Visit to the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst
On Thursday 18th June eight members of the APML visited the Library and Archives at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. They were accompanied by Major P N Skelton-Stroud and Brigadier A K Dixon (respectively Chairman and member of the Army & Navy Club Library Committee) who sponsored the tour and who both attended Sandhurst in the 1950s.
The visit began with the Archives in the Old College building. The Archivist, Dr Anthony Morton, explained that many documents had been destroyed during the Second World War when the building was occupied by, among others, the Home Guard. However, Cadet Registers cover much of the period from 1741-1946 and are a great source of information. We were able to see Winston Churchill’s entry in the Cadet Register (he joined in 1894), including his exam results.
Before visiting the Library, Brigadier Dixon and Major Skelton-Stroud regaled us with fascinating anecdotes about their cadet days. Outside the Old College building there are several cannons, including French guns captured at the Battle of Waterloo. Although these are now fixed in place this was not so in the 1950s; one story relates that cadets wheeled a cannon down to the nearest main road, loaded it with grapefruit and fired them at the passing traffic!
The tradition of the Adjutant riding a white horse up the steps of the Old College at the end of the Sovereign’s Parade dates from 1926 when Major F A M ‘Boy’ Browning accomplished this feat – although there is no explanation for why he did this!
The visit continued with a look around the Library. The Central Library occupies what was once the gymnasium but became a library in 1931. The library contains over 180,000 books and journals and is used by the officer cadets and permanent staff.
The visit ended with a picnic lunch by the lake. Everyone who attended felt that it was a fascinating visit, and that the input by Brigadier Dixon and Major Skelton-Stroud made it a really memorable event.
Mary Duffy [Librarian Army & Navy Club 2009]
"Poverty is no excuse"
“Poverty is no Excuse: Disaster Preparedness for the Small Library”
20 November 2008
This conference was extremely interesting and informative, and attended by about 50 people. The morning sessions consisted of two talks, one by Alison Walker, Head of the National Preservation Office, on Creating a Disaster Management Plan and the second by Professor Graham Mathews on Safeguarding Heritage at Risk.
1) Creating a Disaster Management Plan
Many sources are available, including the National Preservation Office, Emergency Planning College, UK Resislience and teh M25 Disaster Managament Group websites. A template from one of these sources can be adapted to meet individual needs.
http://www.bl.uk/npo/ NPO (part of the British Library) provides an independent focus for the preservation of and continuing accessibility to cultural heritage materials held in libraries, archives and museums in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
http://www.epcollege.gov.uk/ Government's centre for running short seminars, workshops and courses on an inter–agency basis in the field of crisis management and emergency planning.
http://www.ukresilience.gov.uk/ Provided by the Cabinet Office. Provides a resource for civil protection practitioners, supporting the work that goes on across the UK to improve emergency preparedness.
http://www.m25lib.ac.uk/ M25 Consortium of Academic Libraries, which has a disaster control plan template in its members' area.
http://www.ifla.org/blueshield.htm Another useful source is Blue Shield (the cultural equivalent of the Red Cross) that deals with cultural heritage preservation.
The main components of a plan are manpower, supplies and procedures. Once a plan is written it needs to be constantly updated and evaluated.
2. Safeguarding Heritage at Risk
Small Libraries tend to share common problems:
Low staffing levels
Lack of expertise in DP
Lack of funding
Lack of time
Senior Management do not consider that DP is a priority
Lack of space
Why bother about Disaster Planning?
There is an unprecedented scale of threat from Terrorism, Natural Disasters and Vandalism
We have a duty of care
Valuable / irreplaceable items
Service continuity – impact on our users
Examples of disasters that have had a major impact on cultural sites include the Windsor Castle fire, Cutty Sark fire, the floods of 2007 and 9/11. And there is the new threat of climate change.
The afternoon sessions consisted of three case studies:
a. Norwich Library fire of 1994
b. The development of Rapid Response, a regional heritage disaster network for Yorkshire’s libraries and museums, following the disastrous floods of 2007
c. The Belfor Rapid Response Scheme – used by the Royal Academy of Music Library
The Norwich Library fire took 2 days to put out and destroyed most of the books and other items held in the building. It was started by an electrical fault and the building was completely gutted. In this particular case the items in the basement were the ‘safest’.
The Yorkshire Rapid Response network was set up with Heritage Lottery funds (£56K) following the floods of 2007. The floods had affected 25 heritage organisations. Training will be provided on all aspects of disaster response, including practical and management issues.
The Belfor Rapid Response Scheme http://www.uk.belfor.com/index.php?id=92
The flood at the Royal Academy of Music was due to a combination of factors: flat roof, high winds, heavy rain and seeds from nearby plane trees accumulating in the gutters. The RAM pays £395 each year to Belfor Rapid Response and therefore was able to call on their expertise to repair the damaged books.
Miscellaneous Facts:
The staff at Norwich Library borrowed shopping trolleys from a nearby Marks & Spencers – these were used to transport ‘rescued’ material to awaiting vans. They used a nearby RAF aircraft hangar as a temporary store for damaged material.
Don’t just keep your Disaster Plan on the computer! It may be damaged by fire or flood. Have colour coded laminated sheets on display throughout the building.
Keep a torch in your Disaster Planning boxes – the electricity may fail.
Mary Duffy [Librarian Army & Navy Club 2008]
"A Visit to Eton"
30 October 2008
A small group of APML members were guests of Eton College Library on a bitterly cold late Autumn morning. Arriving a little early we took the advice of a remarkably opportune chance meeting with the headmaster to dive into the beautiful and well heated 15th century Henry VI chapel, prior to our appointment with Rachel Bond (College Librarian) and Katie Lord (Deputy College Librarian).
Following a warm welcome and an introduction to the history of the College, its remarkable Library and its collections, we were provided with the opportunity to view a choice selection of its holdings. These included an example of early Caxton printing, a remarkable Copernicus edition, a selection of drawings after the antique from the collection of Richard Topham, and a copy of the earliest, though perhaps not the funniest, "comedy" in the English language. Entitled "Ralph Roister Doister" it had been written by the College's own Headmaster Nicholas Udall back in the 1530's. Udall would later be jailed for homosexual offenses, but cleared on charges of theft, ending his career ultimately at that other school of early theatrical tradition, Westminster.
Of the items on display the highlight was certainly the Eton choir-book, a richly illuminated manuscript collection of sacred music composed during the late fifteenth century, one of very few collections of Latin liturgical music to survive the Reformation and one of only three large choir-books surviving from early-Tudor England. A joy to look at, it also brought back memories of singing plainsong as a youthful choirboy myself.
An opportunity for discussion of librarian-ship issues then arose, on such matters as cataloging and software. Our visit concluded with Eton College's Library of World War One Books, and the pupil's own working library, an intriguingly converted miniature Radcliffe camera.
A particularly worthwhile visit, I would like to extend my thanks on behalf of the APML to Rachel Bond and Katie Lord for giving up so much of their time. Our thanks also to Stephen Massil for making the arrangements for the visit.
Marcus Risdell (APML Chairman 2008)
Page from the Eton choir-book reproduced by permission of the Provost and Fellows of Eton College
"The Man Who Loved China"
24 September 2008
Royal College of Physicians
The Inaugural lecture of the APML was given by Simon Winchester OBE at the Royal College of Physicians in London on the 24th September 2008. Entitled The Man Who Loved China it introduced the extraordinary story of Joseph Needham, best remembered for his massive achievement embodied in the continuing Science and Civilisation in China series, the successive parts of which have been published by Cambridge University Press since 1954. This great work was planned as a history of science, technology and medicine in China, seen in its fullest social and intellectual context, and illuminated by a deep and sympathetic understanding of the cultures of both East and West. However the speaker has had unique access to diaries and personal papers and was able to introduce the audience to Needham, the man. We learnt of his love for naturism and Morris Dancing, the joy he experienced learning to use the Chinese script, and much much more.
The evening was chaired by Professor Lisa Jardine CBE and was preceeded with a reception.
Marcus Risdell (APML Chairman 2008)
"Treasures from the Libraries & Collections of Gentlemen's Clubs & Learned Societies in London"
28 September – 25 October 2007
Royal Society of Medicine Library
London has a long history of gentlemen’s clubs, and there are more of them than in any other city in the world. And yet this was the first exhibition to bring together under one roof some of their many treasures, normally hidden from public view.
The Association of Pall Mall Libraries was founded in December 2004 by the librarians of the Army & Navy, the Athenaeum, the Naval and Military, the Oxford and Cambridge, the Reform, the Royal Automobile Club and the Travellers Club. The Association rapidly expanded beyond the traditional confines of clubland, and includes members from all over central London.
The inaugural exhibition of the APML offered a unique opportunity for the general public to see books and artefacts from the collections of the Alpine Club, the Army & Navy, the Athenaeum, the East India, the Garrick, the Naval & Military, the Oriental, the Reform, the Royal Automobile Club, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the Royal Society of Medicine, the Royal United Services Institute, and the Travellers Club. The exhibits on display included items not only of intrinsic interest, but also of relevance to their respective institutions. The Garrick, for example, displayed Alec Guinness’s copy of a limited edition of Hamlet, illustrated by Henry Moore and dedicated to John Gielgud. The Royal Automobile Club exhibited the pressure gauge meter from the ‘Bluebird’ in which Donald Campbell achieved the record speed of 403.1 mph on 17 July 1964; and the Royal Society of Medicine, which hosted the exhibition in its newly opened Heritage Centre, displayed Rudyard Kipling’s copy of Culpeper’s book on herbs, and we must not forget the Army and Navy Club's Emperor penguin, a survivor from the first of Scott's Antarctic expeditions.
Sheila Markham (APML Chairman 2006-08)
