Juxtabook

Propsoal to digisise then destroy wills after 25 years

It is nearly Christmas and everyone is really busy but if you're cross about the government proposals to digitise then DESTROY originals of historic wills please try and find time to respond to the consultation. You can read more about the proposals here.

I know many of our customers come to book collecting through their interest in local history or family history. These are two of the many areas of research that could be impacted by the deciison to destroy paper copies of wills.

It is proposed that paper wills will be scanned and then only kept for 25 years exccept for those deemed important such as the will of Charles Dickens. The problems with this decision include the accessibility of digital materials in the future (betamax cassettes anyone?) and the legibility of handwritten documents especially once digitised. I know I have had difficulties reading scanned WWI documents on Ancestry where I know I will have to see the original to complete my research because the handwriting is such that smudges, downstrokes, abbrieviations all need to be seen on the flesh so to speak where even the pressure of the pen on the page can make it clear what the word actually is.

In addition to this there is the issue of the keeping of a few select wills such as Charles Dickens and other famour names. Who decides who is important enough to have his or her will preserved? Different eras have different values and will place differing levels of importance on different people.

It is also the case that it is for the least well-known people that the will is most important. Apart from birth, marriage and death certificates, for many people in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the only documentary evidence of the details of their lives is in their wills. It can tell you that one nephew was favoured over another or that only sons and not daughters were left anything. It can tell you that the family business - wheelwright, plumber - was doing well enough to leave the tools and materials of the trade to a relative or friend.  It can show inter-generational relationships if items or money are left to a grandchild. It can show for how long more distant relatives kept in touch even when geography started to separate them as industrialisation moved people to, or between, urban areas such as when a bachelor remembers his great-neice who lives now in another county. For gay and lesbian couples it might be the only evidence that a friendship was more than that between two people of the same sex - when items of domestic importance are left between them. Dickens' will will have been viewed and transcribed many times. It is the anonymous lives of the past that we need access to. Fellow bookseller Elizabeth Crawford, who specialises in women's history and the suffrage movement, pointed out on X (twitter), "The horror of the proposal to destroy originals is compounded by the crass suggestion that those of ‘notable figures, such as Dickens and Darwin’, should be retained. Who judges who is ‘notable’? For my research into previously ‘unknown’ women wills are an invaluable source."

For anyone who cares about history the whole idea is incredibly badly thought through. Digitise, yes, this gives some access to people who cannot visit to view original wills. But to destroy the written record for the false hope of preservation and the misconception that digitisation is the literal verisimiltude of reading experience is truly idiotic.

To respond to the idea the contact details are:

Email to:
[email protected]

Write to:

Will Storage consultation
Ministry of Justice
Postpoint 5.25
102 Petty France
London
SW1H 9AJ

 

Edited to add this link to an excellent article on The Quiet Power of Ordinary People by archivist-librarian Samantha Thompson.

The John Rylands Library

I love libraries. Believe it or not, despite living in a bookshop, it is my idea of a fun day out. It is not at all the busman's holiday that you'd think it might be. Just over a month ago with Mr J. and Rachel of Bewitched by Stitch I went to The John Rylands Library in Manchester. It is the most glorious building, mostly on open access and with a changing series of exhibitions. It also has a very reasonably priced cafe full of excellent home cooking.

It is very Victorian with Gothic blending into Arts and Crafts. It was founded by Enriqueta Augustina Rylands in memory of her husband, John Rylands and apparently Mrs R had charge of the interior furnishings and, incredibly in such a grand building, the little reading spaces in the main library have the most homely feel as a result. Well, I could cheerfully move in at any rate!

The details throughout were delightful: the varied roof bosses, the huge number of matching oak chairs with delicate carved top rails picking out features of the building and little brass castors to two legs so you can move your chair without disturbing other readers. I loved too the green glass on the lights and the oak panelling - all this and books too!

Here you are, a little taster...

 

 

I'm furthest away from the camera (above).

 

 

 

 

 

The Leeds Library

I'm off the The Leeds Library today with my mother. We're very lucky in this part of Yorkshire to have a wonderful private library. Alongside the fabulous collections of the public Leeds city library and also the Brotherton library at the university, hidden away right in the middle of the city is this amazing collection of 150,000 or so books, with volumes dating back to the fifteenth century. It is a private library - you have to apply to join - but for the princely sum of £10 a month (last time I checked) you too can frequent the premises the library has occupied since 1808. It is not just for researchers (though it specialises in rare travel books, and has a excellent local history section, as well as a quiet room for working in) as it has the best easy-access collection of twentieth century fiction of any library I visit. It is pretty good on contemporary poetry too, which many public libraries are pretty useless at.

The library has been around since the mid-eighteenth century when it was member-owners only. My mother and I are directly descended from three of the founder members -  our little claim to fame! Since 2008 it has been a charity and joining is pretty easy, cheaper than your gym membership, and will probably do you more good. The lovely staff are marvellous, there are no fines, and they let you take so many books out at once that you'll need to take a wheelbarrow with you to get them home.

If you are too far away to visit can you have a sneeky glimpse at some of the main rooms, and hear about some of the arts events that the library holds (open to the public) in the video below, or you for different type of visit you can enjoy Death Of an Avid Reader by Frances Brody, a murder mystery set in The Leeds Library (copies available directly from me with free UK postage!).

 

Libraries Will Survive

Despite their inability to dance in time, I'm sure they're darn good librarians and we'd all endorse the sentiments...

Via @Lutonbookworm on twiter.

Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer

I spend all day everyday thinking about books, writing about books and looking bibliographic information up either in old fashioned books or on the internet. How then have I missed this little gem of information about one of my favourite books? Charlotte Sometimes was a book I got out of the school library when I was in my first year of secondary school (age 11/12). I loved it, renewed it for as long as I was allowed, and eventually had to give it back. Short of funds for actually buying books, that I thought was that.

I always remembered the book fondly but as I became an adult with a little more money, I was still permanently short of funds for books (having a wish list in the 100s) and so it remained un-bought. Then on holiday one year spotting a library with a booksale I pootled in and there it was. Hardback. All pages present. Much read, and no doubt much loved, but hanging on in there and just 50p.

Once it was home I kept it on a shelf for a little while anxious that a re-read might take the gloss of my happy memories of that old fashioned school library, all polished pale oak and quietness, and off my childhood love for the tale. Eventually though I gave in and I loved that book all over again - such a relief.

So, what little gem of information have I stumbled on? Well apparently the book was inspiration for a song from The Cure. I'm not a fan of The Cure but how had I failed to notice this over the years? I even remember reading the wikipedia entry on Penelope Farmer a few years ago, when I was doing my re-read of Charlotte Sometimes. Maybe the information wasn't there then? Perhaps the whole world knows and never thinks to mention it because it is a really well known thing? But it passed me by. Anyway in case it had passed you by too there are a couple of lovely entries on Penelope Farmer's blog about the whole saga of the song which you can read here and here - you can't beat a blog post tht ends with an aging author taking a bow at a rock concert.

And just as interestingly you can watch The Cure's video for the song:

I am also struck that libraries have played a big part in my association with this book, both the old-fashioned book-filled school kind, and the small town local authority kind. Looking at my pre-loved copy other children have obviously found this book by the same route. In a week that sees the start of the next parliament, can I make a tiny plea that among all the inevitable funding cuts that we find some way to defend libraries of all kinds. There is also a good post by Martin Edwards on elections and libraries here.

And if you haven't read Charlotte Sometimes please do!

School Libraries

When I was at primary school we didn't really have a school library. As it was a small village school space was scarce and so what passed for a library was a square of carpet and some bookshelves on wheels that occupied a corner of the school hall so long as assembly, lunch, P.E. or music lessons weren't underway, which of course they often were. So it was with great delight that I discovered on my first library lesson at secondary school in St Helens that we had a wonderful traditional school library. It was long, dark and full of books. Wednesday morning with Miss Bancroft was our library lesson within English time. We swapped books and had to fill in a short review form and I loved everything about it: the choosing, the reading, the reviewing. Sadly, we moved house so I moved schools and the new school had a modern library with lots of glass (too hot to read) and not quite as many books.

Fast forward ten years and by a quirk of fate my husband is now teaching at my old school, the second one that is, with the modern library. But it is not modern enough. Building work, a mezzanine floor and lots of computers appear. It is no longer the library, it is O.R.A.C.L.E. which is its even fancier name for the LRE (Learning Resource Environment) of most schools. (ORACLE = Open Resource and Continuous Learning Environments, didn't you guess??)

Around the same time, I was still teaching English, and went for, and got, a promotion which included being 2nd in the department and whole school literacy co-ordinator. As the candidates were shown round the school before the interview we saw the library. It was being packed up with most of the books destined for expulsion. Around two thirds of the space was being cleared of books and bookcases to make way for long rows of computer desks. This was the main space in the library. There was an awkward z-bend of cubby holes to one end, and here resided what was left of what you might recognise as a library. Very sad.

I later realised that what won me the job during the interview was the moment when I said, "Literacy can be encouraged through use of non-traditional means such as reading web-based material, as well as books." Whilst I meant what I said, I was thinking that for the most reluctant male type teenage non-reader the computer can be used as a means to tempt them back into engaging with the written word. Not simply books out, pcs in, and let's forget the library and have a computer suite instead.

Computers are of course very necessary. I love mine and use it everyday. Kids need to learn to use them safely. Our five year old has her own progammes on her own safe desktop and uses it two or three times a week. Kids need access to all the good stuff available on the web and to be able to use word processing and other facilities. But nothing enchants like a book, and for a bookish kid nothing enchants like a library. Schools should cater for readers and non-readers alike with a good, book filled library.

Sadly the Bookseller has this piece on school libraries which makes it seem like things have got worse not better since I left teaching. Books advising on the subject say things like: "The so-called traditional school library, designed for education in an era long since passed, is simply not appropriate for the strong and vibrant school ..." (Designing a School Library Media Center for the Future by Rolf Erikson and Carolyn Markuson, ALA Editions, 2007). Which frankly just makes me sigh.

What are your memories of school libraries and how do they compare with your children's or grandchildren's experiences? Do you think they are still important?

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The library picture at the top is of St Bede's Grammar School Bradford, 6th form in the library in the early 1960s © Peter Stubbs   www.edinphoto.org.uk