The Working Library

Librarians and Staff

The office of Librarian or Library Keeper is one of the oldest in the College. Ambrose Ussher was appointed the first Keeper in 1601 at a salary of £2 5s per annum. In 1627 it was decreed that the office be held by a Senior Fellow at a stipend of £6 per annum. By 1637 the post had devolved to one of the Junior Fellows or Scholars. Some Librarians distinguished themselves in their parallel or later careers: the philosopher George Berkeley, for example, held the post in 1709; and many were also professors and senior churchmen. Most of the early Keepers applied themselves to cataloguing books, often being paid extra for this work. Over the centuries, a few men stand out as being especially dedicated to their role, including James Ussher (1601‐1605), who prepared the first catalogue; Claudius Gilbert (1693‐1696), who bequeathed his large collection of books and a sum of money to purchase busts for the Library; Edward Hudson (1731‐1740), who organized the transfer of books to the new Library, and supervised the creation of a new catalogue; John ‘Jacky’ Barrett (1791‐1808), who arranged and catalogued the Fagel Library in 1802, and took delivery of the Quin bequest in 1805; and James Henthorn Todd (1852‐1869), who reformed many aspects of Library procedures, arranged and classified the manuscripts, and began publication of the printed catalogue. Todd was responsible, as Assistant Librarian, of having mobile shelving installed on the gallery. He was also instrumental in bringing about the professionalisation of librarianship within the College.

By the end of the 18th century the Library was staffed by the Librarian and his assistant, Senior and Junior Fellows respectively, two porters and a cleaning woman.

The first record of a porter employed in the Library was in 1708. His salary at that time was £2 per annum, rising to £20 by the end of 1720. At first the main duty of a Library porter was cleaning, but after the move to the new building in 1732 his main responsibilities were supervising readers and shelving books. By 1757 there was a second porter in the Library, on a salary of £10 per annum.

As the Library grew, so the numbers and duties of staff increased. Around 1810 a porter was employed to look after the Fagel Library at a salary of £50 per annum; new regulations were introduced which stated that porters were to fetch and replace books for readers, and, in 1842, another decree ordered that only porters could carry out this function.

Readers

In the early years of the Library the admission policy was quite restrictive: according to College Statutes the use of the Library was restricted to the Provost and Fellows and to others only in their company. As time went on the regulations became less strict. Readers in the Long Room were originally accommodated in the alcoves between the bookshelves, seated on benches at sloping desks. In 1817 these desks were removed, and the reading area was moved to the centre of the Long Room, where manuscripts, archives and early printed books could be studied by researchers. Today there are separate reading rooms for Manuscripts & Archives and the Early Printed Books and Special Collections Department, and anyone over the age of eighteen and with a legitimate research interest may use these facilities. Despite the advent of high‐resolution digital imaging, the numbers of readers coming in to see analogue versions instead of, or as well as, their digital surrogates is as high as ever. The Old Library continues the tradition it began three centuries ago of housing a research library to rival any in the world.

Themes of the exhibition

• Introduction
• The Old Library
• The New Library
• Collections: Old & New
• The Working Library