Tag Archives: colophon

The Call of the Colophon

Sophie and the colophon:three shelves of sets of old leather-bound books with a tray of similar ages books in a variety of sizes and decorative bindings.

I first heard the call of the colophon when I was eighteen and entering on my first full time job.

To explain the background: in those days, if you wanted try for Oxford and Cambridge or a university abroad, many schools made you take your A Levels first. So you then stayed on for an extra autumn term to sit their individual entrance exams and, possibly, go then for interview. By the middle of December you were done, with a gap of two thirds of a year ahead of you.

In a newspaper, I found an interview for an “assistant’s” job going at London University Library.

The central building of Senate House, London University, showing its central white art deco tower against a blue sky, flanked by trees beyond the forecourtThen, as now, I loved libraries. And it would take me into glamorous Fitzrovia.

I lived in an outer suburb of London and had never worked further afield than a shop in a slightly more historic suburb, three miles closer to theatres, concert halls and Life.

I got the job — it was basically applied dogsbodying — and, along with it, entry into a whole new world. The Library was full of subterranean alliances, unfathomable codes of practice and, blissfully, a new language.
Including the colophon. Continue reading →