CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

The year was dominated by building projects, with three major developments reaching completion. In March 1998 the Aoi Pavilion opened to readers, and in June the formal opening ceremony was carried out by the Vice-Chancellor, Sir Alec Broers, in the presence of Mr Tadao Aoi, President of Marui Company Limited, whose generous donation of £3 million enabled the extension to be constructed. The Pavilion contains a magnificent reading room for users of the Library's important East Asian collections, as well as two floors of bookstack for those collections; it has also permitted the clearance of two floors of the North Front, where the open-access East Asian books were previously housed.

The new basement stack at the rear of the Library, funded by a donation from Cambridge University Press, was also completed. This is an area of closed stack and, apart from providing space to house those new acquisitions not destined for the open shelves, it has permitted the rearrangement of several of the closed sequences which, because of shortage of space, had had to be squeezed into any available location.

The opening of these two new storage areas and the growing accom- modation problems in the open access areas led to a review by the Library Syndicate of the collections on open-access. With something like two million books available for browsing by readers, the University Library is probably the largest open-access library in Europe. Extensive though the space is, it is, nonetheless, finite, and in recent years many parts have become so overcrowded that books have been stored on the tables intended for readers' use and even on the floor. The move of books into the Aoi Pavilion, and the decision by the Syndicate to remove to closed access certain older sequences, allowed a re-spacing exercise to take place which, when completed in late 1998, will provide growth space for several years in all open-access subject areas. Thanks are due to Mr Jenkins and Mr Eaden for the meticulous planning that has gone into this exercise which will involve the moving of every one of the two million volumes.

The third building project was the refurbishment of the Entrance Hall and the creation of a new Exhibition Centre and lecture room complex built with assistance from the Heritage Lottery Fund. The various functions of the Entrance Hall, split between two levels, were inefficient in staff terms and highly inconvenient for readers. The new facilities, combined on one level in a fine circular service point, should overcome these problems as well as restoring to the Entrance Hall the gracious proportions it once possessed.

The Exhibition Centre, with direct access from the Entrance Hall, was opened in July 1998 by Mrs Anne Campbell, the Member of Parliament for Cambridge. The Centre will house two exhibitions a year and will, for the first time in the Library's six-hundred-year history, allow not just readers but also members of the public the opportunity to see some of its treasures. The first exhibition, entitled `Cambridge University Library: the great collections', contained items designed to display the range of material in the Library's care, from Chinese oracle bones dating from around 1300 BC, to the fifth-century Codex Bezae, superb illuminated medieval manuscripts, the papers of Cambridge scientists including Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Stephen Hawking, items from the Royal Commonwealth Society collection, film from the archive of Vickers plc and digitised images of fragments from the Genizah collection.

A major new book, with the same title, and closely linked to the exhibition was published by Cambridge University Press. Edited by the Librarian, the book contains articles by eminent scholars and is intended to show not just what is contained in some of the Library's major collections but also how those collections serve as the raw material for research.

The main portion of the Heritage Lottery Fund grant of £2.5 million is destined to assist with the development of the north-west corner of the building, incorporating an extension of the Rare Books and Manuscripts reading rooms and Imaging Services. Work on this project will not start until 1999, as some of the matching funding still remains to be raised but a great deal of detailed planning has already been carried out. A committee of external supporters has been set up, under the chairmanship of Lord Tugendhat, Chairman of Abbey National, and with the assistance of the former Foreign Secretary, Lord Hurd of Westwell.

Thanks to the active support of the Vice-Chancellor and Lady Broers, assisted by the Cambridge University Development Office in the United States (CUDOUS), the campaign to build a new physical sciences and technology library at Clarkson Road was spectacularly successful, with a donation of $12.5 million being made to CUDOUS by Mr Gordon Moore, Chairman Emeritus of Intel Corporation. The CUDOUS Board in turn made a grant of this amount to the University to build the new library, of which more is reported in the section on the Scientific Periodicals Library. Thanks and congratulations are due to all concerned, especially the Vice- Chancellor and Lady Broers and the staff of CUDOUS.

Following the death, in February 1998, of the Dowager Countess of Enniskillen, the Library received the exciting news that it had been named as the principal legatee of the Countess's estate, worth, it was estimated, about £1.5 million. Under the terms of her will the bequest is to be used to establish a fund, in memory of her late husband, the 6th Earl, a graduate of Trinity College, to support the purchase of books.

The Library's involvement continues at a national level with the issues surrounding the preservation of digital information. Libraries have long experience in preserving information on paper; the huge complexities of maintaining long-term access to electronic resources are only now becoming apparent. The Consortium of University Research Libraries (CURL) submitted a proposal to the JISC (the Joint Information Systems Committee of the Higher Education Funding Councils) Electronic Libraries Programme (eLib) at the end of last year for a project to establish models for electronic archiving. This proposal was successful and the project, now called CEDARS (CURL Exemplars in Digital ARchiveS), is under way at three sites, Cambridge, Leeds and Oxford. A preparatory theoretical basis for the more practical work of CEDARS was provided by seven studies on digital archiving commissioned by JISC and the National Preservation Office which were completed during the year and co-ordinated by a working group chaired by the Librarian.

The issue of extending legal deposit to cover non-print media, including electronic publications, was reviewed by the new government after the General Election. The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport established an advisory group under the chairmanship of Sir Anthony Kenny and consisting of representatives of both the publishing and library communities. The Librarian was invited to serve on this group, and a report, recommending that legislation be introduced, was submitted to the Secretary of State in July 1998.

The projects supported through non-formula funding (NFF) grants from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) began to come to an end, and details of individual projects are given elsewhere in this report. When the five years (1994-5 - 1998-9) of this scheme have run their course, some £50 million will have been made available to university libraries following the Follett Report. Of this, the University Library received one of the largest grants (£1.75 million in all). This funding has been immensely valuable in allowing major progress to be made in cataloguing and preserving important collections and in making them more accessible to users. The news that the funding councils have agreed to continue non- formula funding for libraries, albeit at a lower level and with amended rules, was very welcome. One of the issues that will be addressed in the second round will be the cost to libraries such as Cambridge of the large numbers of external readers, who make heavy use not just of the special collections but of the Library in general. As part of the Entrance Hall development, new turnstiles have been installed, linked to data capture units, to allow closer monitoring of the different categories of user in order to provide statistics on the extent of external use of the Library.

On 11 June 1998 the Library Syndicate celebrated its 250th anniversary with a reception for all the Library staff in the University Combination Room, at which the Original Graces of 1748 were read by the Senior Proctor.

The number of items received under legal deposit continues to rise, with over 86,000 books and pamphlets being acquired during the year, representing an average weekly consignment of 1,700 items.

There appears to be an increase in the number of books and journals being discarded by faculty and departmental libraries as they seek to find space for new acquisitions. The School of Education and the Department of Anatomy are undertaking major disposal exercises, and significant amounts of material have also been offered to the Library by the Faculties of Divinity and Modern and Medieval Languages and the Department of Geography. In the overall context of rationalising the holdings of libraries in the University, the policy adopted by these departments is a sensible one, but it does put considerable strain on the University Library's Accessions and Cataloguing Departments and will accelerate the need for more accommodation for the Library.

Readers have, for many years, been criticising the long delays between the receipt of issues of periodicals and their appearance as bound volumes on the shelves. A number of measures have been taken to address this situation and these are reported in the section on Preservation. The result, over two years, has been that the number of periodical volumes bound has almost doubled, from a figure of under 6,000 in 1995-6 to 11,000 this year. The priority accorded to periodicals will continue, but a wider review of the Library's policy on binding will be necessary if a viable long-term solution is to be found.

As part of the Library's policy of collecting current maps of as much of the world as possible, orders were placed for new series of Nepal and Estonia, and a topographic atlas of North Korea was acquired, thought to be the only copy publicly available in the UK. An important acquisition was the archive of the Charles Close Society for the Study of Ordnance Survey Maps, placed on deposit by the Society and containing much unique and valuable material.

In her first year as head of the Map Department, Miss Taylor has made great progress in drawing up plans for the introduction of online cataloguing and for raising the awareness among readers of the existence of the Map Room and of the services it offers.

Donations included the remainder of Mr George Seaman-Turner's extensive collection of East Anglian topographical and local history materials; some volumes from the library of the Dowager Countess of Enniskillen; French books from Clare College; and a further transfer of items from Mr Norman Waddleton.

Work on the re-cataloguing of the scriptures part of the Bible Society collections gained momentum, and over 5,000 items were catalogued. The work of the Bible Society staff and readers was much disrupted by the closure of the Anderson Room.

A considerable amount of important research material came onto the market. Among the items that the Library was able to purchase were two manuscripts concerning the attempt by Henri IV of France to save the life of Mary Queen of Scots (1587); a journal of tours by William Manning (1744- 5); letters from Lord Randolph Churchill to C.H. Milthorpe (1893-6); a sixteenth-century census of the inhabitants of Venice; correspondence of William Pitt (1758-90); and letters to H.A. Doubleday, publisher (1900-30).

A number of cataloguing projects have been completed, including the Sassoon papers, the Sheppard papers, the wartime correspondence of the University Librarian Francis Jenkinson, and the catalogue and index of the Bradshaw papers. The Librarian presented Dr Stefan Heym with a bound copy of the catalogue of his archive at a ceremony in Berlin to mark the author's 85th birthday in April 1998. An award of $130,000 from CUDOUS, made possible by the generosity of the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, will permit the preparation of a new catalogue of the Library's illuminated manuscripts which will be published in both traditional form and electronically. Similarly successful was an application by the Dean and Chapter of Ely Cathedral to the Heritage Lottery Fund and National Manuscripts Conservation Trust for a total of £52,000 towards the cost of conservation work on the Ely Cathedral archives on deposit in the Library. The various HEFCE NFF projects for the cataloguing of manuscripts continued on schedule.

Following the government's announcement of the closure of the Royal Greenwich Observatory at Cambridge, discussions were held with the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council and the Public Record Office on the future of the RGO archives. Thanks to the assiduous attention of the RGO archivist these discussions reached a successful conclusion, with a commitment from PPARC to maintain the archives in the Library, initially for a further period of five years.

Progress has been made with the computerisation of Venn's Alumni Cantabrigienses; the entire text has now been microfilmed and is ready for conversion into machine-readable form.

The assimilation of RCS records into the online catalogue continues on schedule, with the reference and bibliography section now completed and attention being given to African materials.

The Hopkins Collection of Chinese inscribed oracle bones contains the oldest written documents in the Library, some of them over 3,000 years old. The rehousing of these in specially made acrylic boxes has now been completed and they have been moved to their permanent location in the Aoi Pavilion.

The HEFCE NFF projects to convert records in the guardbook catalogue in Arabic, Hebrew and Indic scripts and add them to the online catalogue continued according to plan. Funding from this source also supports the Genizah Research Unit and has enabled significant progress to be made with the cataloguing of the liturgical, Arabic and Judaeo-Arabic fragments in the Genizah collection and expansion of the Genizah Web pages. Two volumes in the 'Genizah series can now be accessed on the Web and over 100 fragments are available as enhanced images.

The exhibition at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, 'The Cairo Genizah: a mosaic of life', based around the University Library's collection, closed at the end of October 1997 in a blaze of publicity. The centenary of the discovery of the Genizah fragments was marked by several conferences, the production of a cassette by the American Friends of Cambridge University in its 'Cam-bridge Audio Tapes' series, and by articles in the Arabic weekly magazine Al-Majalla, the El Al magazine Israelal and the Cambridge Foundation magazine CAM.

The normal publishing pattern of the Islamic bibliography was extended this year to include a CD-ROM version of Index Islamicus covering the period 1906-96.

Among the new services offered were the Chadwyck-Healey Literature Online database, the Official Index to The Times 1906-80, the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature, the RILM music database, and, thanks to the Library's membership of CURL, the RLG EUREKA group of databases, including the English Short-Title Catalogue (ESTC). Seventy-one online databases are currently available to members of the University, and, in addition, over 700 electronic journals are provided from the University Library and networked across the University. Notable new collections of such journals were the JSTOR archive and the American Chemical Society titles. During the coming year, links to all these journals will be provided from the Cambridge Union List of Serials. The cost of these services is currently being met from the University Library's budget on behalf of all parts of the University. As the demand for electronic information, and thus the cost of it, continues to rise, a means will have to be found to ensure that the Library's budget can meet this additional burden.

The Library is also adding its own material to the Web. The complete manuscript of the Anglo-Norman 'Life of Edward the Confessor' (MS Ee.3.59) has been digitised and can be consulted from anywhere in the world. Over 100 digitised images from the Genizah fragments have also been mounted on the Web with a further 122 digitised and available in the 'Great collections' exhibition. Both of these projects have received international praise both for their content and for their technical standards. This type of project is important partly to publicise the Library's collections, but principally to provide remote access to them and thus to help preserve them. Much scholarly work can now be undertaken using the digital images, which are of very high quality, rather than by exposing the original manuscripts to further handling. Further manuscripts which are in heavy use will be digitised as soon as staff resources are available.

The phenomenal growth in the use of the Web continues. In July 1997 around 63,000 successful requests to the Library's Web server were recorded; by July 1998 the number had risen to 449,000. This represents around 15,000 successful requests per day, of which about a third are from within the University and a further third from other British academic servers.

As far as possible, the Library tries to network its electronic services across the University, so that they can be consulted at the most convenient location for the user. For technical and other reasons, it is sometimes not possible to do this, especially for CD-ROM based products, and these must, therefore, be consulted within the Library. The IT Resources area is now fully occupied for much of the time and so the public workstations in the open-stack areas have been modified so that all can be used to provide access to the full range of electronic library services. Additional terminals have been installed in several reading rooms: in the refurbished Anderson Room, for example, a specially designed home page gives music users easy access to the services most likely to be of interest to them.

Thanks to generous support from the University Council and the General Board, the Greensleeves Project, established to convert records in the guardbook catalogue into machine-readable form, was able to expand its activities and thus increase output. The Project Director's post was added to the Library's establishment and a 'challenge grant' of £400,000 was offered, the General Board agreeing to match pound for pound any sums raised by the Library from other sources. The Isaac Newton Trust offered a generous grant, and assistance was received also from the Faculties of Classics, Law, Modern and Medieval Languages, Music and Philosophy. By the end of the year, a total of £200,000 had been raised, to be added to the challenge grant and so making twice that amount available to the Project.

The related HEFCE NFF projects continued. The conversion of the catalogue records for the collection of Early American Imprints in microform was completed, with over 36,000 new records being added to the Main Catalogue. The benefits of this project have been demonstrated by the sharp increase in the number of requests for the material. This extra use served to highlight the inadequacy of the microprint format on which the collection was originally reproduced in the 1970s and the Library has now purchased a replacement on microfiche which is much more legible.

Services in the Entrance Hall were disrupted throughout much of the year by building work, but the staff maintained a full range of services whilst their counters and offices were demolished, relocated and rebuilt. This was a considerable achievement on which they are to be congratulated. Readers, too, accepted with remarkable equanimity the fact that the route into the Library sometimes changed from day to day - and even on occasion the fact that they left the Library by a different route from the way they had entered it!

The Online Book Request System (OBRS) was extended so that it now covers a high proportion of the classes of books fetched to the main Reading Room and the West Room. This, not surprisingly, led to an increase in the number of requests, which was particularly marked for the non-academic `Upper Library' category. It is a matter of relief that there was no corresponding increase in the number of books requested and not subsequently collected. Any uncollected item represents wasted fetching time and has an adverse effect on the general level of service. It is now possible for the first time to monitor the situation more closely, and monthly statistics are kept of those readers who habitually request books and fail to collect them. The record so far is held by a first-year undergraduate who, in May 1998, had 40 uncollected books out of 40 requests! The Syndicate may have to consider what action to take in such cases.

Another area of concern is the growing number of general enquiries from outside the University, running now at over 300 a year to the main Reading Room alone. The Reference Department has always prided itself on being able to answer the most esoteric requests for information, but the ease by which messages can now be sent, particularly via e-mail, is placing an unreasonable burden on the Department. Around 68% of the enquiries dealt with by the Department now arrive by e-mail, over half are of a general nature (i.e. not related to the University or the Library) and of these only 16% emanate from within the UK. As a legal deposit library, it might be argued that the Library has a responsibility to serve a clientele beyond its prime constituency within the University, but it is clear that restrictions will have to be imposed on external, particularly overseas, enquires, if the level of service is not to deteriorate.

The Preservation Microfilming Unit has continued to devote its resources to the HEFCE NFF projects. Work on the Stokes, Kelvin and Clerk Maxwell papers has been completed, and preservation microfilms of these important collections of scientific documents now exist. As the HEFCE NFF projects come to an end, the size of the unit will decline and it will be linked more closely to Imaging Services in preparation for that department's move to enlarged accommodation once the north-west corner extension has been completed. The Mellon Preservation Microfilming Project began in 1988. The Project, co-ordinated through the National Preservation Office and with Cambridge and Oxford as the principal participants, has had a major influence in setting standards for preservation microfilming which have now been adopted in many countries. Miss Harrisson is to be congratulated on the leading role she has played in this project.

The 1996 University-wide seminar on fire and disaster planning was followed up by a workshop in September 1997, at which a model disaster recovery plan for all the libraries in the University was discussed. After this workshop, a revised model plan was made available in electronic form to be adopted and adapted by any faculty, department or college library. Throughout the planning process, a great deal of assistance was provided by the University's Fire Officer and by the Estate Management and Building Service, and it is intended that the plan for libraries will be integrated into departmental plans.

As well as the major work on new buildings, the University's Estate Management and Building Service has been undertaking a renewal of the Library's plant and electrical services. The original (1934) part of the building has been completely rewired, the boiler plant has been replaced and the air-conditioning system in the West Bookstack has been completely refurbished. All of these projects, though necessary and very welcome, have stretched the resources of the technical maintenance staff to the limit. There will now be a brief lull before building work recommences, in the north-west corner, but in the meantime the fire alarm system is being upgraded and the University's Fire Officer is about to undertake a risk assessment of the entire building.

'Cambridge University Library: the great collections' co-ordinated by Ms Thwaite and opened on 24 July 1998 by Mrs Anne Campbell, MP for Cambridge.

Reading Room corridor:

'History in fragments: a Genizah centenary exhibition' (November 1997 - February 1998) 'History of women in Cambridge: 1897-1997' A CUSU travelling exhibition (May 1998)

Access to an additional range of electronic journals and books was provided during the year. Many of these duplicate what is already available in print and, although the electronic services offer added-value in terms of access, it is impossible to obtain satisfactory guarantees about their long- term archival availability, with the result that the paper version cannot safely be discarded. The dilemma of the Medical Library underlines the need for projects such as CEDARS (see page 3) to develop guidelines and encourage the establishment of a national digital archive.

User education continued to play a major role in the work of the Medical Library. The training programme in information searching skills, `Quality Quest', was further developed, and library and academic staff joined forces in a series of introductory sessions for clinical students. As part of National Libraries Week, in November 1997, Medical Library staff helped to co- ordinate a display in the concourse of Addenbrooke's Hospital promoting information services for health-care staff, and produced an information leaflet summarising local health-care information services

The General Board's Working Party which recommended the establishment of the physical sciences and technology library also proposed the creation of a central library for biological and chemical sciences, incorporating those parts of the SPL's collections not transferred to Clarkson Road, some materials from the University Library and possibly materials from some departmental libraries. Several possible sites were examined but no obvious location was identified. As an interim solution to the SPL's storage problems, EMBS were asked to comment on the feasibility of converting the remaining parts of the Arts School building for SPL use.

The range and number of electronic services offered to the scientific community in the University and co-ordinated by the SPL has continued to grow rapidly. A particular feature has been the growth of electronic full-text journals, use of which showed a notable rise during the year.

Collection development was given a high priority, with responsibility for book selection and acquisition being divided among a number of staff. Improvements have been made in the sections on English, Scottish and Irish law, the USA, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa, and several European countries. Some eighty-four new serial titles are now available in the Squire, fifty-three of them representing transfers of titles previously held at the main University Library building, the remainder being new subscriptions, chiefly to North American and German law journals.

The acoustic problems of the Law Faculty building continue to exercise the minds of many. A number of meetings took place and, in January 1998, the Law Faculty Board, with the support of the University Librarian and the Acting Director of the Estate Management and Building Service, recom- mended that vertical glass screens should be installed to create an acoustic barrier separating most of the Squire Law Library from the rest of the building. The matter is now in the hands of the University Treasurer and the architects, with the intention that the work should be carried out in the summer of 1999.

Congratulations are due to Dr Stefan Reif, who was appointed to a Professorship in Medieval Hebrew Studies in the Faculty of Oriental Studies with effect from 1 October 1998; he will hold this chair alongisde his existing responsibilities as head of the Oriental Division within the Library. Miss Anne Taylor, formerly Curator of Modern Mapping at the British Library, took up her post as head of the Map Room on 1 October 1997. Mrs Vanessa Lacey, head of the Greensleeves Project, was appointed to a newly-created Assistant Under-Librarianship; and Mrs Carole Smith moved to the Cataloguing Depart-ment from Gonville and Caius College Library. The Automation Division lost Dr Harry Powell, who returned to a research post, and Mr Alan Brine, who moved to become Electronic Services Development Manager at the University of Derby Library. Mr Brine was replaced by Mr Iain Burke.

Following last year's decision to increase the investment of time and resources in staff development, eighteen sessions on customer care were organised during the year. Presented by an external expert, Dr Gill Burrington, and attended by over 200 members of staff, these sessions not only perceptibly heightened the awareness of customer care but also provided staff of all levels with an opportunity to discuss in a formal setting all aspects of the Library's service to its users. Many useful suggestions came from these sessions, including proposals for further training, and a new Staff Development Group, under the chairmanship of Mr Welbourn, has been established to draw up a programme.

In addition to this, the normal introductory programme for new staff continued, and over thirty people attended courses run by the Assistant Staff Office and the University Computing Service. Five members of staff completed the City and Guilds Library and Information Assistant's Certificate course run by Cambridgeshire Libraries and Heritage. The deaths of four former members of staff are recorded with regret: Professor James Pearson, founder of Index Islamicus, who started as a Library Boy in 1928 and left in 1950 to become Librarian of the School of Oriental and African Studies, a post which he held until 1972; Mr E. Crow, an assistant in the Library for forty-one years until his retirement in 1989; Mr E.C. Blincoe, a porter and security man from 1961 to 1974; and Mr J.E. Brigham, an assistant from 1974 to 1979, after his retirement from senior posts in education.

The Library's unique copy of The boke of kervynge printed in London by Wynkyn de Worde in 1508, a manual for serving a prince or nobleman at table, illustrated in Cambridge University Library: the great collections (Cambridge University Press 1998)

Staff at 31 July 1998

Current periodical and serial titles

Total holdings 31 July 1998

R.M. Andrewes
'Music bibliographies of 1996', Brio 35 (1998)
Book review in Chelys

C.A. Aylmer
Papers presented
'The Chinese collections at Cambridge University Library', National Council on Orientalist Library Resources, Cambridge, December 1997
'Islam in China, Faculty of Divinity, March 1998
Book review in Alexandria
Committee membership
China Library Group, Periodicals Sub-committee

T.A. Barringer
Quarterly bibliography of new publications on Africa, African Affairs
Reviews Editor: African Research and Documentation
Book reviews in African Research and Documentation, African Affairs and News (British Library Newspaper Library)
Committee membership
Standing Conference on Library Materials on Africa Cambridge Commonwealth Group (Secretary)

R.M. Bates
'The English primer: a circular journey', Internationale Schulbuchforschung, 19 (1997)

J. Butterworth
Committee membership
British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (Council member)
National Council for Orientalist Library Resources
Middle East Libraries Committee (MELCOM)
MELCOM International (Treasurer)

G.D. Bye
Paper presented
'Quality and standards of microfilming', Data Archiving Association seminar, Runcorn, February 1998
Committee membership
Mellon Preservation Microfilming Project Working Group
British Standards Institution Steering Committee for Micrographics and Electronic Imaging

A. Collins
Book review in Health Libraries Review

A.G. Farrant
Committee membership
British Standards Institution, Panel for Conservation Standards

P.K. Fox
Editor: Cambridge University Library: the great collections (Cambridge 1998)
'Co-ordinating the strategy: the role of the National Preservation Office' in Piecing together the jigsaw (London 1997)
'Future goals in digital archiving and preservation digitisation' in Towards the 21st century (London 1997)
'Access versus holdings: a new perspective from an ancient university', Relay, 44 (1997)
'The role of the librarian in the teaching library', European Research Libraries Cooperation: the LIBER Quarterly, 7 (1997)
Papers presented
'Microfilming versus digitisation as a tool for preservation: long-term access to digital material', LIBER Conference, Paris, July 1998
'Cambridge University Library: from papyrus to CD-ROM', International Summer School, Cambridge, July 1998

Committee membership
CURL Board of Directors (Chairman)
National Preservation Office Management Committee
Lambeth Palace Library Committee
Wellcome Trust Library Panel
Brotherton Collection Advisory Committee
NPO/JISC Digital Archiving Working Group
Executive Board, Friends of the National Libraries

D.J. Hall
Associate Editor: New dictionary of national biography
Book reviews in Journal of the Friends' Historical Society and The European Legacy
Committee membership
Mellon Preservation Microfilming Project, National Steering Committee
UK Preservation Administrators Group
Cambridge Bibliographical Society Committee
Cambridgeshire Records Society (Treasurer)
Religious Society of Friends, Library Committee
Friends of Cambridge University Library (Treasurer)

J.J. Hall
'The guard-book catalogue of Cambridge University Library', Library History, 13 (1997)

E. Harrisson
Committee membership
Mellon Preservation Microfilming Project Working Group

E. Hunter
'Theodore bar Koni Liber Scholiorum XI reconsidered', Acta Orientalia Belgica 11 (1998) `Syriac Ostraca from Mesopotamia', Orientalia Christiana Analecta, 256 (1998)

R.C. Jamieson Committee membership National Council on Orientalist Library Resources Indic Institute, Online Resources for Indic Studies Working Group (Chairman)

A. F. Jesson `In the service of the Churches: the British and Foreign Bible Society approaching 200', Henry Martyn Seminar in Mission Studies, Cambridge, May 1998 Committee membership Association of British Theological and Philosophical Libraries (Hon. Secretary) World Mission Association, Partnership House Mission Studies Library Advisory Committee (Chairman) Henry Martyn Mission Studies Library Committee (Chairman)

A. King Memorials of the Great War in Britain (Oxford 1998)

V.H. King Led discussion group on acquisition of books from abroad, Annual Conference of National Acquisitions Group, Cambridge, September 1997

N. Koyama `Louvain Daigaku Toshokan eno Nihongo shoseki kizo jigyo', Shibusawa kenkyu, 10 (1997) `Japanese students in Cambridge during the Meiji Era' Fifty Years of Japanese at Cambridge 1948- 98, ed. R. Bowring, Cambridge (1998) Papers presented Talks at the British Council in Tokyo, and at Keio University, Tokyo and Yokohama `English travellers in late Victorian Japan, drawing on travelogues and letters in Cambridge University Library', Conference of the European Association of Japanese Resources Specialists, Heidelberg, September 1997

E.S. Leedham-Green `Private libraries in Renaissance England: a progress report', Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 91 (1997) Papers presented `What we don't know about early modern book-ownership', University of Birmingham (1997) `The use of inventories in the reconstruction of early modern libraries', University of London (1998) `The Oxford and Cambridge Act - and all that jazz: Cambridge in 1923', International Summer School, Cambridge, July 1998 Committee membership Bibliographic Society, Awards and Bursaries Sub-Committee (Chairman) Society for the History of Authorship, Readership and Publishing, Prize Panel (Chairman) Panizzi Lectures Committee

S.M. Lees Committee membership Copyright Agency Advisory Committee SCOLD (Standing Committee on Legal Deposit)

D.K. Lowe `Cambridge University Library becomes at NACO participant', RLIN Focus, 30 (1998) [with J.R.H. Taylor]

P.M. Meadows Two chapters on the buildings of Pembroke College in A.V. Grimstone (ed.), Pembroke College Cambridge: a celebration (Cambridge 1997) Committee membership English Waldensian Committee (Chairman)

P.B. Morgan Committee membership Anglia and Oxford NHS Libraries Liaison Committee Oxford Health Libraries & Information Network (HeLIN) IT Committee Health Care Librarians of Anglia Group Clinical School Information Strategy Committee Clinical School Annual Report Steering Group Clinical School Building Safety Committee Clinical School/Addenbrookes Hospital SIFT Liaison Group Fulbourn Hospital PME Library Committee

A.M. Nicholls `All at sea: papers of the Hamond family', Bulletin of the Friends of Cambridge University Library, 18 (1997) `Manuscripts purchased by the Friends', Bulletin of the Friends of Cambridge University Library, 18 (1997) [with P.N.R. Zutshi] Papers presented `Digitisation projects at Cambridge University Library', Digital Resources in the Humanities Conference, Oxford. Committee membership Archives and Internet Steering Committee

W.A. Noblett Editor: Newsletter (Cambridge Bibliographical Society) Papers presented `A Swedish exchange visit', Cambridge Library Group, April 1998 `The European Documentation Centre', Network of East Anglian European Relays, April 1998 Committee membership Cambridge Bibliographical Society Committee

A.J. Perkins `The Flamsteed papers in the Archives of the Royal Greenwich Observatory' in F. Willmoth (ed.), Flamsteed's stars: new perspectives on the life and work of the first Astronomer Royal (Woodbridge and Greenwich 1997)

A.G. Purvis Committee membership Copyright Libraries Shared Cataloguing Programme, Steering Committee

S.C. Reif `The discovery of the Ben Sira fragments' in P.C. Beentjes (ed.), The Book of Ben Sira in modern research: proceedings of the First International Ben Sira Conference, 1996 (Berlin 1997) `Fragments of Anglo-Jewry', in S.W. Massil (ed.), The Jewish Year Book 1998 (London 1998) `Aspects of the Jewish contribution to Biblical interpretation' in J. Barton (ed.), Cambridge companion to Biblical interpretation (Cambridge 1998) History in fragments: a Genizah centenary exhibition [with Shulie Reif] (Cambridge 1998) `The Genizah fragements: a unique archive?' in Peter Fox (ed.), Cambridge University Library: the great collections (Cambridge 1998) Editor: Genizah Series (Cambridge University Press), Genizah Fragments (Cambridge University Library) Articles in Judaism, Israelal and Jewish Chronicle and reviews in Journal of Semitic Studies and Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies Papers presented Over sixteen papers at various conferences and seminars in England, Israel and the USA and delivered one of the plenary lectures at the Toledo conference of the European Association for Jewish Studies. Committee membership Jewish Historical Society of England (Council member) National Council for Orientalist Library Resources (Member)

J.S. Ringrose `The foundress and her College', part of `The Medieval College' in A.V. Grimstone (ed.), Pembroke College Cambridge: a celebration (Cambridge 1997) `The Royal Library: John Moore and his books' in Peter Fox (ed.), Cambridge University Library: the great collections (Cambridge 1998) `Setting the records straight: Gilbert Ainslie and Marie de St Pol', Pembroke College Annual Gazette no. 71 (1997)

Mrs F.W. Roberts Committee membership East Anglian Online Users Group (Co-ordinator) eLib OMNI Project Steering Group Anglia & Oxford NHS Internet Project Implementation Team Clinical School IT Infrastructure and Management Sub-committee

G.J. Roper Editor: Index Islamicus Editor: Al--Masaq: Studia Arabo-Islamica Mediterranea `Turkish printing and publishing in Malta in the 1830s', Turcca, 29 (1997) `Texts from nineteenth-century Egypt: the role of E.W. Lane' in P. & J. Starkey (eds), Travellers in Egypt (London 1998) Committee membership Middle East Libraries Committee (MELCOM) British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (Council member)

R. Scrivens Reviews editor: Solanus: International Journal for Russian and East European Bibliographic, Library and Publishing Studies Committee membership Council for Slavonic and East European Library and Information Services

C.J. Sendall Committee membership Joint Committee on Central Administrative Computing Commitment Accounting User Group IT Syndicate Technical Sub-committee College Data Transfer Working Party

A. Shivtiel `St John's and the centenary of the Cairo Genizah', The Eagle (1997) `On Israel's 50th anniversary', Folha de S. Paulo (1998) `On the Cairo Genizah' (in Arabic), Al-Majalla 923 (1997) Four articles (in Arabic) in Al-Awsat (1998) Reviews in Journal of Jewish Studies and Journal of Semitic Studies Papers presented Conferences in Israel, Hungary, Morocco, Germany

A.E.M. Taylor Committee membership British and Irish Committee for Map Information and Cataloguing (BRICMICS) BRICMICS Digital Working Group Ordnance Survey Director General's Conference, BRICMICS representative

J.R.H. Taylor `Cambridge University Library becomes at NACO participant' RLIN Focus, 30 (1998) [with D.K. Lowe] Papers presented `Continuity and change', Presentation to University of London Staff Training Group, December 1997 Presentations to RLG Forum, Oxford, December 1997 and to annual Oxford Libraries Conference, March 1998 Committee membership Copyright Librarians Shared Cataloguing Programme (CLSCP), Steering Committee Anglo-American Authority File Project Panel (CLSCP User Representative) CURL Resource Discovery Description Sterring Group RLIN Database Advisory Group Book Industry Communication, Bibliographic Standards Technical Subgroup

N. Thwaite Committee membership Cambridge Bibliographical Society (Treasurer)

E. Weinberger `Remote access to the Cambridge Genizah collections: facsimiles and subject-based data', Proceedings of the World Congress of Jewish Studies 1997 (Jerusalem 1998)

R.W. Welbourn Committee membership Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Academic Advisory Committee

P.N.R. Zutshi `The office of notary in the papal chancery in the mid-fourteenth century', in K. Borchardt and E. Bünz (ed.), Forschungen zur Reichs- Papst- und Landesgeschichte Peter Herde ... dargebracht (Stuttgart 1998) `Manuscripts purchased by the Friends', Bulletin of the Friends of Cambridge University Library, 18 (1997) [with Dr M.N. Nicholls] Papers presented `Proctors at the papal court acting for English petitioners during the Great Schism', International Medieval Congress, Leeds 1998

At an Extraordinary General meeting on 9 May, the Friends approved a revision to the clause in our constitution regulating the levels of subscription. They also welcomed the establishment of two new categories of membership - Patron and Benefactor. Patron membership will recognise those who have given the Library very substantial donations, either financial, or in the form of major collections. The Benefactor category is intended as an appropriate acknowledgement of those individuals who have given sums considerably in excess of the current minimum life subscription.

The Committee wishes to express its thanks to all who have volunteered their services in the period under review.

Purchases this year included a series of letters from Richard de Vere Thomas to his family describing in great detail the expedition to survey and negotiate a settlement of the Perso-Afghan and Perso-Baluch border questions, 1871-72. Significant contributions were also made towards the purchases of a fine series of letters from Lionel Dunsterville - Rudyard Kipling's 'Stalky' - to his sister May Armitage, of the earliest known manuscript of Domenico da Corella's Theotocon, and of two contemporary manuscripts relating to the execution of Mary Queen of Scots.

On the recommendation of the Rare Books Department the Friends purchased a copy of an early attack on Martin Luther by Johannes Antonius Modestus. Contributions were made towards the purchase of William Cole's copy of Thomas Fuller's The History of the Worthies of England, and a copy of Trattato di Domenico Di Guido Melline, dell' origine, fatti, costumi, e lodi di Matelda, La Gran Contessa d'Italia (Florence, 1589).

The Panel was delighted to purchase a very unusual manuscript text in Romanised Hebrew of Giuseppe Lidarti's oratorio Ester, proposed by the Music Department. It also contributed towards a fine facsimile manuscript choirbook from the royal monastery of Las Huelgas, near Burgos, to two plans of estates in Suffolk and Essex surveyed by John Kirby and by Isaac Johnson, recommended by the Map Room, and to a copy of The Four Elements - four broadside poems by Seamus Heaney, Laurie Lee, Jenny Joseph and Lawrence Sail - one in a limited edition of 125 printed for the Friends of the Cheltenham Festival of Literature.

For individual donations of books and other items the Committee is grateful to Ms S. Alexandra, Mr A.J.C. Bainton, Bishop T. Dudley-Smith, Mr D.J. Hall, Dr P.J. Hawkes, Mr I. Paton, Professor T. Takamiya, Miss M.B. Wallis, and Dr P.N.R. Zutshi.

Generous financial donations have been received from Dr A.E. Cobby, Mr D.J. Hall, Dr S.S. Herbert, Mr W. Johnson, Mr A.R. Pargeter, Mrs B.E. Quiggin, Mr I.R. Scutt, Mr A.R. Thomson, Mr A. Tillotson, and Mrs J.M. Wilkinson. The Committee wishes to thank all Friends, in particular life members, who have made contributions in excess of the basic subscription.

As a consequence of the current phase in building works, Library venues were unavailable for the early part of 1998. We met instead in Corpus Christi and Selwyn Colleges, and are grateful for the facilities so readily provided in our alternative homes. All the meetings attracted large, very enthusiastic audiences. In January, Dr Jim Secord of the University's Department of History and Philosophy of Science outlined his research into the dissemination of scientific information in Victorian London, and in April the publisher John Murray provided members with a fascinating outline history of his family's firm. To round off the year's programme, our President detailed his pursuit of Edmund Halley through the archives of Europe, illustrating this account of his travels with a selection of splendid slides.

In February, a party of Friends enjoyed a tour of the new British Library, while during Easter Term the now traditional visits to Library departments continued with tours of Manuscripts and Conservation. The Head of the Reading Room, Mr Colin Clarkson, very kindly took a further group of Friends on a general tour of the Library, which included some glimpses 'behind the scenes'. In July a group of Friends visited the Avoncroft Museum of Historic Buildings, and Hanbury Hall, a National Trust property near Droitwich. Finally, it is a particular pleasure to record that nearly ninety members of the Society were able to attend the opening by Mrs Anne Campbell MP of the Library's new Exhibition Centre on 24 July, taking advantage of this first opportunity to see the 'Great Collections' there displayed.