition of text letter by letter, the struggles of proof correction, the calculation of imposition, to see that pages back up correctly in the right order, the skill of taking an impression, with even inking, followed by drying, folding, binding even before a work is launched on the world.
The result is an exciting journey through the world of the book in Britain from 1470 to 2023, and it is comforting to see that his vision of the book is much the same as mine, and that I have revealed in my writings local examples of so many details of the writing, production, dissemination and reading of all forms of print that he covers in his much wider survey. Like me he realises that, with the explosion of publications, mega-reading is necessary. In some ways I am extremely well-read, having perused more than 50,000 works of Devon literature - but only the title page and the last page, so as to be able to produce an entry for the Devon bibliography. I shall certainly do much more than mega-read this book.
Paper & Print
I have become involved in Double Elephant print workshop's Paper & print lottery funded project which is exploring Exeter's papermaking history. On 27 August I attended a workshop held in conjunction with the dynamic Countess Wear Heritage Group where I presented my collection of data on Devon papermakers and discovered a fellow watermark nerd, Gill Sawyer who like me has been photographing watermarks not in the Westcountry Studies Library but in a collection of apprenticeship indentures in Exeter Cathedral Library which are earlier than my sample and trying to identify the mills that produced them. On 14 September at Exeter Phoenix I attended their Printmaking and Paper Heritage Day, a HODs event where I got into conversation with Christopher Bingham the founder of Ruscombe Paper Mill in the Cotswolds in 1989, which relocated to Margaux in France in 1995. It produces the most comprehensive range of fine papers in Europe made by hand and has supplied conservation papers to the Bibliothèque nationale and the Louvre in Paris. He described to me how chiaroscuro watermark moulds were made and was full of anecdotes on handling Leonardo cartoons and works by Michelangelo for which he was making paper wrappers.
On 28 August at a gathering I got into conversation with David Lee, a lifelong employee of Wheatons. He too was full of anecdotes, including his encounters with media mogul Robert Maxwell. Perhaps there will be an opportunity for a paper and print oral history project.
Exeter University Library Special Collections
Another HODS event on 7 September at Exeter University Old Library, Exploring archives, gave a taster of some of the local items in their collection, with many books held in the David Edmund Collection including many ephemera, all listed on their on-line catalogue, with further ephemera in their manuscript collections, separately listed in the manuscript catalogue. There were also examples from local writers, including Sabine Baring-Gould, Agatha Christie, Henry Williamson and Ted Hughes. More information is available on their website.
Exeter, Empire and printing
The recent launch of Todd Gray's book Voices of Empire in Exeter 1575-1996 was very thought-provoking. A massive two-volume compilation, the first on Imperial Exeter and the second on Colonial Exeter it deals with a subject that people are oblivious to, the elephant in the room that we try not to notice although it permeates every detail of the society we live in. My studies of the introduction of printing into Africa and other former colonies had revealed the key role of Empire in spreading the word, both of God and Government. One Exeter participant in this typographical diaspora was John Horden (1853-1859), the son of William Horden, an Exeter printer. He was appointed as missionary to the Hudson Bay area where he taught himself the Cree language and translated various religious texts. His manuscripts sent to London were returned together with a printing press as there were no proof readers in London capable of checking Cree texts. Between 1853 and 1859 he taught himself to print and with some assistants printed a number of Cree translations. In 1872 he was consecrated as the first Anglican bishop of Moosonee. He died in 1893 at Moose Factory in northern Canada.
Devon reading rooms
Returning closer to home to conclude this over-long issue, in this centenary year for Devon County Library (which hosted a most enjoyable birthday celebration on 15 July with comedian Robin Ince, a great supporter of libraries) we pick up on the many reading rooms that were largely replaced by the village centres that were set up in more than 400 communities across Devon in the 1920s and 1930s.
Yet another HODS event, this one on 14 September, took me to Newton St Cyres church from where I made a pilgrimage along the Boniface Way to Upton Pyne church. Among the local publications I picked up there was the Upton Pyne parish manual in which, in 1876, Francis Pelham wrote:
LENDING LIBRARY
There is a small library for young people in the reading room. There are about 130 volumes in it at present. Small printed catalogues can be had from Mr N. England. Time for exchanging books, 5 o'clock every other Sunday.
THE READING ROOM
The Rector wishes it to be understood that the reading room is not meant to take the place of a public house, and it does not pretend to supply that want. The man who likes to sit over his pot of beer or glass of spirits all the evening will hardly care for games, or for reading papers and books.
The Rector would much rather have started this room while the public house was in existence, and for some time had been trying to get a house in the village for that purpose. But when Mr. Pitts went away, and it was decided to pull down the old public house and in the course of two years build a new cottage, not a public house, on that site, the Rector offered to repair the old building and to furnish it for a reading room . Its existence does not in the least prevent a public house being built if one is necessary.
The Rector hopes that the parishioners will continue to value and to appreciate the use of the room and its property. Nothing is a greater sign of the civilization and education of a parish as the way it makes use of such opportunities for higher kinds of amusements and occupations.
The coffee shop, which is open to all, is at present a great success, and has been found to be most useful for strangers and visitors. There is no real reason why more things should not be provided if required. Now hot cups of coffee, tea, cocoa, biscuits, and bloaters and cheese may be had there.
HONORARY MEMBERS
Any resident in Upton Pyne may become an honorary member by subscribing 2s. 6d. per annum, paid in advance. The year commences on the 1st of October.
The room will be open for the use of honorary members during daylight, and they will find newspapers and periodicals and books provided for their use.
Upon the payment of 2d. a fire may be ordered and for 1d. notepaper and envelopes will be provided.
Coffee and cocoa and biscuits, &c., will be supplied to honorary members according to tariff. Ready money must be paid.
If any honorary members wish to use the rooms at night they must become ordinary members and pay the monthly subscription of 8d. The cost of fire and lighting necessitates this.
The room may be of great used to honorary members for purposes of business; strangers on business may be introduced by honorary members by paying 1d. per head. The room can be used during the summer months and papers will be supplied if funds permit.
RULES
[These include:]
2. That the officers shall consist of a president, a secretary, and the committee of five, to be elected by the members of the general meeting in the last week in September.
3. That any person residing in Upton Pyne above the age of 17 may become a member.
4. That the subscription be 8d. per month paid in advance during the winter season (October to April) and that during the summer the subscription the 1d. for the five months.
9. That no parishioners or residents in the parish who are not members will be allowed on any considerations to use the rooms.
10. That a member may introduce one non-resident stranger per night by leave of one of the committee, on condition that he be answerable for that stranger's conduct and that he enter his name in the Visitor’s Book and that he pay 1d. to the house-keeper or officer for the Reading Room Fund. 11. That from the 1st of October to the end of April the room be opened from 7 to 9.30 or from 7.30 to 10 o’clock (such time to be settled by the committee) on Mondays to Fridays.
12. That newspapers, books, and games be provided for the use of members.
13. That no playing for money or gambling of any kind be allowed.
17. That no bad language be allowed.
18. That smoking be allowed, but may always be stopped or prevented by a majority of members present..
20. That lads under 17 years of age who attend Night School may use the reading room by special leave from the Secretary on Thursday and Friday nights upon payment of 3d. a month in advance.
The rector will be amply repaid for his trouble if he finds that the room affords innocent and instructive recreation to those who are tired by their daily labour.
