February 2023 - "Now that's what I call Theology Librarianship" with Clemens Gresser

Wednesday 8th March - 6pm

This month we hosted an online event which was a comprehensive, interesting and at some points hilarious talk by a former colleague, Clemens Gresser.  Clemens left his most recent post as Librarian at the Divinity Faculty, University of Cambridge to become Heythorp Librarian at the London Jesuit Centre, based in Mayfair.

Throughout his talk Clemens interspersed 7 Pathways to Theology Librarianship – having asked colleagues how they ended up working in Theology Libraries.  This was a great idea – we are all nosy about how people got their jobs, whether they had (or needed) a subject background, and we heard through anonymised questions about those whose career in libraries was definitely heading in that direction and those who just “fell into it!”  This was a great idea to include in a talk, especially pertinent to graduate trainees and early career professionals.

The talk covered areas unfamiliar to most of the audience –the difference between Theology and Religious Studies;  the importance and proliferation of biblical commentaries, and that apocryphal texts (the Gospel of Peter is actually a thing – Gospels are not limited to the “Fab Four” Matthew, Mark, Luke & John!).  He suggested that as a subject librarian, you don’t need to know everything, you just need to know an academic with expertise in the field.

We were told about the huge volume of publications in the Biblical Studies field and the need to exercise caution and not spend all of the library budget on Biblical Studies texts – for example a whole book can be devoted to just a couple of verses of scripture.  We looked at classification schemes, some of which were conceived when religion meant Christian Theology with “Other Religions” appearing as add-ons or afterthoughts.  He illustrated this with an example from the Cambridge University Divinity Library where Islam was in a category called “None of the Above” –there was no meaningful way to browse the shelves for books on Islam.  The Classification scheme for that library was amended after 2015 to include separate classmarks for Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism etc.

We moved on to thinking about Black theology, and post-colonial theology – a timely discussion as the “user-base” of practicing Christians is increasing in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and the same time as seeing a decline in Europe and North America.

There were a good few anecdotes as well. We heard that St Jerome is recognised by the Catholic Church as the patron saint of translators, librarians, and encyclopaedists, and that he translated many biblical texts into Latin from Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.  We also found out there is a colouring book for librarians as well (have since Googled “Librarian Colouring book” – who knew there was such a selection on a well-known online retailer’s site!)

Clemens rounded off his talk with some photos of the Heythorp Library (which covers 4 sites, including a storage site and a site at an Oxford College) and there followed a few questions from the audience.  Many thanks to Clemens for an entertaining and informative evening.

Post contributed by Helen Snelling - Membership Secretary

December 2022 / January 2023 - Christmas Board Games Night and Twelfth Night Party at CUP

December - Christmas Board Games Night

CHRISTMAS!!!

Four things are important at this time of year, 1. food, 2. drink, 3. good company, and 4. board games!

Yes, you read that right, board games; Decembers meeting had all of these.

A buffet was provided and there was a choice of wine and soft drinks.

A few of the committee members are keen board game players and two of them have quite a collection. Diane and Kevin kindly brought a selection of board games for us to try ranging from classic games like cards and Cluedo, games that not many had heard of.

Banagrams, which is a cross between scrabble and a cross word made combined words with speed. This proved challenging after a day at work, but was very much enjoyed.

Another popular games was The Table Is Lava. This consisted of cards and meeples (wooden tokens that have the general human shape). The idea is have as many meeples standing, whilst knocking your appointments meeples off their cards and into the "Lava".

There was a lot of laughter and a great night was had by all.

Post contributed by Di Symonds

January - Twelfth Night at CUP 

The group were really pleased to be back at CUP this year for Twelfth Night. This was the first time post-Covid that we'd been able to have this event, and be back in person for it. 

CUP Bookshop kindly provided us with drinks and nibbles (YUM) plus a generous discount. 

Members were able to catch up over a mince pie or two and buy some gifts/presents for themselves. 

We're looking forward to going back next year!

Post contributed by Katherine Burchell - Social Media Editor

November 2022 - Jo Browning Wroe, author of A Terrible Kindness

Jo Browning Wroe, author of A Terrible Kindness, in conversation with Helen Snelling for the Cambridge Library Group, November 30th 2022, at Lucy Cavendish College.

When I first heard about this book, my initial response was to say it didn’t sound like my sort of book, a story about a young embalmer and the Aberfan disaster in 1966 which killed 144 people, mostly children. But I thought I should try and read it before the meeting, and my expectations were totally overturned. I literally couldn’t put it down, and read it in one sitting, it is the best book by a debut novelist I’ve ever read, and I loved her spare prose style. So the opportunity to hear the author speak about how she wrote it was very welcome. The book covers a 17 year period, beginning in 1966, then going back to William’s childhood as a chorister in a Cambridge chapel choir, and then moving on to the early 1970s to show how his experience at Aberfan had left him with PTSD, and how returning to Cambridge and facing up to issues from the past helped heal him.

Jo Browning Wroe (author of A Terrible Kindness, left) with Helen Snelling (Membership Secretary, right)

Jo’s unusual childhood, growing up in a crematorium, was the springboard for the story, as she was looking up some conference papers at the UL that her father had given, when she found references to volunteers from the undertaking profession coming from all over the country to help after the disaster. Although only part of the book actually takes place in Aberfan, obviously the storyline would have to be handled very sensitively as there are many still alive who were affected by it. She interviewed some of the embalmers who volunteered at the time, and also showed what she wrote to survivors and Aberfan natives to gauge their reaction.

She began writing the book in the UL tea room, until lockdown forced her to work at home, and later in cafes. Asked about her working methods, she said she generally tried to write about 1,000 words a day, with half her time editing the previous day’s writing. She wrote the book in sections, taking time in between to mull over them before starting the next. Editing was a lengthy process, and she and her agent spent six months working on it before sending it out to publishers. It was immediately accepted by Faber, who she couldn’t praise highly enough for how they have promoted the book, and it has been one of their best-selling books this year. She was given training in all the marketing and publicity events which are now part of an author’s life, although her teaching career was a help for that. She attended 9 literary festivals in 2022, involving lots of traveling, as well as appearing on Front Row, and doing social media. She also was involved in cover design, had a say in the choice of reader for the audio version, and will have editorial control and a degree of input over casting in the forthcoming tv adaptation. The book has already been translated into a number of languages, and she had some amusing anecdotes of issues the translators struggled with. Asked about her next book, she only revealed that it is set in a 6 week period in 1973, so won’t need a timeline to keep track of things with the flashback format of A Terrible Kindness.

Post contributed by Sarah Preston, Treasurer, Cambridge Library Group

October 2022 - Cherry Hinton road with Mary Burgess

In October we held our AGM for members at Cambridge Central Library, once the minutes/AGM had finished we welcome Mary Burgess, from the Local History Collection to give us a talk about her latest book on Cherry Hinton Road.

The talk today was a walk down Cherry Hinton Road. Mary Burgess brought the road to life starting at the old Ford garage top of the road off Hills Road meandering road a leisurely pace talking about the avenues and why there are some roads with trees and the history of these side roads, without wandering too far down them.

She told us about how much the road has changed and the various shops that lined the road and her memories of growing up down the road, from butchers, and groceries and bakers. We learnt how there were different butchers selling different meats. A world away from Tesco!

As we travelled further down the road, we saw the transition from the Victorian bikes to the hustle and bustle, okay, nose to tail cars, of today.

As we crossed the road at the top of Cherry Hinton Road we then headed back towards Hills Road, coming forward in time to the Second World War. This was an emotional journey for me, as my Nan lived off Cherry Hinton Road during the war years and had an Anderson Shelter; but most poignantly for me was the story of the house on the corner being bombed and the bath hanging out! Lo and behold, Mary had a picture of this house, and there it was, the bath. Precariously hanging from the upstairs bathroom. A solemn reminder that not even Cambridge escaped the War.

She wrapped up the talk by houses that had been rebuilt and why Cherry Hinton Road has different style buildings as some are much older than others as a result of expansion and the effects of the War.

The floor was then opened to questions, and an opportunity to by her books.

The talk was really interesting and I thoroughly enjoyed my journey down Cherry Hinton Road.

Post contributed by Di Symonds

September 2022 - Visit to the New Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge

On 8th September 2022, 9 members of CLG went on a tour of the New Library, Magdalene College, which has been awarded the RIBA Stirling Prize for 2022.  Thanks to Lauran Richards for giving up her evening to show us around – you can learn more about it here: RIBA Architecture Stirling Prize Winner 2022.  Also thanks to Catherine Sutherland for her enlightening talk and for showing us around the historic Pepys Library.

Picture credits: Helen Snelling.

March 2022 - Decolonisation in Librarianship: shared experiences

Decolonising in Librarianship: shared experiences. Online 14^th March 2022.

The Cambridge Library Group met online for a session of four short talks on how various libraries are tackling the issues of decolonisation.

 

Helen Snelling, Music Collections Supervisor, Pendlebury Library of Music, talked about decolonising the Music Tripos and expanding the library's acquisition policy, the involvement of the Faculty of Music’s Director of Performance.  This ultimately led to a number of performances of works featuring black female composers at the West Road Concert Hall, Faculty of Music.

Frankie Marsh, Assistant Librarian, Department of Plant Sciences and Cory & Herbarium Libraries, discussing her MA dissertation on academics' perceptions of critical information literacy and its role in libraries' decolonisation efforts

 

Sarah Hammond, Library Assistant, Squire Law Library, talking about the Squire's in-house classification scheme and decolonisation, in particular addressing outdated terminology.

 

Genny Grim, Librarian, Pembroke College, on the Decolonizing History project at Pembroke College Library – a focused project around the classification of history in the college library.

 

The evening concluded with a stimulating discussion followed by a Q&A session.

Post contributed by Helen Snelling, Pendlebury Library.