Pembroke in our time

With this final donation, to bring the total up to 50 books, Stephen Town draws his Night shelf series to a close.

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Gilbraith, C., Pembroke in our time, in the University Library at K8.4259 (Quarto)

Photo: Pembroke College library, Cambridge by Douglas Pfeiffer Cardoso.
Used under a Creative Commons License.

This final donation comes as new students have arrived in their Colleges here at York. Few Universities now preserve the tradition of a Collegiate system, but York continues to do so, and this model was originally a conscious emulation of the Oxbridge approach within which I studied. This gift is an acknowledgement of the enduring strengths of that system, and a celebration of the accession of a new Master of Pembroke, my near contemporary and friend Chris (Lord) Smith; a most worthy appointee.

It is also, at last, a book in which I get some mention, and leads me to reflect on what success means. I am pleased that another friend and recent Solicitor General, Sir Oliver Heald, recollects that I and my brother had College undergraduate politics ‘well sewn up’; I recall the astonishment of my contemporaries when I opted for a career in libraries. However, educating Yorkshire has been a family occupation now for a century, and I am content to have played a part in that tradition. I hope you have found this series stimulating, and that some may actually read the gifts. I depart sharing Alcuin’s view: “Oh how sweet life was when we sat quietly midst all these books”.

Photo: Stephen Town with some of his Night Shelf donations
Photo credit: Paul Shields, University photographer

Science; what does it all mean?

For the penultimate post in his Night shelf series, Stephen Town revisits his undergraduate studies to find out how much has changed.

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As the new academic year approaches, for the first time in forty-two years I will not be an active participant as it unfolds. I find myself in this situation increasingly drawn to recollection of my undergraduate experience, not in sentimental recollection, but through a continuing desire to learn and think within an academic community. Perhaps a retirement activity will be further study, and probably no better field to return to than the philosophy of science, having spent much of my professional life at the junction of science and humanities.

Lewens, T., The Meaning of Science, in the University Library at R 1 LEW

Lewens, T., The meaning of
Science. Pelican, 2015.

Tim Lewens is a professor in my old department of the History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge, so I was pleased to pick up this book to read on a long flight. This is a broad-ranging and relatively accessible introduction to the philosophy of science, delivered in the resurrected Pelican format. It covers a range of contemporary topics, including the currently much argued-over field of genetics, sociobiology and altruism in a chapter entitled “Human kindness”. My main interest was to see whether the fundamentals of the discipline had moved on, and I was both relieved and perhaps a touch disappointed to see that Popper, Kuhn and Feyerabend still dominate the field and exercise similar fascination they had for us forty years ago. It was, however, quite sad to read that the current view of Kuhn’s paradigms seems so much weaker than in my day. Perhaps this is a reflection of overuse of the term over the intervening period, rather than an accurate reading of this seminal idea.

Feyerabend, P., The Tyranny of Science, in the University Library at R 1 FEY

Feyerabend, P., The tyranny
of Science. Polity, 2011.

Paul Feyerabend was (and perhaps still is, although now deceased) the enfant terrible of the philosophy of science, attacking rationalist views of science, providing critiques of the scientific method, and proposing that science is an anarchic enterprise. These views were attractive (and not just philosophically) to those of us involved in the student politics of the time, and there was great excitement at the publication of Feyerabend’s Against Method (1975) in the course of my studies. We have almost all of Feyerabend’s work in the library, but I am pleased to be able to fill a gap with one of his last works, written in 1993, but not published in English until 2011. I read this alongside Lewen’s book, and there is certainly a contrast in style, but both seek to challenge myths about science, and establish better understanding of its role and conduct in our age.

What makes a great University Librarian?

As his Night shelf series begins to draw to a close, Stephen Town reflects on the teachings of other University Librarians in our collections.

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As I prepare to relinquish the Statute-defined role of Librarian of this University, I offer two books relating to others who have held this position in other institutions.

Booth, J.,Philip Larkin: Life, Art and Love, in the University Library at MA 191.9 LAR/B

Booth, J., Philip Larkin: Life, Art, Love.
Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014.

Philip Larkin may be best known as one of Britain’s greatest modern poets, but he was a professional librarian for the majority of his life, becoming University Librarian at Hull in 1955 at the early age of 32. At that time the Library had a mere 11 staff; by his death in 1985 this had grown to 80, with a new library building and transformed collections and services. Having had similar scale work experiences of growth and transformation, I would suggest that this part of his life deserves more respect than from the reviewer who described his life outside poetry as “dull”.

We hold a comprehensive collection of Larkin poetry and biography, but this new book seeks to reconcile Larkin’s life and art, and perhaps provide a more balanced perspective than the reputation derived from his own letters and two previous biographies. Booth was a colleague of Larkin’s at Hull, and this is an enthusiast’s readable combination of personal history and literary biography, and may be best read alongside a volume of Larkin’s poems.


Thompson, J., Redirection in academic library management, in the University Library at 023.5 THO

James Thompson was, like Larkin, appointed to the post of University Librarian at a young age, taking the post at Reading in 1967 when he was 35. I started my professional career just down the road from James in 1978, and his writing has been a foundational influence on my own exploration of library management and performance measurement. He wrote the core text of his era on University Library Administration, which went through four editions. And, after moving to Birmingham, he analysed the history of library performance and advocacy there, to inform the idea of what an academic library should be and do. His evaluation and thoughts are presented here in this 1991 work. The idea of a trajectory of academic library development through collections, via service focus, to educational impact (developed from Lancour’s earlier paper) remains very relevant today, and still underpins the search for proof of library contribution to teaching and research. Unsurprisingly, in this modern age many academic libraries have discarded their copies of what should still be a required text for any new information professional. York failed to buy it at the time of publication, so I now donate a priceless copy, obtained for the absurd sum of 1p.

The books behind the successful management of an academic library

Drawing his Nightshelf series to a close, Stephen Town donates a collection of books on management to the University Library

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Probably the best gift I can give to this University on retirement, but maybe the least desired by the recipient, is some wisdom on management. As I work towards completing my PhD by publication submission I am obliged to reflect on over thirty years of personal experience as a departmental head in universities, and to think about the personal influences that have shaped my own leadership and management practice and ideas. This also leads to consideration of what seems missing, not just in this University’s library stock on the subject, but also in the overall management appreciation of the organisation.

Just some of the books I've referenced over my years managing university libraries

Maslow, A., A theory of human motivation

It may be a truism, but if you don’t understand people you cannot manage. Motivation may depend on needs, and Maslow’s idea of a hierarchy of human needs makes him one of the most quoted psychologists of all time. The well-known pyramid diagram of need culminating in self-actualisation has been a feature of my own management understanding and teaching, and no doubt of many others. Maslow himself did not create the pyramid, preferring recognition of the more fluid reality we all inhabit. We do not have a separate version of Maslow’s original paper, so this is the first of this set of eight donations.

Tenner, A. and DeToro, I., Total Quality Management

My first management research was generously funded by Cranfield University in the early 1990s, when the quality revolution was in full swing, and those of us working to improve information services were seeking models applicable to public service contexts. The fundamental three step model I found in Tenner & DeToro’s Total Quality Management (Customer Focus/Systematic improvement/Total Involvement) still forms the basis of the conversations I have with all new staff in the Directorate. Of course it is best now not to use the term TQM any longer, as this appears outmoded, but there are some very basic fundamental ideas and methods here of value to anyone seeking to make this a truly world-class institution.

Zairi, M., Practical Benchmarking, Benchmarking for Best Practice and Measuring Performance for Business results

The research I undertook was the first systematic application of benchmarking in academic libraries, and it was very helpful to draw on Mohamed Zairi’s contemporary work for this, and so I offer three of his texts in this donation. The first two concentrate on benchmarking, and the third on performance measurement, which has become my own speciality. Although these are twenty-year-old texts, they include ideas and methods that each generation tends to rediscover when it wishes to learn or ‘steal shamelessly’ from others through benchmarking and comparative measurement. Universities, despite being places of learning, often seem to have a culture where the experience of other leading institutions is regarded as irrelevant; something I still find surprising.

Margretta, J., Understanding Michael Porter: The essential guide to competition and strategy

Benchmarking is about being competitive, and no University can now pretend that it is not in competition in some way with others. Michael Porter is regarded as being a key thinker in this particular area, but perhaps also sometimes either appearing inconsistent or misunderstood. Hence, I offer as my next donation a text explaining his thought, which I found very useful when creating the University’s current Information Strategy. Joan Magretta’s book also has a chapter on continuity as a key strategic test; something to reflect on in relation to retirement and succession.

Cambridge Handbook, Strategy as Practice

The creation and implementation of successive information strategies across the University has been an interesting experience. Universities are not always very corporate, and even when decisions seem to be made about change, there are many ways in which agreements can be subverted, delayed or ignored. These ‘micro-level social features’ as they are sometimes (euphemistically) termed are the subject of the relatively new field of ‘strategy as practice’, and so the new edition of the Cambridge Handbook of Strategy as Practice seems like a relevant donation as the University seeks to implement a raft of new strategies in the coming years.

Mintzberg, H., Managing

Finally, Henry Mintzberg has been one of the leading critics of strategic planning, but in this more recent work, and donation, Mintzberg goes back to the fundamental substance of what management is. Like Rosemary Stewart before him, Mintzberg believes that management is what managers do, and the way to find that out is to observe them. There is great wisdom in this book which has certainly helped me both understand and practice management better in the last few years. The dedication “to all those who manage with wisdom and respect” is one I can share in the making of this gift.

Inequality: what can be done?

In his latest night shelf donation, Stephen Town delves into the world of economics, politics and inequality.

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Atkinson, Inequality: what can be done?, in the University Library at G 9.41 ATK

The University of York has a proud record of research into inequality. Professor Kate Pickett’s The Spirit Level had a great impact beyond the academic sphere (you can find it in the University Library at DA 2.1 WIL or on Yorsearch). But, despite being quoted by the Prime Minister, the recent election and its aftermath indicate that few lessons have been learnt either by the electorate or by the political classes, and that there is no real plan in the UK for dealing with the problem.

Find Atkinson's work on Floor 1 of
the JB Morrell 

My latest donation, from distinguished economist, Tony Atkinson, does provide such a plan. Atkinson discusses a comprehensive set of fifteen proposals in five areas: technology, employment, social security, capital sharing and taxation. These suggestions are robustly defended against the sceptical and pessimist arguments currently so prevalent, and offer some hope that there is a method for reversing the present trend.

What is lacking at the moment, to reverse inequality, is both the political will and the courage to offer an intellectual challenge to the absurdities of extremist market theories. Atkinson’s book is a potential start to the latter.

The Complete World of The Dead Sea Scrolls

The latest installment from Stephen Town, this night shelf read is a must for anyone interested in religious studies.

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Davies P., Brooke G. and Callaway P., The Complete World of The Dead Sea Scrolls, in the University Library at C 21.4 DAV

The discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls at Qumran in the late 1940s has been described as ‘the greatest manuscript find of all time’. It regrettably also turned into one of the most shameful academic episodes of all time, with controversy, dispute and obstruction leading to almost fifty years of delay in opening up full access to these remarkable survivals.

The finds include over 900 documents of early versions of the Hebrew Bible, other diverse religious works from the Second Jerusalem Temple period not included in the canon, and previously unknown sectarian works possibly arising from a local religious community around the time of Christ.

The Library has a number of works on the texts, which can be found through Yorsearch, but this donation is a well-produced and colourfully illustrated introduction to the scrolls, their discovery and history, and interpretation.

History of Ireland in 100 objects

In this next installment of his Night Shelf blog, Stephen Town takes a look back at how objects can help tell the story of our past.

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O'Toole, F., History of Ireland in 100 Objects, in the University Library at Q 41.5 OTO

Neil MacGregor’s History of the World in 100 Objects started as a broadcast and became a very popular book (in the Library at Q09 MACG). It is a true night shelf book, and I have been reading it to my wife in bed for some time now. Unfortunately not even my inventive mimicry of the voices of the experts commenting on the objects can stop her falling asleep after a few sentences, so it has taken several years to get even half way through the chunky tome.

Fintan O'Toole, History of Ireland in 100 objects. Royal Irish Academy, 2013.

My next donation, however, is a more manageable imitator. The National Museums of Ireland are of a more human scale than the British Museum, and spread their wares across a number of locations across the island. The History of Ireland in 100 Objects does not limit itself to items in the museums either but recognises that some objects are best left in situ.

Also, the proportion of documentary history is greater in this work, with the great libraries of Dublin contributing entries. The illustrations are pleasingly larger than in McGregor’s work, with equal prominence to the text, which is less academic in expression, given that the author is a journalist. The book is Irish in the best possible way: it tells the story of people in Ireland reflected in the beauty of their created artefacts, but it also faces the darker moments of their history, especially in the final two entries. You will need to read the book to learn more.

On Immunity: an inoculation

In the next edition to his Night shelf donations, Stephen Town tackles the issues around immunisation.

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Biss, E., On Immunity, in the University Library at Y 6.079 BIS

I bought this book through having an interest in the immune system; having a wife who is deliberately immunosuppressed, following organ transplantation, creates a significant personal dimension to this field of biology.

Eula Biss is however not intent on covering this angle; her personal stake arises from the dilemma of mothers facing the question of childhood vaccination.

Photo: Protection for life via Compfight.
Used under a CreativeCommons licence 

This dilemma exists mainly in the minds of middle-class US mothers, and it is largely from that perspective that the book is written. Biss draws on her own new mother paranoia in a frank and honest way, and ranges widely across language, science and society, with such imagination and obsessive research that one is surprised in equal measure to the irritation one feels about those who ignore the scientific evidence and withdraw from vaccination programmes, putting everyone at new risk from lack of herd immunity.

Biss discusses this boundary between individual and collective interests in what is a classic digressive essay, with some engaging humour and ‘entangled language’.

Art from across the globe

As our Art literature collection continues to expand, Stephen Town adds a splash of diversity to the selection.

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This week's donations contain an eclectic mix
of art and illustration

I spent last weekend going through my late mother’s book collections. She would never have called it a library, but it was very substantial and varied, reflecting her interests, profession, causes and beliefs. It incorporated my late father’s collection and those of both their forbears, spanning nearly a century of commitment to Yorkshire education, a family tradition which of course I also continue until my retirement.

I have selected four items from her collection to add to my donations, all relating to the history of art. Most of her books will go to broader charitable causes, as she would have wished, and her almost complete set of twentieth century crime writing may well be available for purchase in a charity shop near you very soon.

Beach & Koch: King of the World: the Padshahnama

My mother loved India and continued to visit well past the time the rest of the family considered it safe and sensible. This large and beautifully illustrated book was published on the occasion of the exhibition of the Mughal manuscript from the Royal Library at Windsor Castle. The exhibition, organised by the Sackler Gallery, travelled across India, the UK and USA in 1997-98 and was part of the 5oth Anniversary celebrations of the independence of India and Pakistan. The book was the first time these illustrations had been published.

Neil MacGregor: Seeing salvation: images of Christ in Art

The Art section in our Library also has the National Gallery work arising from the millennial exhibition on which this book is based. But this work was produced by the BBC and accompanied a TV series shown in 2000, concentrating on the history of the artistic depiction of Christ. Parts of the holidays of my childhood were spent in galleries and churches across Europe, as a cultural alternative to walking and climbing. My mother had a strong faith, but as MacGregor suggests, these images can still speak powerfully to non-believers.

Pinkney: William Morris in Oxford

Like Morris, my mother was an Oxford student. Also like Morris, she was a strong believer in social justice, although in her later years this was expressed more through liberalism than socialism. This book focuses on Morris’ later life in Oxford, covering what the author describes as his campaigning years, as he took up architectural and social causes to transform the University and City.

Higgins & Robinson: William de Morgan

De Morgan was an arts and crafts potter, and a lifelong friend of William Morris. We already have a selection of works on De Morgan in the Library at LG 8.3, and this slim but copiously illustrated book will further enhance our collection. The pages contain some previously unillustrated designs for tiles, stained glass and pots, showing off his ‘fabulous animals, rich florals and flowing Persian curves’.

A Natural History of English Gardening

As we pass the half-way point in his Nightshelf series, Stephen Town starts to reflect on how he might spend his time after retirement.

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Laird, M., A Natural History of English Gardening, 1650 - 1800, in the University library at LA 2 LAI.

Garden pests come in all shapes
and sizes. Image reproduced from
our Special Collections

The most common assumption about retirement, and one strongly held by my wife, is that I will have more time for gardening when I retire. In truth, I may actually spend more time reading about gardening, and this book would be a good place to start. It is not exactly easy nightshelf material, as it is a large and sumptuously illustrated title, produced by Yale University Press for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art; coincidentally this is where our former History of Art colleague Mark Hallett is now Director of Studies.

This is, however, no coffee table book. Although, anyone interested might gain great pleasure just by looking at the illustrations. It is, as the Guardian reviewer suggested, a work of both scholarship and beauty. Mark Laird is a knowledgeable scholar and an accomplished writer, and he and the book have associations with our University, York and Yorkshire which are documented carefully in his acknowledgments.

Photo: Stephen Town. Redressing the balance between
nature and geometry in my own springtime garden.

The title was consciously chosen as a ‘natural history’ to reflect the multidisciplinary breadth of the subject of gardens, and is particularly interesting on the subject of weather in the period documented, which all we gardeners know can ‘subvert the best-laid schemes’. This book brings together successfully all those disparate elements which influenced the art, science and practice of gardening in the eighteenth century, in a set of chapter essays which could each be read alone. The book seeks to redress a perceived bias arising from Walpole in the perceptions of modern English garden taste for ‘nature’ and against geometry and formalism, as I also try to do in my own garden. The book also recovers the significant contributions of both women and amateurs to the development of gardens in this period.

Gardening is, in the end, a joy, and this book fully reflects that.


Further reading:

Books from the Garden History Society Special Collection can be found in King's Manor Library and the University's Special Collections located in the Borthwick Institute for Archives.

Home: A time traveller's tales from Britain's prehistory

Digging around the back of his nightshelf, Stephen Town has found another couple of great reads to donate to the Library.

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Pryor, F., Home: A Time Traveller's Tales from Britain's Prehistory in the University Library at EA 2.942 PRY

As many students depart the university, the thoughts of some will turn to home, the subject of my next donation. The author, Francis Pryor, is well-known for his popular writings on archaeology and his appearances on Time Team. We already have most of Pryor’s more academic contributions in the Library, but surprisingly not his ‘Britain BC’ which I found an engaging, readable and informative survey of British prehistory, informed by Pryor’s own field experience on Bronze age sites. I will therefore also add this to my intended donation as this week’s bonus.

Our view of what makes a home has changed over time.
Photo: Making mesolithic tea by Hans Splinter. Used under a Creative Commons license

Pryor's 'Home' covers some similar ground to Britain BC, but from the perspective of the family, their homes and lives. There is an initial focus on Star Carr, the Yorkshire Mesolithic settlement, where the first identifiable British house was built around eleven thousand years ago. Pryor then follows the evidence from other settlements through the Neolithic, Bronze and Iron ages, taken from sites such as Durrington Walls and Flag Fen. These reveal the sophistication of these earlier times and emphasise the importance of the family and their immediate broader social groups to developing culture.

Pryor’s basic thesis is that family life was a key change agent before the arrival of centralised control (and force) with the Romans. The style is sometimes irritating in this work, but his enthusiasm and polemical fervour enliven the story. Our own Professor Nicky Milner  also receives a prominent acknowledgement.

The buried giant

Taking a step away from academic literature, Stephen Town adds a lighter, but no less compelling read to his Nightshelf donations.

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Ishiguro, K., The buried giant, coming soon to the University Library

Disclaimer: the book isn't actually about a buried giant
The Awakening by Jeff Kubina. Used under a Creative Commons licence

I have steered clear of novels in my gifts so far, although there is no reason why these do not fall into the category of popular but serious, and I do have a lot of fiction on my nightshelf. As holidays approach it might be helpful to identify at least one item for possible summer reading. I read this book as one of my ‘airport’ selections for a week in Lake Como. Normally I load up my Kindle, but lack of preparation and the need to occupy waiting time meant selecting a hard copy, and as the library already has an electronic version, this can go on the shelves for traditionalists.

Arthurian history is hazy and contradictory.
Licensed under Public Domain
by Wikimedia Commons

I chose this book not only because of Ishiguro’s record of producing great works (Never Let Me Go I found particularly chilling), but also because of my interest in what used to be called the Dark Ages and specifically Arthurian history, literature and speculation. Driving to work through the possible site of the Battle of Badon every day to my previous job never ceased to provide a thrill, and I have an extensive collection of Arthurian related books.

The easiest way to describe this book is strange. Reviewers seem to have had difficulty both categorising and understanding it, and it is not as easy or smooth a read as Ishiguro’s other work. Is it a fable, an allegory, a romance or a comment on contemporary international relations? You can decide for yourself.

A mist has descended on Britain as Britons and Saxons live side by side; but they do so partly because the mist makes them forget past atrocities. An elderly couple seek their son in a landscape which is populated with mythical beasts and remnants of former combatants including Sir Gawain.

The conclusion is disturbing.

The Magna Carta manifesto : liberties and commons for all

Marking 800 years since the Magna Carta, Stephen Town adds another compelling read to his Nightshelf donations.

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Linebaugh, P., The Magna Carta manifesto, in the University Library at H 2.1 LIN

This is the week of the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, and so this subject is hard to avoid. The bandwagon of new publications on the topic is large, but I have decided to make a gift of a work published some time ago which I came across in the University of Washington Bookshop in Seattle while at a conference.

Whilst this is an academic work, like probably most books written on the Charter, it has a bias and a polemical style. It is unusual to commence such a work with a Monty Python quotation.

The book concentrates not solely on the Magna Carta itself, but also the accompanying Charter of the Forest created two years later. This other document may not generate much interest this week, but the Forest Charter was much more significant to ‘common’ people than the Great Charter, and has modern day resonance in relation to the basic necessities of living a free life. As the author, Peter Linebaugh says, “political and legal rights can only exist on an economic foundation. To be free citizens we need to be equal producers and consumers”.

It may not share the spotlight, but the
Forest Charter was much more significant
to 'common' people

I found this a startling book, because it pointed up my ignorance about the history of rights in this country, and suggested that I had not appreciated what the word ‘commons’ really means. Everyone will be talking about rights this week, but this book may be a better source for deeper thought than some of the other contributions lining the bookshop shelves.

Further reading:

The Library also has a number of e-resources on the Magna Carta including excerpts provided by Early English Books online. These can be found through Yorsearch.

56: the story of the Bradford fire

Reflecting on this tragic event 30 years ago, Stephen Town adds another thought provoking read to his Nightshelf collection.

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Fletcher, M., 56: the story of the Bradford fire, in the University Library at G 1.823 FLE

Memorial to the Bradford City fire disaster
by Tim Green. Used under a
Creative Commons licence

Football has been a large part of my life since childhood. I share the earliest memories of the author of this book of a father ‘going to football’, and later being taken along.  As a Leeds United supporter through that great period of success for the team in the 60s and early 70s, one of the players I watched was Terry Yorath, who later was in the Bradford City team on the day of the disastrous fire in 1985. Having been in the crowd as a fourteen-year old when the stand I was in burned down at Nottingham Forest’s ground in 1968, I appreciate the rapidity with which fires could destroy those wooden structures. There were no deaths at Nottingham; 56 people died at Bradford, including the father, brother, uncle and grandfather of the author, Martin Fletcher, who was twelve on that day and survived.

This book is unsurprisingly an emotional read. Fletcher describes his subsequent life in the shadow of that tragedy, and his search for understanding of why and how the fire happened. The Bradford fire is very much the forgotten tragedy in that 1980s decade of disasters, presided over at the time by a government that fostered a culture in which northern football associated deaths seemed to be considered unworthy of any serious investigation. Given Fletcher’s shocking findings, the reluctance of any authority now to reopen a search for the truth on this particular tragedy reflects badly on our continuing inability to deal with our past.

Fletcher does not draw any conclusions in the book about responsibility, but his discovery (largely through research in the British Library’s newspaper collections) of the previous record of the Bradford City Chairman, who had received the equivalent of £27m in today’s money from nine separate fires in his businesses prior to the Bradford fire, seems beyond coincidence. The cursory enquiry into the Bradford fire at the time was set up, conducted and concluded in inappropriate haste, without any serious scientific investigation. This book raises questions that need to be answered, but it is also a very personal and human story of loss. In the process Fletcher demonstrates how a good education and research skills can be a route to what one hopes is at least some redemption.

How to write a thesis - the latest donation from Stephen Town's nightshelf

Stephen Town goes back to basics with some advice on academic writing.

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Eco, U., How to write a thesis, in the University Library at 029.6 ECO

Sunrise at the Rifugio Giacoletti by Fulvio Spada.
Used under a Creative Commons licence.

When I left my first professional library post in 1984, one of my colleagues gave me a present of Umberto Eco’s ‘The Name of the Rose’, published in English the year before and rapidly achieving sensational success for this Italian academic’s first novel. The book is attractive to librarians; the byzantine nature of the inaccessible library of the monastery described therein probably has a secret fascination for many in our profession. Eco’s appeal apparently still persists, as all our library copies of this novel appear to be on loan as I write.

As a follower of Eco’s work, and embarking on the creation of a thesis myself, I thought this slim manual (now published in English for the first time) would be a valuable addition to our substantial collection of advice on how to write for academic purposes. Starting to write a thesis can feel like a mountainous task, and there is an immediate question of how a book originally written in 1977 might still have any relevance for a modern audience. In a world where many of the tools of research have been transformed,  it is indeed odd to see even a picture of an index card these days. But the core of Eco’s advice on how to build a thesis as ‘an object that will serve others’ remains relevant, helpful and practical even today. I read the book straight off in one evening on the same day as I met my supervisor, and some of the messages about how to write were the same; there is much timeless sense in this work.

Eco writes with style and humour, and librarians are treated to some gentle stereotyping in this book, as he writes: “You must consider that the librarian (if not overworked or neurotic) is happy when he can demonstrate two things: the quality of his memory and erudition and the richness of his library, especially if it is small … A person who asks for help makes the librarian happy.”

The Cello Suites: in search of a baroque masterpiece

Tuning into his musical side, Stephen Town sharpens up his Bach with the latest donation in his Nightshelf series.

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Siblin, E., The Cello Suites : in search of a baroque masterpiece, in the University Library at LM 7.3 SIB

Cello wall by Ian. Used under
a Creative Commons licence.

A pleasure in retirement will be the opportunity to spend more time on music, and to return to practicing the Bach Cello Suites, which I have been doing (to not much avail) for over 45 years. My next donation, by Eric Siblin, will add to the very few in our collection about cello playing. Siblin is a journalist and a recent convert and enthusiast, but the style is not as irritating as I feared after reading reviews of this work. Siblin is passionate about the music and the story, and whilst there is occasional hyperbole and exaggeration, this is an easy and engaging read. He is of course not the first to tell the tale of the rediscovery of the suites, but it is a story worth re-telling. The greatest cellist of recent times, Pau Casals, found the forgotten scores in a Barcelona music shop, and assiduously practiced them for twelve years before their first public performance. Since then they have become a staple of the repertoire.

Casals’ stand as a Catalan and a Republican led to his refusal to play in countries that recognised the Franco regime in Spain, and this was one of my earliest and formative influences in political understanding. This also helped a great deal when I was teaching in Barcelona, where feelings still ran high against Franco twenty years after democracy was restored, in part because he was still on the coinage in circulation.

Eric Siblin, The Cello Suites, London 2011.

Styles of playing these suites have changed since I began to learn, as part of the reinvention of ‘authentic’ baroque performance, but I hold fast to my original score, as the bowing and fingering were marked up by my teacher, who was herself a student of Casals. Casals said there is no special rule for interpreting Bach, but I treasure this potential link. I hope this book may inspire others to seek out the music for listening, if they have not already done so, and maybe hear the Casals recordings, which we have in the John Barry collection.

Landmarks: the latest addition in our growing collection by Robert Macfarlane

Escaping to the country, Stephen Town gets lost in this latest addition to his Nightshelf collection.

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Macfarlane, R., Landmarks, in the University Library at N 42 MACF

Sheep grazing in Offa's Dyke, and not looking
too impressed at being disturbed!

One of the pleasures of being in Britain in Spring is the opportunity to walk out amongst the sheep and lambs on some ancient trackway, with a clear sky and springy turf beneath your feet. This pleasure is not easy to capture in words, but the author of my next donation has written a series of books which not only do this, but in a way that is fully satisfying in a literary and intellectual sense.

Robert Macfarlane produces great writing: described by others as erudite, beautiful and exquisite. His works stir the imagination, and reveal a world that might inspire anyone to take to the old ways of this island and beyond. Unsurprisingly, some of our readers have already discovered this great writer, and his previous books have been recommended to the Library and purchased through our Morebooks scheme.

I am pleased that Robert Macfarlane was educated like me at Pembroke College, Cambridge, although he was born in the year I graduated. Now a Fellow of Emmanuel College, he is a senior lecturer in English, specialising in contemporary writing and what he calls cultural environmentalism. Although this would seem a narrow description of his own works, which combine the natural with the imprints of man, time and the motion of travel in a unique style.

The Old Drove Road over Hergest Ridge in the Welsh Borders

I first became a fan of Macfarlane's work when I read The Wild Places as a result of bookshop browsing, and I later picked up The Old Ways in an Edinburgh gallery shop. In The Old Ways, alongside describing his own journeys to illuminate the idea of walking as knowing, Macfarlane pays tribute to Edward Thomas, poet and author of The Icknield Way (one of the first in my own collection of books on the ancient ways of Britain) who was killed in the First World War.

My donation, Landmarks, is his glossary of nature, which tries to bring together the ‘word-hoard’ of our landscape through a collection of other great writing in the language of a sense of place. This is an attempt to gather examples of what he describes as ‘place-lexis’, exploring how we use and lose language relating to specific examples of landscape and nature. This kind of technical description of Macfarlane’s work is however completely inadequate to convey the pleasure of reading it, so I encourage you to do just that.

The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time

Stephen Town invites you to challenge your views on the Universe and physics as we know it, in the latest blog from his Nightshelf.

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Unger, R., Smolin, L., The Singular Universe and Reality of Time, in the University Library at A13 UNG

Is time real? Can the past also be the future?
Image by Bonnyb. Reproduced from pixabay

This is an ambitious, controversial and probably difficult book for anyone who has not thought or read much about the nature of the Universe or taken a position on the debates about what the world we experience is made of and the laws that govern it (what the authors term ‘the foundational problems of basic science’). However it would be nice to think that any member of this University might feel inclined to at least give this work a try.

Unger and Smolin have been working for at least eight years on a new synthesis (in their words ‘a reinterpretation’) of twentieth-century cosmology and physics. This is accompanied by the recovery of the importance of the idea and methods of what used to be called ‘Natural Philosophy’. Smolin is a scientist reportedly considered tiresome and iconoclastic by his colleagues. Unger is a Harvard law Professor and politician. Both write their own piece in this book in their own style, and also reflect on their differences.

Is there a universe beyond our own?
Unger and Smolin argue the case for us being alone.

Their three main propositions run counter to current scientific views: that the Universe is singular; that time has reality; and that mathematics has only selective realism. Maybe you think these positions are common-sense and obvious? Or maybe you believe strongly in the current orthodoxy? Either way you want to read this book.

100 Books every Blues fan should own

Bringing the Deep South to Yorkshire, Stephen Town discusses the latest donation in his My Nightshelf series.

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Komara, E., Johnson, G., 100 Books every Blues fan should own, in the University Library at LM 4.756 KOM

W.C Handy's Saint Louis Blues
by Øklands Publications reproduced
under a Creative Commons licence

Time for a book on music, and a book by a Librarian, and a book about books. This donation fits all three criteria. The attraction of the blues to the white English middle class has been in question since the blues rediscoveries in the early 1960s. I was captured at about the age of five listening to my grandmother’s radiogram and hearing for the first time this extraordinary sound. I guess you either have it or you don’t.

Edward Komara is the splendidly-titled Crane Librarian of Music at the State University of New York at Potsdam, but was previously a blues archivist at the University of Mississippi. One can hardly imagine a more perfect role and location for a blues enthusiast.

We already have Komara’s encyclopedia in the Library, which provides a valuable reference resource for all aspects of this unique genre of American music. But the work I'm donating today conveniently brings together the most important writings on blues, with descriptions that are full enough to encapsulate the chosen works, and reveal the depth of Komara and Johnson’s knowledge of the field, as well as their technical appreciation of the genre. More a reference work than a narrative read, but I found it absorbing enough to read most of the entries straight off.

A Concise History of Spain

Exploring the ancestry and culture of Moorish Spain, Stephen Town talks about the latest donation from his Nightshelf, A Concise History of Spain

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Philips, W.D, and Philips, C.R, A Concise History of Spain, in the University Library at Q 46 PHI

The red brick walls contrast against
a delicate doorway in Marrakech 

My blog this week comes on my return from a break in Marrakech. At this time of year, for the last two years, I have taken a holiday in an Alhambra (the previous year’s trip being to Granada in the Andalusia region of Spain).

The Arabic meaning of al-hambra as ‘red (castle)’ was originally a description of the sun-dried mud bricks of the outer walls of a city or palace. In Marrakech last week our driver was very keen to assure us that the Medina walls there were the original ‘Alhambra’, and that the Granada name was chosen because the Moors in Andalus were reminded of their home city and its red earth.


Last year before visiting Granada I felt the lack of a history book which would put the Moorish occupation of Spain in a wider context. Hence this week’s donation of a work by the husband and wife partnership of William and Carla Phillips of the University of Minnesota.

The Moorish and Catholic Monarch elements of the book which inspired my purchase suitably lived up to expectations, but I had my reservations with the more recent history covered. It is difficult to take an even-handed approach to the Spanish Civil War, and the authors seemed to have an almost sycophantic approach to the contribution of the Spanish Royal family in modern times. But as they suggest, this is a small book on a vast topic, and, as what they refer to as a ‘casual traveller’ I found it accessible and an easy cover-to-cover read.

The walls of the Alhambra in Granada, Spain reminded
early Moor settlers of home.