Today’s post was written by Sheena Streather, Academic Liaison Librarian at Aldham Robarts Library, fitting in very well with the build up to Light Night next week with its theme of ‘Time’: the past, present and future.
Back in the summer of 1989, I was Acting Site Librarian at the C.F. Mott campus in Huyton of the then Liverpool Polytechnic. The campus was closing down and I had the task of leading the evacuation of the library: a complex job, as the 200,000 books were destined for re-distribution to a combination of 4 of the Polytechnic’s other site libraries, one of which was still being built so books identified for there had to go into storage.
A temporary team of student employees worked through the summer with library staff to mark books with colour-coded labels according to their destination and pack them into crates, stacked high awaiting collection by Pickford’s for storage or transport to their new libraries. Books not selected for transfer were offered to academic and library staff, antiquarian booksellers and charities, and any remaining were sent for re-cycling.
It was nearing the end of the process. All other departments of the campus had long since departed, the library was the only building still occupied, and an atmosphere of eerie emptiness descended. A more sinister development was that local youths were encroaching ever closer, throwing stones at library windows and setting fire to halls of residence overnight. We needed to be out of there quickly if all our hard work were not to go to waste at the final stage. I was having nightmares about the towers of crates yet to be collected, thinking every day I would arrive at work to find the library had been burned down.
In this environment we received a ‘phone call one day to say a lot of library books had been found in the campus kitchens. I dispatched some of our student workers to go and investigate. One of them came back and reported, “We’ve found these”, and handed me a large, heavy, worn volume: the complete works of Shakespeare in 15
volumes. The student pointed out the title page details: 1881 limited edition. They were found in an industrial-sized wicker laundry basket on wheels under a counter in the kitchens, labelled and stamped as library property. “What shall we do with them?” he asked. We had no Archives or Special Collections in those days, nor anyone with expertise in that field. I love Shakespeare, I love old books, they needed to be rescued and time was running out; it was only a moment’s pause before I replied, “If it’s a complete set, I’m having them”!
It was indeed a complete set, and so the 108 year-old volumes went home with me to Aigburth…where they lived and were looked after for another 28 years (housed in a regular book case this time), until we decided to have a major house refurbishment this year. In the meantime we had established our LJMU Special Collections and Archives, with all the facilities and professional Archivist knowledge to properly care for old and fragile items. I had been thinking for some time that this was the rightful place for this mysterious collection. I like to think I fostered them until a suitable home was ready for their return, and now they have arrived back at the latest incarnation of this institution at a time when they can be restored and truly preserved. I only wish we knew the story of how they were acquired by a college library and came to be in a wicker laundry basket…
Sheena Streather,
Academic Liaison Librarian
LJMU Special Collections & Archives 