By Lizzie Shannon-Little and Martin Maw
The very settled life of Oxford University Press was turned upside down at the outbreak of the First World War; 356 of the approximately 700 men that worked for the Press were conscribed, the majority in the first few months. The reduction of half of the workforce and the ever-present uncertainty of the return of friends and colleagues must have made the Press a very difficult place to work.
At the time, the man in charge of the Press was the Secretary Charles Cannan, and the Printer, responsible for the printing house, was Horace Hart (best remembered for Hart’s Rules). The steady dissolution of Hart’s workforce, made up of generations of men he had known for years from the close-knit community of Jericho, was thought to be too much for the Printer. He retired and sadly took his own life in 1916. Hart was succeeded by Frederick Hall, who served as Printer from 1915 to 1925.
Women filled many of the gaps in the workforce, both on the print floor and in the offices. Previously, women could only be found in the bindery, and this change must have been revolutionary for all those who worked at the Press, men and women alike.
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The OUP Oxford War Memorial
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On Active Service, War Work At Home 1914-1919
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God Save the King sign erected at OUP Oxford
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Flower and Vegetable Show in the Oxford quad
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Printer Frederick Hall
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Printer Horace Hart
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Secretary Charles Cannan
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OUP Oxford quadrangle, early 20th century
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During the war, publishing continued at OUP, including Oxford Pamphlets, Shakespeare’s England (produced to mark 300 years since Shakespeare’s death in 1916), and also some secret document printing on the behalf of British Naval intelligence (much of which still remains a mystery). The Press also took on responsibility for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography during this time, which was bequeathed to it from another publishing house and proved to be a challenging task in bringing it up to the academic standards expected from OUP.
The remaining staff endeavoured to keep up a sense of community and morale; they started an annual Flower and Vegetable Show with produce they grew on the allotments allocated on the nearby Port Meadow. The growing of home produce was particularly essential to Britain after the German submarine blockades, which caused huge food shortages.
A number of the men from OUP were positioned on the front line during their service, and many others ended up in Greece, Egypt, and as far flung as Russia. For these men, the majority of whom had never been outside of Oxford, the experiences that awaited them abroad must have been overwhelming, and, for many, devastating. A total of 45 men were lost to the war; 44 on active service and one who died after his return from injuries sustained in battle. In 1920, the Press produced a book, On Active Service, War Work At Home 1914-1919 recording the events at the Press during the war and also giving the service record of all the men who were conscribed. A War Memorial to commemorate the soldiers who had died was also erected. The memorial still stands in the OUP Oxford quad today, and is still the centre for the Press’ own Remembrance Day each year.
Lizzie Shannon-Little is Community Manager at Oxford University Press. Martin Maw is an Archivist at Oxford University Press. The Archive Department also manages the Press Museum at OUP in Oxford. Watch the first in a series of videos with Martin, examining how life at the Press irrevocably changed between 1914-1919.
In the centenary of World War I, Oxford University Press has gathered together resources to offer depth, detail, perspective, and insight. There are specially commissioned contributions from historians and writers, free resources from OUP’s world-class research projects, and exclusive archival materials. Visit the First World War Centenary Hub each month for fresh updates.
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By Peter J Bentley
What better way to spend an afternoon than having a friendly chat? My three friends are online chatbots – Artificial Intelligence software designed to analyse my sentences and respond accordingly. All I do is visit a specific webpage, then type into a box in my Internet browser and they reply, just like chatting online to a human. These three (jabberwacky, iGod and ALICE) are some of the more advanced chatbots out there, the result of decades of research by computer scientists to try and achieve intelligence in a computer. From the birth of computers until now, we’ve been trying to make a digital brain that’s clever enough to have a conversation with us. The best we can manage is really nothing more than a database of facts, some basic knowledge of grammar, and a lot of symbol-processing – shuffling of words around in an attempt to find some kind of coherent response. Here’s what we said to each other this afternoon.
Conversation 1:
Me: Hello.
Jabberwacky: Hello, how are you?
Me: I would like to have a chat with you about your parents. Would that be OK?
Jabberwacky: What would you like to chat about?
Me: Did you know that Alan Turing would be 100 years old this year, had he lived?
Jabberwacky: That is very interesting. Do you know that the Philippines has 7100 islands?
Me: I did not know that. However, let’s talk about Turing a little more. You know that Turing suggested something called the Turing Test?
Jabberwacky: No, I did not know that the cat was red…
Me: Right. Well, this was Turing’s way of thinking about how we might judge whether we were talking to an intelligent computer. If we can’t tell the difference between chatting to a computer and chatting to a person, the computer passes the Turing Test. It is intelligent, so Turing suggested.
Jabberwacky: We could all be a figment of imagination of some old guy living in an insane asylum if you think about it.
Me: Yes, I guess that might be true. Anyway, the foresight shown by Turing is remarkable. He was thinking of these ideas at the time that computers were still the size of a large room, and could perform just basic computations compared to today’s machines.
Jabberwacky: Well this must be the part of the film where the noted inception noise comes in.
Me: That might be an appropriate soundtrack for this conversation, you are right. But this is not science fiction, this is computer science fact. It’s a little sad that Turing predicted: “I believe that at the end of the century the use of words and general educated opinion will have altered so much that one will be able to speak of machines thinking without expecting to be contradicted.”
Jabberwacky: Why do you think Jesus is not your savior?
Me: Uh. Anyway, my point is that Turing, for all his genius, did not get this one right. He was not the only one to be overambitious – other pioneers also thought Artificial Intelligence would be achievable much more easily.
Jabberwacky: Who told you that.
Me: Well, recently I wrote a book called Digitized. It’s about the history of computers and I was lucky enough to interview many pioneers for the book. They told me.
Jabberwacky: And what is their history?
Me: I interviewed John Holland – he worked with his supervisor on John von Neumann’s final papers. Holland also got the first PhD in computer science and invented the genetic algorithm. I also spoke to Dave Patterson, the creator of the RAID architecture
Chicken Scratches: Grade A poultry poetry and rooster rhymes by George Shannon & Lynn Brunelle, illustrated by Scott Menchin, is clever, creative, funny and fresh as a new-laid egg, this book of chicken-related poems entertains from start to finish, accompanied by excellent, adorable illustrations worth clucking about.
The grass-green background on this roughly 8"x8" book is embossed/embedded with chicken footprints, and the "Grade A" label is embossed as well. (I have often observed, at least to myself, that Chronicle Books excels at design and/or packaging – their books have a nice feel in the hand, and their design shows a real attention to detail. Kudos to Amelia May Anderson, the book designer credited with this book, on a clever and well-executed package that helps to "sell" the poems and illustrations; the entire package forms a harmonious, hilarious whole.
A collection of sixteen humorous poems about chickens, all of which involve rhyme. Some are couplets, some are cross-rhymed, there's even a limerick or two in the collection. "Hula Zelda" is borderline risqué for a children's book collection, since Zelda is known for her power to drive the roosters crazy with her hula dancing (" . . . wearing a grass skirt.") "Time Traveler" (which discusses how chickens evolved from the dinosaurs) and "Yummy in My Tummy Bugs" (which talks about chickens scratching for bugs), while funny, include factual information about actual chickens. Poems such as "Champion", discussing a sumo-wrestling chicken with a small wrestling suit, is neither factual nor about an actual chicken, although it is extremely funny:
Champion
Chickie Teriyaki,
a sumo superstar,
tossed his weight around the ring
and bumped opponents far.
His shape was very ovular.
His wrestling suit was small.
So when he bowed to start a match,
fans nearly saw it all!
The artwork that accompanies the text is adorable, and supports and enhances the text extremely well.
I am particularly fond of the final poem, "Recess", which is based on a joke based on the age-old question, "Why did the chicken cross the road?" The answer is, of course, "To get to the other side." The joke is "Why did the chicken cross the playground?" (Answer: "To get to the other slide.")
If I manage to find my camera, I'll come back and post a photo of the final two-page spread, so you can get a better feel for the artwork.
If you haven’t heard already, Stone Arch Books recently sponsored a contest where students in grades 3 – 6 wrote an entry about someone they felt was a hero at their school. The contest ran thru February 28. Every morning as my computer powered up, I found myself excited to see if there were any entries. Day after day, I checked the mailbox and nothing was there. I wondered to myself “Was this a good contest? Would kids enter?” Then after 13 days of checking that empty mailbox, I received the first entry! It was from a seven-year-old named Emma and it was so sweet. “My Hero. My hero is Ms. Sortino because she will help us everyday. Her powers are: Mind reading, eyes in back of her head, knowing everybody's names in the universe, Super running. She has also got a side kick named Mr. Hagen the Asst. Principal. His power are: Flying, Super Strong, and X-ray vision.”
After that day, the entries came flooding in. I was amazed at how well kids could articulate the “super powers” of their everyday heroes. Most entries were written about teachers (especially gym teachers), librarians, principals, and custodians. But there were others written about the bravery of a fellow student battling leukemia, a best friend that stands up for herself and doesn’t succumb to peer pressure, a reading teacher that has helped a student progress from level M to level R, and a seeing-eye dog named Licorice that helps a student find her way. I wish I could share all of them with you. As it came time to pick the contest winner, I pored through the entries over and over again. How were we going to choose? We narrowed it down to 50, then to 15, then to 5 and then finally to our winner, Hakeem. Hakeem is a special ed student at the Nathanael Greene School in New York. He wrote an entry about his teacher Mr. Brown.
“My teacher Mr.Brown is visually impaired. That not what makes him a hero. It is because he takes public transportation everyday with Stanley his dog to school. That is why he is a true everyday superhero. In our class we had a project of being blindfolded and trying to find our way around the class it was hard for me. In our school it is hard. Being in special education, we learn to recognize our disabilities. Mr. Brown don't what to take access-a-ride to work being driven from his house to work. I feel sad he can't see the beautiful things around. That bothers me. To ride the train to East NY in Brooklyn is chaotic and not the safest even for people who do not have a disability. The travelling in the snow and ice with Stanley make him even more courageous. Mr. Brown is my pick for our school superhero. He could serve as a superhero for all.”
Thanks to Hakeem for sharing this with us and to all of the kids who recognized the heroes in their lives. (Who's the hero at your school? Share in the comments.)
Shannon Zigmund
Marketing Manager, Fiction
Capstone Publishers
Mr Brown and Stanley were hit by a car today and are both in hospial. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers.
We were so sorry to hear about Mr. Brown and Stanley! We hear from the school principal that both are doing well.