Pandemic or none, one thing that’s carried on as usual is our stocktaking cycle, which we try to time for when the reading rooms will be quietest during the vacations.

This helps us keep the shelves tidy, find books in need of repair or relabelling, and generally keep the collection at its best for when students get back.

It also sometimes reveals some, um… interesting things in our books and surprising uses people have found for them..

We find many a train ticket, receipt, and postcard being used in place of a bookmark. Sometimes there's even an old photograph!

We had heard of ‘my dog ate it’ being an excuse for not handing in homework, but as an excuse for not returning library books it was a new one.

Please do not use our books as storage for your bizarre printed ephemera. We have many questions.

Planning your entire student budget in a hardback book that you don’t own is a strange choice which we don’t condone, but at least you did it in pencil..

Please do not use our books to swat bugs. You would not believe how many squashed bugs we find in them. We beg of you.

While we appreciate your derision of library book graffiti, we find your approach slightly hypocritical.