Heythrop Library

1. What do you enjoy most about your role at Heythrop Library? 

I enjoy interacting with our library members, helping them find materials, and talking about the collection. My role as Assistant Librarian is full of variety, which keeps me on my toes and enables me to work on a range of tasks, including cataloguing modern and rare volumes, collection development, and journal management. No day is the same and I’m never bored!

2. Where did you work prior to Heythrop Library? 

I was a graduate library trainee at the Bodleian’s Law Library in Oxford and then went to library school, studying the MA in Library and Information Studies at UCL. While studying, I also worked part-time at the London College of Fashion Library for about five months. I started my role as Assistant Librarian at Heythrop Library soon after finishing my Master’s.

3. Why does Heythrop Library’s collection interest you? 

As a librarian, the collection interests me for many reasons including its breadth – from modern monographs to journals to rare books – and the fact that it’s actively expanding, as we buy in between 650 and 750 new books every year. The collection is full of treasures, old and new. From a personal perspective, when recent publications arrive, I’m interested to see current themes in Theology and Philosophy research. For example, fresh angles on biblical studies or history, and understanding the modern world from theological or philosophical perspectives, such as in the context of feminism, new technologies, politics, literature etc.

4. Are there challenges of working at Heythrop Library? 

One of the biggest challenges we face is managing the large collection as a small team, with one reading room. Heythrop Library’s collection of items is stored across multiple locations, including at two commercial storage facilities. This means finding, retrieving and ordering items for library members can be tricky; sometimes I have to put clues together to solve the mystery of where a book is! As a librarian I want to connect users with information, so it’s challenging when items are difficult to track down or, worst case scenario, lost. Sometimes we can replace missing items but out-of-print theological and philosophical works are notoriously difficult to source!

5. Favourite book inside and outside the collection? 

It’s very hard to choose a favourite book within the collection! I’m going to pick the following title because it’s a brilliant reference source for the broad range of women’s philosophical work during the early modern period in Europe. Whether you dip in and out of it or wish to read it more methodically, this book is a great way to explore beyond the traditional canon of Philosophy which is dominated by male writers.

Title The Routledge Handbook of Women and Early Modern European Philosophy / edited by Karen Detlefsen and Lisa Shapiro.
Imprint New York ; London : Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2023.
Copyright date ©2023
Descript. xvi, 638 pages ; 26 cm.

I studied English at university and love reading fiction and poetry. I find it hard to pin down my favourite novel, but it’s probably The Waves by Virginia Woolf. I’m also going to bend the rules and choose a favourite poetry collection: Serious Concerns by Wendy Cope.

NH