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!