July 15, 2008
http://www.vam.ac.uk/nal/
http://www.vam.ac.uk/nal/
This national library is housed in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Francis Warrel, who does access and acquisitions work, began our tour of the library. There are two public rooms of the library, and one is a silent reading room. Each room has a galley running along the top of it. Through the reading room is a room housing the computers (which have the library catalogs as well as a database of museum objects) and the main counter service. Usually two or three staff members man the counter. They also supervise the special collection items. That room also houses copiers and a camera scan which is used for books dated before 1930 and journals before 1900 (materials that are too delicate to be placed in a copier).
A reader can register for three years or three months. Anyone wishing to access special collections needs a reference. Otherwise, ID like a passport will suffice.
Next we were shown into the Marshalling Area (a closed access area). The retrieval team leader is stationed there; the library staff members retrieve books for readers every hour on the half hour. The requests have to be made on triplicate slips, and each reader has a seat number to which a slip is delivered when the items are ready to be picked up at the desk. Their system has been in place since 1899, which was when the library moved to its present location. Members of staff can borrow up to 20 items for three months, but those items must remain in the building.
We followed our guide up the stairs to the periodicals stacks. They have 8,000 titles of periodicals, 2,000 of which are still current. They are mainly hard copies that were bound for preservation and security, but they recently stopped binding a large proportion of them for a couple of reasons. Some of their periodicals are used in exhibitions, and also budget restraints have led them to restrict the number of periodicals that they choose to bind. The oldest periodicals in their collection date back to the Victorian era.
We then went to the second floor mezzanine. Ms. Warrel explained that this all used to be one big gallery, but now it is used for storage. Locked cupboards in this area contain some of the special collections. There are twenty sets of keys that correspond with the cupboards, which contain medieval manuscripts, early examples of printing from the 15th and 16th centuries, artists' books, and correspondence. These cupboards also house the John Forster collection. Forster was a friend of Dickens as well as a critic and historian who donated his collection (which includes some of Shakespeare's first folios and original proofs of most of Dickens' novels) to them.
The museum was founded in 1857 after the Great Exhibition of 1851. The library itself was founded in 1837 at Sommerset House, where it was part of a school of design, so most of its collection was then trade-based. It relocated to the museum, where it continued to expand its collection.
There is a third room like the two main rooms, but this room is mainly storage. It will be made into a 20th century gallery space in about seven years. The top part of this room still houses books, among them much material from 1899, when the library was in its first stages. This part is also one of the few places where the collection is grouped by subject. They've utilized their space so well that even the boiler cupboards house books. (They also store less requested materials in the crypt area under the museum.)
When a member of our class asked about restoration, we were told that this library sadly does not have a restoration budget, so only key items are restored.
We were then taken into another staff area, which contained a small staff library, the offsite access section, and the cataloging section. They have a large back log of items to be catalogued, but these items can be retrieved as soon as they are acquired. She also showed us where acquisitions come in, which is also where they store gift materials and items from exchange programs that they have with other institutions that still need to be processed.
On the third floor is where they store more of their special collections. They have 18th century exhibition and sale catalogs, both the main ones from Britain and also from abroad, organized by country, gallery, and year (although later ones have been organized by size instead). Sixty percent of these are in a foreign language, mainly German, French, Chinese, or Japanese.
Next, another woman named Jennie Farmer let us look at some of the books from different parts of their collection. She showed us a journal penned and illustrated by Henry Cole, the first director of the museum, to demonstrate their efforts to preserve their own institution's history. She also had laid out a universal catalog of books on art (a grand idea started by the Victorians that now seems a little ridiculous), an early printed book from around 1499, historic collections of trade literature (such as a book on elevator cars from Cleveland, Ohio), a priced sale catalog (this example was rare because someone wrote in what the lots actually went for), a book of stenciled fashion prints, and Islamic bindings (sadly the books within them were lost, but the bindings were beautiful). Also on the table were Jonathan Swift's own copies of Gulliver's Travels, a facsimile of da Vinci's sketchbooks, the corrected proof of David Copperfield, and a wide range of Artists' Books (one called 'Killing' was filled entirely with rabbit pelts; another was a folding alphabet book, another consisted of poems and illustrations about Detroit, while still another was made out of an old school desk). There is a book conservation department in the museum, but the only books that receive attention are those going on loan or those going on display. Therefore she demonstrated how they tried to preserve books in a cost-efficient manner: by putting them in phase boxes, dust jackets, envelopes, and plastic covers, and by making facsimiles of delicate items. She also showed how collections of letters were once pasted into books, but now ideally they would like to place each letter in plastic and put them into binders with each letter having its own manuscript number so that people can read single letters without touching them. Another item on display was the magazine Vogue in various forms - in bound form, as an individual magazine, and in microfiche form. It was absolutely amazing to look at and touch these items. I only wish that they could receive more funding to preserve their amazing collection.
A reader can register for three years or three months. Anyone wishing to access special collections needs a reference. Otherwise, ID like a passport will suffice.
Next we were shown into the Marshalling Area (a closed access area). The retrieval team leader is stationed there; the library staff members retrieve books for readers every hour on the half hour. The requests have to be made on triplicate slips, and each reader has a seat number to which a slip is delivered when the items are ready to be picked up at the desk. Their system has been in place since 1899, which was when the library moved to its present location. Members of staff can borrow up to 20 items for three months, but those items must remain in the building.
We followed our guide up the stairs to the periodicals stacks. They have 8,000 titles of periodicals, 2,000 of which are still current. They are mainly hard copies that were bound for preservation and security, but they recently stopped binding a large proportion of them for a couple of reasons. Some of their periodicals are used in exhibitions, and also budget restraints have led them to restrict the number of periodicals that they choose to bind. The oldest periodicals in their collection date back to the Victorian era.
We then went to the second floor mezzanine. Ms. Warrel explained that this all used to be one big gallery, but now it is used for storage. Locked cupboards in this area contain some of the special collections. There are twenty sets of keys that correspond with the cupboards, which contain medieval manuscripts, early examples of printing from the 15th and 16th centuries, artists' books, and correspondence. These cupboards also house the John Forster collection. Forster was a friend of Dickens as well as a critic and historian who donated his collection (which includes some of Shakespeare's first folios and original proofs of most of Dickens' novels) to them.
The museum was founded in 1857 after the Great Exhibition of 1851. The library itself was founded in 1837 at Sommerset House, where it was part of a school of design, so most of its collection was then trade-based. It relocated to the museum, where it continued to expand its collection.
There is a third room like the two main rooms, but this room is mainly storage. It will be made into a 20th century gallery space in about seven years. The top part of this room still houses books, among them much material from 1899, when the library was in its first stages. This part is also one of the few places where the collection is grouped by subject. They've utilized their space so well that even the boiler cupboards house books. (They also store less requested materials in the crypt area under the museum.)
When a member of our class asked about restoration, we were told that this library sadly does not have a restoration budget, so only key items are restored.
We were then taken into another staff area, which contained a small staff library, the offsite access section, and the cataloging section. They have a large back log of items to be catalogued, but these items can be retrieved as soon as they are acquired. She also showed us where acquisitions come in, which is also where they store gift materials and items from exchange programs that they have with other institutions that still need to be processed.
On the third floor is where they store more of their special collections. They have 18th century exhibition and sale catalogs, both the main ones from Britain and also from abroad, organized by country, gallery, and year (although later ones have been organized by size instead). Sixty percent of these are in a foreign language, mainly German, French, Chinese, or Japanese.
Next, another woman named Jennie Farmer let us look at some of the books from different parts of their collection. She showed us a journal penned and illustrated by Henry Cole, the first director of the museum, to demonstrate their efforts to preserve their own institution's history. She also had laid out a universal catalog of books on art (a grand idea started by the Victorians that now seems a little ridiculous), an early printed book from around 1499, historic collections of trade literature (such as a book on elevator cars from Cleveland, Ohio), a priced sale catalog (this example was rare because someone wrote in what the lots actually went for), a book of stenciled fashion prints, and Islamic bindings (sadly the books within them were lost, but the bindings were beautiful). Also on the table were Jonathan Swift's own copies of Gulliver's Travels, a facsimile of da Vinci's sketchbooks, the corrected proof of David Copperfield, and a wide range of Artists' Books (one called 'Killing' was filled entirely with rabbit pelts; another was a folding alphabet book, another consisted of poems and illustrations about Detroit, while still another was made out of an old school desk). There is a book conservation department in the museum, but the only books that receive attention are those going on loan or those going on display. Therefore she demonstrated how they tried to preserve books in a cost-efficient manner: by putting them in phase boxes, dust jackets, envelopes, and plastic covers, and by making facsimiles of delicate items. She also showed how collections of letters were once pasted into books, but now ideally they would like to place each letter in plastic and put them into binders with each letter having its own manuscript number so that people can read single letters without touching them. Another item on display was the magazine Vogue in various forms - in bound form, as an individual magazine, and in microfiche form. It was absolutely amazing to look at and touch these items. I only wish that they could receive more funding to preserve their amazing collection.
Gulliver's Travels:
David Copperfield:
A book made out of an old desk:
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