We go behind the scenes at the Library to introduce you to our people and the many ways they work to bring our collection to everyone. With applications for our next intake of apprentices now open, who better to meet this month than Sophie Sabin, a former British Library apprentice and now Business Support Officer: Culture & Learning, Higher Education and Science, and co-Chair of the staff Gender Equality Network.

Sophie Sabin

Tell me about your role?

Sophie joined the British Library as an apprentice in the Learning team, working specifically on the adult learning programme.

‘When I first started, it was just after the Harry Potter: A History of Magic exhibition had opened, which was great timing – I worked on lots of courses and study days themed around magic and the fantastic, which I found completely fascinating.’

Following her apprenticeship Sophie was appointed as our Business Support Officer: Culture & Learning, Higher Education and Science. Her day-to-day role sees her providing admin support across many of the Library’s public programmes, including governance of the exhibitions commissioning process and helping to manage the exhibition project boards. She also assists the Head of Higher Education and Science and the Head of Culture and Learning.

‘I also do a lot of strategic engagement with external stakeholders, such as during the development of the new Science Strategy, when I travelled to several different Higher Education Institutions around the UK.’

Sophie is also co-Chair of the staff Gender Equality Network. This role includes providing feedback on new People strategies and policy and gender representation in exhibitions. She attends Strategic Leadership Team meetings to give a gender equality perspective, alongside the other staff network Chairs from the BAME, Disability Support and LGBTQ+ Networks.

‘The Gender Equality Network also holds its own Network workshops and events, giving colleagues creative outlets such as a Gender Equality Zine and poetry night.’

How has Covid-19 changed the way you work?

Like the majority of our staff, Sophie has been working from home throughout the pandemic.

‘For the most part we’ve switched to digital (for example, the most recent British Library x British Fashion Council student competition took place online for the first time this year, and preparation for future exhibitions is continuing via Microsoft Teams).’

Her role as co-Chair of the Gender Equality Network has also become a lot busier, working with teams across the Library to try to ensure that there is no disproportionate impact, as a result of Covid-19, on women and non-binary people working at the Library.

What do you love about the Library?

Sophie hopes to continue working at the Library in a public-focussed role for many years to come.

‘One of the things I love most about working here is how well I think we serve our different audiences, and how much focus is on developing and supporting new and existing audiences – and engaging them with the collection – even more.’

In addition to this Sophie also appreciates the supportive staff community.

‘I have some brilliant colleagues with all kinds of different perspectives and interests. I really think it expands your worldview.’

What would your advice be to prospective apprentices?

Our apprenticeship schemes offer an opportunity to learn and are available to school leavers and anyone thinking about a career change. Sophie’s main advice for apprentices is to talk to everyone!

‘From when I first started – and I’ve carried on doing it – I just asked as many people as possible if they wanted to have a coffee with me and talk a bit about their area of work. You learn so much doing this, and that’s really helpful in an organisation as big as the Library where you might not always know what different departments are doing. And everyone is always really happy to talk.’

What’s your favourite object in our collection?

Sophie’s personal favourite is the collection of scrapbooks by Maud Arncliffe Sennett, who was a former actress and suffrage campaigner. She kept 37 scrapbooks over 30 years between 1906 and 1936, all filled with press cuttings, pamphlets, leaflets, hand-written notes and other items related to the suffrage movement of the time. Arncliffe Sennett was arrested four times for her activism and refused to condemn those militant suffragists who committed crimes such as property damage in their agitation for the vote. She also engaged the support of men in her campaigning, founding the Northern Men’s League for Women’s Suffrage. Arncliffe Sennett’s scrapbooks were donated to the British Museum in 1936 after her death and are now part of our collection.

A collection of press cuttings, pamphlets, leaflets and letters mainly relating to the movement for women's suffrage in England, formed and annotated by M Arncliffe Sennett. Created February – July 1907

‘I first saw the notebooks as part of an adult learning course on the militant history of the suffragists called Bombs and Birth Control and taught by Dr Fern Riddell – many of the adult learning courses feature sessions where Library collection items are brought out for participants to see, and it always feels special. On this particular course, the group of learners really bonded and ended up attending a Reclaim the Night demonstration together. They created a banner for that demonstration, which is now on display in our current Unfinished Business exhibition on the history of women’s rights – a lovely ‘full circle’ moment!’

Any book recommendations for our readers?

Sophie recommends Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko, which is a novel set between 1910 – 1989 about four generations of a Korean family who emigrate to Japan.

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Find out more about British Library apprenticeships and apply by clicking here.

In our monthly blog series, we go behind the scenes at the Library to introduce you to our people and the many ways they work to bring our collection to everyone. This month we meet Senior Imaging Technician, Eugenio Falcioni.

Eugenio Falcioni at the British Library

Tell me about your role?

Eugenio is a cultural heritage photographer in our Digitisation Services team. His work is broadly split into three parts:

1. Photographing British Library collection items, from manuscripts and drawings to 3D objects such as globes, for internal digitisation projects such as Heritage Made Digital and the Hebrew Manuscripts Digitisation Project and external for private research or for commercial clients such as publishers.
2. Photographing cultural items belonging to other culture and heritage clients, both in our imaging studio and on location.
3. Specialist imaging services, using technologies like ultraviolet and infrared to recover information not visible to the naked eye, for example this 16th-century Hatha Yoga manuscript digitised for the British Museum’s Tantra exhibition, where substantial changes had been made to the original illustrations.

A manuscript with Iron gall ink corrosion, before and after being photographed using Infrared Reflectography (IRR)

How has Covid-19 changed the way you work?

Before the pandemic hit, Eugenio’s time was split across working in the studio and travelling around the country spending days and weeks engrossed in on-location shoots. These included a lengthy project for Malmesbury Abbey digitising their 600-year old century bible and photographing an original Elgar score for Birmingham Oratory.

‘It was one of the best things about my job. Working in beautiful places like churches and museums around the UK. I hope to be back on the road soon.’

Eugenio at work at Malmesbury Abbey

With a ban on travel and no access to collection items or his British Library equipment, Eugenio has been doing post-production work and online training courses. He’s also, along with other photographers in the team, spent the year sorting out the department's enormous photography archive.

‘It was definitely something I’d been putting off, but it was an opportunity to get organised!’

How did you get into this field?

Eugenio’s father is a photographer, and he grew up surrounded by camera equipment, but his passion was the humanities. Whilst studying for an MA in Manuscript Studies at the Sapienza University of Rome, he worked for a local digitisation company. After graduation he landed a job at the Vatican library that would change his life. In Rome he was lucky enough to work on incredible pieces from the Vatican collection, such as Vergilius Vaticanus (Vat. Lat. 3225), the palimpsest of Cicero's De re publica (Vat. Lat. 5757) and the Divine comedy illustrated by Sandro Botticelli (Reg.lat. 1896.pt.A). During his years of work in the Vatican, Eugenio also had the opportunity to meet two popes: Benedict and Francis.

‘I discovered I LOVED working for cultural organisations, but after six years at the Vatican I felt was time for a change and I sent my CV to museums and libraries around the world and in 2018 I was invited to an interview at the British Library.’

What do you love about the Library?

Eugenio was initially a bit daunted by the prospect of moving to London and thought it would be stressful living in such a big city, but he actually finds it more relaxed than working in central Rome where he was often stuck in horrendous traffic jams. He enjoys the Library’s flexible working policy and walks to work along the Regent’s Canal.

What he loves most about the Library is that it truly is ‘for everyone’.

‘It was such a surprise to me that a library could be a tourist attraction. There’s so much going on you could spend a day here without even touching a book. You don’t even have to spend £1 and you always come out so much richer!’

What’s your favourite object in our collection?

Linked to his Masters degree, Eugenio’s favourite collection item is The Lindisfarne Gospels.

The Lindisfarne Gospels, Cotton MS Nero D IV

‘I haven’t photographed the manuscript, but when I saw it I was so excited to see the carpet pages full of detailed illuminations.’

But what Eugenio loves most is to work on damaged documents. He calls it ‘true photography’.

‘I can do something useful by preserving the content even if the object itself can’t be salvaged. I feel like I’m saving something from oblivion.’

Any book recommendations for our readers?

Eugenio’s book recommendation is The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu and their Race to Save the World's Most Precious Manuscripts by Joshua Hammer.

‘It’s a true story of librarians in Timbuktu (Mali) who felt their precious collection of manuscripts was in danger from destruction by Al-Qaeda so they organised an evacuation of the collection to the capital city Bamako. They saved culture!’

Find out more about our Digitisation Services

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Lida Lopes Cardozo Kindersley MBE is a renowned letter-cutter and typeface designer. We spoke to Lida about her work and how she and her late husband David came to design our iconic gates.

Lida Kindersley, architect Sir Colin Alexander St John (Sandy) Wilson and David Kindersley in front of the British Library gates

When Lida met David

David Kindersley spent much of his childhood drawing and carving. A conscientious objector during the war, David, who had been apprenticed to Eric Gill (creator of Gill Sans), opened his own workshop near Cambridge in 1946. He was joined 30 years later by Lida Lopes Cardozo, beginning a working partnership (and subsequent marriage) which lasted until David’s death in 1995.

‘As a child of the '60s David’s ‘way-out alphabets’ attracted me [...] I managed to elbow my way into the old boys' network of English letter-cutting. I kept being told it wasn’t a job for a girl.’

How did the British Library gates project come about?

The architect, Sir Colin Alexander St John (Sandy) Wilson, originally commissioned David and Lida to carve the letters into the New Red Sandstone above the Euston Road entrance of the new St Pancras HQ.

The entrance sign

Lida Kindersley cutting the sign

 
The Kindersley team 

When David and Lida enquired about what was happening below the sandstone panel, Sandy informed them that the trustees at the time had decided to run a competition for metalworkers to design the gates, but none of the proposals had been selected. David and Lida went home that night and sat at their dining room table and sketched. Their outline idea would become the iconic British Library gates. 

‘Creating the gates was such a smooth process. Sandy was flabbergasted! Most of the discussion was around the hinges, which had to bear the weight without damaging the wall.’

Lida Kindersley with architect Sir Colin Alexander St John (Sandy) Wilson

Made up of seven pieces, with two opening leaves, the striking gates incorporate a repetition of the words ‘British Library’ that are heavy and bold at the bottom and get lighter towards the top. Not only were the letters carefully measured to prevent children from getting their heads stuck in the gaps, but the clever design means that sunlight shines through and projects a wonderful shadow of the words onto the surrounding wall. Cast in bronze, the gates weigh an incredible three tonnes – a vast crane was needed for the installation.

Lida Kindersley with architect Sir Colin Alexander St John (Sandy) Wilson in front of the British Library gates

‘I am always filled with pride when I pass the gates. They’re a good talking point at dinner parties – people notice them and connect with them.’

Beyond the gates

Since the gates project, the British Library further commissioned Lida and David to carve the panel for the grand opening event with the Queen in 1998.

‘It’s in Italian travertine marble which has a wonderful texture, with holes filled with resin making it both interesting and difficult to carve. I wanted to paint the letters same red as the British Library bricks but I compromised with pink.’

Lida painting the carved panel to commemorate the grand opening of the St Pancras building

With 40-50 commissions at any time, the Kindersley Workshop’s current projects include a frieze for King’s College, Cambridge using roofing slates, a gravestone featuring seagulls, a ledger stone for Westminster Abbey and several sun dials.

Lida received an MBE for ‘services to letter-cutting’ in 2015. Her workshop employs eight people, six of whom cut letters. Although she still cuts letters herself, about a third of Lida’s time is now spent writing books. Her latest book, The Ins and Outs of Public Lettering, proudly features the British Library gates on the front cover.

Click here to find out more about the Kindersley Workshop.

Click here to explore more of the British Library building at St Pancras.

Can't get enough of the British Library gates? They're available in notebook, pencil and card holder form (amongst others) in the Love Libraries range of our shop. Click here to browse.