the future of the library – Balliol College

In preparation for my presentation to The JISC and The Bodleian on 2009-04-02 in Oxford I’m continuing a somewhat flippant random walk through web pages that might tell me what a library is and what it is for. So I have visited the web pages of Balliol College – where 3 generations of Murray-Rust have studied…

For the library I find

Balliol Library is ‘the jewel in the crown’ of Balliol College. From an early stage the Scholars had a ‘library’ of books in common; a manuscript bequeathed before May 1276 is still with us. The collections of manuscripts and books have continued to grow by gift, bequest and purchase. We serve both the Balliol community of undergraduates, graduates and Fellows, and the worldwide scholarly community who come to study our special collections of early printed books and early and modern manuscripts.

The Library aims to provide the books which undergraduates need for their weekly work, to keep multiple copies of standard texts, and to respond quickly to urgent requests for book purchase (books can often be bought the same day). There are ample funds for the purchase of books, and the modern sections cover all the main subjects of undergraduate study. The ‘in-depth’ collections of 19^th and 20^th century scholarly books are of interest to graduate students. Balliol was among the first Oxford colleges to begin to computerise its library catalogue. The Library has a microfilm/fiche reader-printer and computer terminals on which the Oxford automated union catalogue (including the Bodleian Library’s and Faculty Libraries’ holdings), and external databases can be consulted.

PMR: So, this seems to be consistent with what we have found so far in the Bodleian and the University:

• collect and make available books and manuscripts
• provide services for undergraduates

Can we find a deeper purpose for the college or its library in the statues of Balliol? I’ve managed to find three resources by Googling:

“Early history of Balliol College“. This appears to be an OCRed creation and it is a nice challenge to see whether the incomprehensibility (e.g.

 Ear/)' //lstor.J' of .I]a//io/ Co//c, qz

) comes from the 13th or 21st centuries. It’s not all as bad as that – the running chapter titles are the worst. Typical extract relating to the library:

' Thus farre concerning y library y' now ttands, w'
ye Coll: had before I find little or noe mention, they
reposing their books in it, only soe farr y' seuerall y'
had bin Oxford Scolars left in their wills books to y*
Coll without any mention of a library viz among y
rett was m r Simon de Bredon ye worthieR mathe-
matician of his rime who a ° 137 -, left seall books
of Afronomie & lathematicks therto. \Vill Rede
Bishop of Chiceire, o books, c  i money & one
siluer cup 382 & Roger whelpdale Bishop of Carlile
S' AutIê de Ciuitate dei 422.'

The second consists of a catalog of  early and later manuscripts such as A. STATUTES, FOUNDATION DEEDS AND CHARTERS 13 th – 20 th centuries. This is essentially metadata – pointers to manuscripts and printer books – highly worthy but no immediate use to me.

[In passing I am very pleased to see the College is a strong supporter of Freedom of Information – which is highlighted in the sidebar. Indeed, until I discovered the next resource I contemplated a formal FOI request for the Charter.]

Finally I came across a document representing the modern statutes which gives me exactly what I need.

It does not explicitly (on cursory reading) give the purpose of the college or its library, but states – inter alia –

In elections to the Mastership the electors shall choose the person who is, in their judgement, most fit for the government of the College as a place of religion, learning, and education. [PMR: this document is modern (2008) and still apparently stresses religion.]

So I have had fun on a Sunday morning browsing round the online resources for academic libraries. No very clear idea emerges as to what a library is for. Is it more important for a college to have a library or a chapel?

If we are to look to the future of libraries we have to know what they are for. Flippancy apart, I don’t now know what a library is for. I’d be grateful for suggestions, including formal statements of purpose.