New to Cambridge Libraries, or don't know where to start?

Check out the Cambridge Libraries Gateway! http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/libraries/

This is a website that consolidates information about all the libraries available within the University of Cambridge - there are over 100 of them!

Sections include: How do I...? (e.g. find books, find journals etc.); ads for new library services such a the new mobile phone app; the Research Skills Programme for all undergraduate other members of the University; a feed from various libraries' blogs; a link to the online book renewal / library account facility; and much, much more.

Cambridge Libraries will have a presence at the Freshers' Fair, which will be held on Tuesday 4th and Wednesday 6th October at the Kelsey Kerridge Sports Hall. Several librarians from different libraries around the University will be ready and very willing to talk about all the libraries available to you and how you can use them. We will be giving out fliers, and hopefully will have a mobile phone and laptop to demonstrate some of the remote library services available.

On the new Cambridge Libraries website you can also check out also our new film, The Perfect Desk, to give you a student's eye view of the library system in Cambridge.

Balfour Library Conservation Project - what's been eating that book?

The volunteers are briefly assessing the overall condition of each book they clean; cleaning inside where necessary, and recording any damage they come across.

They found this spectacular evidence of insect pest damage caused by what I believe to be a deathwatch beetle:

The beetle has really chewed through the text block. They like damp environments and mould damaged timber, so this volume must have been kept in a damp place at some point (n.b. it's not here anymore!).

It is possible to see right through the pages! Deathwatch beetles leave holes that are much wider than those of woodworms. Woodworm damage is narrower and appears more like round holes or narrow tunnels through the text block.

You can see how someone has attempted to repair the damage by removing the damaged text and pasting in blank pages. I think that's probably caused more damage!

Thankfully the beetle either got bored or too fat to continue through the volume to the wonderful plates at the end.

This is the title page, again with fresh paper pasted in behind the holes.

Insects only eat at their larval stage, so it's funny to imagine little grubs burrowing their way through the book.

Balfour Library Conservation project - books that are falling apart!

One of the volunteers' tasks is to tie up books whose spines or boards have detached or are detaching. This keeps the book together on the shelves, in its correct shape, until such time as we can box the whole book in acid-free boxes.

Cotton tying tape is used to keep the books together. Granny knots must be used; they can be easily untied and re-tied by readers. The bows must lie in the direction of the spine, not across it, otherwise the tape gets caught up with other items on the shelves and may untie itself.

A perfect example! The tying is neat and the bows are not visible when the books are shelved. If you knotted at the front or side of the books, as if you were doing up a parcel, the knot would damage the book next to it on the shelf by being squashed against it.

We use black tape as we think it looks better on the books than the usual natural colour tape, which may get dirty or discolour over time.

Who knew that book tying was so important? We had much fun practising this during our training with the conservator; try it yourself and you'll see how difficult it is to get the bows lying along the spine, which is the indication of a proper granny knot! Some of us are apparently natural granny knot tie-ers, some have to really think about it and do these instead of reef knots! (Natural granny knot tie-ers apparently have to keep tying up their shoe-laces...).

Balfour Library conservation project - look the state of those books!

Here are some photos showing the amount of dust that the volunteers have had to contend with. These will be followed by photos of some of the same books - now clean!

Dirt visible on the shelves, and on the boards and spines of the books.

Decades of dirt on the text blocks. These don't have a shelf above them so even more dirt has accumulated on them.

The amount of dirt that has collected on the shelves is amazing, especially at the back of the shelves behind books.

More dirt on the text blocks - you might also be able to see where fragments of spine or pages from the books above has collected on the top of the books below.

After cleaning! Look how clean the shelves are too!

Now you can actually appreciate the marbled colour effect on the text blocks of the first four books on the shelf. All the dirt has been removed from the whole of the books. You can also see where one book has needed tying.

Dirt is a real enemy of the book. It is acidic and gradually breaks down pages and bindings over time. It is also a potential health hazard, and makes the books generally unpleasant to handle. Pests might also be encouraged by its presence. It is great that we are finally tackling the problem and are managing to preserve the books for a little bit longer.

Balfour Library Conservation Project - how are the books cleaned?

The CAMdfas Heritage Volunteers are simply using specialist brushes and other equipment to clean the books:

The work area. The desks are protected with heavy duty polythene, which are wiped down at the end of every session.

Natural hog bristle brushes, used for cleaning the spines and boards (covers) and text blocks of books. Note that we have used two colours of electrical tape on the metal ferrules. The black indicates that the brush should be used for the really dirty text block edges (as Wendy demonstrates below) and boards. The green indicates the brush should be used for pages inside the books where relevant. The tape also protects the books from the metal ferrules.

Natural hog bristle shaving brushes, from the local chemist! Hog bristle is quite robust and removes an impressive amount of dirt.

Pony hair brushes used for smaller books and more delicate materials.

The brushes are cleaned at the end of every session with soap and water, and are left to dry naturally.

Wendy demonstrating how the brushes are used along the text block to remove dirt in to a bin. We tried to show the amount of dust coming off but we're not sure it's visible! The technique when cleaning the text blocks is to always move the brush outwards from the spine. Similarly when cleaning the boards, the brush strokes should fan out from the centre of the spine.

Microfibre cloths from the local supermarket. They are used for cleaning and drying the shelves and desks. They need to be washed after every session as they get so filthy.

The volunteers wear protective clothing such as face masks with filters to prevent them inhaling anything nasty, and vinyl gloves, and glamorous aprons.

If the volunteers find anything sticking out of the books that is getting damaged or causing damage to the book it is removed and logged on index cards and bagged in separate clear polythene self-seal bags (purchased from a well-known high street store!)

A manuscript has been removed from the book.

The volunteers make a note of the books they are cleaning at every session, and record anything relevant such as any damage found, and where they have bagged a loose item. They quickly flick through each book and clean the inside pages where required, and note the condition and any damage found (more of which later).

Cards with numbers on. These are ingenious! When removing books from the shelves, the first book on the shelf has the number 1 card placed in it, and so on, until the last book on the shelf. The different colours are used when removing more than one shelf at a time. This means that the volunteers don't have to worry about what order they are cleaning books in. The books are also much easier to re-shelve in the correct order, rather than trying to follow often obscure classmarks.

If the boards are detached or detaching from a book then it is necessary to tie them to the book using specialist cotton tape (more of this in a later blog post).

The volunteers seem remarkably unfazed by the amount of dirt! All of the equipment being used is quite inexpensive and readily available. The most valuable thing is the volunteers' time spent on carefully cleaning and recording the books.

Balfour Library Conservation Project - meet the volunteers!

We are pleased to introduce the volunteers who are bravely cleaning our rare books as part of an ongoing project to conserve and preserve them.

They are Heritage Volunteers from CAMdfas, one of the Cambridge branches of the East Anglia area of NADFAS, the National Association of Decorative & Fine Arts Societies  http://www.nadfas.org.uk/

Wendy - proving she's getting her hands dirty!

Audrey, Pam and Wendy (note the state of the yellow microfibre cloth used to clean the shelves with!)

Diane

The volunteers really are doing sterling work, and have cleaned over 600 books already. The books are looking great once cleaned and placed back on nice clean shelves; it really is amazing the difference that is being made.

The basic workflow is as follows:

• Books are removed from the shelves and placed on a trolley;
• The shelves are cleaned;
• The trolley is taken to the work area where the books are cleaned using specialist brushes;
• The books are re-shelved.

I will shortly be blogging, with accompanying photos, about the equipment being used, the methods involved, the types of books being cleaned, some pest damage, and including some brilliant 'before and after' photos of dirty and clean books.

Library management system downtime next week CANCELLED

The scheduled downtime of the library management system, Voyager, next week beginning 22nd August has been cancelled.

Borrowing books using the self-issue machine 24/7 will therefore remain unaffected.

SHERPA-RoMEO upgrade version released

SHERPA Services’ is excited to announce the launch of an upgraded version of SHERPA RoMEO (www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo) as part of ongoing improvements to the SHERPA RoMEO service.

What is SHERPA-RoMEO?

SHERPA-RoMEO uses a simple colour-code classification to simplify complex publisher and journal policy information and provides impartial, easy to follow and accurate guidance on permissions and conditions of rights given to authors by journal publishers.

SHERPA-RoMEO offers users the ability to:

• View summaries of publishers' and journal copyright policies in relation to self-archiving;
• View if publisher and journal policies comply with research funder archiving policies, mandates and guidelines;
• To search journal and publisher information by Journal Title, Publisher Name, ISSN and eSSN.
  

Additionally, SHERPA-RoMEO provides lists of:

• Publishers that allow the use of their PDFs in Institutional Repositories;
• Publisher with Paid Options.
  

The new version contains significant additions and improvements to RoMEO, and now provides:

Increased Journal Coverage:

SHERPA-RoMEO now has its own Journals database containing over 18000 journals including many titles not covered by the other lists we use - Zetoc, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and ENTREZ.

More up to Date:

The new SHERPA RoMEO Journals database is faster than other lists in responding to new titles and journals that change publishers.

More Accurate Journal Level Searching:

The new journals database means that RoMEO identifies rights holders more accurately, especially where a commercial publisher is publishing on behalf of a society.

More Search Options:

In addition to searching for journals by title or ISSNs and publisher names, an advanced search option lets users search for publishers’ by RoMEO colour, RoMEO ID and RoMEO update date.

Electronic ISSNs:

RoMEO now holds data on electronic ISSN’s in addition to print ISSN’s and users can search for both using the ISSN search field.

Faster Performance:

Technical upgrades have made many features work faster than before.

This information is derived from the RoMEO database which is compiled by SHERPA and has been modified for use here.

Manual borrowing of books required during library management system downtime next week.

Essential hardware for the library management system, Voyager, is being upgraded next week, which will affect how you borrow books from the Balfour Library.

During the week beginning Monday 22nd August the self-issue machine will be unavailable so library staff will have to issue books manually, and during normal opening hours only, 08:30-17:00 Monday to Thursday, 08:30-16:30 Friday.

The online catalogue will still be available however, at: http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/newton/

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause. We hope that the system will be up and running again in sooner than 5 days; we will let you know when it does.

P.S. No old-fashioned stamping will actually be involved!

The Balfour Library is participating in Open Cambridge 2011!

We are very pleased to announce that we are taking part in the annual Open Cambridge event for the first time this year.

The event allows members of the public to gain exclusive access to and insights into libraries, museums, gardens, and many other University institutions (as well as many non-University ones in Cambridge!). There are tours and drop-in sessions available, some of which do require booking.

We thought it would be great to be able to open our doors to the public, who may have always wondered what the inside of this centrally located building is like having walked past it several times! On Saturday 11th September we are giving a one-hour, bookable tour, to show visitors how the library is used by students and members of the department for their teaching, learning, and research needs. We will also have a selection of items from our special collections on display - this is very exclusive, as we do not have space to show these off within the library at present. If the tour proves popular maybe we can deliver some more next year.

The event takes place on Friday 9th and Saturday 10th September, culminating in the Bridge the Gap Charity Walk on Sunday 11th.

For more details of what's on please see the Open Cambridge website at: http://www.cam.ac.uk/opencambridge/ Bookings now open.