We are keeping a diary of the project as we go along so you can keep up-to-date what we are up to.
We had a packed house in Swiss Cottage Library for the premiere of the film. A screen was erected between the iconic spiral staircases, wine flowed and the Mayor of Camden welcomed everyone to the event. There was beautiful music, poetry and even a short animation before the premiere screening of the documentary film. The screening was followed by a Q&A with the audience. It was a memorable and wonderful night with a lovely and postive response to the film. Thanks to everyone who came along and made it such a brilliant night. The film can now be seen on this website, on Vimeo, Youtube, and there will be a series of public screenings so look out for those.
Thanks to everyone involved with the project. The 26 people who gave up their time to share their stories of Swiss Cottage Library. To the whole team at Camden Library Service, and particularly the team at Swiss Cottage who made us so welcome. And to our fantastic team of volunteers (photo below) for sharing their time, ideas and skills on the project.
We have been hard at work editing the wonderful oral history interviews to make the documentary film. We showed the film twice today, once to a group of people who are in it, and again to our fantastic volunteers teams. We have also shown it to people who know nothing about the library or it's history. The resulting discussions and suggestions have been lively and very useful. We'll now take on board all of this feedback and do a final edit ready for the premiere on Thursday November 27th, 2025.
We spent two days filming the library and the people in it. The images will be used, along with a beautiful archive collection, to illustrate the documentary film being made as part of this project. It was an absolute pleasure to film this amazing building and to meet many of the people who work in and use the library. A small selection of stills from our filming are below. Thanks to everyone for letting us film them!
We had a very busy four days conducting oral history interviews with both library workers and users. We had several people who attended the opening of the library in 1964 as well as people who worked there in the 1960s and then others bringing us up to the present day. In total we conducted 24 interviews. We could have done many more with many keen to share their history but sadly we were unable accomodate everyone. The interviews were fascinating and will be an important addition to Camden's own archive. The interviews will soon be available to listen to in full on this website and we'll soon be editing them to make the documentary film. Thanks to the many people who came and shared their history with us. A few images below.
Over these two days we ran a workshop on oral history: What it is, ethical and practical considerations as well as strengths and weaknesses. After this we ran workshops in sound recording and oral history interview techniques before working as a team to develop the themes we will be exploring through the oral history interviews. We already have a full timetable of interviews set up for the next two weeks and will be interviewing a mix of library workers and users of all ages. It's been a busy and very enjoyable few days and we are looking forward to the interviews.
We were flooded with enquiries from people wishing to join the project and were oversubscribed. Our team came together for the first time to discuss the project aims. We had talks from the Camden Borough Archivist, Tudor Allen, on the history of the building of Swiss Cottage Library which was designed by Basil Spence. Next, architect Jan Kattein gave a talk about the architecture and his own recent work to re-design the wonderful children's library. Next we had a behind-the-scenes tour of the library from Chris Keys and the team at the library. In the afternoon we had a Reminiscence Group where several of those who are going to be interviewed for the project came along to talk about their own histories in relation to Swiss Cottage Library in an informal setting. We had librarians who had started work at Swoss Cottage in the early 1970s and others who joined more recently. We also have library users who came to the opening in 1964 and others who have used the library over several decades It was a really interesting day and gave us a good firm foundation on which to develop the themes we will be exploring during the project.
