July 10, 2008
http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/Corporation/LGNL_Services/Leisure_and_culture/Libraries/City_of_London_libraries/barbican_lib.htm
http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/Corporation/LGNL_Services/Leisure_and_culture/Libraries/City_of_London_libraries/barbican_lib.htm
This was the first public library that we visited - and likely the only public library that we will visit as a class. The library is in the Barbican Centre, so they sometimes have problems with noise from the Centre disturbing their patrons. They try to make the best of it, though.
As the Barbican is an arts centre, they have done their best to incorporate the arts into their library. They have art exhibitions on display at the library entrance which is apparently very popular, as applicants face a two year waiting list to exhibit their art.
All of the employees that we met were very kind and good humored. Amanda Owens gave us a tour of the Children's Library, which is at the end of the Adult library. On our way there, we passed the Enquiry desk. We were told that they now have a self-issue service featuring RDIF technology. The gentleman said that it worked fairly well for books but not as well for electronic media.
The children's library was brightly decorated in primary colors. They had small stairs for sitting on, beanbag chairs for story time, and books alphabetically arranged in boxes on the floor for easy access. The children's library employs two full time and six part time employees. Since they're at the end of the adult library, they don't worry too much about being noisy. They have 24,000 items in stock, and 15,500 of those items are actually on the shelves. The others are in the basement. They cater from birth to age 14, and they progress from board books to picture books, under fives, first readers, stories 5+, 10+, and young teenage (12+). The young adult section is just outside the door in the adult section. They also have nonfiction and a small reference area. They recently shortened the shelving to help with both the lighting and with reachability.
She also showed us their audiovisual collection. They have books on CD and cassette (which they are phasing out), but they also have playaways, which are like MP3 players. They are fairly new, but they've been getting positive feedback about them.
There are no age restrictions on cards - they are available from birth. The books can be checked out for three weeks, although other items like CDs and DVDs are one week loans. Anything in the actual children's section is free. Children do not have to pay fines, but an adult who checks out a children's book on an adult ticket and does not return it on time would have to pay a fine. Children can check out up to eight books on their ticket.
This library hosts class visits from local schools. They also give out bulk loans of 40 books each to schools. Between three and four schools are frequent visitors, and they also receive visits from local nurseries and playgroups. In addition to books, they also have toys for little kids, and their storytimes include singing for younger children. Their programs enable area mothers to meet and talk together. They also have an outreach program, in which they send a librarian to an organization with staffing problems. One of the librarians also hosts reading groups for older children once a week for about 45 minutes. She has about 8 children between the ages of 10-14 that regularly attend. Their group shadows the Carnegie Medal and reads books that are short-listed for the award. Between all of their visits, they maintain a pretty fixed schedule.
In addition to their visits and groups, they also have a regular Saturday event, which could be anything from crafts to puppets to author visits. They last about an hour. They also hold Children's Book Week the first full week of October, during which they have a program of events, and World Book Day, which is the first Thursday in March.
Ms. Owens also discussed Book Start, which is a government funded initiative that strives to give every child in the country three packs of free books before the age of five. The first pack is given to children between the ages of 0-18 months (2 free books, a rhyme sheet, and booklets for parents), the second to children between 18-30 months (coloring books and crayons are included), and the third (a treasure chest with two picture books, coloring pencils, and a pencil sharpener) to those 36-48 months. The local libraries are responsible for distributing them. According to Ms. Owens, their library doesn't have very many babies in their area - only about 50 babies a year are born in London. They also have the Reading is Fundamental program, which is sponsored by Starbucks. Parents can choose a free book for their child after the event.
Like all children's libraries, they also have a summer reading program. Children read six books over the summer, and they are rewarded by going to the Mansion House for a ceremony at the end of the summer. This year's theme is sports because of the Olympics.
Ms. Owens believes that her library has an adequate budget for their population. We were told that the patrons of this library could also use the three branch libraries in the city of London with their card. Anyone who lives, works, or studies in their burrough can join, although the majority are those who work in London, as only eight or nine thousand people actually live in the city.
After they provided us with tea and biscuits (very polite of them, not to mention delicious), Liz Wells gave us a tour of the music library. It is one of the two largest public music libraries in London. As Barbican is an arts centre, the library decided to try and focus on developing a strong arts collection. They did not have much of a music library when they moved to the Barbican in the 1980's, so they had to build their collection from scratch. Therefore, their strengths lie in modern publications. Many of their patrons are students from the Guild Hall School of Music and Drama, which is also in the Barbican. They try to provide both academic materials as well as basic materials for casual users.
They have a very substantial CD collection - over sixteen and a half thousand CDs covering as wide a range of music as possible and organized by genre. The genres include classical, jazz, pop, film, country, and world. In addition to genre organization, they are more specifically organized by composer, performer/group, and male and female performers. They use this simple classification system to prevent genre arguments with their patrons. They add 60 or 70 CDs each month, and they have to continuously weed their collection to make space. Ms. Wells stressed that it was a living collection, not an archive. It costs 40 pence to borrow a CD for one week and £2.75 for a DVD. It is much harder for them to get people to check out DVDs, and the librarians want them to lower the rates, especially since they are more expensive than online rentals. There has also been a drop off in the number of CD loans due to the other ways of getting music that have developed in recent years.
Ms. Wells also showed us some of the online resources available for her musical patrons. Whomever has a library card can access these resources wherever they are. The listening materials available on Naxos Music Library doubles their collection, and Oxford Music Online gives patrons access to the twenty volumes of the Grove Dictionary of Music in a much more searchable format than its text counterpart (which the library also owns). Ms. Wells is hoping to add more online resources in the future, as they seem to be very popular.
The text part of the library contains periodicals, conducting resources, musicals and libretti, sacred music, pop and rock music, composer biographies, and many other resources. The resources are classified by Dewey, and they recently jumped from Dewey 18 to Dewey 22, making them change all of their catalog entries and spine labels. They also have an electric piano. Its intended use was for people to try a piece of music before they checked it out, but many patrons use it for daily practice, so much so that they have to have a booking system.
The two qualified music librarians on staff do most of the stock selection, and they use many of the journals in their collection to help them. They also rely on other staff to fill gaps in interest as well as comments from customers.
In addition to their other resources, they have 15,000 printed scores in their collection. Unlike the CD collection, they hang on to less popular items, as there are few collections of printed music, and much of the music is out of print and would be hard to replace. The printed music scores are not catalogued according to Dewey. Instead, they use a scheme designed by McColvin and Reeves in the 1930's and classify it according to how it is performed. The vocal music section begins with scores for one voice and progresses to duets, trios, choral, and eventually opera. The instrumental music has a section for each instrument and then progresses to chamber and orchestral scores. The library does not buy orchestral parts or multiple sets for choirs, however, but they can acquire them for patrons through their organization of music librarians. All of their scores are hardbound to make them more durable: even though it is expensive, it greatly extends the life of the score.
Amazingly, they have indexed all of the songs in their anthology volumes, and this index is available on their website. Other libraries also use their index of over 60,000 entries. Ms. Wells also said that they have to do quite a lot of original cataloging for their collection.
In addition to their text resources, the library also has listening booths. A patron does not have to pay for them, but he or she does have to surrender a piece of ID in order to get headphones (the headphones are expensive). There are six CD booths, one for cassettes, and one for LPs. They still have some LPs due to a project in the UK that was started in the 1970's. They wanted there to be a networked archive - an interlending system for recordings - but it has since broken down due to staffing and other issues. This library was responsible for classical composers C-D, jazz performers P-R, and folk music from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states.
Although we weren't scheduled to tour the main lending library, Jonathan Gibbs from IT kindly offered to give us a quick run-down. They have a computer area that they limit to one hour per day with one renewal to prevent people from running businesses from the library. He showed us their DVD collection and explained how they were gradually phasing out VHS tapes. He also talked about the architecture and how they had to work around the lift pillars, the poor lighting, and the noise from the Centre. They do have some of their fiction section by genre, but most of it is organized by author A-Z.
Mr. Gibbs was also nice enough to demonstrate their new RDIF system. They don't have the system installed in the cards, but they do have the barcode information in each book. The self checkout has an RDIF reader in it that will check each book out as it is stacked on a counter (it even reads through other books). Adults can check out 12 items each. Interestingly, you have to use your library card to return the books (apparently book drops are a terrorist threat).
As the Barbican is an arts centre, they have done their best to incorporate the arts into their library. They have art exhibitions on display at the library entrance which is apparently very popular, as applicants face a two year waiting list to exhibit their art.
All of the employees that we met were very kind and good humored. Amanda Owens gave us a tour of the Children's Library, which is at the end of the Adult library. On our way there, we passed the Enquiry desk. We were told that they now have a self-issue service featuring RDIF technology. The gentleman said that it worked fairly well for books but not as well for electronic media.
The children's library was brightly decorated in primary colors. They had small stairs for sitting on, beanbag chairs for story time, and books alphabetically arranged in boxes on the floor for easy access. The children's library employs two full time and six part time employees. Since they're at the end of the adult library, they don't worry too much about being noisy. They have 24,000 items in stock, and 15,500 of those items are actually on the shelves. The others are in the basement. They cater from birth to age 14, and they progress from board books to picture books, under fives, first readers, stories 5+, 10+, and young teenage (12+). The young adult section is just outside the door in the adult section. They also have nonfiction and a small reference area. They recently shortened the shelving to help with both the lighting and with reachability.
She also showed us their audiovisual collection. They have books on CD and cassette (which they are phasing out), but they also have playaways, which are like MP3 players. They are fairly new, but they've been getting positive feedback about them.
There are no age restrictions on cards - they are available from birth. The books can be checked out for three weeks, although other items like CDs and DVDs are one week loans. Anything in the actual children's section is free. Children do not have to pay fines, but an adult who checks out a children's book on an adult ticket and does not return it on time would have to pay a fine. Children can check out up to eight books on their ticket.
This library hosts class visits from local schools. They also give out bulk loans of 40 books each to schools. Between three and four schools are frequent visitors, and they also receive visits from local nurseries and playgroups. In addition to books, they also have toys for little kids, and their storytimes include singing for younger children. Their programs enable area mothers to meet and talk together. They also have an outreach program, in which they send a librarian to an organization with staffing problems. One of the librarians also hosts reading groups for older children once a week for about 45 minutes. She has about 8 children between the ages of 10-14 that regularly attend. Their group shadows the Carnegie Medal and reads books that are short-listed for the award. Between all of their visits, they maintain a pretty fixed schedule.
In addition to their visits and groups, they also have a regular Saturday event, which could be anything from crafts to puppets to author visits. They last about an hour. They also hold Children's Book Week the first full week of October, during which they have a program of events, and World Book Day, which is the first Thursday in March.
Ms. Owens also discussed Book Start, which is a government funded initiative that strives to give every child in the country three packs of free books before the age of five. The first pack is given to children between the ages of 0-18 months (2 free books, a rhyme sheet, and booklets for parents), the second to children between 18-30 months (coloring books and crayons are included), and the third (a treasure chest with two picture books, coloring pencils, and a pencil sharpener) to those 36-48 months. The local libraries are responsible for distributing them. According to Ms. Owens, their library doesn't have very many babies in their area - only about 50 babies a year are born in London. They also have the Reading is Fundamental program, which is sponsored by Starbucks. Parents can choose a free book for their child after the event.
Like all children's libraries, they also have a summer reading program. Children read six books over the summer, and they are rewarded by going to the Mansion House for a ceremony at the end of the summer. This year's theme is sports because of the Olympics.
Ms. Owens believes that her library has an adequate budget for their population. We were told that the patrons of this library could also use the three branch libraries in the city of London with their card. Anyone who lives, works, or studies in their burrough can join, although the majority are those who work in London, as only eight or nine thousand people actually live in the city.
After they provided us with tea and biscuits (very polite of them, not to mention delicious), Liz Wells gave us a tour of the music library. It is one of the two largest public music libraries in London. As Barbican is an arts centre, the library decided to try and focus on developing a strong arts collection. They did not have much of a music library when they moved to the Barbican in the 1980's, so they had to build their collection from scratch. Therefore, their strengths lie in modern publications. Many of their patrons are students from the Guild Hall School of Music and Drama, which is also in the Barbican. They try to provide both academic materials as well as basic materials for casual users.
They have a very substantial CD collection - over sixteen and a half thousand CDs covering as wide a range of music as possible and organized by genre. The genres include classical, jazz, pop, film, country, and world. In addition to genre organization, they are more specifically organized by composer, performer/group, and male and female performers. They use this simple classification system to prevent genre arguments with their patrons. They add 60 or 70 CDs each month, and they have to continuously weed their collection to make space. Ms. Wells stressed that it was a living collection, not an archive. It costs 40 pence to borrow a CD for one week and £2.75 for a DVD. It is much harder for them to get people to check out DVDs, and the librarians want them to lower the rates, especially since they are more expensive than online rentals. There has also been a drop off in the number of CD loans due to the other ways of getting music that have developed in recent years.
Ms. Wells also showed us some of the online resources available for her musical patrons. Whomever has a library card can access these resources wherever they are. The listening materials available on Naxos Music Library doubles their collection, and Oxford Music Online gives patrons access to the twenty volumes of the Grove Dictionary of Music in a much more searchable format than its text counterpart (which the library also owns). Ms. Wells is hoping to add more online resources in the future, as they seem to be very popular.
The text part of the library contains periodicals, conducting resources, musicals and libretti, sacred music, pop and rock music, composer biographies, and many other resources. The resources are classified by Dewey, and they recently jumped from Dewey 18 to Dewey 22, making them change all of their catalog entries and spine labels. They also have an electric piano. Its intended use was for people to try a piece of music before they checked it out, but many patrons use it for daily practice, so much so that they have to have a booking system.
The two qualified music librarians on staff do most of the stock selection, and they use many of the journals in their collection to help them. They also rely on other staff to fill gaps in interest as well as comments from customers.
In addition to their other resources, they have 15,000 printed scores in their collection. Unlike the CD collection, they hang on to less popular items, as there are few collections of printed music, and much of the music is out of print and would be hard to replace. The printed music scores are not catalogued according to Dewey. Instead, they use a scheme designed by McColvin and Reeves in the 1930's and classify it according to how it is performed. The vocal music section begins with scores for one voice and progresses to duets, trios, choral, and eventually opera. The instrumental music has a section for each instrument and then progresses to chamber and orchestral scores. The library does not buy orchestral parts or multiple sets for choirs, however, but they can acquire them for patrons through their organization of music librarians. All of their scores are hardbound to make them more durable: even though it is expensive, it greatly extends the life of the score.
Amazingly, they have indexed all of the songs in their anthology volumes, and this index is available on their website. Other libraries also use their index of over 60,000 entries. Ms. Wells also said that they have to do quite a lot of original cataloging for their collection.
In addition to their text resources, the library also has listening booths. A patron does not have to pay for them, but he or she does have to surrender a piece of ID in order to get headphones (the headphones are expensive). There are six CD booths, one for cassettes, and one for LPs. They still have some LPs due to a project in the UK that was started in the 1970's. They wanted there to be a networked archive - an interlending system for recordings - but it has since broken down due to staffing and other issues. This library was responsible for classical composers C-D, jazz performers P-R, and folk music from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states.
Although we weren't scheduled to tour the main lending library, Jonathan Gibbs from IT kindly offered to give us a quick run-down. They have a computer area that they limit to one hour per day with one renewal to prevent people from running businesses from the library. He showed us their DVD collection and explained how they were gradually phasing out VHS tapes. He also talked about the architecture and how they had to work around the lift pillars, the poor lighting, and the noise from the Centre. They do have some of their fiction section by genre, but most of it is organized by author A-Z.
Mr. Gibbs was also nice enough to demonstrate their new RDIF system. They don't have the system installed in the cards, but they do have the barcode information in each book. The self checkout has an RDIF reader in it that will check each book out as it is stacked on a counter (it even reads through other books). Adults can check out 12 items each. Interestingly, you have to use your library card to return the books (apparently book drops are a terrorist threat).
Mr. Gibbs showing off their new technology:
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