The British Library

Heather Morley took us on our tour of the British Library. She began with some background information on the library. It was opened in 1998 after moving from its former location in the British Museum. The collection was not housed in adequate storage; therefore they were running out of space and needed to find a new location. The new building was a former railway station from the time of steam trains. The library is a copyright library and must accept everything that is published in the United Kingdom. They receive 8,000 publications new publications each day, and still have to deal with issues of space. She mentioned that more books are being published now than were published in the 1960s, despite the advent of electronic books. Only half of the collection is stored in the building that we visited. Originally the planners wanted to put the library near the museum, but in order to accomplish that they would have had to knock down several historical buildings, which was clearly not an option.

There are many works of art in and around the library. The statue of Sir Isaac Newton in front of the building represents bringing together science and the arts. One side of the library contains the science collection and the other contains the arts. The book connected to the ball and chain in the lobby represents sitting on wisdom. Despite lessons learned in the past, history tends to repeat itself, and we don’t necessarily learn anything from our ancestors’ mistakes. There is a large tapestry hanging in the entry way as well, and this serves a dual purpose. It is an interesting art piece to admire, and it also works to muffle the sound in this area.

In order to use the library facilities one must register for a reader’s pass, just like we were shown in the archives of the British Museum. Access to the reading room is granted based on need. The reader’s pass is free of charge to get and to renew, but a fee is charged if the card is lost. We were able to see how the reader is granted access to the books in one of the reading rooms. The reader chooses the text on the computer, and a ticket prints. The book is sent to the room on a conveyor belt, which brings the book from the basement using both vertical and horizontal motion. The whole process is accomplished through barcodes, but there are no barcodes on the books themselves, only on the tickets. Through the use of this system, no book has ever been lost. Despite this accomplishment, rare books are still transported by hand. There are no pencils, cameras, food, drinks, or gum allowed in these rooms. The library does not use the Dewey Decimal system; the books are organized by size to maximize space.

The Treasures Room was my favorite part of the library. It contains rare manuscripts held by the British Library on display for the public to see. Some of the most exciting for me were: the Magna Carta, Handel’s Messiah, Ravel’s Bolero, Jane Eyre, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, poems by Ted Hughes, a copy of Alice in Wonderland illustrated by Salvador Dali, some lyrics and poems written by the Beatles, a sacred Dao text, the Golden Hagadah, and many more. Words cannot describe how excited I was! If you would like to see some of these works, you can visit the British Library’s website and use their virtual books collection.

The British Museum

The British Museum was awe-inspiring. Its sheer vastness was overwhelming, and I quickly realized that we would not be able to see even a tiny portion of it in the time we were there. I have a habit of lingering in one section in museums and missing most of the exhibits, and I basically did the same thing today, except that I hit the highlights of some of the exhibits that I knew I wanted to see. I was able to see the Rosetta Stone, the Egyptian mummies, the Easter Island statue, and many of the artifacts from medieval Europe. Our tour of the museum archives was certainly the highlight of the visit!

The museum archivist, Stephanie, explained that the main purpose of the central archives is to hold the primary records of the trustees. This includes the minutes from trustees’ meetings, which although they sound dry, contain a vast amount of information. She told us that they hold such specific information as who was late to the meetings, and who showed up inebriated. The central archive is devoted to information pertaining to the governance, staff, financing, exhibitions, the building itself, and the reading room records. It does not contain information pertaining to specific objects, only more broad information. They receive an average of fifty inquiries a month. Each inquiry receives an average of thirty minutes of research, and after that the individual is invited to come in and check the records.

There are rough draft copies of donations to the museum, finalized copies of the meeting minutes, and the “Original Papers” books, which contain the original documents pertaining to each object. The “Book of Presents” contains every object that has been given to the museum, but not objects that have been purchased. The “Letter Books” contain handwritten transcripts of letters from the museum to various parties, for example: archaeologists asking for funding.

The staff records were fun to see, because people are able to come in and inquire about family members who may have worked at the museum in the past. There is a file that contains a random sample of successful job applications. This includes the application itself and letters of reference. Some files contain additional papers that were submitted, such as one file that we were shown that contained samples of the employees artwork. I’m sure with the recent trend of genealogical research, this information is highly sought after!

I also loved seeing the reading room records. The reader’s tickets are stored here, with tickets spanning from 1795 through the 1970s. Patrons who wanted to look at materials held by the library had to apply for a reader’s ticket and submit a letter of reference. Most of these applications and letters are kept here. When the ticket was issued the patron had to sign a signature book. In one of these books we were able to see Karl Marx’s signature. In order to demonstrate the ease of cross-referencing these documents, she showed us an example with T.S. Eliot. First we saw his reader’s ticket, which showed his corresponding number. Then we saw his application and letter of reference. Finally we found his signature in the signature book. I loved seeing this bit of history firsthand!

The Barbican

On our trip to the Barbican we learned a great deal about the center itself, its creation, and why it is such an important institution in London. The Barbican is an international art center, and was designed as a gift to the nation. Many aspects of the public library are similar to libraries in the United States, which I found to be interesting. I especially enjoyed the tour of the music library, because I have never before been in a library just for music.

The music library was opened in 1983, one year later than the rest of the center. It is a single-subject library, entirely devoted to music. Richard Jones gave us the tour, and he explained that often music services are cut when funding runs short, but the Barbican music library is lucky in that it is well funded. Music does not come bound, and the library is obligated to send it off for binding when it is purchased. This can be very costly. One of the functions of the music library is to support the tradition of choral singing. Often the library will be asked to gather a large number of copies of a specific song for a choral group. This is accomplished through interlibrary loans.

The reference section of the music library is extensive, and contains books such as: recording guides, rare record price guides, the Dictionary of Musical Themes, the Dictionary of Tunes, the International Who’s Who of Popular Music, etc. The Dictionary of Musical Themes can be used by musicians to find a song that they know the music for, by transposing the music to middle C, and looking it up in the index. Non-musical people can use the Dictionary of Tunes to find a song in a similar manner, but by using ups and downs to represent the notes. There are listening booths for patron use in this section of the library.

The Barbican music library is the flagship library in London for CDs. It contains 16,000+ titles. When a new CD is released the libraries are obligated to put it on hold from being checked out for three months. This is a stipulation from the recording industry, so that people are not able to check out new releases instead of purchasing them. The library has its own classification scheme for CDs, because classifying artists into specific genres is often quite difficult. This is why the library uses very broad categories. It was fascinating to learn so much about music libraries and librarianship, especially because it is an area that I had never considered before.

For more on the Barbican visit their website at www.barbicon.org.uk.

In the evening we returned to the Barbican to see Nevermore, which told the story of Edgar Allen Poe's life. It was wonderful! The costumes and the dark nature of his life story reminded me of a Tim Burton film. The seven actors were fantastic, and I loved how one simple change in each of their costumes made them into an entirely different character. This was a great experience and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

First Excursion - St. Paul's

Today was our first official class and we went to St. Paul's. I was almost late for this very first class because I took a detour into the discount bookstore, and ended up staying there for an hour and a half. I managed to escape with only four purchases, however, which is quite an accomplishment. We took a bus to St. Paul's and this was the first time that I have been on a bus in London. It was quite an experience! Next time I will be sure that I am in a seat before the bus starts moving! The view from the top while going over Waterloo Bridge was amazing though, and the driving isn't as bad when you're seated.

When we arrived at St. Paul's I took some pictures on my camera, and then we all took pictures as a group. We split up into two groups, one to tour the cathedral and one to tour the library. My group toured the cathedral first. I was particularly excited to find the plaque for Sir Alexander Fleming. We walked around looking at all of the crypts and statues, and ended up in a small exhibit on the main floor. The women volunteers running the exhibit explained that it was the Angola London Mozambique Association (ALMA). This group connects churches in London with churches in Angola and Mozambique, and they work together to increase education in areas that need it most. The woman who spoke to us was clearly passionate about the work they do, and gave us lots of information about the program. One of the projects that the group has partnered on is "Swords into Ploughshares." The group offers a deal which encourages people to hand in their weapons in exchange for bicycles, gardening tools, etc. The weapons are then made into works of art. Two of these are on display at The British Museum, The Tree of Life and The Throne of Weapons. The artwork is beautiful, and especially moving when you know the history behind it. More information can be found on ALMA at www.almalink.org.

We wandered back up to the font and met Joe Wisdom who took us on our tour of the library. I was particularly excited for this, as I wasn't sure what to expect. We climbed the stairs and entered a room where we saw a bust of George Crookshanks, who illustrated Charles Dickens's works, and whose remains are located in the cathedral. We moved behind the scenes in the cathedral and ended up on a balcony which offered a spectacular view. Mr. Wisdom said that although this was the view of the cathedral that is shown on the BBC it is not his favorite due to the modern electrical equipment that can be seen. We entered another room and saw pulpits that are no longer in use in the cathedral. The Victorian era pulpit was particularly extravagant, and I could not picture it in use in St. Paul's. Mr. Wisdom said that pulpit fashions change with the times just like any other fashion. We went into the model room, which contains the model that Christopher Wren created, but was not allowed to build because it looked too much like the Vatican.

At this point we entered the library itself, and it was incredible! It smelled just like I imagined it would! Mr. Wisdom talked about cataloging, and how most of the data they have is imported from the OCLC. The disadvantage of this is that each database entry is copy specific, and the information will be inaccurate for their particular copy. This was new information to me, because I didn't realize before that database entries were specific to a particular copy. Librarians are still working on databases, and he said that it is very important to never destroy a catalog, even if the items are in a database. We ended the tour by looking at a 12th century psalter, which literally gave me goosebumps.

After the library we walked up to the Whispering Gallery and were amazed that we could hear one another from across the dome. We walked to the Stone Gallery and took pictures of the awesome views of the city, which was a perfect end to our tour. For more information about St. Paul's click here.

Picture credit.