The British Library

 On Friday, June 21, our group met early and headed off to see one of the most anticipated sites of our tour, the British Library. After convening in the lobby and depositing our bags in the locker room, our guide, Hedley Sutton, escorted us upstairs to a Reading Room in order to provide us with a lecture on the history and resources of the British Library. Mr. Sutton has been in employment at the British Museum for 42 years, and was accompanied today by his co-worker Crystal, who joined the library in 2019. 

Mr. Sutton started by providing background on the library itself. The current collection is roughly 170million items of various natures, with new items added daily. The British Library is a National Library and works similar to the Library of Congress in that it receives copies of everything published in Britain, within certain parameters. The collection runs the gamut of media forms, however does not include film. 

The British Library marks its start in 1753, with Sir Hans Sloane, a wealthy bibliophile and collector, bequeathed his considerable collection to the British Nation upon his death. This lead to Parliament passing an act to create the British Museum. As the library collection of this museum grew, the library became a separate entity, and formed the British Library. 

The modern building of the British Library was opened in 1998 by Queen Elizabeth II. This building contains 4 storage basements underground and multiple floors above ground. Despite this, as the collection has continued to grow, space is limited and growth constrained by being surrounded by other structures. A storage facility has been created in Yorkshire, with both the ability to grow as well as the ability to bring resources in overnight as needed. 

Staff of the library is roughly 1,100 persons, including everyone from the Director to the security teams, both in London and Yorkshire. Some of the library staff teams include the language specialists, the community engagement team, the international team, and conservation. Additionally, the British Library works with other organizations, both in England and abroad, on various projects. Sometimes this includes digitization of at risk materials. 

Mr. Sutton wrapped up his part of the tour with allowing us to view and photograph a few key items selected from the collection. First, a report from the British East India Company recounting the death of Napoleon Bonaparte; this document acts as a burial certificate. Second, a ship's log (one of thousands in the collection) from the 1750's, containing a fine line drawing. Third, a Gawker's Gazette, which was a compilation of entertaining materials created by those aboard the Gawker, printed by lithograph and bound for the crew. The fourth and final item of this lecture was a much more modern volume, one of four in the Encyclopedia of Exploration, which contains an intentional fake passage. 

Napoleon's name was in larger script, so it would be noticed. 

Our group thanked Mr. Sutton, and moved on to our walking tour. We were first given a quick overview of the library building, including the more recent restrictions of becoming a "historic site". Our guide pointed out that you could not longer simply move a sign but needed to fill out paperwork to request permissions. This is not something I would have considered! He also made sure we noticed the Naval ship design of the building, called The Ship of Knowledge. This building was meant to be opened by Charles, however he hated the design and instead let the library building be opened by his mother, Queen Elizabeth II. 

Our next stop was an exhibition on Alan Turing and a quick stop at an Enigma Machine. Our guides gave us a quick overview of how an Enigma machine worked and how it might look in present day.

It's an enigma!

We saw the King's Library Tower in the center of the library, preserved and displayed over several floors. These books are comprised of the collections of George III and Thomas Granville, with the preservation tower design having been inspired from the Yale University library tower. Our guide gave us a brief history on book binding and imports, and pointed out that books containing the colors of the Italian flag were almost certainly bound in leather imported from Italy.

Italian leather = red, white, and green.

We got to view a variety of incredibly expensive stamps before going to our final destination. The Treasures of the British Library exhibition showcases a selection of old, rare, or significant books and artifacts pertaining to books. These include strolls, tablets, bibles, and logs. We were awed by some of the items we were able to get close to and observe first hand, objects of significant value that are accessible to anyone coming in to the library. Our guide knew to leave us there after answering some questions so that we could discover these treasures for ourselves. After all of the amazing things we've seen already, there was nothing quite like staring at an original run of the Canterbury Tales and getting to see it from multiple angles, or looking over the notes of da Vinci or famous composers, seeing the different hand writings, corrections, and imperfections. Places like the British Library really bring home the value of preservation and the affect it can have on a population to become physically close to an item of significance created long before their birth. If I have time, I may find myself back in this room before our study abroad ends, just to stare at the hand done illustrations (or illuminations) one more time in person. 

Canterbury Tales

Mozart