CILIP?”) exacerbate problems. For exam- ple, Westerkirk Parish Library, a lending library from the turn of the nineteenth century on the Scottish borders with strong holdings of literature purchased for its Georgian and Victorian readers, is open for just an hour a month. How can we bring all libraries together? Can the ISTC and ESTC with their proven networking skills give us a steer? The Directory cannot supply answers. By seeking out lesser-known libraries, it throws a spotlight on the conundrum.
Academic assistance A copy of The Irish Rebellion.
onwards are present at the Skilliter Centre Research Library at Newnham College, Cambridge, which focuses on Ottoman history.
New university libraries are conspicuous among the additions: the universities of East and West London, Gloucester- shire, Winchester, Central Lancashire, Surrey, Birmingham City, Nottingham Trent, York St John, the West of England (Bristol) and Bournemouth. Dublin City University, constituted in 1989, stands out particularly. Although it had no special collections before this century, by 2016 it had with the help of mergers been able to create a Special Collections & Archives directorate to oversee fifteen named special collections. Many of these have a specifically Irish interest, and local interest is a feature of the newly reported special collections overall, as it is of longer established ones.
A local angle
Obviously local studies collections emphasise this, and so do the various collection of the University of Glouces- tershire (local poets and presses and a local archaeological society library), the William Woodruff Collection of a Lanca- shire-born academic at the University of Central Lancashire, and the East London Studies Centre of the University of East London. However, Dublin City University also has the personal library of the Ameri- can literary critic Harry Levin (1912-1994) – remarkable because American collec- tions do not feature largely in British libraries – and a collection of about 9,800 early printed books from various theologi- cal organisations. By contrast, some libraries featuring for
the first time in the Directory have existed for at least a century. The Wordsworth Trust, a centre for British Romanticism with collections that tell the story of the Lake District as a cultural landscape
December 2020
inspiring artists and writers over the last 300 years, was established in 1898. The Portico Library, an independent subscrip- tion library in Manchester with over 25,000 printed volumes from the sixteenth century onwards, was founded in 1806. Yet older, Stonyhurst College, an independent school in Clitheroe, settled in England from St Omer in 1794. Its holdings include medi- aeval manuscripts and a Shakespeare first folio; former owners of its books include Thomas Cranmer, Elizabeth of York, and James II.
Joining the network
None of these libraries is secret – all have a web presence, and all welcome visitors. Stonyhurst College has reported its 89 incunabula to the Incunabula Short Title Catalogue (ISTC), and both it and the Portico Library are represented in the English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC). How could they – and the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution and others – escape attention for so long? The answer is perhaps that they are outside large standard networks. National and academic libraries are well networked with each other through the overlapping groups Sconul (for ‘all university libraries in the UK and Ireland, irrespective of mission group, as well as national libraries and many libraries with collections of national significance’)1
and RLUK (‘a consortium of
the most significant research libraries in the UK and Ireland’).2
The holdings on the union catalogue Jisc
Library Hub Discover additionally include several specialist professional libraries, National Trust libraries, some cathedral libraries, and a smattering of others: a school library (Eton), subscription library (the London Library) and a few museums and art galleries. Yet these are just the tip of an iceberg. Moreover, public libraries are outside its remit and have no comparable national network of their own. Lack of professional library staff (“what’s
Academics as major users of special collec- tions can help to identify them. It was an academic who reported the Cardinal O’Fiaich Memorial Library & Archive, opened in 1999, to the Directory: this independent public reference library for Irish history and sport, the Irish language, ecclesiastical history, and the Irish abroad, has some early printed works in the Irish language and periodicals relating to Irish church history, which are unavailable elsewhere. That many libraries were eager to contrib- ute to the Directory indicates awareness within at least some areas of the profession that special collections are an asset worthy of promotion. Alongside research value and the preservation of cultural heritage, special collections can assist with public engage- ment. The content need not comprise old books – some material is ephemeral, and most of the material reported in 2020 is from the nineteenth century or later. If the public think that special collections are of dusty, irrelevant tomes, libraries which have come forward since 2016 disabuse them. Are you into motorcycles, jazz, or stamps? See the Vintage Motor Cycle Club in Burton on Trent, the National Jazz Archive Satellite Collection of over 15,000 jazz-related items from the 1920s onwards at Birmingham City University, or the Royal Philatelic Society London (with holdings including 25,000 catalogues from auction houses around the world) respectively. Is your child a fan of Matilda or the BFG? See the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre in Great Missenden.
Special collections develop continually and eclectically. New or newly described special collections hammer home a message: that special collections reflect our society, are part of us, and enrich us all. IP
l The updated paperback version of the 3rd Edition of the Directory of Rare Book and Special Collections in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland will be published by Facet Publishing in January 2021. For more visit
https://bit.ly/3atbLer.
References 1 Sconul,
https://www.sconul.ac.uk/page/about-sconul. 2 RLUK, Research Libraries UK,
https://www.rluk.ac.uk/.
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