Optional Visit - Zoological Society of London

The London Zoo was so much fun! We spent the morning touring the Zoo, and were able to go on an exclusive tour of the Zoological Society of London in the afternoon. Their website has tons of information and can be found here. The morning went by far too quickly, but I have found that it always feels like that when I go to the zoo. My favorites were the white pelicans, giraffes and the monkeys with mustaches, which I believe are the Emperor Tamarin monkeys. At the Zoological Society (ZSL), we spoke with John Edwards, who showed us his book on photography at the London Zoo. I loved seeing the photographs, and hearing why zoo photography is so important! Its something I never would have considered. Being a zoo historian, he also gave us some background information on the ZSL. Sir Stamford Raffles founded the ZSL in 1826. He was impressed by the Paris Zoo that began as a garden, but later had animals when the Versailles menagerie was brought there. The Paris Zoo also had a library. Raffles expected government assistance with his project, but never received any. Two months after becoming president of the ZSL, Raffles passed away. His successor was the society’s treasurer, Joseph Sabine, who kept the society going. Originally there was a library and a museum kept in the offices, but the museum’s artifacts eventually went to the Natural History Museum. The Duke of Wellington was present on the Zoo’s opening day, and Queen Victoria visited on her birthday in 1828. The Zoo’s collection was built very slowly, and originally consisted of bears, birds, and llamas. The first publications by the ZSL were minutes of their meetings, then transactions reports. Eventually a journal was published, which greatly helped the growth of the Zoo. Now it is the largest privately owned zoological collection in the world.

In the library, we spoke with Emma, the retrospective book cataloguer, about her project. She is cataloguing the collection from 1860 to 1993. They are doing the project in house so that they can check for correctness and check the stock at the same time. This also provides an opportunity to weed through the collection. She is working on the title cards from the catalogue, and completes between fifty and seventy books per week. Ruth showed us the information that the library holds on zoos themselves. They have journals and newsletters from zoos around the world. These are useful for best practices information. They collect all books about zoos from around the world and in all languages, as well as books about zoo animals. She showed us an old zoo guide, with an animal on the cover that is now extinct. They have annual reports, conference proceedings, stud books, husbandry material, and of course the ZSL Journal of Zoology. Zoo workers or anyone interested in the history of zoos will find these materials useful. I had no idea how much information this library would have on zoos worldwide, and I enjoyed seeing just what kind of work they do.

Optional Visit - Stratford upon Avon

While we were in Stratford upon Avon we stopped by the Public Library. The library does not have its own website, but some information, such as hours of operation, can be found on the Warwickshire website here. One of the main functions of this library that I noticed is researching family history. This has been a trend in many of the libraries and archives that we have visited, and the librarians have told us that it is greatly due to the television program, Who Do You Think You Are? People are more interested in finding their family history now. Each library specializes in its own area for genealogical research, and the Stratford library was no different. The library has brochures that show the various resources it has including: parish registers, census returns, electoral registers, local newspapers, maps, trade directories, monumental inscriptions, CD-ROMs, books, and the Internet with links to local studies and family history websites. The sources are specific to the area, and can help family researchers find the information they are searching for. There are local studies librarians to provide further assistance as needed. There is even a family history group, which meets on the first Friday of the month at the library. All of the genealogical resources that we have seen have made me consider looking into my own family history when I return to Florida!

Optional Visit - The American Library in Paris

The American Library in Paris was a brief, but exciting visit! When we walked up to the library the first thing we all saw was a cart full of free books! Obviously we were powerless to resist and grabbed some reading material for the bus ride back to London. I was very interested in the history of the library. We were only able to stay for a short time, but we were so warmly welcomed that I wish we would have been able to stay and tour the library further. The library was established in 1920, with the backing of the American Library Association. The library was created for American soldiers to use. Although the ALA no longer backs the library, it has become the largest English-language ending library on the European continent. In addition to English-speaking patrons, those who are learning English also frequent the library for assistance. There are many interesting facts in the history of this library! Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein were regular contributors to the monthly review Ex Libris. The Library staff provided an underground lending service to Jewish members during World War II. In 1955 The Library launched the English Language Library for the Blind, which was the first collection of Braille books in English on the continent. The Library was given Marlene Dietrich’s personal library in 1992. These and many more interesting facts can be found on The Library’s website here!

Maughan Academic Library

Our very last visit was to the Maughan Academic Library at King’s College. This library serves the Strand Campus of the college, but provides services to all King’s College students. Strand Campus is the only campus that is north of the Thames. It had four different libraries, which were not in a very good state, and did not have room for expansion. The current building was taken over in the late nineties. The building is not owned, because it is on royal land, but is on a long lease. The Queen is the patron of King’s College, so this is fitting. All four libraries were consolidated into this building. It is a cross-disciplinary library, which allows them to have longer hours than when there were four separate libraries. During exam time this year, they were able to stay open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. This greatly benefits the students!

The building that the library is located in used to be the public records office. It was built in the 1850s. It was the first building in the country that was built to be fireproof. It is located in the heart of legal London. Due to its important historical significance there are many restrictions on what can and cannot be changed in the building. The building was used for storing paper records, so it was easily converted to a library, but there were few public access areas before, and that had to be changed for student access. We were given some statistics regarding the library. There are over 1,000 reading spots throughout the building, and 330 computer terminals. The library contains 750,000 items. They are particularly strong in war studies and theology materials. Maughan has 1,000 registered visitors. They are open seven days a week, and many items are available electronically if a student cannot make it to the library. We were able to tour the library, and it was interesting to see how they have worked with the restrictions to create an academic library that meets student needs. Information on the Maughan Library can be found here.

National Archives of Scotland

Our final stop in Scotland was the National Archives. Margaret McBride, the Director of Education spoke to us a little about the history of the archives and what they do. Their mission is to preserve, protect, and promote the nation’s records. They are headed by the Keeper of the Records of Scotland. The archives are housed in three buildings with 140 staff, and they manage eight websites, all of which can be accessed from the main website here. The main building, which we were in, is the General Register House. The National Archives are divided into two divisions, record services and corporate services. They house over seventy kilometers of records from the twelfth to the twenty-first century. The online catalogue contains over three million entries.

In 1774 Lord Frederick Campbell laid the foundation stone for the General Register House. Robert Adam designed the building. It was opened in 1789, but not completed until the 1820s. The West Register House contains the West Search room with modern records. It was converted from St. George’s Church and opened in 1971. The Thomas Thomson House holds the conservation department, and was opened in 1994.

Some of the developments currently in progress are availability of access to Scottish wills from 1500 to 1901, the digitization of the Church of Scotland records, the Register’s Archive conversion project, the valuation rolls project, and the Scotland People’s Centre. The National Register of Archives for Scotland is where items that are still with private owners can be found. There is an online catalogue of these items. Most of the inquiries received are through e-mail, and the majority of these are family history questions. When people come for research they must register for a reader’s ticket and be able to present two forms of identification. This is similar to what we have seen in similar facilities.

After our tour of the building we were able to browse through some documents and have hands on experience trying to decipher them. Some were very easy to read, such as a log of crewmembers and their wages, and some were difficult, such as a list of patients and their ailments. I loved holding the documents and trying to read them! In some cases it felt like trying to solve a puzzle. I enjoyed our last stop in Scotland.

Dunfermline Library

The third library that we visited in Scotland was Dunfermline Library. The town of Dunfermline was beautiful, and we had lots of fun exploring it while we were there. The library was the first Carnegie Library and was built in 1883. In the lobby you can see a bust of Andrew Carnegie’s mother Margaret. The first day that the library opened all of the books went, which shows how needed and appreciated the library was. A reading room was established for ladies, which only contained material considered suitable for them. This reading room was eventually to become the Murison Burns collection, but more on that later.

Today, the library is a mixture of old and new. The lending area has new shelves, but the original shelving is also still in use. This can create difficulties on occasion, because craftsmen have to be called in when any of the original shelving breaks, due to its age and condition. Large books are kept on the bottom shelf, because it is too dangerous keeping them up higher. The layout of the building cannot be changed, which forces the staff to be creative in planning. All of the original fireplaces have remained unchanged in the building. Dunfermline used to receive every non-fiction book published and was required to shelve them, but now they are classified as a branch library and can store books that aren’t circulating. This has freed up some space on the shelves for more popular books.

The children’s section was open and light, and the librarians were very welcoming. The children’s library was opened in the 1930s. Prior to this most children’s libraries were in community centers. Today, they have programs for the children, such as storytelling, school visits, and nursery rhyme time for the youngest. They are also participating in the Space Hop program, along with the other children’s libraries in Britain that we have visited. They arrange author visits, and zoo labs where insects are brought in for the children to interact with.

The Scotland Room was fascinating to tour. We were able to go in the closed access room, which is climate-controlled to protect the materials stored there. Everything is cataloged with either D or F, for Dunfermline or Fife, then further cataloged into sections such as industry or municipal. The materials here are in the process of being entered into an Internet database, but currently can only be searched with the computers in this room. They are not available for loan, only reference. Materials needing conservation are sent out, no in-house work is done.

The special collections room here was very interesting. The bulk of this is the Murison Burns collection. John Murison collected anything related to Robert Burns that he could find, and the collection is housed here in Dunfermline. It is very extensive, containing many editions of Robert Burns’ work, as well as representations of him. We were able to peruse the collection, and I was amazed by the size of it. It is a living collection, and is still being added to today. The FifeDirect website has more information on the collection here.

Central Library

The Central Library in Edinburgh was another public library that I loved visiting. I am still developing my professional goals, and after seeing some of these public libraries and their work to provide books to all people I feel inspired. The Central Library is working to develop their online library services. Their virtual library started less than a year ago. It serves the dual purpose of being an alternative that people can use from home 24/7, while also encouraging more people to come into the library. All of the e-services are being brought together in one place, including business information, family history, and community information. The e-books section will also be developed over the next few years. The community information website is Your Edinburgh, and is being designed to provide information that people want and need. It can be found here. Heath information, educational needs, and support group information are some of the services provided by this website. The organizations represented on the site have ownership of the information and are welcome to keep it up to date. The online image collection maintained by the Central Library is of international importance. It contains many important and early photographs, such as those of Robert Louis Stevenson and the construction of the Scott Monument.

Reader development is important at this library as well. They want to engage with readers, finding out what they know and what they like, and two-way communication with the readers is vital for this. Reading is the core of the library experience. In order to reach out to readers they have organized events such as author visits, which usually draw 150-200 people. Recently they did a “Crime in the City” crime fiction event, which is what they found out readers wanted through feedback. Book groups are a popular draw, and they provide online and face-to-face book discussions. In order to reach out to the community they visit retirement homes to read poetry, show pictures, and talk to residents to bring back pleasant memories. They also reach out to troubled kids, and author visits are often a way of accomplishing this. The amount of involvement that this library has with the community is wonderful!

The library’s mission in regards to special collections is again, preservation rather than conservation, but this library wants the books to be used, just kindly. Preservation is done offsite by conservators. Each time a decision must be made to determine why the book should be conserved. The library does monitor temperature and moisture conditions, because dramatic differences can be damaging to the books. The thick Victorian walls of the building generally keep the climate constant. Dust is another factor that can be damaging due to mites within the dust; therefore the books must be kept clean. Housing the books in acid-free boxes really helps.

After hearing about the library’s procedures we moved on to a tour of the library. We visited the music library, where we found that bands often put on live performances. I can’t imagine that in my public library! The children’s library was very open and friendly. We saw the fine arts library, the reference library, the Edinburgh department, and the Scottish department. I enjoyed seeing this library and hearing their goals and development projects. I would love to implement some of their ideas in my library in the future.

The National Library of Scotland

We’re in Scotland! So far the weather has been rainy and cold, and everything that I hoped for! The city definitely has a different feel from London, and so far I am really enjoying it.

In the National Library of Scotland we did not tour the library, but were able to view the John Murrays exhibit where I found my idea for what I would like to research. In 1768, John McMurray, hailing from Edinburgh, set up a bookselling business in Fleet Street. He advertised, “Books of the choicest Editions, the best Print, and the richest Bindings.” He dropped the Mc from his name, becoming John Murrays. Some of the most famous authors that he published are: Jane Austen, Sir Walter Scott, Lord Byron, David Livingstone, Charles Darwin, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The exhibit was fun to peruse, and had stations set up for each author, plus several that I had not heard of before. I learned interesting tidbits about each author. Sir Walter Scott invented the historical novel and was a very harsh critic of himself. Lord Byron worked for Greek independence, and the Greek people were distraught at his death. The Duke of Argyll, George Douglas Campbell wrote poems comparing science and religion, which were harshly reviewed at the time. Richard Ford wrote a handbook for travelers in Spain, which was the predecessor to the modern day guidebooks that we purchase. Jane Austen’s father and brother supported her writing career, which was a rarity at the time, and something that I would like to find out more about through research. More on the John Murrays archive can be found here.

The library itself grew out of the Library of the Faculty of Advocates. It was granted the right to claim a copy of the every book published in the British Isles under the 1710 Copyright Act. By the 1920s upkeep was too difficult for a private body, and the collection was gifted to the nation. In the 1980s the fifteen floors of the building were not enough to house the collection, and additional storage was opened in the Causeway side Building. This building takes new deliveries and houses the map library. The Legal Deposit Libraries Act of 2003 has given the library the right to collect material published digitally, including journals and websites. This information was on display in the library, along with the John Murrays exhibit and an exhibit on golf.

Bodleian Library

I thoroughly enjoyed our trip to Oxford and the magnificent Bodleian Library. Our guide, Ian Mitchell, began our tour with some history about the University. Oxford is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. The Divinity School was the first building of the University, and was built in 1488. Prior to this everything took place in the church, including the first recorded lecture in 1096. An academic came from Rome, the center of learning in the eleventh century. For him to have traveled such a great distance there had to be enough academics present to make his trip worthwhile. The University’s location was chosen because of the church, and also because the king had a palace in Oxford.

The 1100s were a period of great growth; in 1167 the English king had a falling out with the French king and all English students were commanded to leave the University of Paris. They came to Oxford. With all of this growth, the masters set up a guild to protect themselves, thus the University was founded in the 1180s. From this time until the building of the Divinity School in 1488 the University did not grow quickly. In the 1200s the first colleges were founded. The colleges were another means of protecting the masters. Wealthy patrons donated money to found the colleges. Today there are thirty-nine colleges, each independent from one another and the University. Some are wealthier than others, depending on who founded them. The University sets the curriculum, but the colleges admit the students. Currently there are students from 140 different countries.

The school’s architecture is a juxtaposition of Gothic and Classical styles. It took years to build just the Divinity School. There was no money in the University at the time; all money came from the alumni. The king was unable to give money to the school, having depleted his funds in the hundred-year war, but gave his promise to protect the school and required his successors to do the same. We also learned that Christopher Wren, who we know designed St. Paul’s cathedral, was also a professor of astronomy, and designed the Sheldonian building at Oxford.

The library began when the Duke of Gloucester brought back classic manuscripts from his travels and donated them to the University. These manuscripts were removed from the library when Edward VI became ill, and all superstitious manuscripts were destroyed. Thomas Bodley restored the library in 1598. He was married to a wealthy widow and used her money to fund his restoration. In 1602 the new library opened, which is the library that we were able to walk around in today! The library contained 2,000 books when Bodley re-opened it, and none of them were in English. When Bodley designed the library he had bookshelves installed, which were an innovation at the time. He also included galleries in his design, copied from the library of Philip II of Spain. The Bodleian was the first galleried library in Britain. It is the second largest British library, and was the first copyright library, which was another one of Bodley’s ideas. Today, the library receives 5500 new publications per week. There is also a New Bodleian Library, which was completed in the 1940s. It stores eight million books, and was built with the help of the Rockefeller fund. One of the difficulties that the staff has to overcome is the maintenance of an old library in new buildings. The library's website contains a more detailed historical account.

When a student today needs information from the library, he will start with the library in his college. If he cannot find information there, he will try the faculty library. Last he will come to the Bodleian Library. The library does not use the Dewey Decimal System, because readers do not find their own materials. Like many libraries that we have visited the books are classified by size and also by arrival. With this system space does not have to be planned in each section for new arrivals, as with Dewey Decimal. Readers request books, which are then brought to them in the reading rooms. When we walked through the tunnels downstairs we were able to see the system of conveyer belts that brings books to the readers. This tour provided me with some insight into Oxford University, and its long and colorful past. I look forward to returning someday!

The National Art Library

The National Art Library is located within the Victoria and Albert Museum. On our tour we learned that the Invigilation Desk is where rare book requests are received. The reading rooms and the central room are the only rooms open to the public, and books stored in these rooms are classified with the Dewey Decimal system. Requests for books are made electronically. The library is open from Tuesday through Saturday, and every half hour a member of the staff picks up the slip requests for books. In order to find the book the book lists are cross-referenced with maps that indicate which room the book is located in. The current classification system is very elaborate and was built off of the system used in here in Victorian times. The library has 8,000 titles in periodicals storage, 2,000 of which are current. The periodicals are bound, which serves two purposes: ease of storage and theft prevention. There are nearly two million books in the library, the majority of which are in the online catalog. The offsite archives are shared with the British Library.

As we moved through the tour we found that the second floor is where the special collections are housed, including artist books, travel diaries, the Dickens manuscripts, books of hours, and books with particularly fine bindings. The books are arranged by size, as we have seen in the majority of libraries here. The V&A publications, written by curators, are housed here, and there are at least three copies of each, excluding some of the oldest ones. Here you will find the history of the V&A and the School of Art and Design history.

The library’s motto is preservation rather than conservation. There are over two million items in the library. When books do require conservation items such as the Dickens manuscripts have preference. There is no temperature control, but the temperature is monitored and does not fluctuate greatly. In order to preserve the books, no photocopies can be made of books that date before 1900. Some of the rare books that we were able to view included: Shakespeare’s first folio, a seventeenth century Islamic binding, corrected proofs of Bleak House with Dickens’s own corrections, an illustrated letter written by J.E. Millais to his cousin’s wife, and facsimile editions of Da Vinci’s notebooks. And this is only a sample of the exciting works that we were able to peruse! More on research and conservation can be found on the library's website here.

The London Library

The London Library was one of my favorite visits. Their commitment to bringing books to the public is incredible. Books from the 1700s to the present are placed on the open shelves for public access. It was amazing! I took a lot of information away from this visit, so today I’m focusing on what I learned about preservation. Our group spoke with Stella Worthington first. She works in preservation and stock management. When she started working at the library the rare books were kept in the basement in less than ideal conditions. She worked to move the rare books to a new area that had been built to house them. The books were brought up, cleaned, and assessed. Many were in a bad state. 35,000 books were processed and each had to be brought up the spiral staircase by hand. The basic needs of the books have now been met, but maintaining them is a constant process.

The preservation area was specially designed to meet the needs of the department. The cupboards and storage space are able to hold the tools of the trade, and the large green tables in the room are easily moved from place to place. One aspect of preservation that I had not previously considered is the amount of dirt that comes off the books, and how that can affect the person cleaning them. A dusting box is an important tool to contain the dirt from the books during the cleaning process. The department was previously working with a dusting box that was donated to them, which was basically a box with a Hoover attached to it. They now have a newer machine which is much more efficient.

We also learned that maintaining the physical environment in which the books are stored is just as important as physical intervention. The department must look over all books on the open access shelves. It is important to keep dust away from the books, because dust can contain bugs, which can damage the books. Maintaining a constant temperature is also important. Fluctuating temperatures can do great damage to the books. Stella has divided the library up into twenty-six sections and given each person a section. Many of the workers are students who receive a free membership at the library for working there. It took four and a half years to clean the entire library, and as soon as it was complete workers came in to do a building project, creating tons of dust, which then has to be cleaned again! People report on problems in their area, and there is a set of guidelines for each section of the library. The library uses its own classification scheme, and not the Dewey Decimal system. The classification information is located within the cover of each book, and the system takes time to learn, but is supposed to be simple once you get the hang of it. Keeping the library clean and organized is a huge task!

Books that need repairs are sent to this department, and their strict policy is to only do things to the books that are reversible. Historically this has not been the case, and many damaging things have been done to the books in the past that cannot be fixed now. When the library purchases paperbacks they are rebound to maintain the integrity of the catalog. There are specific binders used for specific books. For historical bindings, the tanning process used for each is what makes them different. Books book with vellum are very vulnerable and must be kept in acid free boxes. Stella showed us a book with clasps on the side that also had to be stored in a box, but not for its safety, for the safety of books around it. The clasps could scratch the other books. If bugs are found pesticides cannot be used, because they are damaging to the books. Bugs have to be frozen!

Stella showed us some of the rare books held by the library. We saw a fourth folio Shakespeare, a book of medical essays that was owned by the surgeon on the Bounty, a treatise that Henry VIII wrote against Martin Luther, a first edition Origin of the Species, another rare book by Charles Darwin titled the Formation of Vegetable Mold, and a proof copy of Lawrence of Arabia’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom, including rare pictures. It was incredible! I know I’ve said it before, but I just love being so close to history! It never fails to thrill me! You can read more about the London Library here.

Greenwich Maritime Museum

The Greenwich Maritime Museum! I learned that it is one of the largest maritime museums in the world. I loved walking into the building and seeing all of the artifacts and items on display. Some of the items can be seen on their website here. One of the most impressive was Prince Frederick’s gilded barge. It was built in 1732 and used for royal occasions on the Thames. Our main purpose on the trip was to visit the library of course. The library in the museum is Caird’s Library, named for Sir James Caird, the museum’s benefactor. The library that we toured is the original library from the 1930s, which is currently undergoing a re-development project. The library has been open to the public since 1937, and has never been an internal library to the museum. They are currently open to the public three days a week, which allowed them to give a tour to our large group on a closed day. This gave us more freedom to move around and discuss items of interest without bothering library patrons. When the new facility is opened the library will resume its normal operating hours six days a week. The library contains many artifacts of historical interest, such as: immigration papers, navigation papers, items on piracy, astronomy, voyages and exploration, naval architecture, and genealogical information.

Before entering the library we moved through the rotunda, which was an original part of the museum. It is constructed entirely of beautiful marble, and was designed by Edwin Lutyens. The rotunda contains a bust of Sir James Caird. This part of the building will remain untouched during the re-development. The library is a joint service facility, housing both the library and the archives. There are two staff members on at a time, one for library services and one for archival services. There are twelve staff members altogether. The library receives 3,000-4,000 visitors per year. The new library is being redesigned to accommodate more people comfortably. The amount of written inquiries received by the library has steadily increased over time, and has continued to rise with the library’s decreased hours. Items in the archive catalog are classified as modern and rare, with modern items dating from 1850 to the present, and rare items dating before 1850. The archives contain 100,000 modern items and 8,000 rare items. Currently the library has two offsite storage facilities, but the new facility will have larger onsite storage capabilities. Many of the items housed in the archives require an archival specialist, such as the maps and charts.

We were able to view and even handle some of the items from the archive catalog. We viewed an atlas from 1686, which the English copied from a Spanish atlas. I liked seeing the crew list of the Caledonia dated from 1810 or 1811, which showed that many of the crew were not suited for the important task of blockading the French fleet in their harbor. The list of crewmembers included: four hairdressers, seven miners, five farmers, 267 agricultural workers, and six bricklayers. A set of signals taken from the U.S. frigate Chesapeake was a very important find for the British. The book was weighted with lead shot so that it could be tossed overboard if the ship was captured, but this was never accomplished and the British captured both the frigate and the signals. This resulted in all of the U.S. signal codes having to be changed. We read a letter from Admiral Nelson to his wife, Frances, from 1801, and her letter of response. He was openly living with another woman, and desired to end their marriage. She wrote back to his prize agent, telling him that she refused to give up. This was quite a scandal at the time, and all of this gossip was in the newspapers. My favorite item was a journal written by a minister who joined the navy as a chaplain in 1812. He was forty years old at the time. His writing was humorous, and gave an interesting view of military life. He even illustrated his journal! I saw a picture that he drew of the boatswain carrying the rope he used to “wake up” the crew in the morning. I love items like this, because they give life to historical figures. The entries in the journal could have been written yesterday!