Cambridge University Libraries annual report 2019–2020 annual report 2019–2020 1 527,000 VIEWS OF 220 LIBGUIDES IN THE ACADEMIC YEAR 2019–2020 80,500 VIEWS OF CAMGUIDES CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY COLLECTIONS REPRESENT AN “ INVALUABLE CONTRIBUTION TO WORLD HERITAGE SPANNING FOUR THOUSAND YEARS OF HUMAN THOUGHT.” DR JESSICA GARDNER, Cambridge University Librarian Cover and back cover shot by Alice the Camera 2 CAMBRIDGE UNIVERISTY LIBRARIES CONTENTS Cambridge University Librarian 4 DR JESSICA GARDNER One million and counting 5 ELY’S ‘CATHEDRAL OF BOOKS’ HITS LANDMARK FIGURE The Rising Tide: Women at Cambridge 6 RECORD-BREAKING EXHIBITION CELEBRATES THE INCALCULABLE IMPACT OF WOMEN AT CAMBRIDGE OVER CENTURIES Outstanding international importance 8 CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY’S SPECIAL COLLECTIONS RECOGNISED WITH ARTS COUNCIL ENGLAND DESIGNATION Cambridge Digital Library 10 HIDDEN GEMS OF THE CAMBRIDGE DIGITAL LIBRARY Collecting COVID-19 12 CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY APPEALS FOR HELP IN BUILDING A COLLABORATIVE HISTORY OF THE CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK Digital Mycenae 14 EXPLORE THE ANCIENT GREEK CITY OF MYCENAE IN A NEWLY RELEASED DIGITAL ARCHIVE Archive Management System 16 A NEW ARCHIVE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR CAMBRIDGE 18 PUBLIC PROGRAMMES 20 FUNDRAISING & PHILANTHROPY 22 FINANCE annual report 2019–2020 3 Cambridge University Librarian DR JESSICA GARDNER One brief but emotional experience from last year heralded, for me, the time our world changed to the one we’ve come to know only too well. It was heartbreaking to have to close our libraries for the first UK lockdown, and anyone who heard my Tannoy announcement marking that closure in March 2020 will perhaps have understood why I had a tear in my eye making that address to our wonderful readers and staff. We thought we would close for a few weeks, but that moment heralded a time of disruption unprecedented in peacetime. Yet the coming of the pandemic also revealed a spirit of togetherness and an insistence that we would not be beaten in our community of libraries and readers. As we all discovered during 2020, our reliance on technology and the digital world has never been greater. Just as we have worked to recover our physical services, so have we grown our library offer online. In our latest Annual Report, many of the stories featured celebrate the amazing digital collections of Cambridge University Library, which we, as one of the world’s great libraries and research collections, make available to a global audience. While booklovers like me (and, I suspect, you) will never lose affection for our stacks, reading rooms, And as these pages show, there has also been much and of course the books themselves, access to digital to celebrate away from our collective response to collections across the libraries network at Cambridge the pandemic. University proved to be vital during the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns. In the period this Annual Report covers, we have seen the one millionth book deposited in our Ely store; the UL’s But we have triumphed through adversity, keeping Special Collections recognized as being of ‘outstanding our libraries open online and responding to both the international importance’; and we celebrated the impact University’s and society’s need to facilitate teaching, and legacy of Women at Cambridge over centuries. learning and research - and proved to anyone who ever doubted it that library workers are essential I could not be more proud of the creativity, hard work workers, too. and indomitable spirit I have witnessed among libraries staff across not just Cambridge, but the UK and beyond. To everyone who has lived and breathed this work, I say It was nothing short of inspiring, as we rallied to find new a simple yet profound thank you. To our readers and and ingenious ways of delivering both digital, and then supporters, I say thank you, too, for all your support physical, resources back into the hands of those who and care. Working and acting as a community has never needed them. This Annual Report is dedicated to them, been so important. with my warmth and thanks. I COULD NOT BE MORE PROUD OF THE CREATIVITY, HARD “ WORK AND INDOMITABLE SPIRIT I HAVE WITNESSED AMONG LIBRARIES STAFF ACROSS NOT JUST CAMBRIDGE, BUT THE UK AND BEYOND.” DR JESSICA GARDNER, Cambridge University Librarian 4 CAMBRIDGE UNIVERISTY LIBRARIES One million and counting ELY’S ‘CATHEDRAL OF BOOKS’ HITS LANDMARK FIGURE A children’s book by Girton College graduate Sandi Toksvig became the one millionth book to take its place in Cambridge University Library’s Ely storage facility, 18 months after The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – written by fellow Cambridge alumnus Douglas Adams – became the first book placed in the facility. pRobin James, Head of Since opening in May 2018, the Library Storage Collections Logistics and Services, photographed Facility (LSF) has quickly become a critical element in by Nick Saffell the day-to-day running of the Cambridge University Libraries service, housing more than a million books, journals as well as copies of the Yellow Pages and its vast 17-storey tower and, despite electronic legal telephone directories. deposit being introduced in 2013, the Library was nearly at capacity. Built to store up to five million items, the self-regulating facility has a capacity equal to 18 Olympic-sized While most of the items in the LSF are Legal Deposit swimming pools with shelving that measures 65 miles – titles, Robin James, Head of Collection Logistics and the distance from Cambridge to London. The facility is Services, notes that part of the project was to help now around 25% full. relocate collections from Faculty and Department libraries with a shortage of space, and support Toksvig’s Guide to France joined a wide variety of University building projects that required the material already transported to Ely, from the Harry Potter downsizing of a library. novels to US History for Dummies to the Puffin Book of Nursery Rhymes. With valuable space in the library stacks slowly becoming available, the aim is to make the collections The £17m LSF was built to house low-usage material housed at the Library more accessible whilst allowing and currently receives between 7,000 – 10,000 items academic and other significant collections the space to for storage a week. Since 1710, the University Library grow. The project also plans to remove temporary cases has been one of six libraries entitled to receive material that have been added over the years to restore the published in the UK and Ireland. In the past, this architectural integrity and aesthetics of the 1934 Giles material has been shelved around the Library, including Gilbert Scott building. annual report 2019–2020 5 The Rising Tide: Women at Cambridge tBehave badly badge #WOMENATCAMBRIDGE The impact of women at Cambridge is incalculable. From brilliant scholarship and notable firsts, to activism and disruptive thinking, Cambridge’s women have shaped the University of Cambridge – just as muCh as it has shaped them. Cambridge University Library shared the unique stories of women who have studied, taught, worked and lived at the University in a free exhibition The Rising Tide: Women at Cambridge, which ran from October 14, 2019 – March 2020. Curated by Dr Lucy Delap and Dr Ben Griffin, The Rising “It was still not until 1948 that Cambridge began Tide focused on the lived experiences of women at to offer degrees to women – the last of the big the University, the ongoing fight for equal educational institutions in the UK to do so. rights, recognition, and inclusion in university activities, and the careers of some of the women who shaped the “Through The Rising Tide we hoped to illustrate institution – from leading academics to extraordinary an all-encompassing picture of the incredible fight domestic staff and influential fellows’ wives. for gender equality within the University, while portraying the fascinating journeys of some of the The exhibition showcased the history of women at the militant, cussed and determined women of our University, the persistent marginalisation they were institution too.” subject to, and the ongoing campaigns for gender justice and change since the establishment of Girton DR LUCY DELAP College in Cambridge in 1869, the first residential Reader in Modern British and Gender History, university establishment for women in the UK. and Fellow of Murray Edwards College Visitors explored rarely-seen collections from across the University and colleges. Through a mix of costume, letters and audio-visual material, little-known stories of individual women were brought to life. q Confetti used at an As another major strand of the Women at Cambridge 1897 demonstration, Cambridge University celebrations, more than two dozen portraits of (MS Doc.812) extraordinary women who have influenced the history of the University of Cambridge lined the walls of the University Library’s historic North and South Galleries. “Though Girton College was established especially to give women the opportunity to study at the University, there were still many barriers that women faced – the first female students were required to ask permission to attend lectures, were not allowed to take exams without special permission, and usually had to be accompanied by chaperones in public until after the First World War. 6 CAMBRIDGE UNIVERISTY LIBRARIES 1869: EMILY DAVIES ESTABLISHES GIRTON COLLEGE. IT WAS THE FIRST WOMEN’S COLLEGE AT CAMBRIDGE, AND THE FIRST IN BRITAIN TO OFFER RESIDENTIAL HIGHER EDUCATION FOR WOMEN. 1897: A VOTE ON WOMEN GETTING DEGREES TURNS INTO A RIOT AT CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY 1948: THE FIRST FEMALE RECIPIENT OF A CAMBRIDGE DEGREE WAS THE QUEEN MOTHER, WHO RECEIVED AN HONORARY DEGREE Today: FOR MORE THAN 150 YEARS, FEMALE RESEARCHERS, ACADEMICS AND STUDENTS AT CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY HAVE BEEN CHANGING THE WORLD AROUND US VERY MOVING pPoster, 1897 “ EXHIBITION AND BRILLIANTLY 53,507PEOPLE EXECUTED.” VISITED THE EXHIBITION EXHIBITION VISITOR uMemorial for the admission of women to examinations and degrees sent by W.S.