Five Independent Libraries in the South West, by Darren Bevin

The independent Libraries Association [ https://www.independentlibraries.co.uk/ ] was founded over thirty years ago in 1989 and since then has aimed to “further the conservation, restoration and public awareness of a little known but significant section of our cultural heritage”.  There are currently thirty-six libraries who subscribe to the ILA and all are listed on their website. Many of them are subscription libraries and some provide other facilities such as a museum space, catering and adult education. They cover the United Kingdom and Ireland, and, together, possess over two million books inside many listed buildings.

The Financial Times has described them as “havens of books, conversation and cultural events with histories stretching back centuries”. As libraries are now slowly striving to return to some form of normality, here are five independent libraries that subscribe to the ILA and are situated in our south west region.

• Bath Royal Literary & Scientific Institution [ https://www.brlsi.org/ ]

The BRLSI was founded in 1824 and opened to members the following year. It provided a museum, library and reading room, lecture hall and botanical garden. The BRLSI moved to its present building in 1932 but fell rapidly into decline following the requisition of its’ building during World War Two. It was successfully relaunched in 1993.

The BRLSI’s antiquarian library contains over 7,000 volumes, notably the Jenyns and Broome natural history libraries. Other collections include local history, theology, travel and government. The Institution’s archives contain bound volumes of letters from eminent naturalists and scientists including Charles Darwin, Sir Joseph Hooker and Professor J.S. Henslow.

• Devon and Exeter Institution [ https://devonandexeterinstitution.org/ ]

The Institution occupies a medieval building, originally owned by Exeter Cathedral. In 1814 the Institution’s founding members took ownership and adapted the double-courtyard layout to create two Georgian rooms, each with a gallery and cupola. The building remains unchanged except for the installation of electric lights and gas-fired central heating.

The collection includes bound newspapers and periodicals, books, maps, prints, drawings, paintings, pamphlets and other ephemera from the early 19^th century. Other collections relate to the history and topography of the West Country from the 16^th century to the present day.

• Morrab Library [ https://morrablibrary.org.uk/ ]

The Morrab Library is the only independent library in Cornwall. It was built in 1841 as Morrab House and stands in three-and-a-half acres of the Morrab Gardens overlooking the sea. Since 1889 the house has been occupied by the Library as the tenant of the local authority.

The Library has more than 70,000 volumes including literature, history, biography, antiquities, religion, topography and travel. It has a Cornish collection including 3,000 books printed in the 16^th, 17^th and 18^th centuries, and a photographic archive. It also holds the Dawson Collection of bound volumes of prints and engravings of Napoleon and his times.

• Plymouth Proprietary Library [ http://www.theppl.org.uk/ ]

The Proprietary Library is one of Plymouth’s oldest historic institutions, founded in 1810. It was originally situated in the centre of the city but suffered severe bomb damage in World War Two. It moved to a mid-Victorian house on North Hill after the war before relocating to the old church in St Barnabas Terrace in 2018. 

The collection consists of 20,000 volumes ranging from 18^th century literature to contemporary fiction and non-fiction. It also houses biographies, diaries and letters, travel, maps, local history and the Windham Collection of Royal Naval historical papers.

• Tavistock Subscription Library [ https://tavistocksubscriptionlibrary.co.uk/ ]

The Tavistock Subscription Library was founded in 1799 and settled permanently in the 1830s into rooms alongside and above the Court Gate, the entry point into the court of Tavistock Abbey. In the 1960s the Library was threatened with closure and sold off many of its’ books but the remaining collection was saved and housed in a small reading room alongside Court Gate. Here the Library remains.

The holding is restricted to works by local authors or those pertaining to the town and Dartmoor. The collection includes poetry from the 17^th Century poet William Browne to the contemporary fifteen volumes of Gerry Woodcock’s Tavistock’s Yesterdays. 

Visit to Bristol Zoo’s Library: A Report by Sara Liras

On Tuesday the 30^th of October eleven people, including three current members of the South West Networking Committee (Valerie, Sue and Hannah), congregated at the main exit of the Bristol Zoo to meet with Siobhan Klaus, the only librarian formally employed by the zoo, to visit the library on-site, the new Education Centre and to learn all about the educational programmes run at the zoo from two of their leading educators: Daphne Kerhoas and Dave Naish.

The visit started with a very comprehensive talk by primate specialist and Bachelor degree’s module leader Daphne Kerhoas, focused on the types of Higher Education programmes provided by the zoo, both independently and in partnership with other local and regional educational institutions.

She explained to us that Bristol’s zoo is also a charitable organisation centred on the conservation of our ecosystems, and which has a legal responsibility to engage with its local community to provide opportunities to the general public to learn and care more about animals and their habitats.

According to Daphne, who has travelled the world extensively, Ecosystems Conservation is generally concerned with the conservation of the species themselves, instead of the conservation of their surroundings and their specific ways of living. For this reason it is paramount that people are taught how to collaborate to protect these ecosystems by changing the public’s perceptions of wildlife and committing to keep positive daily habits like recycling and avoiding the use of plastics. How do they do this? By inviting members of the public to participate in immersive experiences where they can enter different ecosystems and see, stroke and even feed the animals living there.

The zoo is also involved in other bigger adventures, like the Philippines project, the Wild Place project, the South African Penguin project and other field conservation projects both abroad and in the UK. They are mostly possible thanks to the collaboration and funding of other bigger sister organisations and benefactors like Airbus and MSC. The main aims of these projects are to address threats to the ecosystems by finding alternative solutions with the local populations and to send a clear message to the public to improve their caring behaviour towards these ecosystems.

In terms of the Higher Education programmes organised or supported by the zoo, Daphne explained that they are partnered with the University of the West of England and South Gloucester and Stroud College to impart several courses at foundation and bachelor’s degree levels. These degrees include two different field trips, one to Dartmoor on the first year, and another one to Cyprus at the end of the second year. These three partners are very keen on teaching their students research and critical thinking skills. The delivery and success of these courses wouldn’t have been possible without the construction of the zoo’s conservation and education centre back in 2014.

 

 

The second talk of the day was delivered by Siobhan Klaus and focused on the Zoo’s library, its organisation, users and future challenges.

The library is committed to teaching the general public ways to actively engage with wildlife, and it has been really lucky for having received a vast collection of resources on wildlife by the BBC and for having a strong relationship with the Higher Education partners they work with, as they have provided access to their students to many more online resources and the latest research available in the field. Nevertheless, Siobhan admitted that it is still quite exceptional for a public zoo to contain its own library.

Regarding the collection itself and its classification system, it was interesting to hear that it all started as an initiative by a group of volunteers fifteen years ago to catalogue the resources found in each department within the zoo, therefore the system, still in place, wasn’t designed by professional librarians at all. This caused the collection to be organised in very broad classes designated by a series of “call numbers”, which is not perhaps the ideal system, but at least it allows the books to show multiple subjects, depending on their use. This zoo library collection has been developing little by little since that first voluntary classification, mainly due to the small budget dedicated to it, but it has greatly improved since the construction of the conservation and education centre (which contains the library, computer, common, seminar rooms and usual classrooms, plus a teaching laboratory and a preparation room) but especially to the partnership with UWE and SGS College and the access to their resources by their common students (more than 300 every year).

 

The final talk was given by Education Manager Dave Naish, who explained that his aim at the zoo is not only to help the public acquire new knowledge about animals, but to challenge their beliefs and values in other to increase the awareness and understanding of other people’s views on what conservation really means.

Dave explained that these teachings need to be relevant for people to really engage and change their habits, therefore the zoo is taking a new approach to categorise and analyse each visitor group depending on their motivation or reason to come to the zoo. This new analysis helps the zoo determine the type of teaching and information materials they will need to use with each group: the type of signs, the amount and size of text on signs, adding drawings and cartoon characters to them, creating competitive activities, interactive boards, etc.

For Dave it is very important to be able to offer dynamic activities outside of the classroom that are new and not repetitive for the younger learners, but which still follow the national curriculum of learning objectives. In his opinion, the best way for kids to learn how to care for the ecosystem is interacting with the animals themselves as much as possible (observing, petting or feeding them…), and introducing seasonal items in the animal’s world to make it different for the viewers and more interesting for the animals helps as well to keep the visiting experience fresh each time.

Finally, Dave shared with us information about some of the many different ways in which the zoo tries to encourage people to interact with the animals, such as “face your fear” sessions for people with specific phobias, walk-throughs with members of staff, feeding and petting opportunities, events to watch the birds of prey and the aquarium, etc. All of these are designed so that people with different learning styles can all have a chance to engage with the zoo and its animals in whichever way fits their needs and specific interests. For what we experienced ourselves (holding giant cockroaches and stroking a nice and smooth boa snake!), these interactive sessions are unique experiences that everybody should try and which will provide an incomparable method of learning (fun memories) that will last for a lifetime.

CILIP SW Visit to Bristol Zoological Gardens Library, Archive and Conservation Education Centre. Illustrated report by Susan Lee

 

A group of 11 of us met up for the visit organised by Valerie Bearne, Retired Members Liaison for CILIP SW. Siobhan Klaus, Librarian/Administrator took us over to the Conservation Education Centre. The Centre has two parts; education facilities for schools and college visits and a Higher Education Campus. I had expected facilities for school visits but not the higher education role of the zoo and therefore the large role that the library has for this. An unusual extra to the normal housekeeping introduction was what to do if an animal escaped!

Our first session of the day was an overview of conservation, the HE teaching programmes and field research with Dr Daphne Kerhoas, Lecturer in Conservation Science. We are used to the ever changing field of library and information and it was interesting to hear this is also happening for zoos. She explained that the approach to conservation is changing from the original focus on species conservation to ecosystem conservation. This includes reaching out to people to try and get them to change their habits. The zoo is now a more immersive experience with people entering the animal enclosures. Entering the ecosystem of the wildlife should encourage people to care more about wildlife. Bristol Zoo is involved in conservation research and projects across Britain and around the world. The projects try to address problems by involving the local population and finding solutions that help both them and the wildlife.

 

Bristol Zoo offers a range of Foundation, BSc and Masters conservation degrees in collaboration with the University of the West of England (UWE), the University of Bristol and the University of Gloucester and South Gloucestershire and Stroud College (SGS). The facilities include 2 lecture rooms seating 70 and 120, seminar and classrooms, library and laboratory. It is part of the Librarian/Administrator role to book the rooms for the courses. She also teaches in the level one module ‘Professional Work Skills’ and level two module ‘Research and Work Skills’. Lecturers also signpost students to her for help as she is the most accessible member of staff; the lecturers’ offices are further away and only accessible by bell.

The next session was with Siobhan Klaus, Librarian and Administrator. The present library is in the Conservation Education Centre built in 2015. It is staffed by one full time librarian, a volunteer one afternoon per week and 2 research students. The library has 4,500 books and 2,500 journals. The main users of the library are the 300 students, but staff, volunteers and visiting researchers also use the library. I found the cataloguing system intriguing. The books are catalogued by letters then a number eg. Ec-H-W number = Ecology – Habitat – Woodland + next number of when added. The large BBC Wildlife collection has been donated to the zoo. It had been catalogued using the ZSL (Zoological Society of London) classification, so some books have both labels. Some of the physical stock is purchased and owned by SGS whereas UWE purchases eCopies for their students. The librarian meets partner librarians 2/3 times a year. She also attends monthly department meetings and asks for suggestions for purchase.

 

The advantages that the librarian finds of working at the zoo library are that the collection is quirky, historic and important. The challenges are that it is a balancing act being the administrator for HE in addition to being a librarian, it is mainly lone working and the budget is small but academic texts are very expensive. The Bristol Zoo Archive is now stored at the Bristol Archives and some is in store at the Pavilion at the zoo. It is not catalogued apart from being grouped by a couple of PHD students. The next challenge is to catalogue and digitise the archive to make it accessible. Bristol Zoo is fundraising with Bristol Archives to achieve this.

 

The last session was with Dave Naish, Education Manager. In 1981 the Zoo Licensing Act specified conservation and education as requirements to be licensed as a zoo. In 2015 the Secretary of State’s Standards for Zoo Practice went further to include to stimulate pro-environmental behaviours. Bristol Zoo employs a psychologist on the team to advise on campaigns and projects to encourage behaviour change. The informal learning is supported by the rangers, volunteers and a variety of signage around the zoo to appeal to the different types of visitors eg explorers, facilitators, professional/hobbyists, etc. There are interactive exhibits round the zoo and the Zoo Olympic trail of 10 stations where children can compare themselves to animals.

 

40,000 children per year receive formal learning at the Conservation Education Centre. The themed classrooms, such as the rainforest classroom, are designed to feel completely different from school. A good learning experience should be relevant, accessible, engaging, hands-on, inspiring and memorable. Dave then demonstrated this using the handling of Madagascan hissing cockroaches, a boa snake and items seized by customs. The session was accessible to people whatever their learning style, eg visual, aural, physical, etc. The centre started adult evening classes 3 years ago to let people find out about behind the scenes. The classes have experts from different parts of the zoo eg vets taking sessions and also live animals at the classes, so increasing the connection of people to wildlife and conservation.

 

We then had a chance to explore the zoo and see the immersive experience in practice. We all enjoyed this very interesting and informative visit.