A Library for Librarians

Created by Paul Cooke

Today, my colleague and I will be presenting a poster at the Libraries@Cambridge conference highlighting the Library Science Collection at Cambridge University Library.

The collection covers all areas of library science and archives including theoretical works, practical how-to guides, conference proceedings and major library science periodicals. We have titles from publishers such as Facet, the American Library Association, IFLA and Libraries Unlimited and we are constantly working on updating the collection so that it reflects current trends in the profession.

One of our first goals in terms of collection development is to make sure that we have a copy of all items on the core reading lists of the UK library courses. These are not always stored in the Library Science Collection but they will be available somewhere in the library. We want to make the collection the first port of call for library students from Cambridge (and elsewhere!) when they start their library course. We are currently in the process of tagging items on reading lists in the library catalogue to make life a little bit easier for students! Monographs from the main collection are borrowable for eligible readers but anyone with a University Library ticket can come and use the collection. You can follow our Pinterest board highlighting new additions to the collection below:

Follow Cambridge University Library - the UL's board Library Science Collection on Pinterest.

Another of our key aims is to provide advice on career development for those interested in librarianship. We have gathered together prospectuses from UK universities that offer LIS courses as well as information on various professional associations. The collection is stored in a quiet annex off the Commenwealth Reading Room which is perfect for browsing and finding some inspiration. Reading library science literature is a great (free!) method of CPD and can spark some great ideas.

Today also marks the launch of a website to promote the collection. We felt that it was important to bring together all of the information about the collection in one central place rather than have it scattered around the web. We also wanted to share the collection with the library community outside Cambridge. Even if you can't access the physical collection we want to give you some suggestions of new library literature that could be useful to you, either for study or professional development. The website link can be found by clicking the image below:

http://ullibrarysciencecollection.wordpress.com/

Please check it out and let us know if you have any suggestions for the future of the collection. As the title of this post says, it's a library for librarians and we really value your input. We very much hope that the collection is useful to librarians from both Cambridge and the wider library world so let us know what you do with it!