| AdminHistory | The College Library was established in 1829, with Reverend Dr Francis Augustus Cox taking on the role of the first Librarian. Partly due to lack of funding, most of the library's first collections came as bequests from early professors and benefactors. These included 4,000 books from Jeremy Bentham in 1833, Jospeh Hume's collection of tracts in 1855 and 14,000 items from J T Graves in 1870. Initially the books were housed in what was known as the Small Library at the southern end of the Wilkins building.
After Cox left in 1831, the role of Libarian was disestablished in 1833, after which several fixed-term positions were filled on an ad-hoc basis. The first regular and permanent librarian to be appointed was Raymond Wilson Chambers in 1901. Having inherited a somewhat disorganised department, Chambers was the first UCL librarian to create a consistent classiification system. In 1907 some building space was freed up with the departure of the University College School to Hampstead. This allowed for the library to expand into the vacated rooms creating Fine Arts libraries for the subjects of English, German, Romance Languages, History, Classical Archaeology, Philosophy and Psychology, and Oriental Languages.
During the Second World War UCL suffered extensive damage from German bombing and in both 1940 and 1941 the Main Library was almost completed gutted. Luckily Manuscripts, Rare Books and Archives had been evacuated to Aberystwyth and were returned in 1948-49. Unfortunately, other library collections that remained saw heavy losses, including the destruction of most of the Mocatta Library collection. It wasnt until 1951 that the General Library was re-opened, having been in housed in makeshift huts.
During the 1960s the University bought the National Central Library building, which later became the DMS Watson building, housing the Science Library. It was during the same decade that the Small Press Collections were established, including the Little Magazines, Poetry Store and Alternative Press.
In 2022 Library Services merged with UCL's museums, the Object Based Learning Laboratory and Bloomsbury Theatre, to form what is now known as LCCOS (Library, Culture, Collections and Open Science).
Sources: 'Treasures from UCL', Gillian Furlong (editor), 2015.
'The World of UCL', Negley Harte, John North and Georgina Brewis, 2018.
'From small beginnings: A brief history of UCL Library Services', exhibition catalogue, 4 March - 13 December 2019. |