Library Archive Catalogue
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University of Wales Lampeter, formerly St. David’s College Library Archive Catalogue GB 1953 UA/L Sarah Roberts Special Collections Archivist V 1.1 November 2018 Contents Administrative/Biographical History 1 Archival History 4 Immediate Source of Acquisition 4 Scope and Content 5 Conditions Governing Access and Use 5 Publication Note 7 Catalogue 13 Administration and Management UA/L/1 13 Registers UA/L/1/1 13 Agenda and Minutes UA/L/1/2 17 Reports UA/L/1/3 25 Policies UA/L/1/4 31 Finance UA/L/1/5 33 Staff UA/L/1/6 38 Stock Management UA/L/1/7 39 Inter Library Loans UA/L/1/8 42 Research and Outreach UA/L/2 43 User Guides UA/L/2/1 43 Publications UA/L/2/2 45 Bibliographical Information and Finding Aids UA/L/2/3 56 Bibliographical Enquiries UA/L/2/4 68 Events and Exhibitions UA/L/2/5 73 Special Collections-Based Teaching UA/L/2/6 98 Donations and Transfers UA/L/3 99 Donations to the Library UA/L/3/1 99 Transfers from the Library UA/L/3/2 108 Conservation UA/L/4 111 Kupferman UA/L/5 114 Office Materials UA/L/6 115 ISAD(G) compliant description of the archive material relating to the Library of Saint David’s College Lampeter (SDC), subsequently Saint David’s University College Lampeter (SDUC), later the University of Wales Lampeter (UWL), and now a constituent member of the University of Wales Trinity Saint David (UWTSD) Library Records – Subfonds L Identity Statement Area Reference Code GB 1953 UA/L Title Library Records Date(s) 1809-[ongoing](Creation) Level of Description Subfonds Extent and Medium 0.28 cubic metres (28 boxes, 6 outsize volumes and 1 roll) Context Area Name of Creator(s) Saint David’s College Saint David’s University College University of Wales Lampeter University of Wales Trinity Saint David Administrative/Biographical History From the moment the idea of a college for the diocese of Saint David's was conceived, the founder, Bishop Burgess, recognised that it would require a library and in 1807 an appeal was made to the local community for, among other items, books. The first donations arrived at the Bishop’s Palace in Abergwili in 1809, and by the time Saint David's College opened its doors to its first students in 1827, four thousand volumes had been collected and placed in its library. Donations of books continued to arrive in Lampeter throughout the first half of the nineteenth century and in 1834 the college received the first of many consignments from the college’s most significant individual donor of books, Thomas Phillips1. Following the bequest in 1837 of approximately ten thousand volumes, comprising the personal collection of Bishop Burgess, the library was no longer able to provide shelf-space for its holdings. In that same year, the Cambridge University don the Revd Joseph Romilly visited the College and he reported that the library held approximately sixteen thousand volumes and that Burgess’ widow had recently given the sum of £500 to finance the doubling-in- size of the library2. By the time the final consignment from Thomas Phillips had been unpacked in 1852, the library held approximately thirty-five thousand volumes, by far the largest library in Wales at that time. 1 Between 1834 and 1852, Thomas Phillips (1760-1851) donated a total of over 22,500 volumes to the college library, including six medieval manuscripts and around fifty incunabula 2 Romilly’s Visits to Wales 1827-1854 1 The college’s first librarian, the Revd Rice Rees, had been appointed in 1827. Rees, who was also the college’s Professor of Welsh, registered every volume in accessions registers and compiled a catalogue of the volumes deposited in the library up to the date of its publication in 18363. Unfortunately the diligent work of Rice Rees was brought to a premature end with his unexpected death in 1839, and work did not recommence on the library catalogue until the Revd Joseph Matthews, Phillips Professor of Science, was appointed Librarian in 1862. Progress, however, stalled following Matthews’ departure in 1872 and did not resume until 1881 when a group of undergraduates, under the supervision of the Revd Charles Gresford Edmondes, Librarian and Professor of Latin and Logic, began to arrange the books by subject and thereunder by author. This work was abandoned, yet again, following Edmondes’ departure that same year. Following Edmondes departure the post of Librarian was taken up by Thomas Frederick Tout, Professor of English and later of History (1881-1889). Tout’s important contribution to the library collections was, in collaboration with C. H. Firth of Oxford University, the restoration and rebinding of the Tract Collection. In 1898 the Revd Llewellyn John Montfort Bebb was appointed College Principal. Bebb had been the Librarian at Brasenose and one of his first priorities at Lampeter was to ensure the completion of the cataloguing of the fifty thousand or so volumes which had been accepted since the death of Rice Rees. Rather than leave the task to members of the college staff and students, Bebb employed a professional librarian to complete the work and the production of the catalogue finally began in earnest in October 1903, under the direction of Mr Alexander de Zandt, who had previously worked in the library of Lord Crawford, and for the Geographical Society. Bebb made appeals for donations of archival material connected to the history of the college, in which he had a great interest, and for Welsh books, which were to be deposited in a separate Welsh library which he established in 1903. The Welsh Library became the repository for new acquisitions, alongside books which had previously been intermingled with the general library holdings, which were either written in Welsh and/or related to Wales and other Celtic countries. A significant addition to the Welsh Library’s holdings was the purchase, in 1904, of the extensive and celebrated library of the Revd D H Davies of Cenarth, a graduate of Saint David’s College. At around this time the student body established a Student’s Reading Room and the Student’s Library, funded directly through student contributions. By 1906 de Zandt had completed the library catalogue, an undertaking which had required entries on more than 40,000 cards; the contents of the Welsh Library had been listed by Mr William Davies, the bursary clerk; and the college’s collection of manuscripts had been catalogued by Mr Falconer Madan, then sub- librarian of the Bodleian. 3 A Catalogue of Books deposited in the Library of St. David’s College, published by Rice Rees’ brother, the printer, William Rees of Llandovery 2 The fact that Principal Bebb had previously been a librarian surely accounts for this short-lived but relatively golden era for the college’s libraries. Following Bebb’s death in 1915, subsequent Principalships saw the libraries starved of funds, both for book purchases and for qualified staff, and the majority of acquisitions over the succeeding decades came not through active acquisition but through gifts and bequests. The first full-time professional librarian, Robin Rider, was appointed in 1961 and the current main library building was opened by the Duke of Edinburgh in July 1966. The new library was designed to house the academic collections of the general library stock, the Student Library and the Welsh Library, but the space it afforded for eighty-five thousand volumes and seventy-five readers was soon found to be inadequate; less than twenty years later, the building was significantly remodelled and doubled in size and was re-opened by the Prince of Wales in 1984. Throughout this period the older, rare books, manuscripts and incunables had remained in the original library, which, following its refurbishment in 1971 was subsequently referred to as the Old Library. The Old Library housed the approximately twenty thousand volumes comprising the special collections until 2008 when a further extension to the Main Library building was officially opened by the First Minister of Wales, the Right Hon Rhodri Morgan MP. The purpose-built repository and research centre was funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales and a substantial legacy bequeathed by Evan Roderic Bowen (1913-2001), lawyer, Liberal Cardiganshire Member of Parliament and President of St David’s University College Lampeter from 1977 to 1992. Designed to house both the special collections and the archival material which had been assembled over the intervening years, the Roderic Bowen Library and Archives (RBLA) provides a secure, environmentally controlled storage area for the collections, a specialist reference library, and a publicly accessible reading and teaching space. The Old Library which, following Council approval was renamed the Founders Library in June 1994, retains many of its original internal architectural features. However, when the special collections were relocated to the RBLA, the Founders Library was refurbished and repurposed; since its official reopening by HRH Prince Charles on 1 July 2010 it has functioned as a lecture theatre and conference venue. For a more detailed history of the College Library refer to volume one, chapter nine, of Price’s history of the college: Price, D. T. W. (1977). A History of Saint David’s University College Lampeter, Volume One: to 1898. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. 3 Archival History Although Principal Bebb had first appealed at the beginning of the twentieth century for archive material to be deposited at the college, it was only with the arrival of the Revd D. T. W. Price, in 1970, that the Archive Service of the (by then) University of Wales, Lampeter (UWL), was established.