This month we’re in Yorkshire with Marketing and Communications Manager, Tasha McNaught.

Tasha McNaught

What’s the role?

Tasha is based at our Boston Spa site, near Wetherby, where she’s in charge of publicising, promoting and developing audiences for the British Library’s presence in West Yorkshire.

‘I support our work to transform Boston Spa into a sustainable, visitor-friendly home for our growing collection. So far I’ve spent a lot of time learning about the site and all of the improvements we plan to make and thinking about what marketing and communications work the project needs for the next five years. Because we’re the national library of the United Kingdom, it’s really important that we tell the public what we’re up to – like sharing the approval of our planning application for the Boston Spa redevelopment.

Boston Spa is only half of my job though! We’re also making our mark on the city of Leeds. From taking part in Light Night Leeds and other city-wide festivals, to organising family activity days and teacher training sessions, we are connecting with thousands of people in the region. I book advertising to promote our programme of events, activities – and soon, exhibitions – to people in the city and beyond. It’s so wonderful to be part of Leeds’s buzzing cultural scene, and work with great organisations in the city like Leeds Museums and Galleries, Child Friendly Leeds and people’s theatre creators Slung Low.’

Part of the Library’s Light Night Leeds 2021 installation. Photograph: Abbie Jennings.

Tasha also supports a programme to establish a major new British Library site in Leeds.

‘Right now we’re investigating Temple Works – a disused textile mill in Holbeck – as a potential site. I’m conducting audience research to find out what people in the region want and need from us, so the project team can design a site and services that will make a positive impact.’

Exterior image of Temple Works, South Bank, Leeds. Photo by Harry Archer

How did you get the job?

Tasha studied Philosophy at university. A lucky choice of summer internship led to a part time marketing job with her university’s fitness and leisure facilities, which then turned into a full time job after graduating - ‘rather ironic considering I absolutely detested PE at school.’ Tasha then moved to a marketing role at the National Railway Museum, York.

‘I loved using my marketing skills to persuade people to learn and have fun! I love the idea of museums as centres for lifelong learning and inspiration, and the National Railway Museum’s focus on engineering and STEM skills fulfilled that for me. I loved spending time getting to know the enormous collection and all the human stories it contained, and using my communication skills to share those stories with the public. Now I can’t imagine working outside of the culture sector.’

What’s your favourite object in our collection?

‘I visited our St Pancras site a few years before I worked at the Library and was mesmerised by handwritten letters and papers in the Treasures Gallery. My job at the time was working with a collection filled with gigantic steam locomotives; feats of engineering. I think the contrast of a delicate, personal and intimate object is what drew me to the documents. The contents varied between the domestic, the official and the monumental, but it was their own hand that made them special to me. History felt more tangible.’

What do you love about the Library?

Tasha’s heart belongs to Boston Spa. ‘Between the brutalist architecture, the wartime history of the site and the automated storage systems, it’s impossible not to be fascinated by it.’

‘Boston Spa’s Urquhart building is stunning – the waffle ceilings, the tinted brown glass, the distinct shade of mid-century brown stained wood. I watched Marvel’s Loki last year and seeing the architecture of the Time Variance Authority in that was like walking around the Urquhart! Having said that – the low ceilings and lack of natural light aren't ideal. I’m looking forward to seeing the planned redevelopment works do justice to the architectural style, while making it fit for 21st century working.’

The Urquhart Building

There are also two storage buildings on site that use robots to move the collection around.

‘OK, they’re not technically robots. But the automated storage system is pretty incredible – and the next one in our planned new low-carbon storage building will be even better.’

‘The site has a really long history of being innovative and forward-thinking. In fact, one of my favourite photos of the site is from the 1970s and it shows a display that boasts about “the information storage and documentation medium of the future” – compact discs! Maybe in 50 years time someone will look at our automated storage technology and find it just as funny.’

Any book recommendations for our readers?

Tasha tried reading some of ‘the classics’ during the first lockdown and ended up with a new favourite book – The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway.

‘It really moved me, and I love how Hemingway uses such simple language and structure to communicate such profound ideas. It really shows that there’s no excuse for complicated and inaccessible communication!’

Click here to find out how to visit the Reading Room at Boston Spa.

You find out more about our plans for transforming Boston Spa by clicking here.

The mission of national libraries is to preserve the memory of entire nations, and from the relative stability of the UK it is all too easy to take their survival for granted.

The Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine, in Kyiv, is one of Europe’s great national library collections, a vast cultural and scientific resource that ranges from rare early Slavonic printed books to precious manuscripts, including the exquisite Peresopnytsia Gospels, on which the oath of office has been sworn by all six Ukrainian Presidents including Volodymyr Zelensky in 2019.

Like any great research library, its collection of 15.5 million items in normal times grows year on year – with 100,000 items deposited annually, including every publication produced in Ukraine and a copy of every Ukrainian university thesis. Its newspaper collection amounts to 240,000 bound volumes. Its unique collection of Jewish musical folklore consists of original recordings of folk music from 1912 to 1947 on wax cylinders – and in 1995 this collection was added to UNESCO’s ‘Memory of the World’ register.

Between its original foundation in 1918 and its re-establishment as Ukraine’s National Library in 1996 the Vernadsky has operated under several different names and has witnessed many brutal turns of history, including the execution in 1938 of its first Director, Stepan Pylypovych Posternak for ‘anti-Soviet activities’.

In March 2021, reflecting on the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic, the library’s director, Dr Lyubov Dubrovina told the Kyiv Post: “We’ve lived through revolutions, wars and famines. The library has seen it all.”

Just 12 months later, the extraordinary institution she runs has never been in greater danger, with Russian forces outside Kyiv and the violence and casualties reaching awful new heights. As the onslaught continues, the library faces the increasing risk of catastrophic damage – whether through indiscriminate bombardment or targeted attack.

For a national library to face such a direct threat of destruction is, sadly, not without precedent in recent times. The shelling of the National Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992, and the burning and looting of the National Library of Iraq in 2003 were moments of incalculable loss to the world’s shared cultural  heritage – and to the peoples of those countries in particular.

In a situation where so many rules seem to have been broken or forgotten, we must hope that the Russian Federation’s signature on the 1954 Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property is meaningful, and not just an empty mark on a piece of paper.

The global community of librarians has spoken with a unified voice in solidarity with our Ukrainian colleagues. Bodies such as the International Federation of Library Associations have condemned the violence, while more than 800 UK library and information professionals have co-signed a statement from our professional association, CILIP, offering support and solidarity with librarians in Ukraine.

Respect for learning and knowledge runs deep in Russian culture.  Having worked alongside directors and colleagues from the three great national libraries in Russia I have seen that the values of librarianship and curatorship, which transcend national and political boundaries, are held as deeply in those institutions as they are anywhere in the world.  Those values are in direct conflict with the military mission we are witnessing in Ukraine.

Under threat in Ukraine today is not just a living nation but also its history and recorded memory.  What happens in these next few days and weeks in Kyiv will determine whether that history can ever be fully studied and understood again.  The world is watching.

Roly Keating,

Chief Executive, British Library

 

 

Main image: The Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine (Photo by Leonid Andronov, from Wikimedia Commons CC BY 3.0)

‘Librarians can help bring antiquarian books to life. We can show people how they capture the thoughts and experiences of past generations. How the styles of binding, illustration, page layout and typeface show that design is never static. And how the scribbles, doodles and wine stains may hint at what previous owners and readers really thought of the text in front of them.’ 

We're back at the British Library for this month’s Library Lives, with Adrian Edwards, Head of Printed Heritage Collections. 

Adrian Edwards

Where was your local library growing up? 

Kempston Branch Library in Bedford. A completely rectangular building that must have been constructed in the early 1960s. When I was growing up, all the books were on the walls around the edge, leaving the middle totally empty. You always felt that everyone was watching everyone else. 

Why did you want to become a librarian? 

I always enjoyed organising things as a teenager: books and people. 

Tell us about your role at the British Library 

I lead the curatorial team that acquire and interpret the British Library’s collections of older printed books published from the 15th century through to the end of the 20th century. 

Adrian's desk at St Pancras

Do you have a favourite item in the Library’s collection? 

Can I choose the entire King’s Library of George III? 

 
Adrian takes us on a tour of the King’s Library 

What is the most unusual query you have helped someone with? 

When I worked at the Ministry of Agriculture Main Library people were always looking for information about ostrich farming: it was all the rage in the late 1980s, but there was very little guidance about how to do it well, and we largely relied on finding obscure articles in Farmers Weekly. 

Other than your own, where's your favourite library, or one you would most like to visit?  

Jubilee Library, Brighton, is my local library and definitely one of my favourites. It’s partly wind and solar powered, and re-uses the rainwater that falls on the roof to flush the loos. How cool is that!  

Brighton Jubilee library photographed by Julia Chandler/Libraries Taskforce (used under Creative Commons licence)

I also love Stockholm Public Library; the inside of the 1920s rotunda is a Scandinavian design classic. 

The interior of Stockholm Public Library photographed by Andrea Serio (used under Creative Commons licence)

Can you sum up being a librarian in three words? 

Information. Navigation. Interpretation. 

What do you think makes a good librarian? 

The ability to organise bits of knowledge and see the connections. It’s good to be familiar with the full range of old-fashioned reference books too, as it helps to be one step ahead of Wikipedia. 

Outside of work... 

I have an amazing collection of Finnish postage stamps, but don’t tell anyone. 

What one thing do you wish people knew about libraries or being a librarian that you suspect they don’t? 

That when we do exhibitions, it’s not just about putting pretty things in cases, it’s about telling interesting, well-researched stories. 

Do you have a favourite fictional librarian? 

The orangutan at the Unseen University (Terry Pratchet). Fetching books is so much easier when you can climb the shelves. 

Can you recommend us a book? 

Mary Renault’s The Persian Boy. It follows the life of the adult Alexander the Great from the perspective of his eunuch bedroom slave. I read it when I was 16, and again when I was 55, and was moved by it both times.  

Interview by Ellen Morgan. 

We’re interviewing people who have professional registration status as a librarian via the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals or who have an academic qualification such as a first degree, a postgraduate diploma or a Master’s degree in library and information studies or librarianship.  

Is this you? If you’d like to feature in Library Lives, get in touch with [email protected]  

Would you like this to be you? Find out more about becoming a librarian on the CILIP website.