The British Library Is Not A Lending Library

As a patron, you cannot take a book out of the British Library, you can only read the books in their collection in one of their 11 reading rooms. The British Library is huge; it has eight floors and thousands, maybe millions, of books on site. It has a basement storage area of four floors, each that two floor height. It's an absolutely amazing facility and anything in the library is available for view if you have a reader's card, even the items in the Treasures Collection.

But to get access to anything, you have to have a reader's card. Unlike a public library card, a reader's card is more than just access to the stacks -- its access with a purpose. When you register, you are asked to explain why you want to use the collection and which areas specifically you want to use. This creates a very specific patron pool that divides up into three groups, according to our tour guide: academic, personal and business. Academic is the largest, which is not surprising. Once you have a reader's card you find the book you need, ask the librarian and the librarian brings it to you. This is not a browse-able collection due to the unusual and variety of collection materials. So you get your book, sit there with your pen and paper or computer, read your book and then leave without the book. For most librarians, I think, this must seem like a good way to cut down on circulation -- isn't the point to get the information to the patrons? Well yes, but, the British Library isn't just a public library for people to find information but it also keeps and stores information. It only has one copy of every new book published. It is not a lending library, but it still gets the necessary information. But back to the circulation question, wouldn't the confines of the library decrease the usage. Surprisingly not; according to our tour guide, most rooms are filled between 96%-98% every single day the library is open. I can't imagine many libraries that have circulation statistics like that.

As a reader, you can get just about any book. You can even get the books on display in the Treasures Collection, selected fromTreasures in Full, which includes hand-written letters and stories of Jane Austen, Lewis Carroll, first print editions of Shakespeare's works, original scores by the likes of Mozart, Beethoven and Handel. It is a truly amazing collection. While these items require very special clearance, a reader can check them out and study them if necessary. This is a working library.

All these books come from the stacks below the British Library or their storage facility out in Yorkshire. I was actually lucky enough to see the basement collections. Back at UW I work for the Iberoamerican Studies Bibliographer, Paloma, who was kind enough to put me in touch with a colleague at the British Library. I was given a tour of the storage collection, concentrating on Latin American Colonial and Spanish materials, by Aquiles Alencar Braynar. I was really surprised to see the stacks but it was amazing and completely overwhelming. Even when you see the model, its hard to imagine just how big and expansive the storage area really is. Also, you can definitely hear the tube. Dr. Alencar Braynar showed me the manuscripts area, the large collection of Don Quixote editions gifted to the library and part of the library of Maximillion. Maximillion was once put in power as the "Emperor of Mexico" but was executed in the late 19th century when the Mexican people revolted. One of his aids gave most of his library to the British Library around the start of the 20th century and most of the books are focused on the colonization and revolution in Mexico. A few of these books are being used in the Viva la Libertad! exhibit celebrating the independence of most of Latin America. Mexico's Bicentennial is coming up this fall, which is super exciting.

I'm not doing a very good job at explaining the stacks but it was amazing to see their stacking system which does not follow any specific standard system. They stack them according to size, collection owner, language and maybe, if you're lucky, subject. There are huge horizontal book sections where there are huge books, some of them maps, piled in there own cubbie hole type sections. While it doesn't make sense to the patron, it does make sense for the library and librarians. Since the librarians are the only ones retrieving books, the system doesn't have to be organized LCC or Dewey. This is a very flexible system to allow for all the new books that the British Library receives every year, like the Library of Congress does in the U.S.

Basically, this was the best afternoon ever. :D

Tourist of London

The pun is intended. The Tower of London is a favorite of the tourists and today was no exception. This definitely makes sense because some of London's most famous items and people have lived in the Tower of London.
This is the place that holds the kingdom's Crown Jewels and they are amazing, definitely worth the trip if you can get in. Not to mention Sir Walter Raleigh was imprisoned in the "Bloody Tower" (that has the smallest staircase ever!)that his wife eventually turned it into their living apartments. Finally the two princes who are reported to be murdered in Shakespeare's play Richard III were myth no longer as they were found in an evacuation in the mid 17th century. The Tower of London definitely lives up to its reputation as gruesome.

It's a tourist attraction and I know the point is to have tourists but the lines made it really hard to see the exhibits. The Tower of London had thousands of people that created lines trying to see the Crown Jewels and congested stairs. While I'm grateful for the chance to see so many places that are so famous and so important, the Tower of London is no exception, its exhausting and overwhelming to move at such pace. All the information, all the sites, all the time, all the possibilities starting rolling into one big ball that seems like it could crush you. On my part, even though I was tired, cranky and feeling generally overwhelmed, the attractions today became an odd of lesson of "powering through" as Tara says (mostly when we're climbing our stairs). I'm exhausted and overwhelmed but not enough to give up the places and experiences I'm getting. I guess I'm going to just have to embrace my tourist side.

Tower of London Guard

The life of a guard at Tower of London in five pictures.

Ciy of London LIbrary: Barbican

Barbican Library is an unique library to say the least. It's a public library located on the second floor of the Barbican Arts Center nestled in the finance district in the City of London. The libraries there do a lot with limited space and a limited budget but they're passionate about what they do and that's always encouraging. Geraldine(I think) and Jonathan gave us our tour and it was very obvious that they loved their job and their library, despite projects they can't complete because of budget cuts. Barbican has its own peculiarities as a library and British library. In Britain, the government controls what age children can be allowed to buy/rent videos unlike our suggested rating. For a librarian in the States this would cause a lot of consternation because the ALA would view that as censorship so we were all a bit intrigued. On top of that, said DVDs cost 2.50 to check out but only if they were entertainment dvds; dvds for teaching/learning are free. I may have to look into why this is; I find it very interesting. I can't say I completely oppose it because I understand the possible idea behind, the difference between information and entertainment, but I'd still like to know more.
I really enjoyed their music library; its very strange to have subject special libraries in public libraries; its usually found in an academic libraries because of the specialized student populations. It's a very impressive but small library; they have two digital pianos which people can reserve, plug in headphones and practice. It's awesome.
What I liked the most was the Barbican Song Index. The staff at the music library worked for a few years to create an index of all the songs/scores that library holds so the patron and librarian can easily find it. From what I've heard about other music libraries where scores/songs are very difficult to find and catalog, this system is time consuming but wonderful. I love seeing how these individual libraries are working on new ways to making information easier to access.
And then we went to St. Paul's Cathedral which was very grand.

From 2010-07-27

From 2010-07-27

From 2010-07-27

From 2010-07-27

From 2010-07-27

Hampton Court

Hampton Court is famous because of Henry VII, the tudor who killed half of his wives and father to Queen Elizabeth I. But Hampton Court was also home to William III and Mary II during the late 1600s. William III from the Netherlands married Mary II and was generally looked upon as an intruder and foreigner. They did rule together, as the security guard (warder?) was most insistent to explain to me. Unfortunately, Kaitlin and I did not make it to the gardens but I enjoyed walking around the house even though I'm not a fan of baroque architecture -- Sorry Sir Christopher Wren. It did help make the history much clearer, particularly the political concern about a woman succeeding Henry because he only had one son who was very sickly. Of course, we all know that Elizabeth I eventually came to power and was very much loved and important monarch, but she was the last of a line that had fought a bloody battle to gain power. The explanation of the history and culture of the respected time period. I have a fuzzy understanding of British royal history so their explanations were clarifying. I really wanted a bigger picture though, like where the Tudors fit into the whole scheme and why William and Mary chose Hampton Court.

Podcast

Powered by Podbean.com

My Podcast was created with Audacity.
Fair Use law covers the use of the opening song, Let's Go Fly a Kite.
Information about the history of Primrose Hill came from the Royal Parks website.

Sherman, Richard M. and Sherman, Robert B. (1964). Let's Go Fly a Kite.
[Recorded by David Tomlinson, Dick Van Dyke and Chorus]. On Mary Poppins [mp3]. Walt Disney.

The Royal Parks: London's Personal Space (2010).Primrose Hill - from forest to film location.
Retrieved from http://www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/regents_park/primrose_hill.cfm

Cool Kew

This weekend is the one free weekend we have before we leave London. Tara and I took the opportunity to head out of town to Kew Gardens on Saturday. It was absolutely beautiful with more flowers and plants than we had seen anywhere previous. Kew itself is a tiny little town that was a nice change from superbusy London. The tube lets you off right at the center of town and its only a short walk to Kew. I've actually been really intrigued by Kew Gardens since I read Virginia Woolf's short story by the same name when I was an undergrad. She describes it so beautifully and while I'm sure the gardens have changed since she walked through them, they are still breathtaking and peaceful. There are a few different greenhouses including a Palm House and a Waterlily House. Both of which are filled to the brim with amazing plants that I've never seen before. Tara recognized many of the plants in the Palm House from her home in Hawai'i but for a midwestern like myself, they were very foreign. One of the highlights was definitely the butterfly exhibit in the Princess of Wales Conservatory. There were very beautiful and so much fun to look at. I kept thinking I was going to step on them though; ridiculous but true. London has been an ironically wonderful to explore plants since they have a huge abundance of gardens and around the city. Most of the royal parks were made public which has produced some really wonderful green areas. It definitely makes living in London attractive and bearable. To top off a wonderful Saturday, Tara and I stopped at a great bakery that had the most delicious looking cupcakes, which we brought home to all the roommates. We completely stocked up on carbs: olive filled ciabatta, rosemary and olive oil foccacia and muffins. It was a delicious day!

From 2010-07-24

From 2010-07-24

From 2010-07-24

From 2010-07-24

From 2010-07-24

From 2010-07-24