As my time in London comes to a close I would like to reflect on how lucky I am to have had this experience - especially at the end of my MLIS program. I leave London ready to enter the Library world as a professional and would not change my experiences for the world.
As my August 4th graduation day fast approaches, I know that I'm prepared for life as a real life Librarian and I owe that, in part, to this BSP. TTFN London, never goodbye.
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The Feminist Library was created in 1975 and is still one of the largest archive collections of Women's Liberation Movement literature - focusing mostly on second-wave feminism (from the late 1960s to the 1990s). It also boasts one of the most significant collections of contemporary feminist material in England. One of the most important aspect of The Feminist Library is that it is completely intersectional and inclusive - those two aspects have been sorely lacking in every other women's centric collection I had witnessed thus far.
When I arrived - the volunteer on duty that day had just unboxed their new Suffragette exhibit (that actually included women of color - this is exhibit was the first that I had visited that did) and she was very excited that I was the first to see it - as was I! The Feminist Library is tucked into an office building and if you weren't looking for it specifically you would miss it entirely. It acts as a reference library (though no membership is needed and all are welcome) and is currently completely volunteer run and operated. Friends of the Library are especially needed as they face adversary frequently and are looking to move into a space to better fit their ever expanding collection. Royal Geographical Society Library and ArchiveI can't say the Royal Geographical Society was ever on my radar before this trip but it was really fascinating to be able to visit - and it was very interesting to be able to peruse their collection. Eugene Rae (like the explorer), Principal Librarian, gave us the entire history of the exploratory efforts of Britain. Pictures weren't permitted of the artifacts but the ranged from the time the British were trying to find the source of the Nile, to all of their efforts to climb and route Mt. Everest.
St. Pauls Cathedral LibraryA little known fact (at least to me) is that inside St. Paul's Cathedral there is an archive & library. Only 15 of our 19 person group was permitted to go - and at first I volunteered to sit this one out but on a whim I showed up downstairs "just in case" and as luck were to have it, I got to go - as 4 others didn't show. Our tour guide Yvonne was the best, she has been serving as a tour guide of St. Paul's for over 10 years. The highlight of the tour, however, was meeting the librarian of St. Paul's,, Joe Wisdom (his real name). The library is only open certain days and we lucked into a day that it was open.
I was also determined to go all the way up to the top of the cathedral - but almost didn't make it as the last 250 stairs up were on multiple wrought iron staircases that did crazy things to my vertigo & fear of heights - but I made it - and immediately came right back down. Thus is life. National Museum of ComputingWhen I heard we were going to Bletchley Park, I was very excited as I love the story of the codebreakers, but it was unexpected to be given a tour of the National Museum of Computing. Sheridan Williams, who is a real life mathematician, led us though the a very in-depth history of computing. Sheridan referenced the The Imitation Game briefly and provided me my favorite nugget of information form the tour - the employees lovingly refer to the film as The Irritation Game because the inaccuracies of the film are vast. Starting with Kiera Knightly being the only prominent female in the film while in real life, 8,000 of the 10,000 people employed at Bletchley Park were women. The National Museum of Computing also housed a small archive, which we didn't get the chance to see but more information about it can be found on their website HERE. Bletchley Park - Home of the Code Breakers After visiting the National Museum of Computing we had the option of going next door to explore Bletchley Park on our own, which is where the true history of the Codebreaker story was held. The grounds were beautiful and a perfect place to picnic.
Middle Temple Law LibraryNext up was our super fascinating tour of the library for one of the four inns of court - Middle Temple. The inns of court are tasked with educating barristers to practice law in the UK. One someone is finished studying law in university, they must join one if the inns to become a barrister and to join an Inn you must be invited to join. There are two types of lawyers in the UK, solicitors and barristers; solicitors focus on the behind the scenes paperwork whereas barristers are responsible for going to court to argue cases. The Training and Development librarian, Adam Woellhaf, was kind enough to give us a tour of the beautiful Middle Temple Library.
The Law Library is open to any member of the four Inns of Court - even if you aren't a member of Middle Temple, and it was fascinating to find out that the librarians employed need not have a law degree, which differs slightly than the US where law degrees are preferred for those working in law libraries. Though all the buildings we listed had vast histories this was the only building that still had remnants of shrapnel in the floor. Also, the color scheme was one of my most favorite of all the places we visited. National Art Library @ V & A Museum Our first call venture on a bus led us to the Victoria and Albert Museum. More specifically though, to the V&A National Art Library. First on the agenda was a tour by the Assistant Librarian, Cassandra, who showed us around the library space including the staff only back rooms where their periodicals were kept. The NAL's serves as a public library, as well as a library for Museum staff. This library, however, is a closed access library which just means that users must request items from the catalog which are then pulled by staff and delivered to either behind the circulation desk or the special collections desk (this process could take up to 90 minutes).
The second part of our tour brought us to the seminar room where Frances, another member of the library team, let us get some hands on with a few of the rare goodies in their collection. King’s College Maughan LibraryOur next visit was to King's College, The Maughan Library. King’s College was originally founded in 1829 and is one of the leading institutions of higher education in the world (Top 30). The Maughan Library is home to an array of wonderful treasures that our guides, Katie Sanbrook, Head of Collections, and Adam Ray, Collections Assistant, generously laid out for us to peruse. This was also one of my more favorite stops because Adam & Katie actually let us have hands on time with some of the items they selected for us (my tweet below got me a retweet from @KingsLibraries which, naturally, I was super excited about). After Katie & Adam gave us a bit of history about their collections we were treated to a tour of the library facility - though the historic aspect was fascinating I was most thrilled to see the modern marketing signs and banners that were displayed throughout advertising their library services. It made the King's College library feel a little bit like my university library back home. The British Museum Archives & Reading RoomA rare treat for anyone, but especially for LIS students, we got the chance to tour the Reading Room & Archives at the British Museum. The British Museum is one of the most famous attractions in London and has come under fire repeatedly for not charging entry fees but the Museums motto that the museum will be “free to all studious and curious persons” has become a shining light and one of the greatest reasons the museum remains free of charge. The Reading Room has been closed to the public since 2013 and has fallen into what some would say a bit of disarray. Our tour was led by Francesca Hillier, Museum Archivist, who has worked for the British Museum for 12 years and is the only qualified archivist employed at the library. Her work is cut out for her as she is the ONLY person on her team and relies on the help of volunteers when possible. For those in our groups that want to be archivists, I believe this was one of the most important visits as archives, more often than not, have messy unorganized beginnings and it's up to us to make it work.
The documents and books pictures are available to readers and question seakers, if they know what they're looking for - as most things in this space aren't cataloged. One of the greatest fun facts I learned on this tour was that giraffes, before 1600, were referred to as "camel leopards." Keep that in your back pocket for trivia night. |
While studying for my MLIS, I am taking my love for diverse librarianship abroad for a semester to the heart of London in hopes of gaining firsthand knowledge and understanding about the history, organization, and maintenance of collections in historic British libraries, archives, and museums. ArchivesCategories |