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finding primary sources – worked example
Q: I’m looking for archival material in Oxford – and maybe elsewhere – relating to [well known deceased literary figure(s)].
A: LMGTFY – almost.
The first answer is always, of course, do an internet search – try ‘oxford surname’ and see what comes up. If nothing obvious, try adding ‘archives’, ‘papers’ or ‘letters’.
Balliol College’s personal and family archives holdings are listed online, with links to images, at http://archives.balliol.ox.ac.uk/Modern%20Papers/modernmsssum.asp.
Biographies and other secondary material should mention the whereabouts of other primary sources; from the archives end though, you will want to be familiar with several national portals, as e.g. letters from your research subjects will turn up in the archives of correspondents’ archives, not their own.
- The National Archives Discovery catalogue now includes the former National Register of Archives and A2A entries, for UK archives outside TNA: http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ (use Advanced, then Record Creator tab)
- The Archives Hub, for archives/personal papers/collections in (mostly) UK HE institutions: https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/
- The Location Register of Modern English Literary Manuscripts & Letters at Reading University: http://www.locationregister.com/
- AIM25, for archives/personal papers/collections in (mostly) Greater London repositories: https://aim25.com/
- JANUS, for archives/personal papers/collections in Cambridge college and university repositories: https://janus.lib.cam.ac.uk/
- If your research subject has an entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, there will be sections for Sources (i.e. secondary works) and Archives – these are often a handy shortcut to get started with, though don’t assume they are infallibly complete. The ODNB is accessed by subscription, but many HE institutions and UK public libraries provide access.
When you have done all these things, check with the Oxford archivists via the OAC address: https://oac.web.ox.ac.uk/ – be sure to mention the sources you have already checked and the archives you have located, otherwise we will helpfully suggest them to you again!
Does all this sound obvious? good – but this is a genuine enquiry from a genuine researcher of the internet generation, and it’s far from unique.
Unlocking Archives talk TT18
Against ‘Iberic Crudity’:
Balliol MS 238E, Bodleian MS Douce 204,
and Laurentius Dyamas
Anna Espínola Lynn, MSt in History of Art and Visual Culture (Wadham College, Oxford), will be speaking on the transmission of style in fifteenth-century Catalan manuscript production.
All welcome! Feel free to bring your lunch. The talk will last about half an hour, to allow time for questions and discussion afterwards, and a closer look at the Balliol manuscript discussed.
Online images of Balliol MS 238E and of Bodleian MS Douce 204
Unlocking Archives is an interdisciplinary graduate seminar series of illustrated lunchtime talks about current research in Balliol College’s historic collections: archives, manuscripts and early printed books, and the connections between them.
Talks take place at 1pm in Balliol’s Historic Collections Centre in St Cross Church, Holywell. St Cross is next door to Holywell Manor and across the road from the English & Law faculties on Manor Road; directions http://archives.balliol.ox.ac.uk/Services/visit.asp#f.
Questions? anna.sander@balliol.ox.ac.uk.
monthly report – March 2018
Some numbers about archives & manuscripts activity during March:
- Number of enquiries: 41
- Total for 2017: 145
- Number of researchers in person (unique users): 7
- Number of person-days in the reading room: 9
- Collections consulted: Chalet, Rawnsley, college records (2), Monckton, Belloc, Jowett
- images created: 2400
- Productions (consulted by researchers in person or by the archivist in response to enquiries) – actual numbers may be slightly higher:
- 12 boxes – up to 5 files per box, not including
- 4 files – up to 200 items per file, not including
- 36 individual items from a single letter to a bound volume
Some of the topics of remote enquiries received in March:
- advice re archival sources and research
- advice re archival training and careers
- requests for permission to quote from or publish images of archival material
- requests for (new) digital images of college records and medieval manuscripts
- College portraits/art/chattels
- 1968 student protests
- Biographical research re / info on Balliol or related archives of
- people who were not members of Balliol
- T Good (Balliol 1626)
- W Craven, 6th Baron Craven (Balliol 1756)
- Benjamin Jowett (Balliol 1835) and Florence Nightingale
- JA Symonds (Balliol TT 1858)
- A Lang (Balliol HT 1865)
- A Toynbee (Balliol HT 1875)
- A Campbell (Balliol 1929)
- R Leach (Balliol 1952)
- KAH Gravett (Balliol 1955)
Enquirers and researchers should note that I resigned my post in early February and am currently completing the required 3 months’ notice. This is the last of my monthly reports to include numbers etc about enquiries and research at St Cross. As agreed in February, I have stopped taking new enquiries, requests for reprographics etc as of 1 April, and from the same date will no longer be dealing with researcher appointments, invigilation or productions and returns of material at St Cross. This is to make it possible for me to use the last few weeks of my notice period to ensure that pre-April enquiries, processing new accessions and other ‘essential but invisible’ tasks are dealt with as fully as possible before I leave. Details of the vacancy, and of interim and future staffing arrangements for the archives and manuscripts, will be posted on the Balliol College website in due course. Urgent enquiries and requests for research appointments should be directed to the Librarians until further notice.
– Anna Sander, Archivist & Curator of Manuscripts
Hilary Term on facebook
I post brief monthly statistics here, but for readers who just can’t get enough archives news, there’s a weekly update on Facebook as well. Here’s the roundup for Hilary Term, January-February:
HT1: Happy New Year! This week in the archives, catching up on holiday enquiries, rounding up December enquiries and statistics, generally hanging the shingle out again as all services resume as normal.
HT2: this week in the archives, it’s a ‘quiet’ week as far as researcher bookings go. So in between thumb-twiddling sessions, I’ll just be finishing up holiday enquiries and reprographics requests; December, January & 2017 statistics on the blog; starting the term’s campaign of cataloguing modern personal papers collections & posting their fonds-level descriptions to the (new and improved) Archives Hub; assembling Docs in Focus features for the Library and facsimile displays for the antechapel; and starting to clear the office in case of work on pipes and electrics later…
HT3: this week in the archives, tutors planning classes using early printed books and late medieval manuscripts, a planning session for one of those classes, and flooring repairs in the repositories.
HT4: this week in the archives, just one reader booked, so, more accessioning and cataloguing. Forward in February!
HT5 : this week in the archives, a new accession to the RM Hare papers; a Balliol graduate student teaching a class based on manuscripts and early printed books; researchers looking at the Hunt, Rawnsley, McKail and Nicolson papers, college records and medieval manuscripts; and a conservation consortium management committee meeting for me. No wonder I’m only getting round to updating on Tuesday!
HT 6: this week in the archives, researchers for the Jowett, Rawnsley and Caird papers and college records; a school visit; servicing of the fire suppression system; planning a spring exhibition with several graduate student curators; and the termly Library Committee meeting.
HT 7: this week in the archives, I handed in my resignation in early February and will be leaving Balliol at the end of April, after more than 13 years, and returning to my home country of Canada after nearly 20 years away. Stay tuned for updates about modifications to archive services during the transition period. But for now, there are enquiries to answer!
HT 8: this week in the archives, researchers for the Jowett archive, Chalet papers and college records. March is the last month I’m taking new enquiries and requests for reprographics, as I wind things up in preparation for leaving at the end of April, so send them in soon!
HT9: this week in the archives, a researcher looking at college records and my last AGM at the Oxford Conservation Consortium. It’s a short week for me, as I’ll be in Cambridge on Friday at a symposium celebrating wider access to Parker on the Web, an extraordinary resource for all students of medieval manuscripts. No more paywall! https://theparkerlibrary.wordpress.com/…/parker-news-acces…/ March is the last month I’m taking new enquiries and requests for reprographics, as I wind things up in preparation for leaving at the end of April, so send them in soon.
The University is now in Vacation, but archives are busy: this week researchers are consulting records of the Chalet des Anglais, material relating to Hilaire Belloc, and the Rawnsley papers. My roundup of tweets from Friday’s brilliant Parker Library on the Web symposium in Cambridge is online (until May, when Storify dies) at http://bit.ly/2HLaYDH March is the last month I’m taking new enquiries and requests for reprographics, as I wind things up in preparation for leaving at the end of April, so send them in soon.
Easter Vacation (University sense): this week in the archives, researchers for the Rawnsley, Jowett and Belloc papers and some other individual items. From next week, please send all enquiries, requests for reprographics and requests for appointments to carry out research on the archives and manuscripts at St Cross to library@balliol.ox.ac.uk. The librarians are providing interim cover; future staffing arrangements for St Cross will be noted on the college website in due course. I will not be dealing with any new instances of these after this week, as I need the last few weeks of my notice period to leave everything as free of loose ends as is ever possible in an archive.
monthly report – February 2018
Some numbers about archives & manuscripts activity during February:
- Number of enquiries: 49
- Total for 2017: 105
- Number of researchers in person (unique users): 11
- Number of person-days in the reading room: 14
- Collections consulted: Medieval mss (3), Chalet, Hill, Hunt, Jowett (2), Nicolson diaries, Rawnsley, College records (2)
- images created: 800
- Productions (consulted by researchers in person or by the archivist in response to enquiries) – actual numbers may be slightly higher:
- 13 boxes – up to 5 files per box, not including
- 11 files – up to 200 items per file, not including
- 6 individual items from a single letter to a bound volume, not including
- 8 medieval/early modern ms codices
Some of the topics of remote enquiries received in February:
- requests for permission to quote from or publish images of archival material
- history of the Founders/Balliol family
- requests for (new) digital images of college records and medieval manuscripts
- Arnold & Brackenbury Society history
- College livings (ecclesiastical patronage)
- Chapel architecture
- College portraits/art/chattels
- Biographical research re / info on Balliol or related archives of
- people who were not members of Balliol
- C18 – early C20 College servants
- Henry Savage (Balliol 1621)
- Oliver Strachey (Balliol HT 1893)
- AK Overend (Balliol 1895)
- RWP Palmer (Balliol 1908)
- Alan Strode Campbell Ross (Balliol 1925)
- JR MacLean (Balliol 1927)
- Roy Harris Jenkins (Balliol 1938)
- JS Rennie (Balliol 1939)
- John Nigel Rowe (Balliol 1941)
- SJ Goldstein/Gould (Balliol 1942)
- Hyam Zandell Maccoby (Balliol 1942)
- Donald Michie (Balliol 1945)
Enquirers and researchers should note that I resigned my post in early February and am currently working the required 3 months’ notice. Details of the vacancy, and of interim and future staffing arrangements for the archives and manuscripts, will be posted on the Balliol College website in due course.
– Anna Sander, Archivist & Curator of Manuscripts
Stanford in Oxford at Balliol
Last week I had the privilege and huge fun of planning and teaching a class with Stephanie Solywoda, Director of the Stanford Program in Oxford. We were talking about medieval Oxford – town, gown and especially books…
Stanford people get up close and personal with medieval manuscripts – here we are discussing the complicated layout of this Aristotle manuscript, and the functions of illuminated initials other than just being amazing – navigation, mnemonics, sometimes didactic or humorous (or even inexplicable) comment on the main text.
Colours and lines are still bright and sharp after 7 or 8 centuries – it’s hard to imagine someone spending the weeks or months it would have taken to copy this text out by hand. Not to mention manually justifying every line while keeping letter spacing consistent, using abbreviations and having to allow for imperfections in the parchment interrupting the writing space.
Bindings on the other hand, may not last so well – note the spine break in the manuscript above.
Old books, new technology – online gateway to Parker on the Web, and a modern facsimile of the ancient Book of Kells that lets us safely handle a binding using medieval techniques.
Kells facsimile – not strictly related to Balliol’s special collections (alas, no early Irish manuscripts here) but a facsimile is a wonderful teaching resource. The pages feel like the modern shiny light card they are, but they faithfully reproduce weight and thickness of parchment, dirty smudges at the edges, the way some fugitive pigments show through to the other side of a page (e.g. lower right of this opening) and even the holes in the original. These Stanford students will be visiting the real Book of Kells, the centrpiece of a dedicated exhibition, at Trinity College Dublin later in their time in the UK, so this was particularly apposite.
Some recently conserved administrative documents from Balliol’s history, contemporary to the books displayed, were on show to demonstrate the differences in layout, hands and contents between academic texts and legal records.
Balliol’s Foundation Statutes of 1282, still with the original seal of Dervorguilla de Balliol, in their new mount and box from OCC. Like nearly all legal documents of the time, this is in formulaic, heavily abbreviated medieval Latin, but we were able to find the word ‘Balliol’ in several places in the text (and a full transcription and translation was available 😉 ) We talked about the evolution of early college statutes, the similarities and differences between colleges and monastic houses, the heavily religious language of the statutes and the practical stipulations included.
Balliol’s historic seal matrices and modern impressions – all featuring female figures, like the foundation statutes. St Catherine is the College’s patron saint, and we talked about the college chapel system and the fact that Balliol had a side chapel dedicated to St Catherine in St Mary Magdalen church – just outside Balliol’s walls – before it received permission (and had the funds) to build its own chapel.
Another beautifully mounted document, two copies of the Bishop of Lincoln’s permission to Balliol College to build its own chapel.
An opening from the first Register of College Meeting Minutes (1593-1594) showing formal but more workaday recordkeeping in the College, still in Latin but often with English phrases or sections, annotations, amendments and crossed out sections.
MS 301 has a typical layout for legal and Biblical manuscripts, with a central section, here decorated, of the main text to be studied in larger hand, and surrounding layer or layers of formal commentary plus shorter notes and personal reader annotations toward the outer edges. (No, the book is not hanging over the edge of the table – it’s the camera angle!)
Details of the decoration in that central section, showing rubrics (headings in red), regular red and blue penwork initials and still-familiar paragraph/section marks, plus more pigments, white highlights, and gold leaf on the most important initial.
A plainer study text, made for university use and leaving plenty of room for commentary and annotations to be added.
We enjoyed these whimsical doodles, turning initials into faces so full of character they might be portraits – or caricatures. They may also have had mnemonic and navigational value, particularly in a manuscript without folio numbers, as was usual. The manuscripts are foliated now, but most foliation is either early modern and/or 20th century.
The oldest document (ca. 1200) in the College Archives has been mounted to allow it to be displayed without damaging it; I also had two C14 legal documents out for the students to handle, and so we could talk about seals, seal attachment, and pre-signature authentication methods.
A mounted charter with pendent seals, still with their green and red silk cords intact. The conservators’ inner box cover includes photographs of the reverse of the whole document, the seal and the label, as well as a caption. Instant display without having to disturb a fragile manuscript.
For extra resources and further reading, I had a small selection of the College’s modern printed books on archives and manuscript studies topics out as well. The Manuscript Book compendium has recently been translated from Italian and is a brilliant resource for eastern as well as western manuscripts.
Links to relevant projects:
- Stanford Libraries: Parker Library on the Web
- British Library: Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts – virtual exhibitions
- Huntington Library: Manuscripts collections
- Balliol College: Manuscript images on Flickr
- Bodleian Libraries: Digital.Bodleian
- Cambridge: MINIARE
- Trinity College, Dublin: the Book of Kells
- Chester Beatty Library, Dublin – images
monthly report – January 2018
Some numbers about archives & manuscripts activity during January:
- Number of enquiries: 56
- Total for 2017: 56
- Number of researchers in person (unique users): 6
- Number of person-days in the reading room: 8
- Collections consulted: Medieval mss (3), College records (2), Rawnsley papers
- images created: 1200
- Productions (consulted by researchers in person or by the archivist in response to enquiries) – actual numbers may be slightly higher:
- 11 files – up to 200 items per file, not including
- 12 individual items from a single letter to a bound volume, not including
- 27 medieval ms codices
Some of the topics of remote enquiries received in January:
- college portraits and other works of art
- college heraldry
- correct citation/referencing for archival materials
- requests for permission to quote from or publish images of archival material
- requests for (new) digital images of college records and medieval manuscripts
- 17th century vocabulary for silver plate
- WW1 minutes of College Meeting
- WW1 and post-WW2 diaries
- Boat Club history
- Biographical research re / info on Balliol or related archives of
- people who were not members of Balliol
- C18 – early C20 College servants
- RW Raper (Balliol TT 1861)
- Sir J Conroy (Balliol 1890)
- H Belloc (Balliol HT 1893)
- HS Malik (Balliol 1912)
- RH Glover (Balliol 1915)
- I Stitt (Balliol 1917)
- TH Tylor, Fellow (Balliol 1918)
- F Huxley (Balliol 1946)
- FJ Lindars (Balliol 1949)
monthly report – December 2017
Some numbers about archives & manuscripts activity during December:
- Number of enquiries: 33
- Total for 2017: 726
- Number of researchers in person (unique users): 5
- Number of person-days in the reading room: 5 (out of 8 days open)
- Collections consulted: Jowett archive, college records, medieval mss, Conroy archive, Malcolm papers
- Productions (consulted by researchers in person or by the archivist in response to enquiries) – actual numbers may be slightly higher:
- 13 boxes containing from two bound volumes to 4 thick files of individual items, not including
- 1 file – up to 200 items per file, not including
- 9 individual items from a single letter to a bound volume, not including
- 1 medieval ms codex
- No of non-research visitors: 25
- exhibition open, with curator’s introduction, Q&A and discussion, for:
- current Balliol Fellows, guests and staff
- archivists & librarians from other Colleges
- members of the Oxford Conservators’ Group
- private visitors, including Old Members of Balliol
Some of the enquiry topics received in December:
- college portraits and other works of art
- requests for permission to quote from or publish images of archival material
- requests for (new) digital images of college records and medieval manuscripts
- Biographical research re / info on Balliol or related archives of
- people who were not members of Balliol
- C18 – early C20 College servants
- G Abbott (Balliol 1581)
- H Savage (Balliol 1624/5)
- CSC Bowen (Balliol 1853), later Baron Bowen
- HCK Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne (Balliol 1863)
- GO Roos (Balliol 1887)
- AW Pickard-Cambridge (Balliol 1891)
Michaelmas Term on facebook
I post brief monthly statistics here, but for readers who just can’t get enough archives news, there’s a weekly update on Facebook as well. Here’s the roundup for Michaelmas Term, starting in late September:
MT -1: the University is counting down and gearing up for Michaelmas Term. This week in the archives, a reader for the medieval manuscripts and visitors to the exhibition. Blog posts for the exhibition catalogue continue #mss2017. It’s the last week of September, so time for the monthly enquiries roundup and statistics post as well.
MT0 – This week in the archives, everybody else is busy getting ready for the new term, and I’m finally having a holiday 😀
MT1: Happy New Year for all those opening a fresh new academic calendar! This week in the archives: researchers for medieval manuscripts and some non-Browning material in the Browning papers, the librarians host Brookes University publishing students, and I kick off the year of Bruce’s Brunch, a series of lunchtime talks on all manner of subjects for Balliol students, hosted by the Chaplain. And the small matter of catching up after a week away.
MT2. This week in the archives, researchers for the Monckton and Jowett archives and medieval manuscripts. I’m continuing to post extended versions of the manuscripts exhibition catalogue entries on the blog: https://balliolarchivist.wordpress.com/category/mss2017/
MT3 – this week in the archives, researchers for medieval manuscripts, Caird papers and TH Green papers. The momentary ‘lull’ means I can catch up a bit on productions and reprographics, and complete physical arrangement of two (relatively) small subfonds. It’s also the time of year for college-wide refresher training in the use of ladders and fire extinguishers.
The medieval manuscripts exhibition continues: ‘Change and Decay: A History of Damage and Conservation in Balliol’s Medieval Manuscripts’, curated by Balliol’s Archivist and Curator of Manuscripts, Anna Sander, includes more than 20 of Balliol’s 300+ original medieval manuscript codices and a number of contemporary documents from the College records, and highlights a decade of work on the archives and manuscripts by the team of professional conservators at the Oxford Conservation Consortium, of which Balliol has been a member since 2006.
Individual and group visitors are very welcome most times, by appointment. Visiting hours are normally Mon-Fri 10-1 and 2-5; appointments aren’t meant to be exclusive, it’s just that the exhibition and reading room are in the same space, and we need to plan ahead to ensure that visitors and researchers are here at different times. Please come! More about the manuscripts exhibition at https://balliolarchivist.wordpress.com/ #mss2017
For tutors planning a visit with students, there is also space, and time available, to hold a class (of up to about a dozen) in the middle of the nave, i.e. surrounded by the manuscripts on display.
Directions: http://archives.balliol.ox.ac.uk/Services/visit.asp#f
Contact: anna.sander@balliol.ox.ac.uk
MT 4: This week in the archives, researchers for the Morier, AL Smith, Strachan Davidson,Ernest Walker and AC Badley papers. Balliol MCR visits the medieval manuscripts exhibition and we launch a Special Collections Challenge series with them; the librarians host the English Faculty 18th Century Seminar at St Cross; I visit the ‘C19 medieval revival’ session of the Rare German Books seminar; we join other college librarians and archivists at the university’s Graduate Thesis Fair.
MT5: This week in the archives, lots of tutors and students coming to look at (and talk about) the medieval manuscripts exhibition! First one today, topics covered: tiny writing, huge printing, marginalia, pigment ingredients, seal attachment, authentication methods for charters, manuscript reuse as binding waste, manuscript navigation, vandalism, conservation materials, gothic binding structures. Not necessarily in that order! No researchers booked this week as at least half of every day has a visiting class. October’s report is on the blog: https://balliolarchivist.wordpress.com/…/monthly-report-oc…/
MT 6 – this week in the archives, researchers for the AL Smith and Jowett papers, and medieval manuscripts; a Balliol alumna brings classes from two other colleges to look at early printed books; a Balliol Fellow and a Professor of Medieval German Lit & Ling hold workshops based around the medieval manuscripts exhibition. There is a new Remembrance Sunday display in the antechapel and I’m preparing a termly report covering more than half the year!
MT7 This week in the archives, researchers for medieval manuscripts, Urquhart papers and Oppenheimer papers; discussions about digitization and cataloguing software; conservators visit the exhibition of medieval manuscripts; termly reports; and a maintenance check for the rolling shelving.
MT8: This week in the archives, the medival manuscripts exhibition remains open by prior arrangement to visitors through next week. There are researchers booked in to look at early modern manuscripts, the Strachan-Davidson papers and medieval manuscripts; individual and group visitors coming to the exhibition; the termly College Library Committee meeting; and the Oxford Conservation Consortium’s AGM. And, somehow, December.
MT9 – this week in the archives: exhibition visitors; researchers for the Malcolm papers, college records, Conroy archive, Jowett archive, and medieval manuscripts; November statistics and termly (May-November) report appearing on the blog.
This is the last week to see the medieval manuscripts exhibition at St Cross and also the last week of 2017 for research appointments. The former will be put away, and the latter will resume in the week of 15 January. It will be possible to request appointments for the new year during the closed period – plan ahead and get your place booked early.
Balliol College Archives & Manuscripts 