Behind the Scenes: Conservation and Collection Care

Behind the Scenes at the Wellcome Library resumes in 2011 with an expose of the Library's Conservation and Collection Care team. This team of six work in a spacious conservation studio that enables them to do on-site conservation and preservation of the Library's special collections, monitor the environments these collections are stored or displayed in, and to provide training in careful handling to all Trust staff.

Managed by Gillian Boal, a book conservator by background, the team can deal with a wide range of material types. But the focus is naturally on book and paper conservation. Gillian sums up the team's purpose, saying "Conservation is about ensuring these special collections are still around for future generations to access and consult. Everything we do is aimed at facilitating access by repairing and maintaining objects, as well as training staff and putting procedures in place to ensure that access remains a possibility." It is not about locking items away - although in some cases, this may be a necessity until stabilisation can be achieved.

The conservators do not just randomly repair and treat objects that happen to come to their attention (although this does happen on occasion). There is a strategy in place that prioritises objects for conservation, prompted by events such as exhibitions, daily use of Library materials, or by following a longer-term plan where entire collections, identified by the curators, are conserved in their turn.

Library materials are often lent for exhibition - both internally to Wellcome Collections, and externally to a range of locations in the UK and abroad. Luana Franceschet, the exhibitions conservator, works to repair and stabilise items for loan and ensure that the transport and exhibition environments are appropriate to the materials. She works closely with Rowan de Saulles - who, as the Library Exhibits Liason, manages the overall loans process. The venues to receive Wellcome Library items in 2011 include the Canadian War Museum, Tate Britain, Palais des Beaux Arts, Brigham Young University Museum of Art (USA), and Museum Boerhaave (Belgium), to name a few.

Stefania Signorello is the primary book conservator, who also manages outsourcing of work to specialist conservation experts. Stefania supports the librarians, archivists, and the photographers in handling and storing items during use. Objects requested for photography in particular are often popular, well-used special collection items; reviewing these requests provides a useful check on how objects are holding up under use. Stefania recently explained the benefits of her profession, and of working at the Wellcome Library in a Wellcome Trust video on the Jobs website.

Amy Junker-Heslip normally focuses on paper conservation, but is currently managing a project to rehouse - and then make available for access - the personal collection of Henry Wellcome including objects like his saddlebags, his cane, and many different types of textiles. This will require a combination of in-house management and organisation as well as outsourcing construction of new storage and display units.

Simon Jones is the environmental guru at the Library, keeping a careful eye on exhibition spaces in the building, storage areas, and any other locations where special collections will be stored or used. There are a range of parameters to be wary off, and to control as much as possible, including temperature, humidity, light and, of course, pests.

The conservation team have a strong agenda in improving education on careful handling and custodianship of the Library's collections, providing training to all new Wellcome Trust staff. They disseminate handling information to the Library's visitors using leaflets, posters and - a new addition - illustrated table mats for use in the Rare Materials Reading Room. They are on hand for consultation and support when readers need to use items that are difficult to handle - but the high quality of training they provide to Library staff means that this is rarely needed.

Behind the Scenes: Acquisitions team

A library must keep itself up-to-date with the latest books, journals, databases and special collections in order to maintain relevancy to its audiences. This month's Behind the Scenes blog post focuses on the Acquisitions team, who manage many aspects of selection, negotiation with suppliers/publishers, trials, and invoicing for many of the Library's purchases - which numbers around 200 items per month.

The team, consisting of four members, is part of the Collection Management and Operations department, and is overseen by Aileen Cook, Acquisitions Team Leader. They deal most extensively with serials (Chris Hassan, Senior Library Assistant - Serials, 900 titles of which are current); databases and journal packages (Victoria Sinclair, E-Resources Librarian), select books for the History of Medicine collection, and contribute to the accessioning of web archives as well as the Medicine and Society and student loan collections.

In order to describe the work the team does, it is useful to trace the cycle of purchasing new content. Under the collections listed above, the Acquisitions team will refer to supplier or publisher lists and catalogues of new titles, carry out online searches, and field any (very welcome) requests from other staff members. When it comes to special collections - rare books, manuscripts, archives, moving image and sound, paintings, ephemera and Asian collections - the selection will be made by the special collection librarians, but the ordering and purchasing will be administered by the Acquisitions team (specifically Rosemarie Nief, Assistant Librarian - Acquisitions).

If the purchase is an electronic resource, such as a package of electronic journals or a database, the Acquisitions team will set up a short-term trial before deciding to purchase (see current resources on trial). These trials are available to Library members. If an e-resource passes muster, the team will then negotiate with the suppliers.

Negotiation is a particular challenge for the team, as they make a concerted effort to gain value for money. Most publishers are profit-making, so readers are obliged to register as Library members in order to view electronic content. As Aileen Cook explains, "Once we identify an appropriate e-resource, we try to get the best deal with suppliers, and, where possible, remote access for readers. This includes renewals as well as new subscriptions."

The Wellcome Library belongs to a consortia that benefits from JISC Collections negotiating power. The JISC negotiates with the publishers, and then sub-licenses e-collections to the member libraries. Some of these subscriptions are subsidised, or even free. In this way, the Library is able to benefit from a wider range of resources.

Databases, in particular, are expensive, and the Library is keen to promote them, provide training, and receive feedback. Particularly when a new resources is in "trial mode", the team welcomes comments and suggestions from our readers (this can be done using our online form).

Once the resources have been purchased, details are passed to the cataloguers to ensure that access for readers is quickly achieved. All e-resources are accessed via the Library catalogue. The team also liaise with Systems Support Services, who manage the access rights for groups of users, and keep the websites up-to-date with new offerings.

Behind the Scenes: Rare Books

High summer finds us in the cool basement stores where the Rare Books are kept. Nearly 70,000 printed books and pamphlets published up to 1850 are shelved here, making up one of the most comprehensive collections of early medical literature and containing titles by all the key authors in this field. One of nearly 650 incunabula, the earliest book in the collection was published in 1467: De sermonum proprietate, by Rabanus Maurus, Archibishop of Mainz.

“This collection, which contains a significant proportion of books unique to the UK, is a valuable resource for researchers; consequently the collection is very popular with our visitors,” according to Julianne Simpson, Rare Books Librarian, who has managed the collection for the past five years. Some of the most interesting items include those on alchemy and the early history of chemistry, the “anatomical fugitive sheets”, printed ephemera, books from the Medical Society of London Library, 1,500 books from the library of Ernst Darmstaedter, and over 200 books from the library of William Morris.

Many of these books were collected in the early 20th century by Henry Wellcome (founder of the Wellcome Trust), but new titles have been added since, and continue to be added. Julianne sources relevant and unique titles from a number of trusted booksellers and auction houses. All new accessions are included in the Library catalogue.

Julianne may be seen regularly invigilating in the Rare Materials Room, but she also provides support to researchers by answering enquiries about the collection (for example, providing information about the unique aspects of specific editions or copies held here). Julianne works with the Photography team in approving book scanning for readers; with Rowan on lending books to exhibitions both internal and external; and with the Cataloguing department.

Several books from the collection are on display in the current Skin exhibition in Wellcome Collections, and even more have been identified for the High Society exhibition planned for autumn 2010. This allows the public to view these rare and fascinating books otherwise accessible only to visiting researchers or as images online. Many illustrations and some cover-to-cover photography is available on Wellcome Images, or via the Library catalogue (for example, The Christian’s Refuge, 1665 which can be downloaded in full as a PDF).

Behind the Scenes: Imaging Services

In this installment of Behind the Scenes, we take you into the world of the in-house photography team. Richard Everett, Head of the Imaging department, leads a team of four members of staff who carry out all the imaging services not only for the Library, but for the wider Trust as well.

The imaging department works entirely digitally. A wide range of equipment is used to cover the multitude of photography projects and jobs that arise, including medium-format cameras, dSLR cameras, overhead scanners and flatbed scanners. Working in three studio spaces, the team can accommodate all types of material: people, 3D objects, transparencies, glass negatives, books, manuscripts, paintings, and more. All digital capture, post-processing, digital storage and asset management is supported on-site.

Most importantly, the department has a huge range of expertise in many areas of digital imaging and contribute greatly to the range of services the Library can offer. Not least of these is the ability to advise and inform on strategy and procedures such as self-scanning in the Library, streamlining photography orders, managing overseas shoots for Trust business, and setting up a robust and sustainable image management environment.

The department carries out three main tasks:

"Ad hoc" photography, the domain of Photographer Ben Gilbert requires managing and fulfilling orders from readers, staff, publishers and picture buyers. Ben works closely with Wellcome Images staff, who manage the online picture library. Where possible, images digitised are made freely available on Wellcome Images. Most of the materials digitised under this service are special collections - books, manuscripts, archives, drawings, paintings and so on. Although the Library now provides a self-service scanner in the Rare Materials Reading room this is suitable only for private study and those who can visit in person. The Wellcome Library has a huge range of interesting visual content, and images from our collections have been used in thousands of publications, lectures, media events and more. Digital images can now be ordered online.

Project photography has become a big part of the Imaging department's work over the past few years with the development of the Digitisation programme. Most of this work is done in house, and complete projects include the digitisation of over 70 17th century recipe book manuscripts, 3,000 AIDS campaign posters, 600 glass plate negatives, 500 Arabic language manuscripts, and many more. Currently, Imaging supervisor Laurie Auchterlonie and Imaging technician Tom Cox, are working on a large project to digitise a series of archival collections, and the target is half a million pages over 18 months. This content will provide a basis for the Wellcome's ambitious plan to digitise a large proportion of its holdings to provide free online access.

"Corporate" photography refers to a third service the Imaging department provides. This includes capturing the events, people, and objects related to the work of the wider Trust activities and interests. Photographer Dave Sayer is the most mobile of the team, often travelling off site - to locations as far away as Africa or South-East Asia - to photograph Trust business. Dave works closely with the Trust's Publishing Department, providing images for Trust publications such as Wellcome History, Wellcome News, the Library's Annual Review and so on. Much of his work is taken up with Wellcome Collection events, such as the recent Billy Bragg play "Pressure Drop".

One of the biggest challenges according to Richard, is "managing increased productivity whilst maintaining the highest possible quality of service. That includes digital capture quality, speed of service, and ability to keep up with the pace of events at the Trust." The benefits to the Library are huge: digitisation of library materials provide greater access to them; and the flexibility and expertise of the team, the wide range of equipment, and the efficient management of content provides a valuable service to the readers and staff alike.

Behind the Scenes: Outreach and events

Our Behind the Scenes topic this month is cross-departmental, focusing on the outreach and events programme. Although many staff in the Library have duties that involve public-facing work, there are a handful who spend a large proportion of their time planning, managing and carrying out the organised outreach activities.

Tours, Insights talks, and Library Workshops are held on a regular basis at the Library, and these can be booked in advance. Ross Macfarlane (Research Officer) manages tours specifically centred around the Special Collections, and Danny Rees (Assistant Librarian) focuses on the library User Services tours. Strongly focused around our academic audiences, these tours are tailored to meet the interests of each tour group and to ensure that we are giving people a good sense of how the Library’s holdings and services are relevant to them.

Insights talks are managed by Eleanor Lanyon (Library Outreach Officer) currently on secondment to the Wellcome Trust Events Team. The Insights talks are held on a weekly basis (usually on a Thursday), focusing on specific topics relevant to the Library and its holdings such as “The Occult”, “Fascinating Faces” and “Madness”.

Workshops are held a couple times a week and provide a forum for our users to learn more about how to use the Library’s resources more efficiently, to highlight the services that we provide, and to provide more information on research topics. These are managed by Lalita Kaplish (Assistant Librarian) and draw on expertise across the Library staff. Examples include “Wellcome Images” and “Plants and Medicine” among others.

Library also runs one-off or annual events that are geared toward particular audiences and help to raise the profile of the Library in the History of Medicine world and beyond. Phoebe Harkins (Assistant Librarian) is involved in the planning of these including the Medicine in Literature series, where authors who have used the Library collections for their working talk about their research processes. Authors including Phillip Hoare and Mike Jay took part in the launch of the series last year, and Michelle Lovric will be presenting her latest work “The Book of Human Skin” (Bloomsbury 2010) in July.

In order to coordinate all these internal events, a committee including key staff as well as Tracy Tillotson (Library Administrator) meet on a weekly basis. This ensures that there is good cross-departmental communication on all aspects of the events, and assures a high level of quality and relevance for the Library’s users. Tracy is the hub of much of this activity, liaising with the Trust Events team to make sure that Library events are coordinated with the rest of Wellcome Collection and the wider Trust as appropriate.

The Library is not, however, limited to its own four walls – externally-located events are also part of its outreach agenda. Events such as the Midsummer Picnics, activities in schools around medical humanities, and others are planned and managed by Eleanor, targeting a more general audience and younger groups.

The Library’s holdings are also displayed for public consumption in exhibitions. Wellcome Collection exhibitions usually incorporate a number of items, and items are loaned to external museums, galleries and libraries. Rowan De Saulles (Library Exhibition Liaison), manages all aspects of these loans, and is currently working on material to be used in the “Skin” exhibition coming up in Wellcome Collection in June.

Although it is impossible in the space of a blog post to detail all the work that goes into the Library’s outreach activities, it can be seen that there is a dedicated programme, and staff with time dedicated to supporting, promoting and contributing to them. These events add great value to the service the Library provides to its users, allowing our holdings to be used and understood creatively, and leading to a broader and deeper understanding of the subject of the History of Medicine across a wide range of audiences.

Behind the Scenes: Moving Image and Sound Collection

April finds us in the Moving Image and Sound Collection (MISC) department - the team behind the cataloguing, curation and public services related to the Wellcome Library's collection of historic and modern audio-visual material. The department is headed by Angela Saward who is supported by Ruth Blue, assistant curator. Covering both analogue and digital material, the collection includes audio-visual material from the late 19th century to the present day. This includes both archival collections (unique, historical titles) as well as contemporary content, to cater for all the needs of the history of medicine researcher.

The work the team does revolves around two main aspects: providing access to the resource for researchers, and curating the collection. Providing access can be done in a variety of ways, including the creation of catalogue records so researchers can find items; providing a viewing space so researchers can come to the Library and watch or listen to content; mounting digital content online for remote usage; and carrying out collections research on the behalf of users where necessary. Usage of the material ranges from scholarly researchers to content researchers for broadcast programs; people with a general interest in certain health topics to artists looking for content they can draw inspiration from, or include in their works.

Some of the most popular titles in the collection are the film titles War Neuroses (see the embedded clip above), Heredity in Man, and Conditioned reflexes and behavior. People may ask for information on or access to specific titles within the collection, or they may ask for titles related to subjects. For example, recently users have asked for films illustrating historical practices in psychoanalysis and sex education up to the 1940s.

The MISC team also maintain the collection, describe, assess, and add to it ("curating"). Up-to-date titles to purchase related to the history of medicine are gleaned from sources like the Radio Times and TRILT, (The Television and Radio Index for Learning and Teaching, the best source of UK television and radio broadcast data available on the web - available to FE/HE). Archival items are sought out from a range of potential sources, or accessioned as part of larger archival collections newly acquired by or newly catalogued by the Archives and Manuscripts department. One of the big challenges to curating the project, according to Angela, is "the wide range of legacy formats and players for the video content. Unlike film, video formats proliferated between the 1960s and 1980s, many of which are now obsolete." These have to be conserved and, where possible, migrated to current formats. Migration of such formats is prioritised according to how accessible (from a copyright point of view) the material is to the Library's users.

MISC's outlook as a department is largely externally-facing, and Angela supports the industry by sitting on the JISC Film and Sound Think Tank and on the panel for the Wellcome Trust Small Arts and People Award. Internally, MISC has strong connections to the Cataloguing Department and Digital Services. There is also a certain amount of cross-over with Wellcome Collection, who have highlighted a number of Wellcome Film videos on the newly revamped Wellcome Collection website.

Following the success of the Wellcome Film project (in particular the YouTube channel), MISC is now embarking on integrating new digital collections. Digitisation of 30 audio titles is currently in progress, and these will be made freely online as MP3s via the Library Catalogue. Titles include Man versus Virus, Heart Sounds and Murmurs (a 9 reel series), and Lumps in the Skin.

The other digital project is the large audio collection from One & Other - or the Fourth Plinth Project - which ran from July to October 2009 in Trafalgar Square. These are 15-30 minute recordings of interviews from all the participants, obtained by the Wellcome Library in the new year. 2,400 people participated, and each had a different reason for doing so. MISC's big challenge is to capture the essense of these "plinthers" in the catalogue records. A couple examples are now online.

Behind the Scenes: The Support Services Team

In this month's installment of Behind the Scenes, we look at one of the most active teams in the Library - the Support Services Team (SST). Lead by Damian Nicolaou, the 6-strong team lies within the Collections Management department at the Wellcome Library providing key core services as well as taking on a number of projects.

The SST carries out all the retrieval and delivery of material for the Library's users - mainly for the public but also for the staff. They have a 90 minute turnaround time, and can be seen moving special collections to and from all areas of the Library building. In fact, some 20,000 items are moved by the SST per annum - that's over 3,000 items per team member - a very active job indeed!


The other core service the SST manages is stock and space maintenance throughout the Library. This includes both the open stacks and the stores, and the Rare Materials Reading Room. The team are vigilant in making sure the Library's materials are stored appropriately - making best use of the space available and minimising risk of damage - and are kept in order so they are easily available to the users. The SST also keep an eye on the physical condition of the material they handle, identifying vulnerable items so they can be properly conserved and maintained.

The SST also participate in a variety of projects, usually to do with managing and organising the Library's physical stocks, such as logistics for large-scale digitisation projects, numbering of Rare Books, and assisting with conservation and preparation, but also other tasks such as web archiving. Overall, the SST interacts with all the other departments in the Library, both in their core work and the project-based work.

The SST's biggest challenge this year is putting into action changes recommended by a recent service review that touches on many aspects of the Library, but particularly on the SST. The recommendations include streamlining some existing tasks, and taking on new tasks. Damian says "It is always a challenge to take on new responsibilities such as service desk work, while maintaining an efficient and high quality service in the core areas."

Although the SST's work may not always be visible to the public, it "underpins many aspects of the service the Library provides to its users and contributes to the overall user experience of the Library" Damian says. Speedy and efficient delivery of requested materials, opening and closing the Library, tidying reading rooms and assisting with the Self Copy Service, for example, all make the Library run smoother, and help give it the relaxed and helpful atmosphere that its users (and its staff) need.

Behind the Scenes: Digital Services

This is the first in a series of posts aimed at revealing the cogs and wheels that make up the Wellcome Library. These are the departments and teams that provide the services our readers are so familiar with.

Now, we find ourselves on the first floor of the Wellcome Collection building with Digital Services. This department brings together several roles and resources in the Library centred around the technical delivery of websites, catalogues, digitisation projects, digital imaging services, an open access repository for research outputs, and digital curation.

The Imaging Department will be the focus of a future blog post. Here, we concentrate on the rest of Digital Services. There are 9 members of staff (outside Photography) who work in the following areas:

Systems support services (LSS). This team works to keep the Library catalogues and website in top condition to serve the high expectations of the Library users. As well as leading a programme of projects to upgrade and streamline services, the team helps manage access to electronic resources, including databases, electronic journals and digital collections. In addition LSS provide first line support for all IT systems and services used throughout the Library both by Library users and staff.

Open Access: Digital Services is also responsible for taking forward the Trust's open access policy. Specifically, this takes the form of managing the contract to run UK PubMed Central (the UK's largest free online life sciences resource), working with publishers to help them develop policies that comply with the Trust's OA mandate, and planning the ongoing development of the UKPMC service. With regard to this latter activity, plans are afoot to expand this resource into a single, Europe-wide, open access repository for lifesciences research.

Digitisation Projects: The Digitisation Project Manager oversees the Library's Digitisation Program, working with two Content and Metadata Officers to aid the Library in the development of digitisation projects, digital storage and delivery of digital content. The department is currently involved in developing a large scale digitisation program that will see the digitisation of much larger collections of material around a series of strategic themes. The first of these is "Modern Genetics and its Foundations;" under this theme half a million page images of archival collections will be digitised over the next 2 years.

Digital Curation: The Wellcome Library accepts born digital archival material as part of its collecting strategy. Digital Curation is the long term management of all the Library's digital assets, ensuring that they remain viable, authentic and available to users of the Library. Responsibility for managing the Library's Digital Asset Management system is divided between the Library Systems Administrator and the Digital Curator.

The biggest challenge for the department is determining how to deliver on The Library's ambition to provide online access to a large number of digitised collections, including books, archival material, artworks and audio visual materials.

Understanding the components of a digital library system that can bring together both the physical collections and the digitised content in a flexible, engaging, and powerful way is no small feat. A Feasibility Study is underway to model this system, and create a proof-of-concept to test ideas around how catalogues, page-turners, storage layers and full-text indexing - for example - will interoperate.