Daytrip to Stonehenge & Bath

Today we took a day trip by coach (bus) to Stonehenge. It took about two and a half hours to drive from South London to Stonehenge. The terrain was much more hilly than I had expected it to be. Near the Stonehenge site there were nearby burial mounds. Of course for the sheep grazing this area they were totally oblivious to anything but those tender shoots of grass. Stonehenge was a fascinating site even though there was a moderate number of tourists, me included. You could hear various languages being spoken such as American English, French, German, Russian, Chinese and Japanese. It sprinkled off and on and it was a bit blowy.

The next stop was Bath, which is situated within a bowl of conjoining hills. It is somewhat of a wooded area, surrounded by pastureland and many happy sheep. Beth and I hooked up to ramble about. First we made a stop at an Indian restaurant, on the second story that overlooked a chocolate shop in the foreground and the Bath Abbey in the background. While having our meal, we watched a chocolate making class going on and tourists milling in and out of the abbey.

The first stop after the Indian restaurant was Minerva Chocolate Shop for some specialty chocolates for later in the day. Next we went into the National Trust store and bought some British goods. After that we paid the fee to explore the interior of the Bath Abbey. Inside there were beautiful stained glass windows, an impressive pipe organ, and grave plaques upon the floor and walls.

Once back on the street we made our way up to the Jane Austen Center. Seeing as I don’t have much patience reading through romance novels, I have to admit that I don’t remember actually reading any of her works. Although I do remember watching movies based on them. Besides, I am much more of a Virginia Woolf follower than an Jane Austen follower (Orlando, A Room of One’s Own, and “The Mark on the Wall.”)

Shortly thereafter, Beth and I made our way over to what was once known as the Costume Museum and is now called the Fashion Museum. The collection had a large display of wedding gowns from the last two hundred years, women’s clothing from various eras, and some torture devices such as corsets and high heeled shoes.

After that museum we made our way back to where the bus was to pick us up. We didn’t go into the Roman baths because there were huge crowds and we ran out of time. We arrived right on time to load the bus, but there was no bus. The entire group was milling about waiting for the bus, but still no bus. Then the sky was darkening and wind started blowing towards us. Suddenly, the sky opened up as did our umbrellas and we were experiencing a deluge. Ah, Britain in the summer! Five of us made an umbrella huddle, but the angle of the rain got our legs and shoes soaking wet. Finally, the bus arrived twenty minutes late. Everyone was in a somber mood, feeling damp and cold. Fortunately, Beth whipped out the bag of chocolates to soothe our spirits. Closer to London we hit stop and go traffic. It was a very long and uncomfortable ride back. C’est la vie!!!

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.

Exploring the Neighborhood & Camden Town

I woke up at 6 a.m. and there was a light grey sky. I went into the common kitchen area for my routine coffee and breakfast making to find it raining. I read a bit from the Kindle The Map that Changed the World by Simon Winchester. It’s finally getting interesting with all of the discussion of the Enlightenment and geology.

After reading a bit, I decided to hit the road, stop in at the local bakery, and explore the neighborhood. Once I made my purchases at the bakery I worked my way down past Waterloo Station and explored that street (name unknown). It started pissing rain again. Right…I’m in London after all and that is how the summers pass, right, with precipitation. I made a wonderful discovery on this street. I discovered Greensmiths, a foodies delight! For some unknown reason I’ve been having a really hard time finding eggs. Well, at this store they had eggs, a butcher, green olives from Sicily, interesting soups, and a most wonderful version of ginger beer. Foodies paradise!

By 9am I was in the courtyard meeting Jamie and suggested we hit Camden Town. I’m really not one for crowds and I figured that with the rain and it being a Thursday we wouldn’t have to navigate through the masses to check out the merchandise in the stalls. So off we went to Camden Town via the Tube at Waterloo. Once we arrived we were a bit early, so we decided to head off to a coffee shop. Near the coffee shop there was an eclectic shop that had a mirrored covered Buddha in the window. After our coffee I couldn’t resist taking a photo of the mirrored Buddha. It was awesome! The rain started up again but we wound our way through most of the stalls that were open. Too bad we weren’t hungry because it was truly a gourmands delight in there with meals ranging from the Morrocan Tagine, Chinese Dim Sum, to the Italian pizzas. ‘Twas Yummy smelling and looking. I naturally gravitated to the Indian stalls and found some beautifully colored bangels, scarves, and delightfully smelling sandalwood incense. By 11 a.m. I was pretty well saturated with shopping and rainwater so we made our way back to the metro station. Back at the dorms I said my good-byes to Jamie and wished her a bon voyage to France, went to unpack my goods, eat lunch and prepare for the journey to the British Library.

British Museum Archives & Exhibits

Our class took the Tube to the British Museum to get a tour of the archives. Stephanie Clarke is the sole archivist for the British Museum. This archive holds the historical and administrative records of the museum from 1753 to the 1960s detailing the museum’s workings.

On average there are thirty inquiries per week and five to six researchers per week, the majority are academics doing research.

Examples of the records kept there are from trustees, staff, finance, and exhibitions. The records are bound in books, and the indexes are organized A-Z, page number and date. The archivist showed us an example of a book of bound letters, correspondences e.g. an archaeologists requesting money from the museum, and the museum refusing to send any more money.

Along with the collection are about 5,000 photographs related to staff of the building, not the collection, because those are kept with the individual museum departments. The examples shown to us were from Frederick Short, a photographer, who took photos of Egyptian antiquities on exhibit in the early part of the twentieth century.

Also in the collection are applications for use of the reading room and archives. Notable letters have been placed in plastic sleeves from the likes of Helen Beatrice Potter, Rudyard Kipling, and Bram Stoker to name a few.

The only part of the collection that is being digitized is the microfilms up to WWII. All other digitizing projects are placed on hold due to the economy in the UK. Items that are born digital might be stored on Sharepoint. The archivist indicated that the IT Department was handling that aspect of the collection.

I never considered that the record keeping of the museum would develop into such interesting archives. Consider the basic correspondence between the person managing the reading room with some of the better known authors.

After leaving the archives I went to several exhibits in the British Museum. On the ground floor I saw an exhibit on the traditional dress of Oman. Nearby was an exhibit of jewelry from the Balkans. Part of the tradition is for people to wear in boxes that are part of the jewelry scripture from the Koran. The people thought that jewelry not only exhibited wealth and social standing, but kept away the evil eye.

Next I went up to see: Britain and Europe 800 BC – AD 43; Europe AD 300 – 1100; Medieval Europe AD 1050 – 1500; Europe 1400 – 1800; and Europe 1800 – 1900. I find it interesting to note that many items that we humans still use haven’t altered much in designed such a tweezers, combs, buckles, and we still adorn ourselves with jewelry.

I was also surprised to see how many different groups of people with their own language and culture invaded/migrated to different areas of Europe, brought with them their favored possessions and adopted new ones in their new homes.

Around the Medieval sections of the exhibit there were new additions from recently discovered hoards in England. There was even a web site posted for people to report their discoveries www.find.org.uk

My question is sense the discoveries are deemed to belong to England how many people aren’t reported what they have unearthed?

By two o’clock my mind was completely saturated with everything that I’d read and seen. It was time to go.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

A couple of us British Studies Program students made it over to Theatre Royal Haymarket to watch this production. What a great production! Loads of chuckles kept the endorphins high!

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.