Thursday, July 4: While all of you across the pond were celebrating Independence Day, our class visited one of the most British institutions possible: The British Library. Formed about 40 years ago as part of the British Museum, the collections were spread across several locations throughout London. Today, the Library is only made up of two buildings; the storage facility at Boston Spa, and the new main building at St. Pancras, which opened in 1997.
The building itself is an interesting topic of discussion. Many think it an ugly eyesore, including Prince Charles; but aside from its controversial appearance, it is an excellent facility. There are 11 reading rooms with over 1,200 seats available. A researcher requests the items they wish to view, and the books are pulled from the stacks (some of which are in the basement, some of which are at the Boston Spa facility), and delivered via an intricate rolling delivery system that snakes its way throughout the building. It's quite a remarkable system, which uses only barcodes to track items throughout the delivery process; there are no plans for RFID tracking at this time. Any one can request any item through the online catalog, even those from King George's Library (which I'll talk about later), however in many cases a facsimile copy is provided rather than a rare, delicate item. And this is not a lending library, meaning items are not taken out of the building.
Considered the National Library of England, the British Library contains nearly 200 million items in all subject, and in all languages; and they add approximately 1 km of shelving each month... that's a lot of books! As they are a copyright library, they take 1 copy of every book published in the UK and Ireland, and are constantly adding many international titles as well. If that weren't enough, they are now archiving every website in the UK as well. The collection also includes artifacts, a large amount of maps, a philatelic collection, and copious amounts of sound recordings, such as music and dialogue.
There were two highlights for me during my visit; King George's Library, and the Sir John Ritblat Gallery. Upon walking into the building, the first thing you see is a glass tower full of beautifully bound, old books. It holds the 85,000 volume library amassed by King George II, and donated by King George III under 3 conditions; the books were on public display, they were kept separate from the general collection, and they could be used by anyone. The British Library still follows these conditions, but requiring supervision when the books are taken out for viewing. The Ritblat Gallery contains the Treasure Room... and it's full of exactly what you'd expect - treasures! But these treasures are books, the best kind. They have many titles you would have heard of - a Gutenberg Bible, some Shakespeare manuscripts, and the Magna Carta - and some you may not - early maps of London, Princess Elizabeth's (as in Elizabeth I) prayer book, an Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and (what I most wanted to see) Jane Austen's writing desk. Sadly, the Lindisfarne Gospel is out on loan to Durham so I did not get to see it.
I plan on going back sometime this week to get my reader's card which will allow me to use the library's resources while I'm here doing research. To the library!
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