DURHAM UNIVERSITY LIBRARY. The British Library Co-operation and Partnership Programme. Full Disclosure,

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1 DURHAM UNIVERSITY LIBRARY The British Library Co-operation and Partnership Programme Full Disclosure, Winterbottom and Maltby Collections: retroconversion of the catalogues Final Report May 2004

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3 1. Brief Description of the Project This project has been part of a campaign to complete the retroconversion of all Durham s early printed books. The project set out to retroconvert the catalogue records of the whole of the Winterbottom collection and the remaining uncatalogued Maltby books. The completion of this and other project work has meant that the a large proportion of Durham University Library s early printed book collections (over 60,000 titles printed before 1850) are now available on the University s OPAC. The Winterbottom and Maltby records have been uploaded into CURL database, to add to the record of the national distributed collection. 2. Description of the Winterbottom and Maltby collections 2.1 Winterbottom collection (c.1400 items) Thomas Masterman Winterbottom was born in 1766 in South Shields, County Durham, the son of a surgeon-apothecary. He studied medicine at Edinburgh, receiving his medical degree in Immediately after graduating he was appointed Physician to the Colony of Sierra Leone. The colony was founded as a new homeland for freed American slaves, and some of the books in Winterbottom s library reflect his interest in the anti-slavery movement. He seems to have been diligent and well-liked and remained in Sierra Leone until 1796 when he returned home to South Shields to take over his father s medical practice, finally retiring in He died in 1859 aged 94 having spent his retirement in philanthropic and educational work. Winterbottom was a scholar and a book collector, publishing books on his medical research including his classic description of sleeping sickness (1803). He accumulated a library which included a collection of medical works bequeathed to the General Infirmary in Newcastle, now part of the Robinson Library, Newcastle University. His remaining books were bequeathed to Durham University. They are largely 18 th and 19 th century editions but include 7 incunables, 16 STC and 9 Wing items. In subject coverage, the collection s strengths are its natural science, for example the works of Newton and Linnaeus, and travel. In the travel section books on Africa and Asia predominate, some obviously related to Winterbottom s sojourn in Sierra Leone. In addition there is a small but interesting representation of French, German and Italian literature, and some local history material as well as works reflecting Winterbottom s philanthropical concerns such as books on education and prison reform. 2.2 Maltby Collection (c.850 items) Edward Maltby ( ) was Bishop of Durham for 20 years from 1836 until On his retirement he gave his books to Durham University Library and of the 1,500 titles 650 have been added to the Durham University Library OPAC in recent years but there remained 850 titles that still needed retroconversion. The collection includes 50 foreign 16 th century, 9 STC and 61 Wing items; the 18 th and 19 th century books are a mixture of English and foreign printing. Classical literature, philology and theology are prominent but

4 there is also some science and some English literature including a copy of Sir Thomas Browne s Hydriotaphia (1658) with an inscription and corrections by the author. 3. Methodology The books included in the project all had basic typescript or handwritten catalogue records in a sheaf catalogue. Because of the dearth of information on these records the books had to be catalogued with the item in hand. Record searching and downloading of matching records was done by clerical staff. Downloaded records were then checked against the item by a trained cataloguer and amended where necessary. Local copy information such as provenance was added and then the records were checked by a cataloguing supervisor. Any items for which there was no downloaded record were catalogued from scratch. Finally the completed records were uploaded to the CURL database. Monthly meetings were held between the project manager, and the two cataloguers and regular progress reports were made to this meeting. 4. Staffing The project manager was the Head of Heritage Collections, Mrs Sheila Hingley. The part time cataloguing supervisor was Mrs Elizabeth Taylorson and the full time cataloguer was Mrs Nicky Clarke from September 2003 to January 2004, when she resigned to take up a new post. Mrs Taylorson was temporarily seconded to complete the cataloguing alone from the beginning of February to the end of March. 5. Budget Total costs of cataloguing and equipment 14,668 Full Disclosure grant 8,000 Remainder funded by Durham University and RSLP Access Funding 6, Results Final totals Downloaded records 1498 Original cataloguing 429 Added copies 242 Total 2169 Totals by collection Winterbottom 1345 Maltby Use of the collections Immediately after the records for the Winterbottom and Maltby collections were put on to the OPAC it was noticeable that books were being requested

5 by readers from these two collections. Between April and June books from the collections were used. In addition the exhibition put on in the Library on the 2004 Archives Awareness Month theme of travel, relied heavily on the Winterbottom Collection for the printed book contribution to the exhibition. 8. General comments Problems: Loss of experienced project cataloguer at the end of January 2004 leaving 2 months of work to be completed by the cataloguing supervisor Higher proportion of script material than expected, especially Greek Higher proportion than expected of imperfect material in the Winterbottom Collection e.g. missing titlepages, single volumes of multiple volume works, misbound pamphlets Some record searching had to be repeated because of technical difficulties with the ordering process Successes: Two interesting collections now available online and already proving of interest to researchers Cataloguing project completed within allotted time despite staff resignation Many works that had previously been wrongly identified now correctly catalogued and available online Several interesting provenances have been recorded A new simpler location system within the collections has replaced the existing 2 classification schemes The use of damaging spine labels has been discontinued and replaced by acid free bookmarks Sheila Hingley Durham University Library May 2004