12 Activities of Christmas: Library Staff Challenge

As we lead up to Christmas, we’ve given over this post to Sarah Hyland and Katie Skellett, who have been forcefully injecting Christmas cheer across Library and Collections staff, who have worked hard across 2020 to get services up and running, buildings back open and reading materials available online.

“We probably don’t need to say this but what a year it has been! Normally we would be decorating the offices and you wouldn’t be able to see people or books for tinsel and Christmas trees.  We would also be having staff parties, Christmas cracker relays and sharing delicious Christmas treats that the bakers amongst us had whipped up.  This year is obviously a bit different but the University Library and Collections Staff Development Group still wanted to try to do something to bring colleagues together.  We wanted to share a bit of Christmas cheer and help to make people feel festive – wherever they are just now.  So, we came up with the “12 activities of Christmas”.  It started on Monday 30th November and ran until Tuesday 15th December – culminating in a virtual Christmas quiz party!”

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Looking back

2020: what a year. What a terrible, terrible year. But, in one of our last blog posts of the year, we thought it would be nice to look back at some of the positives for Durham University Library and Collections.

“Positives!?” I hear you cry. Yes, believe it or not, amidst the unrelenting difficulties of 2020 there have been quite a few. In addition to the reactive services we have offered such as Click and Collect or Browse and Borrow, we have implemented a number of service improvements that will stand us in good stead for years to come, as we (hopefully) begin to edge out of the Covid-19 pandemic in the coming months. So, a few highlights to prove it hasn’t all been bad:

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On the first day of WellBEEing @dulib shared with me…

Feeling festive and being acutely aware of the stresses and uncertainty the festive period holds for many this year, we embarked on a wellbeing campaign for December, named ‘12 Days of WellBEEing.’

Read on to find out more (and check back next week to hear about Library and Collections Staff own ’12 days of Christmas’ festive challenges…

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A review of ‘Liberate My Library’. Diversifying collections in a challenging year.

As we approach the end of the year we thought it would be a good time to look back at a new service we launched back in February. Wow talking about February seems like a lifetime ago now doesn’t it? So much has happened in 10 months and although not everything has been what we would have liked there have been things to celebrate. Our ‘Liberate My Library’ scheme we think is one of them.

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Digital Diwali – November 2020

Another impact of Covid-19 has been on how museums engage with their communities. In previous years, the Oriental Museum has hosted large-scale Diwali celebrations on site, attracting over 400 students, staff and people from the local community. In 2020 the celebrations moved online, and museum staff found new ways to get people involved. We invited people to create videos showcasing how they celebrate Diwali, what this time of year means to them, their favourite food and recipes and reflections on how things will be different this year.

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#Hist2020: History Day 2020, celebrating our collections

Every year University College London organises a day for academic, cultural and heritage institutions to come together to showcase the enormous range of historic collections in archives, libraries and museums. In pre-Covid times, the day would be held at Senate House and would be attended by anyone in London with a serious interest in historical research.

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Spotlight on the collections: Anne Stevenson Poetry Library

Title page of Frances Bellerby's Selected Poems edited by Anne Stevenson
Anne Stevenson at a book launch in 2009 (Photo Credit: Simon James, Flickr, via CC BY-SA 2.0)

According to Anne Stevenson, who died on 14 September 2020, a poet is that rare person ‘who is in thrall to nothing but poetry’s weird tyranny and ungovernable need to exist’. The volume and breadth of her poetry and scholarly interests attest to this uncontrolled creative urge, and we are very fortunate to have part of her poetry library.

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Dissertation advice

One of the key responsibilities for our Faculty Librarians is to support our dissertation students, many of whom will be undertaking a substantial research project for the first time. Although we would always urge our students to consider what materials and resources they are actually going to have access to (this could be in terms of accessing a physical collection such as an archive, or being able to use, say, a particular database), this year it is more important than ever.

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#OpenAccessWeek2020: DRO is for book chapters too!

When we speak to colleagues about open access, often in short 5-10 minute briefings at Boards of Study, the focus is usually on ensuring open access to journal articles and conference papers. But a significant amount of research published at Durham comes in the form of long-from publications; books, monographs and chapters in edited volumes. In many cases we can make some or all of these open access as well. So let’s have a closer look…

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#OpenAccessWeek2020: A conversation with Professor Clare McGlynn QC (Hon)

International Open Access week is not only an opportunity to share the amazing open access research from Durham University and engaging with the wider open access community; it is also about getting to know our academics and the research process, helping us to understand a little bit more about the work that goes into the final article we download from the publisher’s site or repository. This year, we are so grateful to Professor Clare McGlynn QC (Hon) for taking the time to answer questions about her research.

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