Library and Archives Report 2023-2024 Our Spaces Most of us remember our favourite place to study when we were at university and our favourite texts, and it is quite probable that Somerville’s current students will have similar recollections in the future. What is becoming apparent is that the way in which students learn and study is changing and so those recollections might be quite different to ours. Today’s student is as likely to study in a shared space as in their room, with many favouring the focused peace and motivational setting of the library. During 2023-24 the library altered its environment to adapt to these changing needs, and will continue to do so as space and funds permit. With 104 seats for potentially over 700 students, space in the library was always at a premium, so we increased that number by 13% to 118: still not enough but heading in the right direction. We also doubled the number of group study rooms (to two!) to support the desire of students to study in collaboration with their peers, and increased the number of individual study carrels so that they could as easily avoid their peers. Finally, we created a relaxed café-style seating area in the library loggia where students can catch up with each other, or study without formality. To help members of the Somerville community, and our MARY SOMERVILLE'S SHELL COLLECTION visitors and guests, engage more effectively with the library, we launched our new website, which can be found at https:// library.some.ox.ac.uk. While it will continue to be developed Another collection to which we have turned our attention is as we identify new ways to support our users, it already the Mary Somerville Shell Collection. We received the shell contains a good deal of practical information as well as collection complete with beautiful cabinet as a donation providing an insight into our collections. in 2017, and since then it has been situated either in the Mary Somerville Room or the Principal’s office. During Our Collections Trinity Term we successfully advertised for the role of a Shell Collection Cataloguer, and the collection is now being Significant work continues in making available our archives carefully listed, photographed and described by Will Adams, a and special collections to a wider audience. During the Glasgow University MA student, who has worked on a similar summer of 2023 we moved our artworks and chattels collection in the past. Over the next year or so, we hope to collections catalogue into a new format which will allow us reveal more of this collection to the public, as it is a wonderful to share information about our collections more easily with example of a collection of British natural history objects those who may be interested. Many of our collections remain assembled by a knowledgeable and enthusiastic collector. accessible only as physical, print items, and we are working hard to ensure that records of these are made as useful as It is not unusual for Somerville to be approached with possible to potential researchers. In the longer term we would requests for the loan of our artworks, and this year we have like to explore the possibility of digitising materials in the lent from our collection Patrick Heron’s The Red Table to different collections so they can be viewed from anywhere Charleston in East Sussex for their exhibition Matthew Smith: in the world. At the moment, digitisation of our collections Through the eyes of Patrick Heron. Our artworks form an happens only upon request. important part of our history as a college and, as with all our special collections, we afford them the care they need We reached a significant milestone in the Mill Marginalia to preserve them for future generations. This year we have Online project, which provides a digital edition of all conserved The Devil Sowing Tares, attributed to Abraham marks and annotations in the books of the John Stuart Bloemaert, and a portrait of Mary Somerville by a little- Mill Collection. We completed the scanning for marginalia known artist, Ubaldo Albanesi. of volumes in the collection, thanks to the efforts of our enthusiastic volunteer, Emma Sherratt (Modern Languages, As ever, we note our gratitude to our alumni who continue 1991). Professor Albert Pionke, Project Director, visited in to be unstintingly generous in their gifts to the library March 2024 to photograph the remaining marginalia, and and archives. Of the 1,625 items we added to the library these will be added to the online collection in the near future. collection, 221 were gifts, many publications donated by their 20