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From the Scrapbooks

For around 30 years between 1964 and the 1990s, Bath Central Library staff collected local newspaper articles concerning the library and museum services. These articles were stuck into scrapbooks and proved invaluable when research started on the Centenary Project for Bath Library in 2024.

Volunteers Gill, Kate and Lindsey are recording article details onto a database for future digitisation. They have come across a mixture of long-term library issues, for example, the problems of library buildings and a site for a ‘new’ library in the city centre; but also recurring annual themes, for example overdue fines; and individual stories about readers and staff.

Below are some of our favourites, click on a picture to find out more.

Fines, Lost Books & One Dedicated Lady

Selection of news headlines: Libraries may take court action, County to prosecute Library book hoarders, 26 for 'lost' book court, Booked - for £220 fines, Library Book Laggards Face £70 Court Fines — Selection of local news headlines from the 1960's and 1970s

The headlines above show how aggressively the library was pursuing fines for overdue and lost books in the '60s and '70s!

In 1968, if you had overdue books you may have had to face Mrs Coleman!

[Transcript]

Forget to return that book? Mrs Coleman may be on your tail

IN SEVEN weeks a Bath housewife, appalled at the number of books "missing" from the shelves of the local library, has been rounding up forgetful borrowers and returned more than 120 books, worth nearly £100.

"From one house I got 11 books," Mrs June Coleman, of 79 Minster Way, told me.

On about two evenings each week Mrs Coleman gets out her car and calls on the forgetful. "I volunteered to do it because the library staff are very over-worked and can't devote the necessary time to checking up on every borrower who don't bring back their library books on time," she said.

"It all started because every time I went to the library to get a book for a housebound subscriber it was out. And it kept on being out, so in desperation I offered to use my own car and time and get all out-standing books back.

"I find that most people welcome my visit: they have kept meaning to take the book or books back but have never been able to get round to it. They gladly hand over the books and the fines to me. The odd one is sometimes a little difficult and threatens to put the dog on me but these are fortunately few and far between.

"Sometimes it's a case of illness which has made it almost impossible for a book to be returned. I am thinking particularly of one family where the husband was involved in a serious accident and what with looking after him and her two children the housewife had found it impossible to go to the library.

"In one case I called for a book that had been out for six I months and the housewife not only found this book but also two others which should have been returned in 1966."

Two weeks ago Mrs Coleman collected 28 books but this week has only produced eight. "It varies very much from week to week," she said, "but I enjoy being an unpaid spare-time overdue book collector."

At the last meeting of the Library and Art Gallery Committee on March 19, the director, Mr Peter Pagan, said the committee was prepared to take persistent offenders to court where they could be fined £1 for every day they kept the books after the court hearing.

22 years later, in 1990, Mrs Coleman was still on the hunt for missing books, having collected 20,000 by then!

[Transcript]

June's Novel Role

BORROWED Bath books are June Coleman's business. Since 1968, June has knocked on thousands of doors in the Georgian City recovering overdue library books for the Bath Library. It's been an action-packed twenty-two years of voluntary work where she has retrieved 20,000 books, as well as hundreds of cassettes and records.

A great story-teller, June recalls dozens of adventures she's had in her quest to win back library property from absent minded borrowers. On one occasion she returned to the Bath Central Library with seventy-four books from one elderly woman.

IRATE BORROWER

Once she was doused by two buckets of cold water from one irate borrower. Then there was the time she ducked pellets from an air-gun, and the time someone set a ferocious dog on her.

Her investigations have even lead overseas, where with persistence she recovered a book from Perth, Australia.

Despite her success rate, June says she is not a book bailiff and does not make it her job to bully people. She simply collects the books. The library sends a fine notice later.

OVERDUE

"In my job, you must be able to deal with people," June told Avon Report. "I'm always polite and ask if there's any particular reason why they may not have returned the books."

In the hi-tech nineties June receives a computer print-out of overdue lists. It's a far cry from the early days when she admits she started her voluntary recovery campaign "naively". "Basically I just couldn't see how all these books could keep going missing."

How things have changed!

In 2019, B&NES Libraries stopped collecting fines for overdue books and held a 'no questions asked' book amnesty.

screenshot of Love Weston Library website, headline Book Amnesty in BaNES — Love Weston Library's website article about the book amnesty

Visit lovewestonlibrary.org.uk/2020/01/02/book-amnesty-in-banes to read the article.

Now, you'll only be charged if a book is lost or irretrievably damaged. So if you find it on your shelf six months after it was due, just bring it in back and we'll reset your account with no fine. We promise Mrs Coleman won't knock on your door!

You can find out more about why this decision is made here.

Goddess Minerva Found in Library

[Transcript]

If only she could talk! But the £20,222 Roman bronze godess [sic] Sul Minerva smiles and keeps her secret as senior police officers go into conference only minutes after she has been recovered intact in the basement room of the Municipal Lending Library. Left to right: the Chief Constable of Bath (Mr. George Nichols), Det.-Sgt. Ken Brownsell and Bath C.I.D, chief, Det.-Chief Inspector Alfred Kettlety.

1,300 MAY GO ON IDENTITY PARADE

Minerva found - Bath students face quiz

[Transcript]

Message on Minerva

Sul Minerva was "borrowed" to draw attention to the Bath Carnival oct. 27, 28, 29th, to help raise money for the ABERFAN disaster, & other charities.

[Caption]

A photostat copy of the message left with the Minerva head. It is written in black ink on lined foolscap paper and has four filing punch holes.

[Caption]

Return of a wandering godess [sic]. Mr. Michael Owen, curator of the Roman Baths, checks the Minerva bronze for traces of damage and finds her intact.

An intriguing story has emerged from the library scrapbooks. It seems that the Roman bronze head of the goddess Minerva, was stolen from the Roman Baths and had an impromptu night out on the town on Wednesday 26th October 1966.

Luckily, after an anonymous call to the Evening Chronicle newsroom, she was found safe and sound on a table in the basement of the Public Library the next evening, from where she spent the next night in the female cells at the Police Station, presumably to cool off after her exploits (and for her own safety)!

It looked as though the thieves had hidden in the Roman Baths museum, waiting until after it closed to force the plate glass case and make their escape by ladder from the Kingston Bath on to the balustrade by York Street. The Great Bath was later drained as part of a search but of course nothing was found.

Suspicion fell on Bath students as a Rag notice was found nearby claiming that Minerva had been "borrowed" to draw attention to the Bath Carnival and help raise money for Aberfan victims and other charities. Unfortunately it had the opposite effect as donations were down to a fraction of normal and “doors were slammed in their faces”.

The Chief Constable, Mr G.E.T. Nichols, seriously considered an identity parade of Bath’s 1,300 students, while plain clothes police mingled at the Carnival Ball at the Assembly Rooms before the recovery was made public, in case someone talked unguardedly about the incident. However, there is no record in the scrapbooks of the perpetrators being found.

Bath Public Library's First Director

Reginald William Makepeace Wright was appointed in 1908 as Bath’s first assistant librarian in what was then solely a Reference Library attached to the Victoria Art Gallery. He had been admitted to the Library Association of Great Britain and Bibliographical Society in 1914; served in the First World War; and was subsequently appointed Director of Libraries and Art Gallery in 1924 to oversee the establishment of the first Bath public library. He was, when appointed, the youngest curator in England. He became a fellow of the Museums Association in 1934 and subsequently went on to serve on Library committees in the Southwest.

He remained in that post for 30 years, retiring to Forester Road, where, the Bath Chronicle reported, he died unexpectedly on 16 April 1963 (see below). His funeral in Bath Abbey on 20 April was attended by City officials.

The Chronicle recorded Wright’s legacy to the cultural life of the city. He had accumulated and catalogued a nationally important ‘West Country Delft’ pottery collection for the gallery, and as a prolific artist himself he had initiated many art exhibitions. During his Librarianship, the children’s library was established, and he catalogued the thousands of books in the BRLSI collection, when they were handed to Bath corporation.

His knowledge of Bath history was ‘unparalleled’ and he was a frequent lecturer on aspects of Bath history. A quick search on LibrariesWest (using R W M Wright as a search term) throws up publications on Aquae Sulis, Bath Abbey, Bath tokens, Shakespeare and Bath, and many other historical topics. Most of these are in the Record Office.

Wright was also a fine draughtsman having designed the Mayor’s medal for long service and, looking on Bath in Time, one can see his delightful designs for arrangements for library space in the proposed relocation to the Assembly Rooms.

Extract from Bath Chronicle: note the glue used to secure the article has obscured the photo. Not up to current conservation standards!

Further Reference: John Kite “A Good Bargain”: the struggle for a public library 1850-1924. Bath History, Vol 4, 1992: https://historyofbath.org/

New Children's Library

photo of man and young girl, accompanied by long article

[Transcript]

Bath & Wilts Chronicle & Herald, Friday, July 1, 1955

THE MAYOR OPENS NEW JUVENILE LIBRARY AT BATH

Bid To Win Children Away From Comics

FIRST "CUSTOMER The Mayor of Bath (Cllr. A. N. Dix), offering Susan O'Keeffe a book after the opening.

"WE are fulfilling today a long desired ambition," said the Mayor of Bath (Cir, A. N. Dix), chairman of Bath Library and Art Gallery Committee, when, on Thursday afternoon, he opened the new Junior Library in New Market Row, Grand Parade, Bath. The Children's Library has been removed from the basement of the main lending library, and its former space will be used to extend the ordinary library.

At the new premises, long used as a showroom for display of books in the window, children will find much easier facilities for selecting books, for they are better displayed and in much more appropriate surroundings, facing Grand Parade.

The Mayor, who apologised for the absence of the Mayoress, on another engagement, went on to say that the re-housing of the Children's Library had been discussed for several years and active steps to achieve it were begun over a year ago.

SMALL STOCK

The Children's Library was begun in April, 1932, although before then a small stock of about 500 children's books was included in the main library. In April, 1932, the basement of the main building was converted into the Children's Library.

From the 500 books the stock had grown to about 6,000, with an annual issue of about 80,000. Despite that increase, they found that of a total school population of about 10,000 they had only about 4,000 registered borrowers, and only about 2,800 regular users of the Children's Library.

It was clear, therefore, that there was scope for expansion, and that an earnest effort should be made to bring more children to the library. While the Children's Library was in the basement it was not readily seen, and that probably had its effect on the number of borrowers.

READILY SEEN

Now that it had been brought upstairs and had its own entrance from the street, it would be readily seen, and they hoped more children would be attracted to become borrowers.

"It is of first importance to provide suitable books for children." said the Mayor. "We have heard about horror comics and we hope to win children's attention away from these and to go further, and by training their tastes, to breed citizens who will appreciate and demand good literature when they become borrowers at the main library.

"We hope to re-start, in cooperation with the Education Committee, the school libraries which were operated before the war, but which had to be discontinued owing to lack of funds. It can be seen then that we have reasonable hopes of a considerable increase in children's demands."

UNRIVALLED

The ceremony would be incomplete, he added, without a reference to the Children's Librarian, Mrs. E. A. Royal.She had been in charge for 10 years, and had an unrivalled knowledge of the work and of the conditions at Bath. They hoped that the rehousing would comfort and encourage her and enable her to achieve the success she so earnestly desired and deserved.

The Mayor then opened the entrance door to await the first "customer" due at 4 o'clock.

Cllr, C. E. S. Dodds, meanwhile, proposed a vote of thanks to the Mayor and read a letter from Ald. L. N. Punter (deputy chairman of the Library Committee), who was unable to be present. He said that Ald. Punter wrote that the new Children's Library was an excellent example of the serious view the Library Committee takes of the importance of reading. With so much shabby and rather harmful, cheap literature about and the danger of letting young readers wade through sensational and unprofitable (from an educational point of view) printed matter, including strip comics, it was the duty of libraries, wrote Ald. Punter, to guide young readers and encourage discrimination before tastes were spoiled in the early formative years.

WELCOMED

He thought the library would have most beneficial results and would be welcomed by children and parents.

Cllr. Dodd then referred to the Mayor's interest in libraries, and said that quite recently the Minister of Education had said how important it was that children should be provided with suitable books in school. As a member of the Education Committee, he was aware that the school libraries were at present inadequate, and he hoped they would soon see the reopening of libraries in the schools, and also that the new Children's Library would attract new readers among the juvenile population.

Cllr, Miss A. M. Hicks remarked on the pleasure it gave to see the Library in such an attractive place. The children must be shown where the books were, and there must have been many children who had not realised there was a children's library in the main building. Now children could come in and browse round the books.

It was valuable, too, that there were books of reference there for them.

Among those present were: Mr. [cut off]

We now encourage reading of all types, our children's areas are bright and vibrant, and we don't shush!

Comics are very popular! Across our libraries we have 165 Dogman books, and 163 Bunny vs Monkey books, nearly all of which have reservations on.

Adults and young people like reading differently too; 75% of the Manga books we buy will be borrowed instantly.

Children are no longer restricted to just children's books, either. We recognise that they may want to read a classic, or look something up in Adult Non-fiction, so all books are borrowable by all ages.