The British Library

• Kevin and Professor Welsh in front of a giant atlas
  

July 8, 2008
http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/whatson/exhibitions/ritblat/ritblat.html

As we waited for our tour guide to arrive, our class was able to look at "Turning the Pages", a rather large digital touch screen that allows people to look at old and valuable manuscripts without compromising them. In addition to being able to turn the pages with one's finger, one can also zoom in and out and rotate the book to examine it from a different angle. I was able to look at William Blake's journal. His sketches were amazing.

Our tour guide was Kevin, a donations officer who has been working at the British Library for 25 years. The library building that we were in had just turned 10 years old. It is a working library that also happens to include exhibitions and gift shops. Altogether, they have around 2,300 staff. Kevin said that the library had three legal obligations: to acquire the entire national bibliographic output within one month of publication; to keep that archive forever; and to make that collection available to all. Their professional obligation is to compile a national bibliography, among other things.

Kevin explained how the library building itself was structured to protect the millions of valuable books and other stock. They store the collection over 75 feet below the forecourt, and there are smoke ventilators that can be broken in case of a fire. They have over 35 million items down there.

He also told us how the current library came to be. Up until 1961, the British Museum was the custodian of the National Collection, but then it was decided to separate the artifacts from the book collection. In 1973, land was purchased from the British Railways, and a separate organization called the British Library was created. Around 1980, all of the records came under one roof, and the library officially opened on June 25, 1998 after what Kevin called the largest move in history.

Kevin led us past busts of the library's "founding fathers", one of which was Sir Hans Sloane. Although Sloane was many things (a traveller and an academic, among others), he is probably best known for bringing chocolate to the Western hemisphere. He was also a collector of books, and he wanted knowledge to be shared, so he shared his library and left his collection to the nation. The government acquired Montagu House for his books in 1753 (which is now the British Museum). The other busts represent men who had also donated large collections. He also pointed out the decorative tapestry on one of the side walls. This massive work weighs 220 pounds and had to be attached with industrial strength Velcro. In addition to its aesthetic function, the tapestry also has a practical function - it absorbs some of the sound that echoes around the front entrance.

Our next stop was a quick look at the Library's Philatelic Collection, which consists of many rare and valuable stamps - over 8 million items. The most valuable stamp in their collection is a Victorian Stamp. It was a commemorative stamp for a party in 1847, but it was printed with incorrect wording, so it was withdrawn. There are only 14 in existence, and this library has two of them.

We also looked at a model of the library. Kevin pointed out its boatlike shape (the architect had been in the Royal Navy in the second World War), and he showed us where the books were stored underground in a cut-out cross-section. He also told us about the water management system, as water is far more dangerous to books than fire - water causes rot. They have industrial freezers in warehouses as a contingency plan in case the books get wet.

Only about 60% of the collection is actually in London. There are a total of 170 million items, which equates to about 800 miles of shelving, and it grows eight miles a year. Despite these enormous numbers, it still isn't the largest lending library in the world. That honor belongs to Moscow. The Library of Congress is the second largest, and this library is the third.

Due to the location of the stacks, there is no shelf browsing, and their integrated catalog is not subject indexed. Instead, a patron or "reader" fills out a paper-free application and goes through an interview, where a physical check of the person's identification documents is performed. Then they present the person with a pass (also called a 'ticket' or 'card'), which grants them access to all material and reading rooms. The interviewer also asks the person what he or she is researching so that they can guide them to the appropriate place. Even though the books are not arranged by subject and are not subject indexed, the reading rooms are arranged by subject so that patrons can receive assistance from specialized reference librarians. As Kevin wittily said, in the British Library there are eight steps to get to the books (but only seven steps to get to Heaven in traditional Catholicism).

After a person has requested his or her books, the machine prints two tickets to verify the requests. People with trolleys down in the basements collect the books that correspond to the tickets. When they remove a book from the shelf, they replace it with the corresponding ticket in an orange jacket. The other ticket goes in the book. They have a national standard that holds them to deliver the books within an hour and ten minutes of its being requested (and a person can request up to ten items). Through bar code scans, the automated system monitors every book off the shelves. A worker scans the basket and the code for the location of the reader, and the machine rolls it out to wherever the reader is. All told, there are four systems working together to get the books to the readers. It is quite an amazing system.

The British Library uses the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules and cooperates with the Library of Congress, as English is, after all, a very popular language. However, since "Americans can't spell", the spelling differences have to be taken into account in the catalog. (Poor, poor letter 'u'. I should probably type 'catalogue' instead.) Unlike most libraries, they use the size classification system to maximize space. They use a grid reference (building, location, floor, and quadrant) to locate their books.

After the publisher sends them a new item, they put a minimum of three dye stamps in each monograph and double check the books they receive against the list of books that have been published. Kevin said that publishers are usually very good about sending books, but sometimes they do get lost in the post. The book then goes off to cataloging. If they think the book can be categorized as "high usage", then the book will be placed in the London collection. If not, it goes to Yorkshire or elsewhere. A patron or reader cannot take books out of this library, although they can copy some pages within copyright.

Despite being the national library of Britain, they do have a foreign language section - 35% of their users are overseas researchers, making it the most popular national library in the world. They even have curators who speak most languages.

Next we stopped by King George III's personal collection: 90,000 volumes displayed in a glass tower of books. He left in his will that the collection had to be on display and that it had to be used.

Up the lift, we encountered a book the size of a table - the Klencke Atlas (1660), one of the biggest books in the world. Kevin used this book as an example to tell us about conservation. They strive for minimal intervention, as covers also tell a story. He explained that after someone purchased a book, they then had to go to a binder, and the binding would be whatever quality they could pay for (as this atlas belonged to the King, it was very fine indeed).

Kevin also discussed the digital aspect of librarianship. He speculated that 40% of published material would be digital in 2020. At the British Library, 75,000 pages are digitalized each day. However, although publishers are good about sending monographs, they have a problem with digital files, as they are worried about their copyright. How can they ensure that only one person is reading their digital file at a time? There are also, of course, issues of changing formats.

The British Library has a budget of 120 million pounds a year. They receive 100 million from the government and generate the rest by selling their catalog, through their inter-library lending service, and through licensing. They spend quite a lot of their budget on people and service. Some of the money is also naturally spent on preservation. This is particularly a pressing issue now, as in the 18th century publishers switched to using wood pulp, which rots.

Our tour ended in an exhibition room which displayed many wondrous ancient texts beneath glass - I saw Shakespeare's first folio, Beowulf, the Codex Sinaticus (a 1700 year old Greek New Testament), the Gutenberg bible, religious texts from many of the world's faiths, the Magna Carta, works penned by the hands of Jane Austen and Sylvia Plath, original scores of Beethoven, Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, and the Beatles...it was beyond words, standing next to the actual works that have shaped the centuries.