Summer has been a busy time for the Spotlight Team with new themes and Reading Lists, new additions to Libby, and library staff worked very hard in the sweltering hot weather to move our Leisure Reading Collection from a tricky to find location on the Reading Room Mezzanine to a more prominent location on the Reading Room main floor.
Our Leisure Reading consists of books to read outside of your studies. You can now easily spot the Leisure Reading Collection as you enter the Reading Room, shelved directly behind the self-service machines and printers, with more simplified sections: Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Poetry. If you haven’t used the Collection yet, please take a look and let us know what you think. We always love to hear about your favourite books or authors, or what you would like to see more of on the Leisure Reading shelves.
Discover our Spotlight Reading Lists
June always brings the opportunity to work on one of our favourite annual themes, Spotlight on Pride.
A new theme for us followed in July with Spotlight on Playwrights and Theatre, which enabled us to celebrate the excellent University of Hull Drama Department, including notable alumni like James Graham, one of Britain’s most important and prolific contemporary writers, and Hull University Archives Collections such as those of Alan Plater and Anthony Minghella. The theme led to several new Libby eBook purchases, including the plays ‘Kyoto’ and ‘The Jungle’ by Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson (who grew up in Hull). Kyoto is a gripping play about negotiations that led to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to tackle climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and features the late John Prescott, Deputy Prime Minister and MP for Hull East, whose papers are held at Hull History Centre (U DMR).
Onwards to August and we had Spotlight on National Book Lovers which featured some book recommendations from staff.
September featured a Spotlight on Journals where we have tried to raise awareness of our print journals on the Mezzanine floor of the Reading Room alongside our online Journals A to Z.
New eBooks available on Libby
Did you know that you can request books and audiobooks on Libby? Just search for a title on Libby and click ‘Notify Me’. The Library Collections team will then consider your request, and you will receive a notification if the book becomes available.
Recent additions to Libby include:
‘The Chalk Man’ by C. J. Tudor
‘The Whispering Muse’ by Laura Purcell
‘Evenings and Weekends’ by Oisin McKenna (Audiobook)
‘Strange Houses’ by Uketsu
‘All Fours’ by Miranda July
‘John & Paul A Love Story in Songs’ by Ian Leslie (Audiobook)
‘Easy 10’ by Amy Shepherd (Recipe Book)
‘We Were There – How Black culture, resistance and community shaped Modern Britain’ by Lanre Bakare (Audiobook)
‘Heart Lamp’ by Banu Mushtaq
Jane Austen Book Lover – Contribution by Spotlight Member
2025 marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of Jane Austen
Jane Austen, novelist, was born on 16 December 1775 in Hampshire, a time of great social change in Britain. During the early period of her life, she attended Church and would socialise with friends and neighbours. She was also spending a lot of time reading, and was beginning to write short stories, poems and plays for her own, and her family’s, entertainment.
After catching typhus whilst at Oxford in 1783, Jane, and her sister Cassandra, were sent home to be homeschooled, consequently Jane had access to father’s extensive library. From this grew her lifelong love of reading.
Her early childhood writings, (1787 – 1793) were bound into 3 notebooks named ‘Volume the First’, ‘Volume the Second’ and ‘Volume the Third’, titles now known as ‘Juvenilia’.
We have compiled a short Spotlight on Jane Austen 250 reading list of material available via the Brynmor Jones Library relating to Jane Austen. The list includes Austen’s most well-known novels such as ‘Emma’ and ‘Pride and Prejudice’, alongside her early and unfinished works, articles and literary criticism. To explore what it was like to live in the times of Jane Austen one of our team recommends ‘What Jane Austen ate and Charles Dickens knew : fascinating facts of daily life in the nineteenth century’ which you can find on the Reading List and in the Reading Room, shelf mark PR 468 S6 P8.
Spotlight and Book Clubs
A monthly Staff Book Club has been launched this year using books from our Spotlight Reading Lists. The Spotlight Team select several books from the Reading List and Book Club members vote in a poll for the book that they would most like to read. The book with the most votes then becomes the “Book of the Month” to read, with members sharing their progress and comments on Goodreads and Fable.
Recent Staff Book Club poll winners have included:
‘The Vegetarian’ by Han Kang
‘In Memoriam’ by Alice Winn
‘If we were Villains’ by M L Rio
‘Kyoto’ by Joe Murphy
‘Shy’ by Max Porter
The Library is currently exploring ideas around hosting a ‘Silent Book Club’ for students. Watch this space and Shhhhh!
Spotlight on Welcome Week
The Library is always a hive of activity in September as we welcome new and returning students. We took the opportunity to encourage students to enjoy reading outside of their academic studies, raise awareness of the Leisure Reading Collection, and highlight our popular Book Swap Phone Box. As well as having a promotional stand on the Ground Floor of the Library, the Spotlight Team also had a presence in the Students’ Union. We handed out gift bags containing library leaflets, bookmarks, stickers and sweets, and had a supply of donated books to give out for free on the condition that when students have finished reading them, they are returned to the Book Swap Phone Box. We were also able to demonstrate how to access eBooks on the Libby app, stream films on Kanopy and plays on Digital Theatre+.
Engagement with the stand was very positive with comments like ‘I love this!’ and ‘this is great!’ One student talked about books as their ‘security blanket’, and we had a request for a video tutorial on how to use Libby. It was also a valuable way for us to find out what some students didn’t know about the library, for example that Libby and Kanopy are free to access, and clarifying what is meant by ‘Leisure Reading’. We hope to repeat our promotional activities over the coming months. If you see us, do come and chat to us and find out more about everything the Library has to offer.
Looking Ahead
In October we are recognising Black History Month with an updated Reading List and display of resources. We will also continue with our year-long Spotlight on Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). You can find the most recent SDG Reading List here.
If you have any suggestions of themes that you would like the Spotlight Team to cover in 2026, please do get in touch, we are always open to fresh ideas and feedback. Please comment at the end of this blog, or email us at spotlight@hull.ac.uk