The British Library

The British Library is a.k.a. the National Library of the UK. There are three areas of acquisition: acquire, keep, make accessible. The library’s common purpose is to provide leadership in the library community. They are required to acquire and maintain the national catalog. The books are kept below ground. The entire book collection covers a total subterranean block. It includes four floors and about thirty-five million books. There are actually four buildings in London that contain the entirety of the books/materials for the British Library. Currently forty percent of the collection is housed at the library, whilst sixty percent is housed in Yorkshire. Essentially, there are about one hundred and eighty-five million titles altogether in the collection. This covers eight to nine miles. Each year the library receives eight thousand books per day, therefore eight miles of shelving a year needs to be added for expansion. The British law dictates that the library keeps everything, no ascension/weeding here folks!

The Founding Fathers of the British Library:

Sir Hans Sloane, physician, traveler, scholar, believed that knowledge should be shared. He is most known for developing choline, an anti-malarial medicine. I remember taking this when I went to French Guyana in 1986. Anyhow, the good doctor left his private library to the nation via the Montagues and Russells, the founding families of the British Museum in 1753. Sloane is also renowned for bringing chocolate from the Americas to Europe. Yum, my savior!

Another notable founding father was Sir Robert Cotton. He left Cambridge in 1510, at the prime age of twenty-two, and amassed the entire countries monastic collection. You see Henry the VIII was cleaning house and church at the time, discarding those monastic treasures. Eventually, Cotton donated ninety percent of his collection to the British Library by means of the British Museum.

The librarian tour guide brought us into a room where there is the automated book retrieval system (ABRS). It is on this machine that books are retrieved from the closed shelves below ground. Because space is at a premium this library stores books according to size, therefore does not use the Dewey Decimal system or Library of Congress Classification System. So on the spine of every book is a location mark. Also there is a two card system used, one is placed in the book retrieved and the other is used as a shelf marker.

Next we went past the Glass Tower of books. It contains the personal collection of King George III. There are sixty thousand items in this collection. He wanted them to all be seen therefore they’re housed behind clear glass panels. Nearby is the biggest book in his collection, the 1660 Dutch atlas named the Klenche Atlas. It is definitely the biggest book that I’ve ever seen, and it, too, is displayed under class.

Other well-known items on display in the British Library are the Codex Sinaiticus (@1,700 years old), the Gutenberg Bible, and the Magna Carta. On the ground floor is a gallery with rotating exhibits. I took in the Science Fiction exhibit. There were a lot of surprises for me. My previous view of the Science Fiction genre was quite narrow, for instance I never would have thought to put Anthony Burgess’ Clockwork Orange in the SciFi genre.

Barbican Library

Barbican Library is one of five city of London libraries. It was opened in 1964 as a full lending service library. Currently, it serves 11,000 residents at Barbican Center and has an overall population of 350,000 people being served. It is busiest at lunch and is opened every day except Sunday. They maintain a 24 hour, seven days a week online presence for the at home users. The majority of users are from twelve to forty-five years old and mostly males. Nearby there is a girls’ school, and a music school.

Outside of the library’s entrance there is an automated check-in kiosk. All library materials have RFID (Radio frequency-identification) stickers so that they can be checked out or checked in by the users. Also, there is an automated check out system used for DVDs and CDs as well. Inside the library near the “Enquiries” desk is another automated self-serve check-out table. It’s quite interesting in how it works. The user places a stack of books on a designated area, and a list of those books appears on the screen directly above. After pressing a series of buttons, the user walks out of the library with his or her bounty in tow.

Next to the self-service desk is a printer platform. A user can send pages to be printed to the printer and pay for the copies from a pre-loaded library card. Nearby it a shelf containing requested books, RFID labeled and ready for pick up. To the left is the DVD collection that includes movies, T.V. shows, and recently added Blue Ray. There is a flat rate rental fee of 2.75 pounds per week. The items can be renewed and paid for again.

Audio-books and MP3 players can be rented free of charge. There are also e-audio in downloadable form for users at home. So far there are no Kindle services.

The “Libraries Online” service provides Internet access to users with the limit of two-hour blocks. The computers are loaded with Microsoft Office software and a webcam. In the same space is you’ll find the “London Collection” older books that have been RFID tagged and can be checked out. The oldest one in the collection is from 1742. Outrageous, can you imagine this being an option at a library in the states?

Most surprising to me was the music section of the library. This might be due to the fact that London has a large population of musicians and many more music enthusiasts. The music library began in 1983 and is financially supported by the outside community. The other large music library is at Westminster Library. Entering this section of the library you’ll find an exhibition area. The theme changes but this time it is of pop record covers e.g. Missing Persons from the 1980s.

There are two keyboards that users could use to learn to play or try out sheet music before checking it out, earphones provided of course. Available for check out is Newsletters/Journals, sheet music, music periodicals, and musician biographies/autobiographies. Reference books are available such as the Dictionary of music by notes, British Hit Singles & Albums, and the Rare Record Price Guide 2010. The book collection covers 9,000 books. Vendors provide binding for sheet music books to promote their longevity.

There is an extensive CD collection. It does cost 3 pounds to rent CDs however it is not based on the amount of items checked out. The library loans out boxed sets e.g. the Grateful Dead Trilogy. Located here is also a self-service desk as every items has RFID. Another intriguing project is the “unsigned London” project. This is where unsigned, or bands without a contract, donate a couple copies of their CDs to the library to be checked out by users. What great publicity!

Saint Paul's Cathedral Library

Monday, July 4th

Saint Paul's Cathedral's librarian is Joe Wisdom. Today he led us on a tour up into the triforum level of the cathedral where the library is housed. In 1666, London was struck by the Great Fire and the cathedral sustained a bit of damage. Again during WWII, the cathedral was under attack by Hitler's blitzkrieg and survived that assault thanks to the many volunteers that ensured the roof wouldn't catch on fire. During that time the library had been moved to a safer location, a cave in northern Wales. Then the collection was returned after the war.

By 1706 the library's collection was mostly completed. A former bishop had donated his personal library of nearly 2,000 books. In mid-nineteenth century, the librarian by the name of Simpson created a more universal library therefore the library ceased to be an entirely theological library. Now the ascension policy is to have books about religion to be a priority, followed by books about St. Paul's cathedral.

Today's users come to use the library for a variety of reasons. Lately there has been a novelist who is writing a book that spans the time from the mid-seventeenth century to the Blitzkrieg of WWII. Another visitor was a researcher of early music. There has also been a researcher of Donne's sermons. Last but not least, there are those researchers of genealogy who stop by from time to time.