2022-23 | Reading the Room: Accessing books in heritage spaces

2022-23 'Reading the Room: Accessing books in heritage spaces'

TORCH Knowledge Exchange Innovation Fund Awardee
Professor Sophie Ratcliffe   |   Faculty of English   |   University of Oxford

Partner Organisation              Research Team
The National Trust                     Dr Anna Beer   |     Professor Abigail Williams   |    

For the international research community, the National Trust libraries offer a remarkable opportunity to encounter rare books in non-institutional spaces, and for the research community to explore the library as a collection with material links to its surroundings and readers. Yet these libraries are hard to access and little known. 'Reading the Room: Accessing books in heritage spaces' aims to understand better the engagement opportunities offered by these unique book collections.

The project seeks to find out how research into the collections might offer new ways into the visitor experience, and how access to the collections might enhance future research. It offers an opportunity for innovation which will transform engagement with the collections for both sets of users. Our research team will work with visitors, property curators and researchers, to find out what they wish to know about the National Trust's heritage libraries. Using our questions to shape a series of scoping and networking activities, we aim to develop new and innovative models for  access, to benefit multiple communities.