I am a great believer in Women's history. Most history, as everyone knows, is written by unimaginative men.
We are preparing a talk on cataloguing today and our talk states "cataloguing was originally done by monks." So I looked for a picture of a monk cataloguing. There was the monk writing in 'Looking at History' of course. There were lots of good paintings of St Jerome and St Mark writing things. But I have an excellent book of pictures of women doing medieval things. One was this one of a woman writing (as did Christine de Pisan of course.)
Medieval women did most of the things that medieval men did, it transpires, astonishingly. And who do you suppose catalogued all the books in nunneries for instance? You should read 'A Woman's History of the World' by Rosalind Miles. Or 'The Gospel According to Women' by Karen Armstrong. Or 'Alone of all her Sex' by Marina Warner. 'Medieval Women', by Eileen Power is the most relevant here. Anyway, here is my picture of a woman cataloguer (OK so "woman writer" according to the label in my book 'The Medieval Woman Illuminated Book of Days'.) I can tell a fellow cataloguer when I see one though. Multitasking with several enquiries all over her desk, I see. Looking at the title pages no doubt, (chief source of information) to check the copyright date. With her RDA reference manual to refer to.
What's that she's sitting in if not one of our library study carrels? Or is it the West room periodicals desk? She's burning the candles in the late -late shift during the exam period, I see, and the self-regulating lights have just gone out behind her because none of the students have moved for 15 minutes, so it's pitch black out there.
We are preparing a talk on cataloguing today and our talk states "cataloguing was originally done by monks." So I looked for a picture of a monk cataloguing. There was the monk writing in 'Looking at History' of course. There were lots of good paintings of St Jerome and St Mark writing things. But I have an excellent book of pictures of women doing medieval things. One was this one of a woman writing (as did Christine de Pisan of course.)
Medieval women did most of the things that medieval men did, it transpires, astonishingly. And who do you suppose catalogued all the books in nunneries for instance? You should read 'A Woman's History of the World' by Rosalind Miles. Or 'The Gospel According to Women' by Karen Armstrong. Or 'Alone of all her Sex' by Marina Warner. 'Medieval Women', by Eileen Power is the most relevant here. Anyway, here is my picture of a woman cataloguer (OK so "woman writer" according to the label in my book 'The Medieval Woman Illuminated Book of Days'.) I can tell a fellow cataloguer when I see one though. Multitasking with several enquiries all over her desk, I see. Looking at the title pages no doubt, (chief source of information) to check the copyright date. With her RDA reference manual to refer to.
What's that she's sitting in if not one of our library study carrels? Or is it the West room periodicals desk? She's burning the candles in the late -late shift during the exam period, I see, and the self-regulating lights have just gone out behind her because none of the students have moved for 15 minutes, so it's pitch black out there.
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