St Cross College, Oxford

For the second year running the academic year started with a last-minute shelving of books. Last year it was moving books in the Lange Room onto the new bookshelves, this time it was the move of books from the "old" Van Heyningen Room. to the "new" VH Room on the ground floor. The books which had been shelved in the "old" VH Room were shelved downstairs during Noughth Week and the Introduction to the Library sessions had to be changed to accommodate this. For the second year running there was a minor panic to make sure that the Library was ready for the new students. As in the previous year there were several willing volunteers to help the Librarian and Library Assistant.

The usual induction sessions to new students on "An introduction to Oxford Library Services and Electronic Resources" were given. Students do not just use resources physically available in Oxford, but more and more rely on the "virtual" or "digital" library resources. Surprisingly, students seem to be very confident in using these virtual sources, but get confused by the simple matter of where to return books!

During the year the Library received twelve donations to the Alumnus Collection – a large proportion coming from the new Master! I would like to thank all these people for their generous donations to the Collection, and encourage others to do likewise when they have a book published. As well as contributing to the Library's holdings it helps your colleagues in St Cross to appreciate and understand your work.

Goudie, Andrew, Livingstone, I., Stokes, S. (eds.)
Aeolian environments, sediments and landforms.
1999. Wiley.

Goudie, Andrew. (ed.)
The encyclopedic dictionary of physical geography.
2nd ed. 1994. Blackwell.

Goudie, Andrew and Denys Brunsden
The environment of the British Isles: an atlas.
1994. Clarendon Press.

Goudie, Andrew
The human impact on the natural environment.
4th ed. 1994. MIT Press.

Goudie, Andrew
The human impact reader.
1997. Blackwell.

Goudie, Andrew.
The landforms of England and Wales.
1990. Blackwell.

Goudie, Andrew and H.A. Viles.
Salt weathering hazards.
1997. Wiley.

Mitter, Rana
A bitter revolution: China's struggle with the modern world.
2004. Oxford University Press.

Greenland, D. J., Gregory, P. J., Nye, Peter H.
Land resources : on the edge of the Malthusian precipice?
1998. CAB International in association with the Royal Society.

Savage-Smith, Emilie and G.J.H. van Gelder
A descriptive catalogue of Oriental manuscripts at St John's College, Oxford
2005. Oxford University Press.

E.Edson and Emilie Savage-Smith
Medieval views of the cosmos.
2004. Bodleian Library.

Jon Thompson and Sheila Canby, (eds.)
Hunt for paradise : court arts of Safavid Iran, 1501-76.
2003. Skira.

There were slightly fewer new accessions (388 as compared with 409 the previous year). Part of the reason for this is that quite a large number of books already listed in the Accessions Register were catalogued during the year. This retrospective cataloguing on to OLIS is an ongoing project. Of these new accessions only 91 were bought, the rest were donations, an even higher proportion than the previous year. These donations, of course, are very helpful for the Library budget, but represent only a few individuals who are very generous.

There were 1,338 loans to members of St. Cross during the year, a rise of 24% although there were only 107 "active users" compared with 102 the previous year. They must have been much more "active" – an "active user" is defined as having borrowed at least one book during the year. Junior members are the greatest users of the Library, as might be expected; 100 out of the 107 being Junior members. There were 656 online renewals – a rise of 33% on the previous year.

The displays of new books continued, a different one each term. In Michaelmas Term the display is always on study, research and writing techniques and is very popular with new students. The other displays were of travel books in Hilary Term and literature in Trinity Term. These subjects are at present shelved in the Van Heyningen Room and therefore not available for browsing. There have been various complaints from students about this during the year. The Librarian and Library Assistant can make arrangements to allow people to browse in there, but it is not the same as being able to look at shelves as and when people want to. It is to be hoped that this will be the last academic year where these books are inaccessible to the casual reader. Individual books requested from there are put on the Requests/Reservations shelf under the display of new books in the Lange Room and this system seems to be working well, but a delay could be caused if neither the Librarian nor the Library Assistant are in College for a day or two.

The Library Assistant, who also represents the students on the Library Committee and the Library on the Common Room Committee, was again Angela Davis. She carries out much of the routine work of processing new books and re-shelving returned books as well as organising the special displays. She has been very reliable and helpful. I would like to publicly record my appreciation of her work, especially for "holding the fort" when I was in hospital during January and February.

Sheila Allcock
Librarian