The Armitt (Ambleside) Museum and Library, Sunday, July 27th

Today I visited the local museum/library in Ambleside, which is dedicated to preserving, archiving, and displaying local history in the Lake District, especially in regards to Ambleside's local history (dating back to the Roman camps in Galava), Beatrix Potter's life in the Lake District (including many of her nature drawings), and, other local celbrities. The museum/library is also home to an extensive searchable archive of oral interviews with local residents dating back to their experiences in the 1890s, making the little building home to one of the largest oral archives in the English-speaking world (if not world in general). Unfortunately, the collection is incredibly underfunded, and services have been cut back. In fact, I only saw two other people the entire time I was there.

The Beatrix Potter Gallery, Saturday, July 26th

The Beatrix Potter Gallery is listed as a two-part visit with the author/illustrator's former home at Hill-Top Farm. Both sites are owned and managed by the National Trust of Britain. I did not go into Hill-Top, as the entry fee seemed a little exorbitant. but I did check out the gallery, which is housed in William Heelis's (Beatrix Potter's husband) former law offices. The Gallery collection is comprised of orginal watercolors and sketches Beatrix Potter composed for her children's books, in addition to first edition copies of her books, and copies of the books in foreign languages and translations. At the end of the colelction proper is a display that gives information about the making of the 2006 film, Miss Potter, with which the locals all seem to be very pleased.

Glasgow- The University of Strathclyde College of Information and Library Science

I think this last class visit was by far my favorite of the whole trip.

The National Archives of Scotland, Monday, July 21st

Second on Monday we visited the NAtional Archives of Scotland.

The National Library of Scotland, Monday, July 21st

Our first stop on Monday was the National Library of Scotland.

The Shakespeare Centre Library and Archives, Friday, July 18th.

Um....so today was totally awesome (note: in the true sense of the word). I actually got giddy. In a library. At this point in my education I suppose I should stop being so surprised when a particular collection has this effect on me, but nonetheless...

We left for Stratford-upon-Avon around 11:00am this morning, and it took about 3 hours by bus to get there. We immediately headed for our day's destination, the Shakespeare Centre Library and Archives, which keeps track not only of local history pertaining to the local area, but of Shakespeare and his life and times as well. Additionally, the center in paired with the Royal Shakspeare company, and keeps in-depth archives of prompts, stage plans, costume designs, performance recordings, photographs, publishings, et cetera.

Oxford Bodleian Library, Thursday, July 17th

Another early morning so we could start our trek out to Oxford to visit Oxford University's New Bodleian Library (although our guide, Mr. Cook, reminded us that anything at Oxford that is titled "New" is at least 500 years old. Yowza.).

Caird Library, The National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, Wednesday, July 16th

On Wednesday we were out the door bright and early at 8:00am to travel via boat on the Thames to the Maritime Library in Greenwich.

The National Art Library at the V&A, Tuesday, July 15th

The National Art Library is housed in the upper floors of the Victoria and Albert museum. I was particularly interested in this visit, because of my background in art history and my interest in art librarianship. The guide for our tour was Ms. Frances Warrell. We entered the library through its two public reading rooms, the first reading room and the center room. The center room is home to the main counter service and is also where librarians can monitor and supervise the special collections items (visually and via cameras). Academics and students wishing to use the library's materials may register for three years or three months. People seeking to request special items must provide references.

The Museum of London, Monday, July 14th

The Museum of London is very close to the Barbican Center, yet somehow I missed seeing it last week.
The day's session started of with a lecture from Jon Cotton, the senior curator of pre-history for the London before London Gallery. According to Mr. Cotton, the Museum of London was designed in the 1960s and built in the 1970s. It contains main displays of the history of London and originated with the Guildhall Library (1825), which was a London museum set-up by a library committee. The Museum of London bills itself as the world's largest Urban history museum, which means the the museum specifically focuses on London as an urban settlemet, i.e., from the Roman's onward. Mr. Cotton, however, as a curator of pre-history, has the unique challenge of highlighting a history of London that is not even addressed in school curriculum, and making visitor's understand what "pre-history" means (i.e., the time before written records/recorded history). Additionally, because pre-history is relative and dependent upon the history of the written word in a specific culture/country, some cultures may be considered "pre-historic" as recently as the early 20th century. In other words, pre-history has nothing to do with dinosaurs, and everything to do with the recording of information, which, as an information professional, I am pretty interested in. As. Mr. Cotton noted, pre-historic people as just as intelligent and sentient as anyone else, they just did not archive their histories. That certainly does not mean that they were backward or intellectually inferior.
The museum is primarily visited by English-speaking foreignb tourists interested in England's colonization of the world. About 40% of visitors to the museum are foreign tourists, although there is no foreign language labeling. People visiit the museum for a variety of reasons. Some examples:
* To learn more about Vistorian/19th century (Dickensian) London
* The learn more about Tudor and Stuart London.
(Shakespeare and the 16th and 17th centuries)
* To learn more about Roman Londinium, the capital of Britannia

The suppose the focus of the trip, for me, at least, was in how the London Before London gallery displayed its information and exhibits. The current display is relatively new, having opened in 2002, and replaces the original gallery that opened in 1976 and was panel-dominated with lots of text and open display areas. The new gallery is very modern in appearnce, looking more like an art gallery than a history museum. The winding gallery is framed by the "River Wall" on the inside of the gallery, and the "Landscape Wall" on the far side of the room. In the center are low glass display cases, maps, interactive learning stations, quizzes and games. The River Wall is painted blue, and the Landscape Wall is earth-toned. As visitors follows the winding river and changing landscape, they are also following a timeline of artifacts and objects dredged from the river and dug-up from the earth that give insight into the pre-history of London.

I have to say, that I am very impressed with the trend toward modern presentation of information across the various sites in Britain that we've seen so far in this class. Pre-history could be very boring if presented in a dry manner. However, the dynamic presentation of this exhibit makes the subject interesting to even resistant learners (in my opinion, anyway). Although this is a museum, not a library, I think that we as librarians can learn a lot about breaking out of the traditional library role as a serious place of study, and use modern presentation techniques to make access to information mor (for lack of a better word) accessible to our patrons.

The Barbican Center Libraries, Thursday, July 10th

Thursday we visited the Barbican lending library, children's room, and music library. I really got a kick out of this visit, but then again, as an aspiring children's librarian and former music student I guess that makes a lot of sense.


THE CHILDREN'S ROOM

Our first guide was Ms. Amanda Owens, the children's librarian. The children's room bears a striking resemblance to the children's room in the Franklin Public Library (Franklin, MA) where I work now, so, personally, I thought that was pretty cool. The children's room is staffed by one full-time librarian and one senior assistant, as well as around six substitutes. They have 24,000 loanable items, 15,000 of which are on the shelves, with the remainder stored in the basement of the building. The children's room is primarily used by children between 2 and 10, but is modeled to work for children ages 0-14. The collection is arranged by age: Under 5, 5+, 10+, Young Teenage (12+), with young adult (14+) shelved just outside the entrance to the children's room as a buffer between the children's and adults' collections. I think that this catgorization is interesting, because the debate about labeling appropriate ages for materials is pretty heated back in the United States right now, with many librarians feeling that it is inapprpriate for librarians to decide which materials are appropriate for which ages. The non-fiction books are arranged in Dewey order, and all books are on lower shelves or in bins on the floor for greater accessibility. Parents are responsible for what their children can checkout, so even babies can have thier own library cards (tickets) if the parents choose to register their infants (Children ages 0-14 can open cards in the children's room). Items are checked out on a 3-week lending period, while CDs and videos are one week. Unlike the adult collection, all multimedia items in the children's room are available for check-out free of charge. Up to eight books can be checked out at a time.
The children's room provides outreach to the community by hosting class trips from local schools, nursery and playgroup visits, "babytimes" (singing, toys, etc.), and other programming like book discussion groups and a summer reading program. Additionally, the librarians will extend their services outside the library's walls to accomodate those who cannot come to the library themselves (book deliver, etc.). For the most part, the programming is on a fixed schedule. The children's room is also the contact point for the BookStart National Initiative, that states every child is entitled to 3 free book packs before the age of 5. These packets are picked up by residents in the community at the library. Nationally, distribution is around 90%.

Overall, as someone who would ideally like to become a children's librarian one day, I really liked this visit. I'm kind of disappointed that this was the only trip to a library that focused on children, as I'm really not that interested in special or academic libraries.

THE MUSIC LIBRARY

Our guide for the music library was Ms. Liz Wells, who reminded us that part of the reason the Barbican has such an extensive music library is because the Barbican is an Arts Center. The music library was built from scratch for the building in the 1980s, so the strengths of the library lie in its modern collection. The library's role is to provide materials and services for anyone who lives, works or studies in the borough. However, because the population of the City is relatively low, the library is primarily utilized by people who work there, as well as a large student population.
There are 16,500 CDs in circulation, and 60-70 CDs are added per month. Because the collection grows so quickly, it needs to be weeded regularly. It costs £0.40 to borrow/rent a CD for one week, and £2.75 to borrow/rent a DVD for one week (which I think is a little ridiculous). Patrons/Customers can also utilize the Naxos Music Library (very cool), which contains over 20,000 full CDs available for listening.
The music library is shelved and arranged by Dewey number for the most part, with some key exceptions in the collection of musical scores, which are more archival. According to Ms. Wells, there are very few good collections of printed music in the UK, because scores can go out of print very easily. This makes the Barbican Library's music collection a commodity, and also prevents them from extensive weeding, which makes sense. For the music scores, the librarians use the McColvin & Reeves classification system, which organizes music by how it is performed (string quartet, baritone solo, et cetera). The scores are mostly hardbound to extend their shelf lives.

Things about this collection I thought were noteworthy (aka, I thought were cool enough to remark about aloud during the tour):
* Master indices keep record of in which scores certain songs and musical pieces appear. This is especially helpful when looking for a song that may be listed in an anthology. The index has more than 60,000 entries and is owned by the Barbican, although other libraries can pay to use it.
* The electric piano next to the music scores that can be rented to practice playing or used to test out the music
* The collection of Smiths records, posters, and other memorabilia on display at the entrance to the music library. One of the librarians is clearly a humongous Smiths fan, as that collection was entirely impressive to me. Also, the library earns cool points for having such an awesome display. Way to break stereotypes, Barbican. Love it.

That's all I can really say, as I do not intend to become a music librarian.

The Roald Dahl Museum, Wednesday, July 9th

For our independent research day on Wednesday, Karen and I went to the Roald Dahl Museum in Great Missenden, and also visited the cemetery where the author is buried. Admitedly, I am a huge Roald Dahl fan, so I was pretty keen to check out how the museum was set-up, and what information the curators had chosen to include.

The museum is housed in Great Missenden where Dahl lived for 36 years and wrote all of children's books and most of his short-stories for adults. Dahl's widow, Felicity, still lives in Gipsy House, their family home, while the museum is located nearby on the high street. Before it was made into a museum in 2001, the building was (at times) a bank, a hairdresser's, a dance hall and a public inn. According to rumor, Benjamin Disraeli, former Prime Minister, once stayed there. While the museum is largely dedicated to Dahl's children's literature and books, there is also some information about his stories for adults. Overall, however, the museum is very clearly geared toward appealing to children. The museum is also just down the street from the local library, which served as the inspiration for the library Matilda visits in the book titled after her name.

As mentioned above, the Roald Dahl Museum was established in 2001, and, accordingly, the display is quite modern and eye-catching. At the entrance, visitors are given full-color guides that contain maps, information, pictures, and questions relating to each of the three roomsthat house the collection. The handout serves then, as both information source and activity sheet, making viewing of the museum more like an interactive game instead of separate observation.

The first room is called the "Boy Gallery," so named for Dahl's autobiography Boy. This room highlights Dahl's childhood and includes original photgraphs, letters, speech notes, school work, report cards, toys, et cetera, from his youth, as well as remembrances of his youth recorded in old age. This is a nice beginning to the exhibits, because we get a sense of Dahl as a person, and how his upbringing and childhood impacted his writing style. The doors to the room are giant Wonka chocolate bars, and the room itself is painted in vibrant colors and covered in comic/illustration-like photos and pictures. Traditionally, the light is low to preserve the original documents in the cases, however the addition of props that support visually what is described in the text documents is decidedly modern. Additionally, this room, indeed, as in all the others, contains copies of the books mentioned in the displays for visitors to browse through, in addition the manipulative props like jackets, suitcases, toys, and other objects that relate to the exhibit and allow a truly hands-on experience. The guide, additonally, gives suggestions of discussion questions to share with children (e.g. "Share an event from your childhood that you would put in your memoir. Ask the children what events they would like to record from their lives so far") as well as activities to try at home (e.g. design your own chocolate bar).

The second room is devoted to Dahl's story craft, and is called the "Solo Gallery" after Dahl's memoir "Going Solo." This room is even darker than the first, and includes two video screens, and audio booth, a searchable computer with activities relating to all of Dahl's published works, display cases, a drean machine (for creating dreams like the ones in the BFG), crafts and stamp stations, and more manipulatives, bright colors and large photgraphs on the walls. The guide suggests activities to do in the gallery (e.g. "find the BFG's sandal, "use the stampers to create your own illustrated story," etc.), subjects to discuss, and more activities to try at home.

The final room is the story center, which is devoted to the creative process and, more specifically, writing for children. The room includes interviews with famous children's authors (like J.K. Rowling), magnetic (refrigerator) story/poem writing, costumes to dress up in, the costume worn by Johnny Depp in the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory film, a stop-frame animation booth, Roald Dahl's desk and desk chair, and other various hands-on objects and activities. With so mich to do, this really seems less like a museum (in the tradtional sense) and more like a fun day out. I think it's wonderful that the curators clearly put a lot of thought into making these exhibits appealing to children. As an overgrown child myself (as I believe many children's librarians are), I thoroughly enjoyed all the activities and eye-catching displays. This museum really hits at being appealing not only to children, but to their parents and adult guardians as well. It is neither insultingly juvenile nor inaccessible to young children. Overall, I would rank the Roald Dahl museum as one of the best multi-aged/ cross-generational museums I have ever visited.


Things I did not know before the trip to the museum:
*Dahl wrote the screenplays for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the James Bond film You Only Live Twice.

*He didn't start writing books for children until he was quite old, despite his children's works being what he is remembered for.

*Roald Dahl liked chocolate but hated chocolate cake

The British Library - Tuesday, July 8th

Our second class trip was to the British Library where Kevin, the donations officer, toured us around. He told us he had been working at the British Library for 25 years. In our tour introduction, Kevin reminded us that the British Library is a working library with around 170 million items (35 million of which are stored in six floors of subbasements), 800 miles of shelving that grows by 8 miles per year, and 2,300 people on the staff. They must "deliver the obligations of all British Libraries," for which they must
* Acquire the national Bibliographic Input (acquire all books published in the U.K. within a month of their publishing date)
* Keep any item forever (no weeding of the archive)
* Make available the collections to any person who wished to use them


Some facts about the British Library:
* In 1961 the British Library began the separation process from the British Museum. The books are legally separated from the museum and belong solely to the library.
* The land on which the library now stands was purchased from British Rail in 1973.
* The library building was designed by Sir Colin St. John Wilson and was offically opened June 25th, 1998.
* The largest tapestry commissioned in the last century hangs in the foyer to dampen the sound.
* The library houses the largest philatelic collection in the world, and includes 8 1/4 million items, one of which is considered the most valuable stamp in the world. The stamp was commissioned for Queen Victoria in 1847, but the words were misprinted and most were destroyed. Only 14 of these stamps are in existence.
* The building looks somewhat like a large boat because the architect was in the Royal Navy and never had control of his own ship.
* The library avoids the the threat of floods by channeling accumulating rainwater into the Thames.
* The British Library is the 3rd largest in the world after Moscow (1) and the Library of congress (2).
* There is no shelf browsing; users must know what they are looking for and request it.
* Roughly 35% of the library's users come from overseas, making the British Library one of the most popular research libraries in the world
* There is a collection for nearly every spoken language curated by a librarian fluent in that language
* Items are catalogued then shelved by size to maximize space efficiency (large books on the lower shelves to the smallest books on the top shelves.
* The book collection donated by King George III contains roughly 90,000 items. According to his stipulations, the books must be on display and must be used regularly (are not meant to be museum pieces). About 30 books from the collection are used in a given day.
* The library has a budget of about £120m a year, and generate about £20m themselves by selling the cataloge to other English-speaking countries

This was another really fascinating tour (I'm starting to sense a trend here...). Personally, my favorite part of the library is the "treasures" room, a dark space where some priceless works of literature are displayed behind glass. This room is pretty much every bibliophile's dream--highlights include the sole remaining manuscript of Beowulf, Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, a book of Jane Austen's handwritten short stories and notes, orginal music and lyrics notes and compositions by the Beatles, pages from the Codex Sinaiticus, the first folio binding of Shakespeare's works, handwritten sheet music by Beethoven and Mozart, and the Diamond Sutra...and that's barely a fraction of the collection. the cool thing about the British Library is that despite not being able to actually check-out any books (all items are in-house only) it seems like a really normal library. It is only when you start to check out the catalogue that the full-weight of the libraries (literal) awesomeness is revealed. I was also pretty surprised that it is such a new building. For some reason I had just assumed that it would be a really historic building, but it's barely even 10 years old, despite separating from the British Museum in the 1960s. Overall, an extremely enjoyable trip.

St. Paul's Cathedral, July 7th, 2008

Sir Christopher Wren
Said, "I am going to dine with some men.
If anyone calls,
Say I am designing St Paul's.
- Edmund Clerihew Bentley

I very much enjoyed our first class excursion to St. Paul's Cathedral just over the Thames (via crossing the millenium bridge near Tate Modern) on the north bank at the edge of the city proper. The cathedral was designed by Sir Christopher Wren in 1675, although he began designing plans for the cathedral in 1669. His first two plans were rejected for being either too radical or non-Anglican (pro-Catholic, et cetera). Building of the cathedral began in June of 1675, and was completed in October of 1708 under the guidance of head stone mason, Thomas Strong. Wren also completed the "Great Model" which can still be seen (and which we did see) in the 1st chamber or the "library in the northwest tower," which is not now, nor in the past, used as a library, despite the decorative design of the stone in the room which implies a library by virtue of the many books carved into the stone at the tops of the pillars. The model is made of oak and plaster, and depicts St. Paul's Cathedral as Wren would have liked it to be. The model serves as a three-dimensional blueprint of how to repair/upkeep the cathedral should the building incur any damage. The design is English Baroque, and reflects Anglican sensibilies, like simple, curlinear shapes, and a lack of overt religious or "Catholic-looking" religious iconography (like the crucifixion).

The library itself is not very big--really just an open two-story room--but is crammed tight with books organized by size to maximize shelf space in numbered banks in the walls. The books do not have call numbers as we know them in the states, but instead utilize "shelf marks" or "press marks" that let the librarian know in which bank a particular book belongs. Books may be shelved near each other even if they are not of related topics. The librarian, Joseph Wisdom, works in a unique setting in which modern technology is juxtaposed with "historical fabric." Essentially, the materials he works with may be centuries old, as is the cathedral library itself, but modern technology, like the internet and email, play continually growing roles in how the library functions day-to-day.
The library is not exclusively religious, but also contains works by Newton, Greek and Latin Classics, civil histories, ecclesiastical histories, medicine texts, arts & science, and others. The materials came from the private libraries of donors. Now, a key aspect in dealing with these old materials is preservation, conservation, and restoration. According to Mr. Wisdom, conservation is doing "as much as is necessary, but as little as possible," while retoration implies overhauling the book to make it aestethtically pleasing in addition to simply preserving it.

I really enjoyed visiting this library, because, as an historical institution, it faces challenges and special needs unique to older collections. The United States, as a relatively young country, does not really have libraries that face the same issues a library like this one does. I enjoyed hearing about how the books are preserved and organized, because it is so different from what we're accustomed to in the States. St. Paul's is an absolute gorgeous cathedral. Although the cantilevered staircase leading up to the library did make me a bit dizzy, the engineering of it is still pretty impressive.