The Suicide of Henry Symons----bookman of the British Museum

“There is a Museum story that when a member of the staff committed suicide in this room ( the Cracherode) by shooting himself his superior’s first reaction was : ‘Did he damage the book bindings ?”

It sounds like one of those apocryphal remarks that are handed down from employee to employee through the decades in great institutions , but according to Barry C Johnson, author of a booklet entitled, A British Museum Legend (privately printed 1984), it was probably a genuine expression of concern by the Keeper of Books for his valuable  charges. The suicide in question had taken place in 1922, but as Johnson remarks in his account of the events leading up to the tragedy, no-one he spoke to about the event could recall the name of the unfortunate Assistant Keeper.

His name was, in fact, Henry Symons, and it would seem that he was a well liked and respected figure both at work and at home, though contemporaries agree that he was very reserved and essentially a loner. His low profile at the BM combined with the fact that he doesn’t seem to have published anything of note, or left any personal diaries and only a few letters, made the job of Johnson as biographer, a challenging one,

Sir Edward Bond—the man who transformed the British Museum Library

There aren’t many librarian superstars. Casanova was one, I suppose, but he was better known for his extra-mural activities. Panizzi of the British Museum was possibly another, but a successor, Sir Edward Augustus Bond (1815 -98), was arguably a greater innovator and was certainly more industrious.

Bond proved that if you had natural talent and were hard working and dedicated, you didn’t need a university education to get to the top in the British Museum at least—though this institution was an exception to the general rule that an Oxbridge degree was de rigueur for a career in the world of Victorian scholarship. Bond earned his spurs and his reputation as a gifted palaeographer, especially in Anglo-Saxon, while in the manuscript department of the Museum, which he had joined directly from school at the age of 17 in 1832. Although he ended up as Keeper of the department in 1867, he was expected to remain there until his retirement,

Berwick Sayers on annotation 2

The second and last part of Berwick Sayers masterly work  Annotation in Catalogues (1948). Sayers was, like Casanova, a prince among librarians and also a man with many other interests - he wrote poetry, music, fiction and a book on the black composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. He also wrote a travel book Over some Alpine Passes. Memories of 1908. His life was commemorated in a work published a year after his death The Sayers memorial volume : essays in librarianship in memory of William Charles Berwick (1961.) He also wrote much on librarianship, including some dryish titles like: Report on the hours, salaries, training, and conditions of service of assistants in British municipal libraries (1911.)

Berwick Sayers by Juliet K Pannett

He wrote a comprehensive history of Croydon and his life was spent there, mostly at Croydon Library. Croydon is a large London outer suburb of some importance - one time residents include: Flower Fairies creator Cicely Mary Barker, singer Desmond Dekker, Raymond Chandler, Emily Blunt, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, A. Conan Doyle, Amy Winehouse, Kate Moss, Tracey Emin, D.H. Lawrence, Alfred Russell Wallace, Brit-pack artist Sam Taylor-Wood, Katie Melua, Kirstie MacColl, Roy Hodgson, billionaire Philip Green, Noel Fielding (Mighty Boosh) Victorian sexologist Havelock Ellis, Jeff Beck and Emile Zola.

 Annotation in Catalogues. Part 2.

 7.  One very important branch of annotation is that devoted to fiction. The tides of fiction are often far from descriptive, and no more indicate the fare they introduce than does the inn-sign, "The Spotted Dog," introduce the notion of beer ; e.g., A Flame of Fire, The Choir Invisible and A Ladder of Swords convey no meaning whatever to the average reader. For all these titles tell, any of these books might or might not be suitable for women or men or for children. The annotation of these should be a brief description of the type or character of the story ; its locale ; its period ; if historical, the names of real persons introduced should be mentioned

A.N.L. Munby book collector, academic and ghost story writer

Found - a scarce pamphlet outlining the life of Alan Noel Latimer ('Tim') Munby (1913 - 1974). He was born on Christmas Day, hence the unused name 'Noel.' The Victorian diarist and poet Arthur Munby ('Man of Two Worlds' of Derek Hudson's book) who 'adored the roughest working-girls' and was for years secretly married to his kitchen-maid was his great-uncle. As a schoolboy and as an undergraduate (at King's College, 1932-35) he collected books; for a brief period after graduation he worked at Quaritch's bookshop. During the war he joined the Territorials (Queen Victoria Rifles); he was captured at Calais in 1940 and held as a prisoner of war in Germany for 5 years. On his return to England he worked at Sotheby's, then in 1947 was appointed College Librarian at King's. He is best known for an excellent collection of ghost stories The Alabaster Hand. Ghost fiction watchers Boucher and McComas praised the stories in The Alabaster Hand as 'quietly terrifying modernizations of the M.R. James tradition.' M.R. James was also a Cambridge academic and Cambridge produced several other writers of fantastic fiction.. The pamphlet is typical of the slim memorial papers  turned out at the great universities when a distinguished or well known colleague had died.

Alan Noel Latimer Munby

T.D., Litt.D.

1913–1974

A Memoir composed by direction of

the Council of King's College, Cambridge

by

PATRICK WILKINSON

Privately printed for

KING'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE

1975

Alan Noel Latimer Munby ('Noel because he was born on Christmas Day, of 1913, but 'Tim' to everyone, from Latimer) was one of the best known and best loved Kingsmen of the past forty years. His devotion to King's, his efficiency and unaffected friendliness as an administrator, and his astonishing mastery of bibliographical detail made him for twenty-seven years an ideal Librarian for the College. But he also served it as Praelector from 1951 to 1960, a most welcoming 'father' for those who returned to take their M.A. or higher degree, and as Domus Bursar from 1964 to 1967, when the major joint building scheme with St Catharine's and the reconstruction of the Hall required someone of practical ability, intimate knowledge of our workings, and tact. And even this was far from being all. Thus when the Royal Family visited the College in 1951 he was put in charge of the arrangements, for which seventeen draft schedules were needed before Provost Sheppard was finally happy. When the Fellows' summer parties (called 'Ladies Nights' until we had Fellows of both sexes)

Berwick Sayers on Annotation I

A  pamphlet for librarians that is still relevant in the days of the web. People still need to know how to annotate information in catalogues. As Berwick Sayers says, annotation is elucidation - but he is down on the annotator who adds information needlessly. A real offender is a cataloguer who in noting the plot of a novel gives away the whole story.  Internet booksellers  break B-S's rules every day. For example, if the information is obviously there already do not annotate-- we do not need to know that Wood's British Trees is 'a handbook to trees growing in Great Britain' or Harrison's The Boys of Wynport College is a 'a schoolboy story.'

He also points out a fault of which many cataloguer is now guilty - giving irrelevant details about the author: for example, if a man writes a book on The Fertilisation of Soils it is of no consequence to the reader to know that "the author was Chancellor of the Exchequer." There are of course different rules for sellers; a librarian is not trying to get someone to buy the book. B-S's rules however apply to the world of Wikipedia where they are often broken - giving opinions, recommendations, irrelevance, shallow research and, conversely, faults that '..arise from too great a devotion to this work. The introduction into catalogues of fine writing or elaborate language is an abuse greatly to be deprecated.'

 In the case of undesirable books B-S notes that drawing attention to them by 'danger notes' is self-defeating - "to say that a book is 'not written for girls' schools' must really be frightfully tantalising to any normally built schoolgirl."  To be continued with info on the life and writings of the great librarian-- a book on card indexes, mountaineering, songs, poems and a history of his borough Croydon..

FIRST STEPS IN

ANNOTATION IN CATALOGUES

by

W.C. BERWICK SAYERS, F.L.A.

NOTE

The first draft of this paper was submitted to the examiners in cataloguing in the Library Association Examination in 1906. It appeared shortly after in the Croydon Libraries staff magazine, a typewritten periodical founded by Mr. H. Rutherford Purnell. In 1918 it was published in a revised form as No. 9 of the Library Assistants' Association Series. I am assured that it is still of interest to beginners in cataloguing, and, at the request of the A.A.L. Section, I have retouched it for this reissue, which I send forth with the caution that it is what it is called, "First Steps," and not a treatise on all annotation.

W.C.B.S.

Croydon,
    1932.

First Edition .. 1918

Second Edition .. 1932

Reprinted (revised) .. 1948

1.  So rapid is the output of the modern book press, and so swift are the strides that discoveries in all fields of science and art are making, that the current truths of one hour may very well be the exploded theories of the next. Librarians perhaps more than any people are conscious of the fluctuating state of knowledge; and the knowledge that is preserved in books demands constant watching. Moreover, this is a day of specialisation