Mandy Does London

Short Historical Report

2008-12-04T04:23:00.000-08:00

I've decided to wrap up this blog (well over a year after my last entry) with copies of my final projects. Of course, this is all my work- and you can't copy it or own it, or if you choose to use it, you must credit me.

Short Report on St. Paul's Cathedral Library"Lector, si monumentum requiris, circumspice"
(Reader, if you seek his monument, look around you).
~ Engraving on a memorial to Christopher Wren, St. Paul's Cathedral Architect

Introduction: A History of the St. Paul's Cathedral Library

St. Paul's Cathedral has long been reputed for being not only a place of worship and public assembly, but also as a place for learning. Dating back to the late 1100's, many of St. Paul's canons were scholars of law and theology, studying elsewhere in Europe but returning to St. Paul's. Though the earliest book-lists are dated 1245, it is evident that prior to that point in time, the cathedral itself was a “site of intellectual stimulation”(Keene, Burns, and Saint 27). Doctors, lawyers, teachers and theologians surround the church's long history. A theologian by the name of Peter of Cornwall, while visiting St. Paul's to hear a sermon “was amazed at its number of distinctions, flowers of words and copious authorities” indicating that the church and its canons were well-read and highly educated (Keene, Burns, and Saint 27). As such, the importance of learning, research and study surrounding the cathedral is quite evident through the history and personal accounts of those who visited St. Paul's much earlier than the Great Fire of 1666 (and Wren's rebuild). The first mention of the cathedral holding divine and secular works for the city of London occurs in the twelfth century. Individuals who were responsible for the collection were masters of the local schools, and Master Durand was the first individual to gain responsibility for the first recorded collection. His successor (Hugh) was charged with creating a list of the books and placing one copy of this list in the cathedral treasury (Keene, Burns, and Saint, 413).
Little is known about the holdings of the original collection, but one may surmise that St. Paul's held mainly title-deeds and documents outlining the property ownership of bishops and others who were involved with the cathedral, in addition to religious and ecclesiastic works. Through the years that followed 1245, the most detailed and thoroughly researched inventory lists include not only book holdings, but all of the property in the church- altars, furniture, etc. Dean Ralph Baldock created the most detailed inventories of the cathedral's properties beginning in 1295, and continued to create lists through 1313, while he was bishop of London. The later lists include “a miscellaneous collection of about 150 volumes” ranging from medicine and law to scholastic theology. However, if one were to “judge from the library catalogue of 1458, the cathedral kept the theological books but rejected most of the legal works” (Keene, Burns, and Saint 414).
Two friends by the names of Walter Sherrington and Thomas Lisieux (prebendaries from the mid-to-late 1400's) made contributions to the library collection. Sherrington through book donations and Lisieux through his intricately detailed records of cathedral holdings. (Notably, Lisieux's lists are incredibly organized and still a valuable guide to cathedral holdings that have been lost over the years.)
After 1458 the collection grew as a result of donations from not only Sherrington, but also John Somerset (Henry VI's physician), and Thomas Gascoigne (theologian and polymath) to name only a few. Between 1458 and 1540, the cathedral's library collection nearly doubled (Keene, Burns, and Saint 417). During this time most antiquarian and valuable books were still held in the cathedral treasury, while books in the library were chained. Library books were also available for loan for a term of up to six months, “but only if approved by the dean and chapter and upon the giving of sufficient surety” (Keene, Burns, and Saint 416).
As the years passed, parts of the library seemingly vanished according to certain catalogs that were kept in the 16th and 17th centuries. A few individuals are known to have taken off with parts of the collection, including one Sir Robert Cotton, who (it is surmised) would remove the ex libris from books and manuscripts he took from the library, to prohibit readers from knowing the previous owner was in fact St. Paul's Cathedral Library (Keene, Burns, and Saint 418). Books were also moved to various locations for safe-keeping due to the Reformation and different civil wars. Portions of the library's collection were sent to Sion College, and also to William Dugdale at Lambeth Palace, who had volunteered to sort out various legal items that were (at that time) sent from other cathedrals to be housed at St. Paul's (Keene, Burns, and Saint 419). And of course, in 1666 the Great Fire of London “destroyed tens of thousands of volumes at St. Paul's” though many of those are notably books that were stored in the crypt for booksellers. Though they were lucky to remove some books from the cathedral before the fire ravaged the building, most of the items that were salvaged were religious and legal documents belonging to the church. Of the library's holdings, what survived the Great Fire of London were those items that were not in the cathedral during the blaze. Thankfully some of these items are still owned by the library (though the archives are at Guildhall), and a document lists the twenty-four printed works and three manuscripts that survived the fire (Keene, Burns, and Saint 420).
It is evident from Wren's design of the cathedral that he intended for a library space to exist in the post-fire building, even if his designs did not include the word “library” in them (Keene, Burns, and Saint 420).. When the rebuilding of the cathedral was completed, individuals began donating their own collections to become St. Paul's Cathedral Library. Humfrey Wanley, William Beveridge, but most notably Henry Compton (Bishop of London from 1675-1713) all donated books. Compton's contribution was substantial in size, but likewise in quality. As such, his donation was greatly appreciated by the church, and a painting of Compton still hangs above the fireplace in the library today.
Through the years that followed, the collection continued to grow. It can be assumed that at some time visitors to the library were charged a fee to enter, and that including the library on a tourist's walk-about would permit a view of the geometric staircase, which is truly a work of art and physics not to be missed. In 1862 William sparrow Simpson began a conservation effort of the 8,000 decaying books within the collection, re-binding about 3,400 of them (Matthews 265). Simpson also implemented an acquisitions policy, adding a large number of items relating to the cathedral, the history and City of London to the collection, and created a catalogue of holdings. His contributions and efforts are evident even today in the library (Matthews 265).
Physical Aspects of the Library
The St. Paul's Cathedral Library has been in existence for over 300 years. A spiral geometric staircase of 90 individual steps built by Dean Kempster leads two revolutions up to the Triphorium level of the church. Though unsure what the original purpose of this Triphorium area was for, upon walking through the hallways to the Trophy Room that houses Christopher Wren's Great Model. The oak and plaster 1:25 scale model represents the “cathedral Wren yearned to build, totally symmetrical, its portico a double rank each with either giant columns. The walls would be a single storey [sic] throughout, so that the dome dominated” (Saunders 60). The room in which the Great Model stands was originally meant to be a Library or Reading Room (according to current Cathedral Librarian Jo Wisdom). This is evident in the appearance of the pilasters reaching up the walls. The sculpted pilasters illustrate quill pens, books and ink pots climbing towards the ceiling. Windows that begin very high up on the wall also point toward Wren's intent that these rooms serve as reading rooms, in order for appropriate lighting to come through the glass, and also to place high bookshelves beneath the windows themselves. The ceiling of the Trophy Room is incredibly high, and some believe the ceiling design of this room was created to encourage the flow of ideas and studies to rise-up to the height of the curved tent-like ceilings (Wisdom).
The current Cathedral Library collection is housed in a room that has been working as the theological library of St. Paul's since 1720 (Saunders 111). Wooden bookshelves surround all four walls, complete with a second level (accessible by staircase), and some glass encased shelves in corners of the room. Much of the woodwork on the ornate shelves was created by Jonathan Maine (Saunders, 111). Once again decorative pilasters climb the walls between shelves, this time decorated with more deeply cut iconography (wheat, grapes, human skulls, books) representing the Holy Communion and also the familiar Latin phrase Mimento Mori, or “Remember death”. (These symbols were created to remind theological scholars of their motivation for studies, their mortality as well as the quest for knowledge while remembering the quest for eternal salvation.) Roughly six large desk-areas exist in the middle of the room, providing ample working space for the librarian and volunteers. One or two of the desks may be from Wren's period, though most of the furniture within the current library is much newer, from the 19th century (Wisdom).

St. Paul's Cathedral Library Today
The library that exists today at St. Paul's looks very much as it did originally, beautifully carved bookshelves and volumes that are held fast with binding tape to avoid further damage. According to the current librarian, there are approximately 13,500 volumes housed within the cathedral library, at least two-thirds of which date prior to the 1800s. Only one book that survived the Great Fire is housed in the library at this time, and it is a Pre-Reformation choir book from the 13th century. The fittings within the library are mostly from the 19th century, though one or two may be from Wren's period.
Items are organized on the shelves by size, which brings into question the process of finding books. Though manual listings of items still exist (and are used often) to find books, the library has integrated a computerized catalogue as well. To keep costs low, the library imported electronic records from other collections, and at this point in time these records still need to be tweaked a bit. (The data needs to be “cleaned up” to be sure it accurately reflects what is currently in the collection, as well as indicates where it is located on the shelf.) The manual listings utilize the English Short Title Catalogue. This card catalog lists the author, and a press-mark that displays a “number of the section, the letter for the shelf, and number for the position on the shelf (i.e. 8.F.12, or section 8, shelf F, 12th book on the shelf)” (Hitchcock 15).
Though not included in the normal tour of the cathedral, one may visit the library if prior arrangements are made with the cathedral librarian. Only working three days per week (part-time) the library is often staffed by one volunteer who helps to pull books for individuals who come in asking to perform research. The library is currently involved in cathedral publications, education and conservation of their holdings. Though the cathedral library does not currently have a “Strategic Plan”, they do observe Objectives, or planning areas, to guide the work of the library. St. Paul's Cathedral Library strives to provide an information resource for the cathedral and the wider public, and to preserve and exploit early books and manuscripts (Wisdom). The preservation efforts in place at the library at this time include careful monitoring of the building structure, including keeping an eye on a suspicious corner of the ceiling that has experienced water damage over the years. In addition to observation, the library also runs two domestic humidifiers to help keep moisture from damaging the books. Relative humidity is recommended at about 44-55% for items within the library, and a temperature of around 68 degrees Fahrenheit is monitored with several thermometers strategically placed among the shelves. Though these steps serve as precautionary measures, the library has had its fair share of obstacles regarding preservation of the collection. The library's previous librarian would often bring plants into the library as well as cloth rugs, both which are not recommended for use around rare books. The current librarian has come across items hidden in corners that were regrettably put away damp, and were ruined by mold. Wooly bears, or the larvae of the tiger moth have also been known to exist among the collection. To prevent these infestations, the library has set up insect traps in hopes to avoid any damage caused by paper/adhesive-seeking bugs (Wisdom).
Conclusion
The current St. Paul's Cathedral Library exists and is open for “all who an make good use of the collection” (Wisdom). Because the items within the collection are so delicate, and perhaps because the cathedral is familiar with losing items due to disasters or theft, items are not available for-loan at St. Paul's. Though not open everyday, nor looked after by a librarian daily, the library at St. Paul's is clearly an important treasure that only few have the pleasure of visiting. St. Paul's has long been associated with learning and books, be it booksellers in the churchyard, collecting public records and muniments, or Wren's design of the library itself. A visit to the library of St. Paul's Cathedral will lend a better understanding and new insight into the long history and relationship between books and St. Paul's.

Works Cited

Hitchcock, Jeannette M. "Some London Libraries." Pacific Bindery Talk 11 (1938): 12-16.

Keene, Derek, Arthur Burns, and Andrew Saint. St. Paul's: the Cathedral Church of London 604-2004. New Haven & London: Yale UP, 2004. 1-537.

Matthews, Walter R., and W. M. Atkins. History of St. Paul's Cathedral. London: Phoenix House Ltd., 1957. 1-380.

Saunders, Ann. St. Paul's: the Story of the Cathedral. London: Collins & Brown, 2001. 1-218.

Wisdom, Jo. Personal interview. 30 July 2007.

Photo Credit
The Library of Dean and Chapter is Situated At Triforium Level Behind the South-West Tower in a Chamber Designed for It by Wren. St. Paul's Cathedral Library, London. The Library. St. Paul's Cathedral. 4 Sept. 2007 .

Final Project: Digitisation in the United Kingdom

2008-10-27T12:02:00.000-07:00

I've decided to wrap up this blog (well over a year after my last entry) with copies of my final projects. Of course, this is all my work- and you can't copy it or own it, or if you choose to use it, you must credit me.

A Research Study of Four Digitisation
Projects in the United Kingdom

Mandy R. Simon
LIS 587
Dr. Teresa Welsh
September 15, 2007

Introduction
“The pressing and increasingly urgent need for advocacy and awareness-raising and to raise the profile of digital preservation among a much broader community” was the main reason for the creation of the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) in the United Kingdom. This coalition was created to investigate the needs and situation concerning digital preservation efforts in the United Kingdom. From this statement, it is understood that the goals of digitisation are to increase awareness as well as preserve information into another accessible format. By digitising collections, not only would information be preserved, but also it would be widely available to a world-wide audience. In 2003, the DPC conducted a survey assessing the attitudes towards digital preservation activities by various individuals and organisations in the United Kingdom. From this survey, the DPC published a report entitled Mind the Gap: Digital Preservation Needs in the UK which serves as a foundation for understanding digital preservation efforts throughout the region. “When you digitize materials that normally have restricted availability, you automatically increase access to these resources” . Though digital preservation does not physically preserve the item, it does allow individuals to have access to the item with less opportunity for wear-and-tear or handling of the actual book/manuscript, thereby increasing the physical longevity of the item as well.

Purpose of Study
As the main goals of digital preservation are to provide wider access as well as retain information in a sustainable format, it is evident that the United Kingdom and its treasures of historical manuscripts and books would be a prime area to begin a national digitisation effort. Though this has not happened as of yet, the DPC works to raise awareness of the risks associated with the failure to address digital preservation challenges, engage senior policy and decision makers who are involved in awarding funding for preservation activities, identify a list of key recommendations for further digital preservation action and identify who might take these forward. Though the Mind the Gap report identifies many obstacles and issues associated with the problems of digitisation projects, there are four key digitisation efforts underway that will be outlined in this paper. The four projects are separate entities, and all of the organisations work in different ways to achieve the same overall goal: to digitally preserve precious items and allow people from all over the world to view them. The purpose of this study is to compare the digitsation efforts, each varying in processes and results, and demonstrate that, though the organisations may operate differently, their efforts are worthwhile and succeed (as best they can) in achieving the overall goals of the institutions and digital preservation. In the following pages, Guildhall and the City of London's COLLAGE digitisation program, the British Library's Turning the Pages program, The National Archives of Scotland's image library digitisation program, and the National Library of Scotland's John Murray exhibit will all be explicated and discussed in regards to their efforts to digitally preserve their collections.

Literature Review and Methodology
Literature reviewed for this study includes articles/reviews outlining the various locations as well as first-hand user experiences visiting the websites and physical sites offering digital versions of collections. The National Library of Scotland's John Murray Exhibit and the British Library's Turning the Pages exhibit both have separate digital programs for their on-site locations. Their on-site locations include the digitised works displayed through computer kiosks with touch-screen technology so visitors may peruse the works on their own. The John Murray Exhibit in Scotland also includes physical copies of the works displayed behind glass, along with other physical items relating to the time period and/or individual who wrote the work. The British Library's digital Turning the Pages Exhibit compliments those items housed in the Treasures room. Computer kiosks are strategically placed throughout the British Library's high-traffic visitation areas, so tourists and visitors may experience Turning the Pages technology while visiting the physical location. Both programs help to promote their respective website traffic, directing patrons to go to the institutions' websites from home to witness the same technology on their own computers. Methodology for retrieving this information also included personal and email discussions with curators and directors of digital projects being carried out with certain institutions, in addition to scholarly literature outlining various aspects and highlights of the digitisation processes, overall goals, objectives and end-results. When human subjects were not available for consultation regarding their digitisation objectives and projects, research relied heavily upon the informational background portions of the institutions' websites, articles outlining user and institutional experiences, and personal experiences by the author. The goals of preservation were outlined by articles such as Digitisation 101 by K.M. Dames and the Mind the Gap report published in 2006 by the Digital Preservation Coalition in the United Kingdom (the latter article overviews the report and also assesses the needs of digitisation for institutions within the UK).

Research Questions
The major question considered for this study is: “Do the following four institutions carry out digitisation efforts and projects with the overall objective of preserving physical items and increasing availability/access to a wider patron population?” In addition to this question, informal questions were addressed to two individuals regarding specific processes and handling of projects: Nat Edwards, John Murray Archive Program Manager, at the National Library of Scotland, and John Simmons, Image Library Manager, at the National Archives of Scotland. Questions directed to the John Murray exhibit at the National Library of Scotland included the following: “What is the name of the software program used to digitise the items in the John Murray collection for the touch screen technology? What file-type is used upon the initial digitisation (.pdf, .jpg, etc.)? Is this an exclusive software program developed by the library, or an outside vendor? Is the program on the NLS website that allows visitors to peruse the Gallery the same program that is used in the exhibit for the touch screen technology? Given the "multiple points of access" ideal that was integrated into the planning of the exhibit, how does the National Library of Scotland plan to integrate this into their website? Right now there is an effort to digitise 15 thousand additional items from the collection. How will this be accomplished? Who handles the physical digitisation process? What is the digitisation goal of the John Murray collection? And, is there a roundabout figure per year that the library hopes to digitise or is that dependent upon funding?”
Questions directed John Simmons at the National Archives of Scotland included: “Of the three major digitisation initiatives for the NAS: the Registers Archive Conversion Project, the Church of Scotland Records, and the Image Library Project. Are any of these initiatives working together to have a cohesive organisation process, or are they being carried out separately? How are items being selected for digitisation? Is there a particular numbered goal for the digitisation of these items (i.e. a certain number of items per year, etc)? Or, is that number dependent upon funding? What type of software program is used for digitisation of these documents? Who carries out the digitisation processing? Will these items be organized on the website or available on the Online Public Access Catalogue? And, will they be available for patrons to access outside of the archives (from home)?”
Both sets of questions were returned to the author electronically, and answered to the best of the individual’s ability based on their personal experiences heading the digitisation projects. Their answers are integrated into the background information written about the organizations below.

COLLAGE: Guildhall Library & the City of London
Guildhall Library's roots begin in the 1400's, when the people of London began compiling and collecting items related to the City of London. The collection originally held theological books and manuscripts, as well as public records. “Guildhall houses the greatest collection devoted to London. It includes History, English local history, Parliamentary matters, early law reports, family history, etc. Many guilds (about 95 companies) gave their collections over to Guildhall Library, including Clock and Watch-making guilds, Livery Guilds, Blacksmiths, etc.” In addition to these documents, the Guildhall library houses a multitude of visual printed items such as paintings, prints and maps relating to the City. In an effort to increase the availability of viewing these works, Guildhall Library partnered with the City of London to digitise over 30,000 of these works of art. The effort was entitled COLLAGE, an acronym for: 'City of London Library & Art Gallery Electronic'. The items that have been digitised are now available to peruse and purchase prints on the COLLAGE website, http://collage.cityoflondon.gov.uk/. The City of London's Libraries and Art Galleries Department assisted in the effort to continually digitise the collection which includes the entire Guildhall Art Library, along with thousands of caricatures, maps, drawings and paintings. A user may now access and view these items easily by visiting the website and perusing the database of digitised works. Users may also wish to purchase reprinted versions of the items within the database, or digital copies of the items as well. With inexpensive costs, users may not only view but also maintain their own copies of works (many of them original and owned only by Guildhall) to enjoy. If a user would happen upon this website, unknowing of the holdings or collection, one may search using the following subject headings or “suggested themes”: Abstract Ideas, Archaeology &Architecture, History, Leisure, Military & War, Natural World, Politics, Religion & Belief, Society, or Trade & Industry. Searchers may also perform searchers by clicking on Engravers/Publishers, People or Places. Users may also specify works between a certain time period, or utilize a keyword search to find works of their interests.

(Image is a screenshot of the COLLAGE website search page,
illustrating suggested themes and further search options for users.)

With COLLAGE’s beginnings in 1994, Barry Cropper, Assistant Director of the Corporation of London, was the individual who began handling the idea of this massive digitisation project. The Corporation of London's Libraries and Art Galleries department agreed to fund the project and invested over nine-hundred-thousand pounds which was (at the time) “the largest non-mainframe IT project in the Corporation's history.” The project would be carried out through two phases: the actual digitisation and cataloguing of images, and then implementation of the public delivery system (or search mechanism) for the website. “The Corporation also employed eight temporary staff to index, photograph and digitise material at an average rate of 150 works of art per day.” The storage system that functions as the working database for the COLLAGE website is offered by iBase, a company that specializes in digital media storage. The first part of the digitisation project included using iBase's “image and digital media asset management software, suitable for building an image database, online image or picture library system, or a secure searchable archive.” Between 1994 and 2004, the project grew into an enormous task, and issues regarding copyright, technical issues, processing images, and training staff to utilize and work on the project was straining. However, the end-result has improved other aspects of the Library itself. Staff are more knowledgeable of the collections' holdings, marketing and public interest have improved, and revenue is generated by print and digital sales of the items, to name only a few of the improvements.
Clear search methods and organization of the website itself allows users to not only view the artwork that makes up the Guildhall collection, but may also own a piece of that collection by purchasing a copy of it. The website that is maintained by Guildhall Library and the City of London provides instantaneous access to individuals who may not otherwise be able to physically visit the collection. “Resource discovery is the primary driver for the project,” and the ten year digitisation effort has not only increased access but also awareness of the resources available through the Guildhall's website. The information and works provided on the COLLAGE website also limits the overall physical handling of these items, thereby increasing longevity and availability of the item from a preservation standpoint. Though a taxing and expensive endeavor, the overall goal of increasing access to materials and preserving the physical items has been achieved by COLLAGE.

National Library of Scotland: The John Murray Exhibit
Through a partnership between the Heritage Lottery Fund, the government of Scotland, and other donors, the National Library of Scotland acquired the John Murray archive for over thirty-two million pounds. Evidence of Scotland's long history with literature and publishing, the John Murray exhibit holds such priceless letters and manuscripts from the likes of Jane Austen, Darwin, and Lord Byron to name a few. The exhibit itself needed to be physically displayed in a way that would best benefit its users and visitors, so the National Library of Scotland began creating an exhibit that would adequately reflect the value of the collection. In addition to the physical display of the items they hold, the National Library has chosen to digitise all of the items that are physically on display and offer touch-screen computer technology for visitors to read, zoom in on text, scan or transcribe the letters and manuscripts. The individual leading the John Murray Exhibit digitisation project is Nat Edwards, John Murray Archive Program Manager. The software utilized in the digitisation project for the items on physical display is “a purpose-built Macromedia Flash interface that uses XML data, which can be easily updated by the Library. Digital resources themselves are in standard cross-platform formats (ie JPG, MP3 etc).” Though the library has digitised all works on display, they are also working diligently to provide the same digital versions of items in a searchable format on the National Library of Scotland's website, http://www.nls.uk/jma/index.html. Though the projects have the same goal regarding preservation and increased access and availability, the software program that is utilized to digitise items on the Libray's website is not the same as the physical display digitisation project. Though the content is the same (the items are virtually the same items that are scanned in when they are on physical display at the library), the software program used for digitisation of the website images is quite different.
According to Edwards:
“The exhibition programme includes a series of AMX instructions, embedded in the XML script, which communicate with electrical hardware in the exhibition (e.g. triggering lighting effects) – so it is very “site specific”. The website is designed to be accessible on a number of different browsers and platforms and therefore The website is currently a very scaled down version of what will eventually be available – a sort of holding arrangement. It is intended that there will be different points of access for digital content (eg interpreted/thematic content, a search interface and direct access via 3rd party applications). The Gallery is a taster which will hopefully evolve considerably.”

The process of digitising (or physical image capture) is handled by the National Library of Scotland's Digital Library team. A third party supplier then transcribes the item, and it is then checked by library staff. “Mark-up of the digital objects is carried out in-house, although different items are prioritised and will be marked up in different ways.” The Library currently has 5,000 images captured and are undergoing the first portion of the transcription and marking up process. The end-goal of the Library is to digitise 15,000 images over the first 4 years, and then review the process and project. Though they are currently handling the process in-house at this point, when they review the project, they are open to finding a third party collaborator or vendor to help digitise on a greater scale. The overall goal of this project is simple: create availability to users on a global scale to witness the items in their valuable collection. Due to the limited amount of physical exhibition space at the National Library, digitising these items also permits a larger portion of the collection to be seen when it may have have otherwise never been displayed or accessible by library visitors and patrons.

British Library: Turning the Pages Exhibit
Perhaps the most popular of the digitisation projects in the United Kingdom is the Turning the Pages exhibit at the British Library. In 1996, the British Library began thinking about how they could digitise their treasures and make them available to the wider public. Partnering with Armadillo systems (a media consultant that focuses on cultural heritage), they worked together to create a digitisation project that would change user expectations regarding viewing digitised objects. The partnership was built on a “methodology of approaching bibliographic projects that encompasses thinking about the book in 5 ways: the book as object, the book as content, the book as icon, the book as window into the past, and the book as gateway to future learning.” With this philosophy in mind, Microsoft tech-whiz Bill Gates volunteered to assist by providing his own copy of Leonardo DaVinci’s Codex Leicester (which he purchased in 1994 for 30.8 million dollars) to be the guinea pig for the project. The results have been dramatic and impressive. The British Library offers kiosks in the building that permit patrons to view high-definition images of books and manuscripts held in the British Library's Treasures Room and Archives. By placing one's hand on the screen and dragging it across in a page-turning motion, the pages magically turn on the screen. The software also offers zooming capabilities, transcription and even a mirror to read DaVinci's backwards print. The same software capabilities are available on the Library's website. Though users do not have the touch-screen technology on their home computers, a website visitor may use their computer mouse to mimic the page-turning motion and view the digitised items.

(Above: Screenshot of Turning the Pages technology accessible through the British Library’s website)
There are several reasons that this project has gained such high international recognition and praise. The program is different, and the “clarity of the reproduction and the technology that enables the pages to be turned” make it so. This is a result of combining digital images and animation, which adds a completely different feel and experience for the user. The British Library's Creative Projects Manager, Clive Izard, says, “there has been a conscious effort to expose the Library's collection to the broadest possible audience.” Though the goal may be increased access, it is evident that much of the Library's focus is providing technology that best supplies the user with an experience that is detailed and realistic. With a collection that includes Lewis Carroll’s original Alice in Wonderland and original sketches of Leonardo Da Vinci, it makes sense that the Library would want to retain the artistic details and quality of the original works. With the launch of the new Microsoft Vista operating system, Turning the Pages 2.0 has also launched on the website, providing users an even more realistic experience while paging through the digitised works online. The new operating system (through Microsoft Vista) “offers users a 3D feel and see-through windows, improved security and connectivity.” To stay informed of the ease-of-use or usability of the British Library's online Turning the Pages exhibit, staff works with an outside user-experience research consultant firm called WUP (Web Usability Partnership). By continually testing the project and software, as well as questioning users about their experiences, Turning the Pages can remain at the forefront of the digitisation revolution. The website itself was designed for the user, and providing them with the best experience possible via virtual means. Using WUP, the British Library can discover “how users achieve their goals, the usefulness and relevance of the content, and assessment of behaviours and attitudes.” The key to web usability is to continually test the program as time passes and software changes.
The British Library's Turning the Pages exhibit places itself ahead of the race to digitise their collection, by providing state-of-the-art technology (animation) and continually adapting to software updates and web usability testing. These efforts combined with the objective to create the best possible experience for the user, perfectly illustrate the proper goals of a digitisation project: providing wider access and preservation of the original physical objects.

National Archives of Scotland: Scotlandimages.com
The National Archives of Scotland is another United Kingdom organization that is working diligently to digitise public records and other items of interest to their users. Admittedly their collection is utilized most often by family historians and genealogists. However, many of the image holdings in their collection include treasures of sorts. A partnership between several organizations (the National Library of Scotland, The National Archives of Scotland, National Museums of Scotland, The National Trust for Scotland and the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historic Monuments of Scotland) has been headed up by John Simmons (Image Library Manager, National Archives of Scotland). The goal is to create a collaborative online image library of their holdings. Though the goal is to create a collaborative library, right now the projects are all being carried out separately as the digitisation process begins. The National Archives of Scotland has already selected 1,000 items for digitisation. Each organization in the partnership will be selecting 1,000 images for the first unveiling of the image library collection. From that point onward (beginning with a sum total of 5,000 digitised items), organizations will aim to digitise 250 to 500 images per month to continue collection development. Criteria for selecting images to be digitised by the National Archives of Scotland are outlined by Simmons who says, “The selection criteria used were that the image should: be visually interesting; be historically important; be a NAS treasure; require little or no conservation treatment; be likely to be commercially popular; be copyright cleared; attract the Scottish interest market; reflect the diverse range of subjects of Scottish life, topography and industry; contain famous people or reflect famous events.” Right now, the NAS digitisation project is being “developed as a business to business service targeted at picture buyers”19 which also influences the images that are selected for digitisation. In the future, Simmons believes “that the NAS will likely select images that tie in with upcoming events, anniversaries, exhibitions and that can related to complementary material in other partners' collections.”19
All images located online will be made available at 400 dpi/ppi to provide a better viewing experience for the home user. The digitisation process is carried out in-house by the Digital Imaging Unit. When possible, the Archives uses existing electronic images created for another purpose by an external party in order to further preserve the physical object, and not expose it to the digitisation process (further handling for digitisation purposes). Simmons says, “The project will be delivering a shared branded externally hosted website called http://www.scotlandimages.com, hosting high resolution images and image metadata full searchable by keywords, themes for reuse and periods for direct download to the customer. There will be an e-commerce facility to allow online payments for images. The image library will facilitate the licensing of images for reuse, but also allow non-commercial users to purchase an image for a basic flat fee.” Though the website is not current active, the National Archives of Scotland predict that this project will not only provide further access to a wider audience, but may also generate some revenue from individuals wishing to purchase prints of the digitized images. This objective (generating revenue) is yet another way the projects may thrive and continue to exist as the institutions take on the digitisation processes as continual (and potentially un-ending) projects.

Results/Summary of Findings
In each institution, the overall objectives match up with the original question posed at the beginning of this study: “Do these projects work with the overall goal to preserve the physical items as well as provide further access to their holdings and collection to a wider audience?” As stated above, the institutions go about the processes and presentation of their respective digitised collections in different ways, however they all benefit from achieving their stated objectives. Both COLLAGE and the National Archives of Scotland seek to generate revenue for their organizations by offering copies of the digital images to the wider public for purchase (and in the case of the Archives, also more affluent/business clientele). Both the National Library of Scotland’s John Murray Exhibit and the British Library’s Turning the Pages exhibit focus on the in-person user-experience, utilizing touch-screen technology that allows patrons to not only read the digitised items, but also examine them as best as possible with high resolution zoom technology, animation, and other features. Though all four institutions work towards the goal in different ways, and provide incredibly different search options and experiences, they all create digital versions of their collections with the objective of increasing awareness of their holdings for a public that exists across the globe, not just individuals residing within the United Kingdom.
Conclusion
Though the end-products, processes, holdings and organizations differ, the main objective of digital preservation and creating wider access is achieved by these four organizations within the United Kingdom. Though the Digital Preservation Coalition’s Mind the Gap report suggests that many improvements should be made regarding the Digital Preservation initiatives in the UK, it is evident that these four organizations are doing the best they can with the resources they have to implement preservation projects at their institutions. The report takes into consideration how different sectors approach digital preservation in regards to funding, regulated industries, and methodologies. As seen from the background information and answers to questions posed by the author, these institutions are diligently working to lessen the gap between where the digital preservation initiatives in the UK are, and where they should be.
Works Cited

2007. Screenshot of COLLAGE Search Page, London, UK. COLLAGE: Search. Guildhall Library and
City of London. 5 Sept. 2007
.

"About COLLAGE." City of London Libraries and Guildhall Art Library. 30 Aug. 2007
.

Corrected Proofs of Nineveh. 2007. Edinburgh, Scotland. Screenshot: John Murray Archive Online
Gallery. National Library of Scotland. 12 Sept. 2007
.

Dames, K. M., et. al., Digitizing 101. Library Journal (1976) part Net Connect (Winter 2007) p. 2-4

Edwards, Nat. "Re: Digitisation Questions." E-mail to the author. 15 Aug. 2007.

He, Am. "User-Testing Ensures Accessibility for Turning the Pages Website-- Helped by Microsoft
and WUP." Multimedia Information and Technology 33 (2007). 10 Sept. 2007.

Jones, Maggie, and Najla Semple. "Mind the Gap: Assessing Digital Preservation Needs in the UK."
Adriadne 48 (2006): 1-7. 8 Aug. 2007 .

Leslie, Fiona. "Bringing Collections to Life, Digitising Local Studies and Special Collections: the
COLLAGE Project." The Electronic Library 22 (2004): 261-263. Library Information and
Literature Full Text. Wilson Web. University of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign, Worthington, OH. 1 Sept. 2007. Keyword: COLLAGE digitisation

Ojala, Marydee. "Turning the Pages of Priceless Manuscripts." EContentMag (2003): 8-9. 5 Sept. 2007
.

"Online Gallery: Turning the Pages." British Library. 2 Sept. 2007
.

"Overview: iBase." IBase.Com. 2006. iBase Media Services. 14 Sept. 2007
.

Pinkowski, Jennifer. "British Library Contest Yields Rare Manuscripts for Digitization." Library
Journal (2007). 14 Sept. 2007 .

Rawnsley, Rupert. 2007. British Library Turning the Pages Website. Rupert Rawnsley's Weblog. 9
Sept. 2007 .

Simmons, John. "Re: Digitisation Projects." Email to the author. 6 Aug. 2007.

Simon, Mandy R. "Guildhall Library Visit." Mandy Does London. 10 Aug. 2007. 14 Sept. 2007
.

"The John Murray Archive." National Library of Scotland. 1 Sept. 2007
.

"Turning the Pages: About Us." Turning the Pages. Armadillo Systems. 14 Sept. 2007
.

Final Projects: Annotated Bibliography

2008-10-27T11:57:00.000-07:00

I've decided to wrap up this blog (well over a year after my last entry) with copies of my final projects. Of course, this is all my work- and you can't copy it or own it, or if you choose to use it, you must credit me.

Annotated Bibliography
Items relating to St. Paul's Cathedral

Crotchet, Dotted. “St. Paul's Cathedral (Continued)” The Musical Times, Vol. 48, No. 768. (Feb. 1 1907), pp 81-89.
This ten page article outlines the history of the Cathedral again, paying close attention to Wren's design as well as how the design was created to house and be a centre for listening to music throughout the years. In addition to the architectural comments, the author also quotes another scholar of St. Paul's history, Charles Welch, who wrote an article entitled St. Paul's Cathedral and its early literary associations. Welch's article is said to mention that nearly half of the booksellers who were prominent in London in the 1550s resided within the cathedral churchyard, indicating that St. Paul's indeed has a long history of associations with literature and books in general.

Hitchcock, Jeannette M. "Some London Libraries." Pacific Bindery Talk 11 (1938): 12-16.
Written in 1938, Hitchcock (a rare-books librarian at Stanford University) outlines her experience meeting with Gerald Henderson, a sub-librarian of St. Paul's Cathedral. At the time this article was written, three volumes from the original library (pre-1666) were held in the Cathedral Library (though now we know that only one such item resides in the library as of July 2007). Hitchcock eloquently describes the physical surroundings of the Cathedral Library, as well as briefly outlining a history of the library beginning in 1707 and the types of items that currently (as of 1938) reside in the library. Also mentioned is the arrangement of books (by size) and also the process by which an individual would be able to track an item down via means of classification.

"The Library." St. Paul's Cathedral. Dean and Chapter, St. Paul's Cathedral. 10 Aug. 2007
Serving as the official website of St. Paul's Cathedral Library, this page outlines some of the holdings within the library (mainly historical, ecclesiastical and patristic literature). Information relating to access (hours, location, contact information) as well as a brief history of how the collection was created after the Great Fire of 1666 (donations from Henry Compton and John Mangey) exists on this website. An interesting fact that is listed here that one may not come across elsewhere is that though the Cathedral still acquires materials, the library currently only acquires items relating to “major works on the history of the Church in England, on Wren and the building of the Cathedral, the Church in the City, and ’alumni’ material.”

Lynton, Norbert. “A Wren Drawing for St. Paul's” The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 97, No. 623. (Feb., 1955), pp. 40+42-44.
This article discusses drawings of Christopher Wren's first model of St. Paul's Cathedral. Though it is questionable whether Wren himself penned the drawings, it is evident that many changes took place between the design of the model (which was to portray the new St. Paul's to be erected after the last ruins fell from the original church in 1668) and the design of the actual church that stands today. Lynton describes the differences between the model and today's church, but also draws parallels between Wren's other designs such as the Trinity College Library in Cambridge. The model itself stood in the St. Paul's Cathedral Library during the time this article was written, but now resides in the Reading Room.

Matthews, Walter R., and W. M. Atkins. History of St. Paul's Cathedral. London: Phoenix House Ltd., 1957. 1-380.
Yet another book written about the history of the cathedral, History of St. Paul's Cathedral is a detailed account of the building, re-building and the societal significance of St. Paul's within British history. Included in this account are details surrounding the configuration of the library, as well as the financial problems that existed in creating and re-creating the library after the Great Fire. Individuals who were integral parts of library history are also mentioned, such as Sparrow Simpson's re-binding of 3,400 books and William R. Inge's (a dean of St. Paul's in 1920) refusal to spend additional money on the library.

Reed, A.W. “Literary Research in London” The Review of English Studies, Vol. 2, No. 5. (Jan., 1926), pp. 62-69.
Reed begins discussing going about performing Literary Research in London, but quickly reminds the reader that literary research can become antiquarian research. He narrows down the definition of literary research to include biography, bibliography, philology (the love of words) and of course literature itself. Reed goes on to discuss his own opinion of how one would best carry out literary research in the city of London. In these guidelines he includes the importance of becoming a reader at the British Museum, acquainting oneself with the Public Records Office, Guildhall Library (for additional town/public records), the library at Lincoln's Inn, among others. He includes guides and references to literature that would assist a researcher in deciphering nearly illegible handwriting, public records legalese, etc. I include this article in this bibliography, as I believe it would have been a helpful guide to my own research while studying in London.

Robbie, H. J. L. “An Undescribed MS. of Donne's Poems” The Review of English Studies, Vol. 3, No. 12. (Oct., 1927), pp. 415-419.
This article discusses three of John Donne's manuscripts, the first is held by the University Library in Cambridge (at the time of publication of this article). The second Donne manuscript that is mentioned in the article is housed at the St. Paul's Cathedral Library. The manuscript contains several poems, satires, elegies and letters. Whether or not it is actually the work of Donne is debatable. Robbie mentions that a cathedral librarian believed that a symbol on the inside front page of the manuscript indicated that it was written by Donne, though others believe the symbol could represent a number of other potential authors as well. The third manuscript mentioned in this article is held privately by an individual, and not discussed at length other than to suggest that it too is a compilation of poems and writings by the author, possibly for one of his patrons.

Saunders, Ann. St. Paul's: the Story of the Cathedral. London: Collins & Brown, 2001. 1-218.
With beautiful photographs, engravings and artistic interpretations of St. Paul's Cathedral's long history, Saunders outlines the the church's medieval beginnings in the City of London and chronicles it's metamorphosis into today's St. Paul's. Chapters outline not only the church's medieval roots, but also Christopher Wren's early designs, the Great Fire of London, and the trials and tribulations that Wren faced while building the church. Saunders also writes of the celebrations and annual events held at the church, which helps identify St. Paul's as an almost eternal centre for unity among Londoners.

"St Paul's: The new church." Old and New London: Volume 1 (1878), pp. 249-62. 15 Aug. 2007
This article was accessed via the British History Online website, which houses hundreds of printed and electronic documents relating to the history of the British Isles as a free service. This particular article discusses not only the architectural history of St. Paul's, but also briefly discusses the library and its holdings under the chapter “Nooks and Corners of the Cathedral.” This piece descriptively outlines the physical beauty and intricate design of the church as well as the individuals who were prominent during certain time periods of importance to the church history.

Wisdom, Jo. Personal interview. 30 July 2007.
During a brief personal interview with the current librarian of St. Paul's Cathedral Library, Jo Wisdom shared just some of the daily workings of the cathedral library. Included in this interview, Wisdom made mention of preservation practices, obstacles and issues surrounding preservation of the collection (particularly in regards to environmental concerns), classification of the collection, and the main objectives of the St. Paul's Cathedral Library. Much more could be learned from Jo Wisdom, if time permitted. However upon further research of the library history, one could easily begin to appreciate the responsibility that coincides with being the lone St. Paul's Cathedral Librarian.

Barbican Library

2007-08-10T07:20:00.000-07:00

The Barbican Library was another great library we visited that stands within the City of London's square mile. The Barbican Library has a long historical context.

In 1423 the Barbican housed a reference collection for those who could read-- lawyers, doctors, professionals, etc. That libray was split up when a royal figure decided to keep part of the collection (See previous post- Duke of Somerset).

The Barbican is a Lending Library, one of 3 lending libraries within the City of London. The lending policy was established after the 1964 Public Library and Museum Act. Prior to that time it existed as reference-only. They circulate roughly 500K items per year and are open 6 days per week. They service about 1200 people per day, and many of these patrons are individuals who work within the City of London. (The City doesn't actually have many residents, mostly businesses/companies, etc.) Much of the business that comes into the library occurs through the lunch hour while people are on breaks from their jobs.

After the WWII bombings, a new site was designed in the 1960s and erected in the 1970s. It was designed to be a unique international Art Centre. There were always plans for a library to be attached to the Barbican Centre, in order to serve student, business, and residential patrons.

Music Library
The Barbican Music Library is one of the two largest collections of music in London. They have a very extensive arts collection and aim to cover all types of music. They cater to a wide range (diverse) patron population (including amateur and seasoned musicians). The CD collection is probably the largest in London that is housed in one area. They own 17,000 CDs that are all available for perusal by the public. Our guide mentioned that they have seen about a 10% drop in CD circulation in the last year due to downloading MP3s. I think this is a bigger deal in the UK because most libraries (if not all) charge patrons to borrow any items that are not books (DVDs, CDs, CD-roms, etc.). Currently the Barbican Music Library charges only 30p per week for CDs, which is a competitive (cheap!) rate compared to other libraries. New CDs are not available to loan until they've been on store shelves for 3 months. I couldn't believe this!!

**The 1964 Public Libraries and Museums Act does not cover CD's and DVD's in the verbage. The only items the act spells out as being freely available by public libraries are books, though the libraries don't charge for Audiobooks.**

CD Classification is split up into five sections: Classical, Anthology, Pop Groups, Pop Female and Pop Male. Most items have RFID tags, and all CDs have security cases as well.

The Music library also has a wide variety of Music Electronic Resources, which is also available at home. (This includes the Grover Dictionary of Music and International Index to Music Periodicals.)

One of the neatest things in the Music library is an upright piano that sits near the Enquiry Desk. It has headphones attached to it so patrons can "try-out" scores they are looking to lend before they take them home.

Classification
The books in the Music Library are classified by Dewey, the Scores are classified by Macolving and Reeves Scheme. Journals are bound each year so back issues are available in hard-copies within the library.

Listening Booths
There are 8 separate listening booths for patrons to listen to music on CD. There are no restrictions on time limits to use these booths. There are also 2 booths that house a special collection of Live Music called Music Preserved. This collection is not owned by the Barbican, but patrons do have access to listen to it if they wish- at the two special listening booths created for this purpose.

The Barbican Library strives to support financiers in the city. Their collection includes many different items, though they mentioned that they have a very male-oriented patron population due to their location.

They do have outreach services to homebound individuals, education area called "Basic Skills for Life", conversation ESL programs, 1-to-1 Internet Tutor Sessions, etc. This library was most like a library in the US.

The Barbican was one of the first libraries in the country to gain RFID technology, which they admittedly say has its advantages AND disadvantages.

There are 2 exhibition areas, and there is a stringent application/interview process to have artwork displayed in these areas.

The library also houses an Arts Reading Room which is often used for group meetings and writing workshops, as well as a Children's library.

The Children's Library at Barbican is one of the largest children's libraries in London. They have about 25K loan-able items in the collection, and cater to a patron population from newborn to age 14. Every fortnight Birmingham sends them CARTONS of books (100-300 books) and they must go through and decide what they want to buy. There is only one state school within the square mile of London, though the librarians have developed links and relationships with private schools in the area as well as neighboring boroughs. All computers in the children's area are equipped with internet filters, and they librarian also made some interesting comments about access. Apparently if a librarian believes the content or book a 12 year old is attempting to check-out, they will reserve the right to NOT lend it to that patron. I thought this was astounding- and so completely different from what our access policies are in the states.

The Children's library holds storytimes 3 times per week. They celebrate National Book Week in October and have schools come into the library to meet authors, illustrators, etc.

The National Book Trust has a program that provides families with bags of reading/literacy materials at birth, 18 months and at age three. They are given to every child by the Health Visitor who comes to the home of the child. The birth-bag of goodies includes board books, the older packages come with picture books.

I particularly enjoyed this visit because once again I felt that we were given the behind-the-scenes look at how a lending library operates and how library services differ between the UK and the US. I think taking a closer look at the access policies for minors in either country would be a really interesting study.

Guildhall Library Visit

2007-08-10T06:09:00.000-07:00

Guildhall library was the first lending-library that we were able to visit, and I wish we would've visited this library earlier on in the trip. This library seemed closest to the one (in service-models, services, layout, etc.) I work in back home. Plus, the atmosphere here made it incredibly inviting to study.

Guildhall Library is located within the City of London, which is London's smallest local authority (you may remember me mentioning the "square mile" the City of London exists in). It is also Britain's smallest local authority, and there are 5 libraries within this square mile. Guildhall is home to a great Art Gallery, and since its creation there were always plans to include a library within the building. Guildhall is the largest of the City's libraries (local and publicly funded). There are actually no membership requirements or restrictions, which also makes this a convenient place for people to visit while they're vacationing to search for information.

The building itself is the 4th building to house Guildhall. It was first established in the 1420's about 100 yards away from the current building, adjacent to Lord Hall Chapel. It housed mainly theological manuscripts/items.

In the 1600's the Duke of Somerset decided he would take over the collection, and he basically took off with all of the items. That was the end of Guildhall library as it was. (Incidentally the Duke was executed later for things unrelated to theft of the collection.) The library owns only 1 item that existed within the medieval Guildhall library, and the rest of the collection has quite literally disappeared.

In the 1820's influential people decided to create a library that concentrated on the City of London. It opened originally to corporation members and guests. Donations to create the library came from sheriffs, high-class citizens, etc. The library itself became incredibly popular. Because of this popularity, in the 1870's Horace Jones (city architect that built Tower Bridge) decided to re-build the another library. He designed with with ecclesiastical appearance based off the Knave of Taxton church. This version of the library opened to the general public in 1875, and was one of the first libraries in the UK to welcome the "general public" into their institution. As such, it too became incredibly popular. The library started creating/developing general collections of business information, commercial records, directories, etc.

In December of 1940 The Blitz hit London, and incendiary bombs hit the library. Most valuable materials were moved, but additional losses occurred regardless. The library has been able to replace or buy many of the items that were lost back for their current collection. The building as it stands now was erected in 1974.

The Collection
Guildhall houses the greatest collection devoted to London. It includes History, English local history, Parliamentary matters, early law reports, family history, etc. Many guilds (about 95 companies) gave their collections over to Guildhall Library, including Clock and Watchmaking guilds, Livery Guilds, Blacksmiths, etc.

The collection has international importance as well as a strong local historical importance. The London Stock Exchange gave all historic records and company annual reports between 1880-1964 to Guildhall, which occupies two and a half miles of shelf-space. They also acquired Lloyd's marine collection. Lloyd's was an insurance company specializing in maritime risks from 1740 and onward. Shipping movements, casualities and over 350,000 cards from 1927 to 1974 record every voyage that was taken by sea around the world.

Book Selecting
Guildhall continues to purchase and acquire items, both modern and antiquarian. With a staff of about 44 people (including security, shelvers, etc.) the librarians carefully select items that will benefit the collection and their patrons.

Resources/Layout
The Enquiry Desk is typically staffed with 2-4 staffers, and they provide reference services to the patron population. They receive about 10-15 letters/emails per day with reference questions. Because much of the research required to carry out these services is difficult and time consuming, the first 20 minutes of research by a librarian/staff member is free, but each additional hour for in-depth research charges 50 pounds! Because many of the patrons who utilize the collections are businesses and companies who can afford this type of charge, no one seems to complain much about the bill. Often the reference staff will bring in a retired employee from Guildhall who is a "freelancer" to work on incredibly time consuming work.

The catalogue is run by TALIS, and can be viewed here.

If you are a researcher and planning to carryout research at Guildhall, you may search the online catalogue and then fill out a Request Slip. Then the patron must take the Request Slip to the Enquiry Desk, where the librarians will place it in a tube-suction system (much like those at US Bank drive-throughs). The request then goes to the storage area in the basement. For rare items one must hand-over an ID as well as sit at the table closest to the Enquiry Desk for close observation.

Computers/Electronic Resources
Guildhall is one of the only libraries (it seemed to me) that has free internet access on their computers. Due to the building's architecture, Guildhall has problems with WiFi and wireless access.

Guildhall has a wealth of online resources, many of which are available to the public from home. COLLAGE is a digitisation project created at Guildhall, where over 40K images from the collection have been scanned in and are available for purchase online.

Classification
A Guildhall librarian created a special classification system for their collection of London-related works in the 1930s that is still used today. For non-London-related works, the library uses Dewey, but they aren't necessarily shelved that way. If someone donates a collection, the entire collection is kept together, not separated.

I really enjoyed the visit to Guildhall. As mentioned earlier, I felt this was the closest representation of what a public library is like in the states, and I would have loved to have had more time to utilize their resources while there.

My birthday and Good-byes

2007-08-04T08:11:00.000-07:00

So it's our last day here, and I haven't kept up on the last few days of the trip. I think I've been gearing up and trying to squeeze so many things into the last few days that I just haven't had the time (or energy) to sit down and actually write out everything I've seen of late.

Yesterday was my birthday- the last 20-something birthday I'll ever have, so I celebrated with people from our program. I also ate bread and butter pudding, which is to-die-for. I'm certain I will miss the food here. Every meal I've had has been fantastic. I'll post some pictures here of people in my program. They're blurry (as some of the night ended up being) but you get the idea. It's not easy to get 10 or so people organized for a picture on Blackfriar's Bridge.

This evening (soon) I'll be handing in my access-card to the internet. I'm actually nervous about that. I hate being "disconnected" for too long, as most of you know.

But I'm very sad to leave here. The last two days have brought on absolutely gorgeous weather. I paid my respects at John Milton's grave (pictured above). I finally saw part of the London Wall everyone kept talking about. I walked around the Guildhall library and the Barbican Centre. Those two entries will be much longer and posted at another time.

I'm starting to wonder what life will be like at home. I'm turning over a few "new leaves" so to speak, so I'm anxious to see what my day to day will be when I get back. I recently got our draft work-schedule, which was a nice push back into reality. haha! I'm excited to see everyone and tell everyone the great experiences I've had here...but I'm also wondering when I'll get back here for another visit, and how many times I'll cross the Thames before I leave tomorrow morning.

So I leave here at 6am tomorrow. Flight finally lands in Cleveland around 6pm, and then I have to see if I can remember how to drive. It will be around 11pm in my head/body so I'm hoping I can get back to Columbus in one piece so I can size up the damage of my apartment with a clear head. Hahaha. (I know how jet lag works and it inevitably kicks my butt on the way home.)

Anyways, I'll see you when I get back....and will post info on the Barbican and Guildhall when I get back, too.

xo Cheers!

Maritime Museum Library and Pub walking

2007-08-02T01:00:00.000-07:00

So today we had to be in the courtyard (our group meeting place) at 7:30am. Seeing as I do not function without coffee, I woke up at 6:15, threw on clothes, went and got coffee, checked email, then met the group. We then trekked across the waterloo bridge over to the other side of the river and took a 23 minute long boat ride down the Thames to Greenwich.

Now, our official tour didn’t start until 10:30am. The museum (and most shops) didn’t open until 10:00. So we had a little bit of time to get some breakfast (THANK GOD) and I could settle down a bit before we went in.

We went to the National Maritime Museum. What does this have to do with libraries? Good question. I was starting to wonder the same thing. In fact, I’m so incredibly worried about getting research done and getting all of the things I wanted to do finished in ADDITION to my final project and assignments for my other class at Illinois…well I’m just about fed up with group trips. I had too much fun investigating the city on my own while everyone was away on mini-break that I’m starting to lose my patience in big groups and also with pre-organized meeting times, tours, etc. All of the things I was really looking forward to seeing are already over with, so I wish we had these last few days as optional days or research days so I could get to work on my assignments or see the last few things I absolutely want/need to see.

At any rate, the National Maritime Museum also has a library, which houses pretty much any and everything pertaining to ocean/sea related items.

We walked up through the Museum into the E-Library area, which was a foyer with an Inquiry Desk (information desk) and about 12 computers. The computers have access to E-Journals, their catalogue, family history items, etc. The E-Library was created so people under the age of 16 could search for information, as the under-agers are not permitted in the library itself. Within the foyer “E-Library” area, they also place items on display, this time around they are displaying items from the Falklands Islands Dispute. Swords, paintings, documents, etc. Pretty neat.

We then walked through the rotunda to the Caird Library within the Maritime Museum. The shelves within were all guarded with glass doors, and locked. (Patrons are able to unlock the glass doors, they need only ask for a key.) Above the door to the library is a plaque stating Caird’s (the main benefactor in creating the library) motto “Strive and Endure” which is pretty depressing if you ask me. The shelving was based on Cambridge University’s shelving plan- and created in the 1930’s. There are about 25K books in the Reading Room, all Reference only. Of those books, about 8000 of them are Rare Books, pamphlets, charts, atlases, maps, etc. The Rare Books include anything that is from pre-1850. Many of these rare items are not on-site.

The library utilizes the UDC cataloguing system- Universal Decimal Classification- which integrates punctuation into the call numbers to further divide sub-headings into sub-sub-headings. Most of the patrons to the library are either Family Historians or academics. The library is currently creating a new archive to accommodate all groups (allow for better quiet areas for academics) and will be switching over to temperature controlled areas for the entire collection. This library (which is different from most of the others we’ve visited) acquires things on a regular basis, so they WEED constantly. They’re short on space and work diligently to keep it all organized and efficient for patrons, just as any library would.

The library was opened in 1937 by King George the VI. The building itself was originally an orphanage called the Royal Hospital School, which housed children of sailors and seamen who’d been abandoned for whatever reason. The Museum building lays on the grounds of what used to be the Naval College which is a separate building and was closed in 1999 (now it houses the Greenwich University).

“Treasures”
This whole experience reminded me of the summer reading program at my library right now, as a lot of Maritime’s items are pirate-related. Here are some of the things I got to see and HOLD IN MY HANDS

The museum library has about 4 and a half miles worth of manuscripts. Their oldest piece is from 1322.

Spy Book: 1582
This book was compiled before the Spanish Armada for Queen Elizabeth by a real spy who was in Portugal, watching the Spanish fleets bring in goods/people, etc. It is basically military intelligence from long long ago. Very cool.

Waggoner: 1682
Pirate-owned atlas. Neat! Basil Ringrose (a real pirate) wrote this around American and South America. On a map within it, California is drawn as an island. Basil would attack Spanish ships, so even though he was a pirate, because the English weren’t too happy with the Spanish at that time, they eventually let him off the hook after he was tried for pirating.

Pearl- Royal Naval Log Book: 1720
This log book has two lines in it that detail when the English Navy captured Blackbeard…the real thing, Blackbeard the Pirate. Very neat! Interestingly, it appears that he was caught off the coast of North Carolina.

Merchant/Slave Log
Not very interesting, because the slaves were listed as “goods” and not much is recorded about them other than where they were going, how many onboard, etc. However, this book was written by a man (Newton) who later became a reformed Christian and wrote the song: Amazing Grace. Neat!

Admiral Lord Nelson’s love letters- 1801
These were neat because we got to see the love letters to his mistress—and then also the letter to his wife that basically says, “Look lady, I can’t help you- I don’t love you, we’re married and whatever, but buzz off.” But the letter to his mistress is pretty hot and steamy. Apparently Nelson was a paranoid guy too, so a lot of what he wrote is scribbled out and re-written…just in case someone intercepted it. He burned all the letters he received. I bet he didn’t think hundreds of years later we’d be reading about his affair! The library has literally 100s of these letters, as the mistress never held up her end of the deal and burned them, as Nelson burnt his. (I wouldn’t burn them either.)

Titanic: Walter Lords’ collection of memorabilia
Walter Lords, who wrote A Night to Remember, collected a ton of stuff from the Titanic, and upon his death, the Maritime museum acquired these items. Some things I was able to look at: a promotional brochure for White Star Liner, with a cross-section of the ship; photographs taken on the Carpathia of the survivors, how they were saved, and even a real photograph of the iceberg that sunk the Titanic (amazing); a 2nd class dinner menu, which was also a postcard that a little girl had in her pocket when the boat went under.

I also was able to see a lot of information on the Confession and Execution of pirates…pretty bloody stuff. Also saw the HBMS Bounty book, which had a broken spine, so they tied it together with a piece of the sail from the boat.

So all in all this was a neat little trip. I wasn’t expecting it to have so many interesting treasures.

After our visit to the museum, I trekked up the hill to the Observatory, which is the area where the prime meridian is located. Here’s a picture of me, with a foot in both hemispheres. Doubt that will ever happen again. Haha!

After our trek around Greenwich, I went to Leceister Square to retrieve my cell phone. Then I went back to the dorms, did some homework, and ended up going to a bunch of places from Covent Gardens, to the City of London and then back to our stomping grounds around Waterloo station. It was a great night- wonderful weather and I snapped some pictures of the pubs I went to, and the scenery along the way. I can’t believe that I’m coming home so soon….I’ll really miss these sights and I want to be sure I have enough pictures of them to remind me how much I love it here.

Monday: St. Paul's Cathedral and Wimbledon

2007-08-02T00:51:00.000-07:00

So on Monday I had an appointment at the St. Paul's Cathedral library to discuss their collection with the librarian. I was super-nervous about it. However, I calmed myself down with a trek out to Wimbledon to do some souvenir shopping for my parents (the tennis freaks). After a train ride, a long walk and two bloody blisters later...I found Wimbledon. Centre Court is being torn apart, and I didn't get to see much of it (it cost so much money to get a tour-- and I was pressed for time!!!) that I just snapped a few pictures of the Golf course across the street, and the outside of the tennis arenas. The buildings are green and the flowers everywhere are purple...gorgeous!! Then I proceeded to spend more money in that gift shop than I've spent anywhere in london to date. However, seeing as my parents helped me fund half of this trip, the least I could do is get them some neat stuff they'll love. :o)

Then I took a bus, then walked, then the tube (with three changes) back to waterloo. Dumped off my stuff in the dorms, band-aided my bloody blisters, and walked to St. Paul's for my meeting. Climbed the 96 steps up to the library, and spoke with the librarian there about a multitude of things...mostly their collection. I only had an hour with him, but I did learn quite a bit about their collection, and even some pointers on how to get involved in the conservation field. So that was worth it. I think I'm writing my short paper on that collection, and focusing my longer research on digitisation projects over here...so I know I'll have enough content to get 25 pages out of it all.

After that, I had dinner at the White Hart (favorite neighbourhood joint) and then went to Doggett's on the river. I can't get enough of this river. *sigh*

Bath, England

2007-07-31T00:42:00.001-07:00

So we wake up the next morning and start to get ready for our 2 hour train ride to Bath. I was excited for this-- to see some more of the countryside and also to see the Roman Baths, which I've heard so much about.

Ann booked this FABULOUS bed and breakfast that is fancier than anything I've ever seen in the UK. I felt like lifestyles of the rich and famous. Not only was our little concierge guy incredibly accomodating (and cute) but they also served us tea in the garden upon our arrival. The view and garden of this Paradise Hotel was amazing. I'll post a picture of the garden here, but I knew as I snapped them that they would not do the place justice.

After a nice spot of tea, we decided to hit the city center and do some wandering around to get an idea of what we'd do the next day. We shopped for a bit. (I found a green skirt that's really cute for only £5. and a pair of earrings for 83p.) Then we had dinner at the Pump Room, which is attached to the Roman Baths. The squares had musicians galore and though there were tourists everywhere, it was lovely to just sit back, have a glass of wine and enjoy the scenery. The Bath Abbey is also in the square, and is a gorgeous church. Two of the spires have Jacob's Ladder on the front, and angels are scultped in to the stone as they climb their way to the top.

After dinner at the Pump Room, we started to walk home and I had a pint at the Lion and Lamb (which I thought was funny because it's also the name of a Christian bookstore back home). I met some great chaps who go to the uni there. We talked about all sorts of things, though this particular bartender was telling me HIS lifestory. From what I always gathered about stereotypical bar visits on television and elsewhere, I thought the PATRONS were supposed to unload THEIR life stories on the bartenders. Not this time. But still it was a great way to meet some locals and get a feel for what the Bath area is like. Obviously the smaller towns are incredibly different from metropolitan busy London. It's a nice getaway. Each time I visit a different town here I can't decide which I would prefer to live in. London always feels like home as I approach Waterloo station and walk down the Thames, but the smaller towns offer a lot for those who live there as well. Interesting to say the least.

I then went back to the room for a final cup of tea before bed. I was able to enjoy it in the bathtub in our room. THE BATHROOM THERE WAS GORGEOUS!!!! For the first time in my life I was able to soak in a bathtub with claw-feet. It sat directly in the middle of the enormous bathroom and was absolutely blissful. (Mind you I've spent most of my time here showering in a trailer-sized shower with no shower-curtain). It was heavenly. I was so lucky Ann picked this fancy place. And thankfully she brought ear plugs so I don't think my log-sawing/snoring bothered her at all. :o)

St. Paul's, Portobello Road and Mary Poppins

2007-07-31T00:29:00.000-07:00

Another big day of touristing!

Day two of Ann's stay (while I'm here too), and we took off to see St. Paul's again. I'm absolutely in love with this church. I finally paid the admission to get in and walked around to pay close attention to the detail inside the church. I also went up over 200 steps to the top of the dome. At the top, you can whisper into the wall and it bounces off the other walls and can be heard 32 metres away. Pretty neat. From up there the people look like little ants. The hallways and staircase leading up to the dome and whispering wall are so small that I could touch both elbows on either wall while walking through it. I honestly don't' know how anyone much larger/taller than me could get through. But getting up to the top and stepping outside was worth it. I could see my city, and take pictures of it all. The weather was perfect and the view amazing. I took so many pictures. I'm starting to get that achy- "going home soon" feeling and want to be sure I've embedded these memories into my brain. I don't want to forget how awe-inspiring everything is here. I know that the daily routine of home/school is going to quickly mask the passion I've found here for everything British.

After St. Paul's (which incidentally was exhausting) Ann and I split up so she could go do a brass rubbing and I could hit Portobello Road Market, which was on my list of things-to-do. It was great. I'm going back next week with more cash so I can buy this great jacket (will be the third jacket I purchase here but whatever) that I found for only £20. The streets were lined with merchants selling antique books, china, jewelry, music, clothing, etc. I bought two pretty shirts that are floral and not like anything I would normally buy. But I love them.

Then after getting home, I quickly changed clothes so Ann, Meredith and I could go see Mary Poppins in Leceister Square. It was so great! We had seats in the 5th row, which are normally £60 seats ($120) and we got them for only £30. It was fantastic.

Then home again to get to sleep and packed for our day trip to Bath.

Big day of touristing.

2007-07-28T02:22:00.001-07:00

So yesterday (Friday) Ann and I walked down the Thames over to Westminster Abbey. I've been there before, and it's amazing. We walked around and looked at all the graves, headstones, monuments, etc. There are a LOT of dead people in there. I kept wondering how sanitary it is to be walking amongst all of these dead people. I doubt they had very good sealing devices back in the 1200s, etc. I'll bet I was inhaling a lot of old gross stuff I won't get into here.

At any rate, I meandered around Poet's Corner, and paid my respects to Charles Dickens, Ben Jonson (ahhhh-- sigh), Rudyard Kipling, etc. Oddly enough Charles Darwin is buried there. He doesn't have a neat epitaph or anything...just a name and dates. I suppose that's all the church could go with though-- seeing as they really thought he was full of nonsense (putting it nicely).

From the Abbey, we hopped on the tube and had lunch over at the Victoria and Albert museum. It was the first proper meal I'd had in a while-- lamb and vegetables. I think my body went into shock from the nourishment of broccoli. I have been eating a lot of meat and bread....I hope I don't come home with scurvy.

From the V&A we walked through Hyde Park, past the Albert monument into Kensington Gardens.

The Prince Alfred monument is in Hyde Park, which is somewhat attached to Kensington Gardens. I've posted two pictures of the Alfred Monument here. I hadn't ever seen it before and was absolutely awestruck by it's massive size. Apparently Queen Victoria was devastated when her husband died (I think he died pretty young) and she erected a monument with representatives from each continent in the world at his feet. It's stunning and somewhat out of place amongst all of the green in Hyde Park, but I had to include another picture from far away to attempt to show the magnitude of its size.

Ann is a Princess Diana freak, so we went into Kensington Palace, which was pretty neat...though they had this weird shrine-type exhibit of her dresses and pictures of her...and even wallpaper with her image all over it...very strange. But I'm glad we went. Then we had tea & scones at the Orangery (picture), which used to serve as a greenhouse on the grounds of Kensington Gardens. It was a beautiful day, and did I mention that I love tea breaks? hahaha. I do have pictures, and will put them up soon.

Then we came back home to rest before walking down the Thames in the other direction to take Ann down to Doggett's, a pub right near Blackfriar's Bridge. It's so beautiful to just walk down the river, half of the fun is just getting where you're going. I don't know how I'm going to appreciate my grandview walks after the ones I get daily here.

At any rate, we eventually parted ways. I wanted one more pint so I headed to the Stamford Arms and met some really nice people. One much older gentleman who wouldn't let me walk home alone. Really, he had a cane and terrible osteoporosis, so I offered to help HIM walk halfway home.

I adore the terms of endearment people say to me all the time. I like being called "love", "dahlin", "sweets", etc. Why can't we adopt this type of speak in the states? It's really good for your self-esteem, even if they don't really mean it.

Alright I'm going to go meet Ann and let her know that I got us tickets to see Mary Poppins tonight! Hooray! More later....
xx

13 hours on a bus. No Lie.

2007-07-27T01:50:00.000-07:00

And this picture pretty much sums it up.

The bus was supposed to take 9 hours but instead took 13. I ate more biscuits, chocolate and crisps in those 13 hours than I have in the last 5 years. More details on THAT exciting busride later, when I've recovered.

Ann's here!!!!! It felt SO GOOD to see someone who knows me. Today I'm not sure what we'll do but it will be fun, I'm sure! More later...

Edinburgh-- details of visits.

2007-07-27T01:42:00.001-07:00

Well, I'm currently on a bus headed back south to London. I have about an hour and a half of power left on my laptop, so I thought I'd use this time to catch everyone (including myself) up on all the things that have happened in the past few days.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, on Sunday we went to Edinburgh Scotland, which is a lovely and beautiful town. It was a long 9 hour journey on a bus. The bus itself was great, but I really felt as though I lost an entire day of the trip just sitting on a coach. I thought we were taking a train, but I was mistaken. At any rate, they showed movies, and we could stretch out a bit, so that was nice. And the weather was lovely, so I was able to see some of the beautiful northern English countryside. I have never seen so many sheep in my entire life. Much of the land around England reminded me of back home in northeastern Ohio. I woke up after a nap on the trip at one point and didn't know where I was.

I've also seen three rainbows in the last three days, which I believe is a sign...of some sort. I'll figure it out later. But they're very pretty. :o)

But the first night we arrived in Edinburgh (Sunday), Rachel and I went on a “terror tour” that started at 10pm and took us around to the scary parts of Edinburgh, and ended in the underground vaults. It was interesting (to learn of a parking lot that covers what used to be a “plague pit” of thousands of dead bodies) and the vaults were spine-chilling. There were several separate rooms that were previously hideouts for the homeless, back when being homeless was a crime punishable by death. There is a supposed poltergeist in one of the rooms and there were other rooms that I wanted to RUN OUT of immediately after I'd walked in. It was creepy and scary....and loads of fun.

Monday morning we headed off to the National Library of Scotland. There, two individuals who work at the library spoke to us for about 2 hours. One of the speakers, David- was the conservator and (from what I gathered) the main coordinator of the John Murray exhibit. John Murray was a publisher who published some of the most famous British literature starting in the 1700s going through 7 generations to 2002. Some of the works published by Murray include: Darwin, Jane Austen, numerous famous politicians, Lord Byron, and many many others. The collection was valued at 45 million pounds, and eventually was sold to the National Library for 32 million pounds. The National Library acquired the collection with funding assistance (17.7 million POUNDS) from the Heritage Lottery, which was the largest grant/donation ever given.

The John Murray exhibit far exceeded my expectations. Again, we had the opportunity to speak with individuals who were charged with the responsibility of putting together the collection, working alongside designers to create an innovative and entertaining exhibit for visitors. They explained their marketing campaigns to us, what they had hoped to achieve with this exhibit, etc. After the description of how it was put together, we finally were able to visit the exhibit and see how it all worked out.

What they did was remarkable. Because the collection is mainly books, letters and manuscripts of famed authors, politicians, etc., they wanted to create something that intrigued people and didn't require an enormous amount of reading. The script that was written on these documents is difficult to read, and then there is also the transcript that one would have to read in addition to the item on display. In order to give the PEOPLE who wrote these items a historical context for the visitor, the library created individual exhibits for each author like none other I've seen. Inside each glass case with the manuscript/book/letters, clothing that represents the individual is hanging to illustrate the stature and presence of the person. Interactive touch screen computers then work with the lighting in the exhibit booths to highlight the items and list why they are being displayed with this particular person's work. For example- Lord Byron was known as a somewhat narcissistic ladies' man- so, they placed a hand-held mirror and love letters in his exhibit. Each author on display had their own “booth” of sorts that had a virtual likeness portraying them. The lighting, layout and interactive touch screen technology allows visitors to listen to audio or read the items in the exhibit, whichever they prefer.

Truly, I was astonished with how well this worked. And it has since increased my expectations of museum exhibits and the way they are laid out and designed. Because the John Murray collection is so large (roughly 200K items), and the space where it is displayed is so small, they plan to rotate the exhibits. I was particularly interested in the digitization (or digitisation) efforts underway with this collection, as they hope to make much of the exhibit available online. I was lucky enough to get David's contact information to email him with additional questions regarding this project. The people at the National Library of Scotland were incredibly kind and informative, and generous...with tea and biscuits. I love tea and biscuits breaks, and believe we should make them required in the states.

From the National Library, we then trekked over to the National Archives, which are currently undergoing renovations, so we weren't able to go around the building much. However, a specialist did give us a nice talk on their collections, which I found enthralling. Though we weren't able to access the archives themselves, they did bring certain books/scrolls/letters out to us for us to read. We were actually able to handle these items (carefully of course). One of my favorites was the first written instance (that they knew of in Scotland) of the ingredients being purchased to make whisky. The scroll it was written on dated back to the 1400s! And again I was offered contact information regarding their digitization projects as well. And again we were given tea and biscuits. So I'm a fan of Scotland. They're incredibly kind and generous with tea and biscuits.

Tuesday we had a research day, which meant I spent it trudging up to Edinburgh Castle and paying nearly 20 dollars (11 pounds) to walk around inside. I was a little disappointed by it, but I'm not quite sure what I expected really. The view from the top was amazing, and walking the Royal Mile was quite exhausting. My throat had been hurting and I assumed I was allergic to some of the very strange plants they had on campus. But as it turns out the next day (Wednesday) I woke up feeling sick so I guess it's the common cold.

I stuck pretty close to campus Wednesday, after first doing a little more souvenir shopping and visiting the writer's museum. That was interesting, mainly because I really enjoyed the house the museum was in. It was a part of the Old City before it was turned into a museum, so it had really interesting layouts and the staircases were neat. One of the staircases had one step within it that was a little higher than the rest of the steps, in order to deter strangers (I'm assuming home invaders) from being able to get up the steps unnoticed by the home owners.

The Writers' Museum had information about three main writers from Scotland: Robert Burns, Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson. I wish I had recently read some of their work so I would've found it a little more interesting. Most of the exhibits had interesting notes, letters and objects that were owned by the authors during their lifetime. But after having been to the John Murray exhibit, and understanding the amount of effort the National Library of Scotland put into that display, well I wasn't that impressed with the writer's museum. I'm glad we went, but I think between my head-cold and the rain and not having read anything recently by the prominent writers in the exhibit, I was ready to take a bath and a nap.

And now I'm headed back to London. And I'm so glad I finally got to talk to Ann last night, a friend who's coming to visit me here. I was really worried we wouldn't get in touch. I'm also hoping the weather clears up a little bit, as it's been raining all day and pretty dreary. I still don't feel very good but I suppose if I have to spend all day on a bus, the day I am sick would be the best day to do it, right?

Alright that's all for now. I'll try to get more in later. I have a mini-break until July 31st. Miss you all!

Safely in Edinburgh

2007-07-24T03:14:00.000-07:00

Pronounced Ed-in-burr-ah FYI.

I'm in Scotland. There's a mountain (Arthur's Seat) that I can see from just about anywhere on campus. The dorms are so nice that I feel like I'm in some sort of posh hotel. The weather is much chillier, but I was able to wear my new jacket.

Yesterday I went to the National Archives and the National Library of Scotland. I'm just going to post some pictures and will get into more detail about it all later. Internet availability is costing me 3 pounds/day and is only available in two rooms on campus. Thank god I brought my laptop. But I don't want to spend the entire day stuck in this room on the computer so I'll likely finish up this blog later on with more details. Just wanted you all to know that I'm here, I'm safe, it's even more beautiful than I thought it would be, and I STILL don't want to come home.

And on this busy street, if you look down the hill....there's water.

Weekend

2007-07-22T00:09:00.001-07:00

So this weekend, let's see....

Friday I had a research day, so I went to the British Library again. I love that place. I finally got to go into their conservation centre, which was very VERY interesting and interactive. The BL is the National Archive for Recorded sound, and you're able to see the various processes they use to restore old recordings from wax cylinders from the 1890s. I actually HEARD Florence Nightingale speak on a recording. Amazing! They also go over the various types of infestations and damages books incur through the years, and discuss how they treat them. They also go into a lot of detail regarding the best type of conservation procedures for particular types of books-- and discuss the importance of keeping the cultural origin/type of the book in tact. I loved it.

Then I walked around the Treasures Gallery, because I can't get enough of staring at the Gutenberg Bible...the Magna Carta, Shakespeare's First Folio...I felt like I could lay on the floor and sleep surrounded by all of these marvelous things.

And then Saturday I did some light shopping, homework, and nothing huge other than a wild night of dancing in Camden Town...FUN.

And then Sunday I mainly did laundry and packed up for Scotland. I also did some shopping on Regent Street. They're having incredible sales and I managed to get a great winter coat for only £30!

We leave in an hour for Scotland so I'm pretty excited about that. We're going to their National Library of Scotland and then the Writer's Museum. I have a ton of school work to do so I'll be scoping out internet connections once I get there.

I'd mentioned before St. Paul's Cathedral Library. And the librarian there who works there only 3 days a week is a lovely and well-spoken gentleman who offered to answer any additional questions we may have regarding their collection. Well, I emailed him. And he's agreed to meet with me and answer some additional questions in the library on Friday the 31st. Words cannot describe how honored and special I feel that I will be working with THE librarian in charge of a collection that dates back to 1350. Amazing. I can't wait to pick his brain and ask him how they handle the environmental issues in that enormous structure-- how they regulate the temperature in a building with stone walls and gigantic windows....ahhhhh!

I'm such a nerd but I'm so incredibly excited. I just don't want to sound stupid so I have to get some questions together for him. Anyone out there have any particular questions YOU'D like to ask the librarian at St. Paul's Cathedral? If so-- let me know. :o) I'm literally giddy with excitement over one-on-one time with this guy! (Nerd-alert.)

Alright well i have some things to do before we get on our 4 hour train to Scotland. Is it bad that I still don't really want to come home????

Thursday: Oxford again

2007-07-20T03:54:00.000-07:00

I love Oxford. Even though we went before, I still love this town. (Being from Columbus, I think I have a soft-spot in my heart for college-towns.)

We got up insanely early, and I was not happy with the vending machine Nescafe Cappucino I was subjected to in lieu of my typical Java Stop.

We took the Tube to Paddington station (yes, with all of the Paddington bear stuff) and then a train from Paddington to Oxford. I love trains. They make me sleepy and you can stare out the window at the countryside. I've noticed that most of the farm animals here are pretty lazy. The horses, sheep and cattle are usually laying down for some reason. They can't ALL be sick, can they?

At any rate, we had a guided tour (as a class) of the Bodleian Library. I was REALLY excited for this tour.

We started off in the Divinity School, which is the oldest part of the college and built in 1420. You can tell it was originally a theological institution, as the room itself is incredibly ornate. If you're a Harry Potter fan, you may recognize this room as being the Infirmary at Hogwarts, AND Professor Madonagal's (sp?) Ballroom Dancing School. This room took 65 years to complete.

As you can see in this picture, this room was used for examination, mainly what we would call "defending dissertations" today. The student would sit in the corner, the professor across from him, arguing his research findings. A Regent's Master would sit in the middle (right behind my head) and act as a "judge" of sorts to keep things in line. All oral examinations were in Latin, and they could take hours or days to complete. Students who attended Oxford did not study only one area, they were required to become masters of all areas: Mathematics, Juris Prudence (law), Philosophy, and Medicine. Yikes!

This particular room's ceiling is a celebration of the contributors to the building itself, as it took so long to build because the school was continually running out of money. In addition, because of the constant back and forth between Protestantism and Catholicism, the windows (used the be stained glass) were destroyed. The crucifix above the door is gone. A sculpture of St. Peter (in the ceiling) was decapitated. In 1424, they began building the second level of this Divinity School, which became the library. The library itself didn't open until 1602 when it was finished.

The vaulted ceilings in one of the more recent rooms (This is the convocation house) were created to help support the upper level library. So though they are ornate and beautiful, they do have a purpose. The room seen here is the Convocation house, where administrators and faculty would meet. The throne in the middle was created for the Chancellor. And apparently, when the plague was ravaging London (around 1620), Parliament would meet in this room. Very cool.

Upstairs I was able to STAND IN THE BODLEIAN LIBRARY which was basically torture. Of course no one is allowed to touch any of the books, and of course you have to have a reader's card, and a specific explanation for whatever it is you're looking for. I mean, I highly doubt someone's going to hand over a manuscript I'd like to peruse that was written in the 1350s. Jeesh.

The strangest thing I noticed immediately was the shelving of the books, which were spine-in. Apparently, the books were previously chained to the shelves themselves so no one could check anything out. They still have a sample of what this looked like. And of course I couldn't take any pictures of the books. And for some reason I'm having a hard time finding images on google (or their website) to show you here. So you'll just have to wait until I get back with my informational guidebook of the library. (Or, if you're interested in Oxford in general, there's a picture gallery here.) But you can take my word for it. The ceiling of this library is all wooden panels, and no two are identical. They all have different colors of open books (which is the bottom of Oxford) on them, and each read (in Latin) "Lord is my Life". There are 9 satellite Bodleian libraries, some of which you may check out books, but of course this is a reference-only institution.

Some of the benefactors to the library include: the Rockefeller foundation (1933), Oliver Cromwell (1654), Kenneth Grahame (the Wind in the Willows proceeds after his death went to the Bodleian).

We then trekked to the Radcliffe Camera, which is a round building with two reading rooms (Upper and Lower levels). This building opened in 1749 but wasn't owned by the Bodleian until 1860. This place was breathtaking. I wanted to lay in the middle of the floor and read a book or just look at the dome-ceiling. The Bodleian's conveyor belt (materials handling system) beneath the library delivers the books to readers in either of these two levels. Again, no pictures of the inside, so sorry folks. BUT- Phillip Pullman's The Golden Compass book is being turned into a movie called Northern Lights. And it was JUST filmed in this building, the Radcliffe Camera.

We then walked beneath the Camera underground through the tunnel to where they house the REALLY valuable stuff. (J Floor, if you're ever interested in stealing incredibly valuable books). The conveyor belt system is hilarious-- as it was installed in 1940 (talk about forward-thinking!) and it looks incredibly archaic, but still works wonderfully.

So we ended our trip to the library, and had the rest of the day to ourselves...in Oxford. I ended up shopping because things are much cheaper in the smaller towns surrounding London. I ended up getting stationery (I really need to stop buying paper here...it's starting to get ridiculous) and trinkets for people back home. Oh, AND a pair of jeans and a jacket. And jewelry. Okay so I bought a lot of things, but it was totally worth it and I don't feel bad about it at all.

I have more pictures of Oxford and I look forward to sharing them all with you when I get home. I can't believe this trip is halfway over already!

Wednesday Research Day

2007-07-20T03:08:00.000-07:00

So Wednesday was a "research day" which means you can either sit in the computer lab all day and try to catch up, or you can go out and visit another site on your own...or gather research for your papers. Yea....that's tough. By the time I get an entire day to myself I don't know which direction to go...I feel like the days go by so fast and there are too many things I need to do each day. Even with the extra hours of daylight they are over so quickly.

So I started off doing some quick research to see WHAT I could find more information about so I could pick a solid topic for at least ONE of my papers. Yea....that is hard. I decided to go to the United Kingdom National Archives (all the while scolding myself for never having seen the U.S. National Archives). It's about a 40 minute Tube ride...and that's if you get on the right train. A couple of flub-ups on the train lines (I picked the wrong one...an easy mistake) I eventually arrived at the Kew Gardens stop, which is a quick 10 minute walk to the National Archives.

The Kew area is "kewte"...hehe I couldn't resist. I took some pictures of the things I saw initially getting off the train. (Notice that Kew has itw own "storefront library") Kew appears to be a suburb just like any other...tiny houses lining streets and small shops and pubs on the corners. It was a gorgeous day, so I started my walk down to the National Archives. After passing through the gates of the building, well I was overwhelmed by how out-of-place the building looked in comparison to its quaint surroundings. But it's a beautiful place...surrounded by water and very modern.

And as soon as I walked through the doors of the National Archives....well, I was told that their museum and exhibits were closed. All I was able to view was a COPY of the Domesday book and the chest it was housed in. I was not pleased. Of course I was invited to enjoy a £5 coffee in their restaurant or perhaps purchase some souvenirs regarding genealogy at the gift shop, but otherwise that was it...until April 2008 the exhibit is CLOSED. I was so upset! It was a long trip, I was excited to see it, I was by myself, etc.

I was planning on using the Archives visit as one of my off-site (not required) visits for one of the assignments I have. Obviously, since all I was able to see was the gift shop and some replica of a book, this would not work. So, the only other thing remotely interesting at this tube stop was Kew Gardens. I'm typically not the Garden-y type, but I've heard they are beautiful, and figured it was worth it since I made the trip. So I walked all the way over there, paid £12 to get in, and started walking. And it is truly stunning. I went on the perfect day, and took amazing photos. But there is only so much one can do in a garden...without a book to read. So I walked around, took in the sights and smells (that's one thing I wish I could convey on this blog...the fragrant lavendar.....amazing!) and basically walked the paths of the garden for about an hour before I started to wonder if I was getting sunburnt...and headed back to the Tube.

The entire time I was walking this garden, I kept thinking, how am I going to explain this garden being relevant to libraries?! I can't-- it's basically a really pretty yard. It's a garden for Pete's Sake! And I wasn't about to shell out another handful of cash to visit Kew Palace. I continued taking gorgeous pictures and pondering the tie in between library science and the garden. Then I came upon this Taxonomy in Action sign. A-Ha! This is precisely the tie-in between libraries and Kew Gardens. Classification of plants. They're all labeled- they're all organized, they all must be cared of in precise ways, because the plants are from all over the world, have different requirements for sustinence, and of course- the groundskeepers need to know where they put everything! So there it is....taxonomy.

So after my long trek through the gardens (and certainly not even seeing half of them) I headed back on the Tube to Waterloo station, and had some pints with Rachel before going to bed. It was a long day, and I'm glad I went out to Kew. I'm finding that the things I'm most fascinated by tend to be things I don't plan. I had no intention of paying nearly $24. for a walk around a garden, but it ended up being a really good idea-- and a really peaceful place to settle-down in my head and just soak in the surroundings.

Tuesday: St. Paul's Cathedral Library

2007-07-18T02:58:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

Well I've been procrastinating this post because I did so much yesterday that I knew this would be a long one. In addition to all I saw I just have so many things to say about it!

This morning our class outing was to the St. Paul's Cathedral Library. It's not that big, small in fact, when compared to the rest of the building. Because I couldn't take pictures in the building (or I could and not publish them anywhere) I'm having to pull pictures off of and link you to the website, to get an idea of what I experienced. Probably better off that way anyhow, because I found there are virtual tours here, so you can actually see a moving image of what I did today.

Upon getting to St. Paul's, I realized that (like my adoration for Big Ben) I have a hard time limiting the number of pictures I take of this building. It's so large that it's impossible to grasp unless you're right up next to it. I have a ton of pictures of the sky and PART of the building, but in order to see the whole building, one would have to cross the river and take a picture. You can see me here, in front of the building...I'm a spec compared to only a few of the many pillars outside the main entrance.

(Oh, and the sky was beautiful today. When I took this picture of the dome next to the sun, I could not look directly into the camera, as the combination of the sun and the glare off of the gold cross on top of the dome made it almost impossible to see. )

At any rate, we first ventured up the Geometric Staircase, which some of you may recognize from Harry Potter. There is a virtual tour for that, too. It was scary- climbing up 90 steps that appear to be hanging in mid-air, though our librarian told us not to fear-- they're incredibly sturdy. Though the staircase itself is not recommended for people with a fear of heights OR bouts of vertigo. Ha! I managed to get up there unscathed and without losing my breakfast.

When we arrived at the top, we were taking into what was originally created as a Reading Room, evident by the plasters on the building walls: vines with quill pens, ink pots, books, etc. intricately woven into the design. In this room, Wren's original model of the building itself remains, made of oak and plaster, at about 1:25 scale. It's huge, so huge that I wondered how it ever got in and out of that room. The librarian working with us said it has only left the room a few times, one of which when it visited the States in the 90s...and then he mentioned that would NEVER happen again. Ha ha ha...

This entire time we were "behind the scenes" of this gorgeous church. the library itself (pictured above) was crammed full of books that had since been acquired after the fire of 1666, mostly by Henry Longdon/Henry Compton (a bishop who got a hold of other collections for aquisitions.) A plaque remains by a statue of his bust stating, "I came to it burnt down, and left when it built up."

I found numerous things about this library interesting. First off, most of the books are held together with binding wraps, as the boards are broken. The library itself is open to all who "can make good use of it", though I have a feeling they are selective in who makes "good use". Our guide is also the only librarian on staff there, and is currently embarking on a conservation project. I asked for his email address and am hoping to meet with him later this week to discuss this project, among some other things for a research paper I hope to write on U.S. and U.K. methods of preservation of print materials (mainly books).

At any rate, I love this building, and am excited to hopefully speak with the librarian again to get more information and more hands-on (or shall I say hands-off!!!) experience there and discuss conservation of materials that are apparently available to the public.

After this visit, we were left to explore on our own again. Rachel and I had been planning a visit to the Wellcome Collection, which is part of the Wellcome Trust. From their website:

"The Wellcome Trust is an independent charity funding research to improve human and animal health. Established in 1936 and with an endowment of around £13 billion, it is the UK's largest non-governmental source of funds for biomedical research."

What intrigued us about these galleries, were adverts in the tube explaining just some of what's on display. There were three exhibits, The Heart, Medicine Man, and Medicine Now, all of which were free. (Bonus!) Strangely enough, Henry Wellcome (and his partner Mr. Burroughs) were Americans, who came to England after starting their pharmaceutical company in 1880. After Burroughs died, Wellcome set up some research facilities to study further medical related issues.

In addition to being a scientist of sorts (and obviously an entrepreneur) he was an avid collector of medical-related artifacts. The galleries we visited included The Heart (illustrates the evolution of humans' understanding of the heart in medicine, art and culture), Medicine Man (an exhibit that displays many of Wellcome's collection of artifacts) and Medicine Now (mainly an art exhibit that deals with medical-related issues of today).

Some of the things I enjoyed on display in The Heart Exhibit:

A wooden table with entire (REAL) human veins/arterial system varnished into the wood work outlining a human body laying on top of the table. (Joannes Leonius 17th c.)
Leonardo DaVinci's anatomical drawing of the heart, liver and arteries
Rene Descartes L'Homme 1664
Pacemakers throughout the years
Speakers in the walls with songs about "heart" playing. Also speakers to listen to a normal heartbeat versus a mitral regurgitation.
And She Had Heart painting by Lombardo, 1890
Egyptian Book of the Dead
Separate caskets made of lead and silver, for burying the heart away from the body.

The Medicine Man gallery had the strangest things, as it portrayed only a portion of the odd-collection Wellcome had created up until his death. Some of the things I saw and enjoyed there:

Torture elements/torture chairs (which are placed in the same exhibit space as a dental chair, ha!-- I can agree with that placement decision.) One of the torture chairs had blades all along the back and seat, with spikes on the arms.

Over 5000 pieces of medical/scientific glassware from throughout history and the world
Artificial limbs dating from 1500-1930s
An impressive collection of bone-saws (I badly wanted a picture of this for my dad) and forceps (ick!)
Napoleon Bonaparte's toothbrush
Ivory dentures from the 1700s
Tatoos on human skin from 1850-1900 (the skin looked like stretched leather, gross)
A mummifed Peruvian man
King George III's hair (had traces of arsenic in it...) You may remember me mentioning this King George, as his book collection is on display at the British Library.

After going through these exhibits, the last one was more contemporary/controversial art pieces reflecting medical concerns from today around the world. For example:

a map on canvas with mosquitos sewn into it to outline countries- a commentary on the malaria problem
Mosquito nets with malaria medicines sewn into them
An enormous sculpture of fat, a blob if you will, with legs commenting on obesity.
Many many pieces of art using EKG printouts and things representing the double-helix of DNA.

So the galleries alone were stunning and incredibly interesting.

And then we saw that the Wellcome Trust had a library. So we ventured in.

Gorgeous! A newer space, with beautiful wooden shelves in the first room. A librarian (roving reference?) approached us and asked if we needed help, and she told us there are three main collections: The History of Medicine, Clinical Medicine, and Science & Society. There is also a Rare Books area. The rooms we ventured through were stacks and stacks of beautiful old books, and in some of the rooms, they were stacked modern metal/glass shelving. There was an enormous amount of study-areas/tables. It was interesting to walk through the stacks and notice the different collections- titles outlining diseases, afflictions, solutions and breakthroughs in the medical industry.

This library is a working, full service library...all related to medicine. The main room was large, two stories (similar to St. Paul's Library) with names such as Nightingale, Mendel, Darwin, Hippocrates, Galen, Pasteur, etc. carved into the woodwork. Large anatomical paintings hung on the walls there. It was wonderful.

And it made me wish I were studying medicine. Haha. Can you imagine? But still, the space was so relaxing and well-laid out, I truly felt lucky to have happened-upon it.

So afterwards, when we finally tore ourselves away from this area, we went back to the Tube station, ate a quick lunch (bbq bacon chicken & tomato pita, if you're wondering) and then went to Leceister Square to see if tickets were available for Avenue Q. They were! So we purchased them and went later that night. The show was crude and hilarious. The music was fantastic and I laughed the whole time.

So I'm having a great time as you can tell. I'm also learning so much it's hard to keep it all straight. Today we have a "research day" so I'm catching up on things and getting started on my big papers for the end of this semester. I'm not really homesick, but I do miss my friends and talking to everyone. And I miss my library and library folk, mainly because I know so many of them would also find these things fascinating.

I hope everyone's well! I'll end with one more picture taken while walking to the show last night...

Monday: Museum of London

2007-07-16T11:35:00.000-07:00

Well, today we started with our class trips again, this time embarking upon the Museum of London, which was really neat.

Before the start our our own investigations through the galleries, we were lucky enough to experience a short "history" of the galleries and the Museum of London itself, which was really neat. The man who spoke to us was named John Cotton, and he is a curator in prehistory at the Museum of London.

The museum started in 1976 and put together the London Museum that previously existed in Kensington Palace (from 1911), the London Archaeology Museum and Archives, and also the Guild Hall Museum (1825) in the City of London.

The Museum of London capitalizes on "the city" that was once the square mile. Their innovative marketing campaigns include a truck with a huge sign on it that they park in front of rival museums. The signs state things like, "London only has one museum" which is intriguing and really gets people through their doors. I asked and found out that they have their own in-house marketing department that creates the great campaigns. Awesome.

They have one USP or "Unique Selling Point": They are the largest Urban history museum in the world.". But the problem they have is, how do you utilize this USP and still illustrate that there is a vast amount of information there regarding prehistoric times/people? The National History Curriculum in England (all schools) begin with invaders and conquerors and do not include prehisoric times.

While they were investigating how to work the prehisoric periods into their marketing and promotions, they found that they typically have 3 types of visitors:

Those who want to know about Victorian London (19th century)
Those who want to know about Tudor London (16th-17th century..that's me)
Those who want to know about Londinium (Roman London)

They based the design of newer spaces (galleries have been updated in both 1998 and 2002) around this information, and were able to integrate the prehisoric era into it nicely.

The newer galleries are more people-centered, more negotiable and conversation-starting, the pieces ask questions and start discussions between people who come to view the exhibits. They decided to center the focus of the exhibits around four things: Climate changes (global warming), People, the River Thames, and Legacy.

They created 3 design elements to work these things into the galleries. There is a wall of things that were found in the River Thames, and the river weaves throughout the galleries, so people can bounce between the plinths (exhibits) and the River Wall. There is also the Landscape wall around the outside of the gallery, explaining the changing landscape and climate.

It is truly an interesting museum, but much moreso when you have the background information that goes into planning and designing a space like this. I had the opportunity to speak with curator regarding space issues and mentioned the renovation and space issues in our library- and how that is effecting the overall design of it all.

It was basically just really neat to have a one-on-one conversation with a curator, and talk to him about application of space/design/marketing for a cultural heritage institution. I really enjoyed today's tour a lot.

Some things I learned:

London was originally 1 square mile, surrounded by a wall, and very crowded, smelly and gross. It later grew and grew and grew....
But in 1665 half of the population died off anyways from the Black Death (or the plague)
And then there was the Great Fire of London.....which was started by a baker who forgot to put out his fire (entirely) for the night.
On September 2, 1666 at 1am, the fire began and the city burned for 4 days. No one had fire insurance, and a lot of people ended up in jail because they couldn't pay their debts.
It took London 50 years to rebuild the city.
The fire was said to be started by gluttony, as it began on Pudding Lane (by a baker) and ended on Pie Corner. (haha!) And a fat-boy statue commemorates this fact in the city.

A few of my favorite things I saw:

In the prehistoric gallery, it was evident that the River Thames was a spiritual/sacrificial river in which people have been laying precious sacrifices for hundreds of years. As they dredged the river, hundreds of artifacts from the past are dug up-- swords, coins, skulls, beads, all sorts of interesting things. Among these was a human male skull that had a hole in the top of it as a result of a surgery called trepannation. A trepannation involved the patient being conscious, and their skull was chipped away by a flint blade. The interesting part about this particular skull was that the man apparently lived for a year or more after this surgery, as the bone regrowth indicated he lived on, and probably died from other causes....amazing!

I also really enjoyed this stone that had the following quote engraved on it:
"Here by permission of Heaven, Hell broke loose upon this Protestant City from the malicious hearts of barbarous papists by the hand of their Agent Hubert, who confessed and on ye ruines of this place declared the fact, for which he was hanged (vizt.). That here began that dred-full fire, which is described and perpetuated on and by the neighboruing pillar."

-This remained at the site where the fire started for 200 years, even though the papists obviously were not responsible for the fire starting, and Agent Hubert was determined innocent in 1667. Poor guy. They didn't remove the stone until 1830. haha!

After the tour, Rachel and I attempted to go to the Wellcome Collection, which is an exhibit that ties together medicine and art. But it was closed. They have a library as well, so we're going to head back there later this week.

So instead we had lunch at a place in Hay's Wharf, which is down towards the Tower of London and Tower Bridge. I thought it was funny that we ate at a place called Balls Brothers. (That's my immature American sense of humour for you. ha!)

Tomorrow we head off to St. Paul's Cathedral Library, and I'm hoping to speak to a conservator there. The library is closed to the public, so I'm also anxious to see what secrets we get to see. I'm (as noted from all the photos) quite enamored with this church.

At any rate, I'm about to include pictures so I'll sign off for now. It's about pint-time for the evening. Good night!

Saturday & Sunday run-downs

2007-07-16T08:34:00.000-07:00

Okay....it's been a hectic and relaxing weekend all at once. I spent a lot of time catching up on sleep, pints and homework...also did some laundry...pretty lazy. Here are some pics from the places I did see this weekend...

Here's the route we've been walking down the Thames lately to the City-- where the interesting cheaper pubs are like the Cheshire Cheese I mentioned before. The bridge in this photo is the Blackfriars Bridge, which crosses over to the city/financial district. There's also a picture here of the end of the bridge, it's pretty.

WARNING: Most of this looks like a pub crawl...

This is one of the first buildings on the other side of the Blackfriars bridge. This was the Blackfriar's pub we went to on Sunday night. It's a neat building and the inside has really beautiful art/mosaics/woodcuts of monks all over the walls. Nevermind the fact that on this particular night it smelled a little like...well....urine, but I figure it's in the City so it's possible that it's really old urine? Either way there's a huge patio and the beer tasted wonderful.

And here's a picture taken from the patio of the Blackfriar's Pub. It's dark, but you can notice the mosaic that says Saloon....

And then there's the walk home....headed back over a bridge, you can see the London Eye and the OXO building from the north bank here.

And St. Paul's Cathedral at night, again....

And then of course walking past the National Theatre towards the dorms.

I guess I just wanted to post this to show you the places that I've been walking past, every day...over and over again. It never seems to get old, and if I'm having a "bad" day or starting to get stressed out, it's very easy to take a look at the things around me and soak it all in, and everything that bothers me melts into little bits, and disappears. Of course, the pints may help, but I've created a self-imposed 4 pint limit for the time being. That stuff packs a bigger punch than I remember.

I'll be posting later on about my visits from today...and some other random photos from walking around these streets. Until then, I'm off to do homework! Cheers!

Just some goofy pictures....

2007-07-14T12:38:00.001-07:00

Here's a couple of pics to tide you over...the computers here are SLOOOOOW so loading them really is a pain. I'll try to do it more often, but here's two...

Walking to the pub, kinda dressed up for no reason, thought someone better take a picture before I put grubby clothes back on for the rest of the trip. That's St. Paul's Cathedral and the Thames behind me.

St. Paul's Cathedral, clouds and cranes. I think I counted 14 in this shot alone.

Friday: Parliament

2007-07-14T11:41:00.000-07:00

So you're all probably well aware of the symbol I can't seem to quit taking pictures of....Big Ben. It's so beautiful, and reminds me of so many things (namely a part of the movie Peter Pan)...and I have more pictures of this clock than anyone would ever need. But I love it, so deal.

At any rate, what you may or may not know is that clock is attached to Parliament. The rest of that massive building is where the House of Commons and the House of Lords is. We took a tour of Parliament, and got to take the Sovereign's Entrance (Victoria Tower) and the "Queen's route" that she takes when she comes into Parliament to give her annual speech each November. (Apparently it's similar to our state of the union address, only she doesn't stutter, pronounces everything correctly, and sits on an enormous golden throne that was built in 1845.)

So we started off in the Sovereign's Entrance, and our tour guide gave us some history regarding the things we were seeing as we waited to go through airport-like security, where every person gets patted-down and people/bags go through an x-ray machine, etc. As we waited, we learned that the building that stands today was rebuilt in 1845 after the fire. Kings of England had lived on that property for centuries. Henry VIII (you may remember him and his wives) was that last King to live on this site.

And of course there was no photography permitted for the most beautiful aspects of this tour, so you'll have to bear with my descriptions.

There are some other neat tidbits regarding the history of government here. They have a copy of the death warrant with wax seals all over it from 1649, that was a warrant for Charles I. Oliver Cromwell tried Charles for treason, and he was hung drawn and quartered. There was no Sovereign for 9-10 years after that, but Charles II came back in 1660 (from Paris) and reigned.

Some things you need to know about British Parliament (or just "Things I found interesting"):

The sovereign may never enter the House of Commons, they may only enter the House of Lords. There is a messenger at the door to relay messages from the sovereign to the House of Lords, down a long hallway.

Most everything within Parliament's decorations on the inside of the building has something to do with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. (initials, paintings, etc. everywhere). Victoria came to the throne at age 18 and reigned for 64 years (the all-time record thus far).

Enormous beautiful murals hang on the walls representing different parts of England's history. Two of the ones I particularly liked were the Battle at Waterloo (It was a naval battle against the French. and Duke Wellington was the man in charge of that victory); and also the Death of Lord Nelson at Trafalgar. It's really incredible to see the paintings and realize that I'm sitting in the same spot where a battle happened.

During WWII Parliament was bombed, so the House of Commons was rebuilt in 9 years time. The archway into the House of Commons is still damaged, you can see the blemishes from the bombing in the stone.

I don't know how many of you know this, but I really like to watch the House of Commons on CSPAN. I particularly liked watching it when Tony Blair would have to answer rapid-fire questions and everyone would shout their agreement or disagreements at him. Neat thing? I stood in that room. Let me tell you about it.

House of Commons

First. all of the benches are green. For the most part, seating is on a first-come-first-serve basis, though depending on which way they voted on a particular issue they're discussing that day, the two sides (that face each other) will sit on the Aye or Noe side.

The Sergeant at Arms carries what's called a Mace, or a silver sceptre-type thing that is representative of the sovereign's presence as the House of Commons does business. On top of the table in the middle of the room, there are brackets on which to place the Mace. Only the Sergeant at Arms is permitted to touch the Mace. Pretty cool. I need to look for that when I watch it on CSPAN again.

The carpet is also green, but there are two long red lines in front of either row of benches that are apparently 2 swords-length long, so people who disagree may not draw their swords on one another. (Obviously this was an older rule.) There is also a sign above the cloakroom requesting them to "Hang Swords Here" on hooks, but instead that's where they place their umbrellas (which they need most of the time here.)

Westminster Hall

Westminster Hall is enormous. This is the place is the oldest remaining building on the site, and dates back to 1097. I did get a chance to take some pictures of this hall, as well as the stained-glass window within it. This place is not only huge, but it is incredibly easy to see how it worked for people hundreds of years ago, as a center for commerce, celebrations, proclamations, etc. Really neat.

And we ended our trip to Parliament with some pics just outside the building, since I'd never been able to get behind those big black fences before. I also took a picture of Big Ben again, from an angle that I'd never seen before with my own eyes.

After the Tour....

We were left to our own devices, so Rachel and I went to Oxford Circus (the main drag with all of the shopping) to hopefully find some jeans and maybe a jacket....I didn't really bring warm enough clothes on this trip. But I was quickly irritated with the numerous shoppers all clamoring around in H&M and TopShop looking for bargains, and soon I didn't want to be shopping at all. (Not to mention that these are incredibly long days with a LOT of standing and walking, so my feet often feel like bloody stubs.) After shopping, we went to Doggett's for dinner, another pub on the banks of the Thames, and saw the Myspace DirtyBeach guy. This guy is on the beach of the Thames everyday creating art in the sand. It's really neat art....and he's also a pretty attractive person wearing....a kilt. That's it. A kilt. So I took some pictures for all of you who may be interested in the eye candy....and of course, art. :o)

And then it ended up being a pretty late night at the Cheshire Cheese (in the old city) and then Wetherspoon's...the only pub we've found so far open past 11pm. So it was a long day. I have met some cool people, and so far everything is great!

Today (Saturday) was a day off, so I have been attempting to catch-up a bit. I took a nap, started some laundry, doing homework, went over to Camden Town to shop a bit, but for the most part I'm taking it easy. On Monday we've got class-related things again, and more than likely I'll be attempting to get schoolwork done tomorrow. Time is flying by, yet I still feel like there is more to see and not enough time to squeeze it all in. I miss talking to you all and will be diligent about updating this as often as possible!

Thursday: British Library

2007-07-13T01:31:00.000-07:00

Wow. Thurday we went to the British Library, which is at the Kings Cross/St. Pancras stop on the Tube. We had a chance to get a picture next to the Platform 9 and 3/4 as you probably already saw in my blog from yesterday. I had to put that up there quickly for all my Northwest friends who are in the thick of creating the HP extravaganza. I'm sorry that I'm not there to see it all!

So once we arrived at the enormous library, we waited for a while and perused the gift shop before starting in on our tour of the building. I took vigorous notes, as this place was amazing. It's absolutely enormous, and unfortunately due to funding cuts, they will not be expanding it to the size they originally planned.

Back in the 1960s there was talk about moving all of Britain's special collections/rare items, etc. into one large British Library. In 1972, they began bringing all of them together. The building took 14 years to finish. The first reading room opened in 1997 and it was officially opened by the Queen in 1998.

There are 200 MILLION items in the collection, and it grows every day by 8000 items PER DAY. It continues to grow so much because nothing can actually be checked out from this library. It is purely a research library. (No weeding!!!!! Talk about huge shelf-space concerns!!!) So, individuals who wish to utilize the services of the British Library must register their application. To utilize their facilities, you must provide-- proof of signature, proof of address, photo identification, reading list/letter from employer/why you're studying there, etc. Users of the library can only have access for up to 3 years, but most applications are processed to be used for only 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year...or at the very most, 3 years.

Their materials handling system is amazing. Being the second largest library in the world (second only to the Library of Congress) they have a state of the art conveyor belt system that brings books from the bottom 5 floors beneath the library, and takes them to one of the eleven reading rooms. When a person requests a book, they fill out a form, and a card is printed out. The card is then sent to the appropriate area, placed on the shelf for someone to pull. At that time, the person pulls the book and puts it into a red box with a barcode on the box, scans it, and sends it to its appropriate room. Once it's scanned a person knows it's on its way to them. The goal of the library is to have 90% of all requests filled within 70 minutes. But it often takes 2 days to process some items. After an item comes to you, you may reserve to use it for 3 working days. After that, it goes back to wherever it came from in the depths of the basement (or one of the four off-site storage facilities). At that point, the researcher would have to fill out another request and the 70 minute to 2 day process would start all over again. I would love to tell our patrons they had to wait 70 minutes for a book....AND that they couldn't check it out! Apparently a person kept coming into the British Library and request Harry Potter. After she'd finally requested it for the last possible time, someone told her she needed to go to a public library. I said, "Well the public library's copies are probably all checked out...that's why she comes here. HP is always here, and she could just read it while she was here, come here everyday for 3 days and finish it." (I thought that was pretty funny.)

Some other things I found interesting from the British Library tour:

There are 1200 seats for researchers in the building, and 298 in their largest reading room-- the Humanities reading room.

The basement beneath the library is 24 meters long, the deepest basement in London, and actually is 4 floors of nothing but movable stacks of books.

If a disaster would occur, the british library has a contract with surrounding markets (the supermarket kind) to utilize their freezer space while they wait for proper preservation facilities.

King George III's Collection

They also have this amazing (what looks like a piece of art) book tower viewable outside of the reading rooms that is created out of 80,000 volumes of books from King George III. Apparently he created his library by appearance as opposed to by subject/interest, so it's a beautiful collection, but there are some strange titles within it. The 80K volumes make up 6 floors of books, which were donated by King George IV, who was not as keen on reading as his father. There were two requirements regarding use of this library: It must be a working collection, and it must be on display. I thought that was pretty clever. Because it is very difficult to display 80K volumes of incredibly old books, they created this tower, and it is made of glass, so all books can be viewed from the outside. Evacuation from the tower can only be done through the roof or the basement, so only qualified and trained individuals can actually get in the tower to retrieve an item.

Items on the shelves are still categorized by size/appearance, and are actually categorized that way throughout the British Library, thanks to a man named Sir Anthony Panizzi. He introduced the size sorting concept to the library, and also spear-headed the library becoming a legal depository for all published information in England. So as the collection grows 8000 items per day, they are continually being placed on shelves based on size. So strange, but understandable, as they are obviously VERY concerned about space.

Treasures Gallery

This was amazing, and I had very little time to appreciate every piece I wanted to see. Here are some highlights:

Shakespeare's First Foliio (worth at least £3.11M)

Only surviving document with Shakespeare's signature on it....in the world.

Leonardo DaVinci's Sketchbook

Handwritten version of Alice in Wonderland

Galileo's sketchbook

Gutenberg Bible (stunning)

Magna Carta

In addition to these items, the Library was having an exhibition in which they were currently in possession of the remaining piece from the Dead Sea Scrolls. It honestly looked like a piece of trash I would otherwise throw away...but I was glad I got to see it. How many people get to say that in their lifetime??

Turning the Pages

There is a multi-million dollar contract between Bill Gates and the British Library to digitize their most precious items in order to provide access around the world to all who would like to view some of their treasures. This is actually a very cool software they use, here's where you can check it out. I'd seen it a long time ago, and actually spent a long time perusing Blake's notebook online. It's worth a look. I thought it was interesting that the guide also mentioned (in addition to the digitization efforts) the continual effort of the library to be future-oriented and forward thinking in technique (technology). It reminded me that though this library is very much a cultural heritage institution (and very museum-like) it still very much exists for their users/researchers. They work to fit the needs of their patrons as any other library would. I thought it was really neat...and I want a card now. :o)

After we were finished with the British Library tour, Meredith, Rachel and I went over to Covent Garden and had lunch at Pret a Manger (a sort of panera-type chain here). I had a croissant for lunch (I tend to eat a lot of croissants here. hehehehe.) Then we walked around and looked at things for a while, and ended up "happening upon" the Reduced Shakespeare Company's production of The Complete Works of Shakespeare, Abridged at the Arts Theatre & Bar (picture here). I've seen it before, in London-but it was too neat that we came up to the building at 2:20 as the show started at 2:30. We paid our £15, went inside and sat down for a good hour and a half of entertainment. I love that show. Hilarious.

After the show, we headed back towards the dorms and Rachel and I stopped at Studio 6, which is a little restaurant not too far from our place. It's behind some restaurants that face the Thames, in a small courtyard-like area called Gabriel's Wharf (picture here). It's pretty neat. I had some great potatoes there. Mmmm....

Made it an early evening and that was my Thursday! :o)

Platform 9 and 3/4

2007-07-12T14:49:00.001-07:00

Here you go, Harry Potter fans.....

Platform 9 and 3/4. Even I read the first book, so I know what it means. :o)

Miss you Northwest folks!

Today was a busy day...but I'll write and post more tomorrow with details.

Good night!

Wednesday: "catch up day"

2007-07-11T16:17:00.000-07:00

Today was pretty slow, which was exactly what I needed after my crazy day yesterday. Because I was up super late last night coming home from Stratford and Oxford, I slept in until 9:45 this morning (unheard of in my "real life"). I woke up, got coffee, got on the computer, and then had a mini-tour of Camden Town at 1:00pm. The tour was all about the rock-culture of Camden, and it was cool but there were about 35 people roaming around in a group, which is terribly unappealing. Especially when half of them are drawing attention to themselves. Very annoying. Got to see the Round House, the Stables, all of the hang-outs of the Clash, Sex Pistols, Rolling Stones, etc. It was neat, but I was ready to be done with this "tour" by 3:00.

Afterwards I came back and got online for a little longer, worked on some school work, then headed out with my friend Rachel to the Cheshire Cheese pub in Old Town, which is across the river and really close to St. Paul's Cathedral. I got some awesome shots of the church (though I'm not claiming to be a photographer at all) as it was starting to get dark around 9:30. Yea, it gets dark here at 9:30. And it was daylight at 6:00am. Explain this to me please?!

The Cheshire Cheese is a pub that was rebuilt by Samuel Johnson (brewery owner) in 1667 after the fire of London. It is seriously built for tiny people. I JUST fit under the door frames, they were so low. There's sawdust in the corners (still don't understand that part). And there are tiny rooms with 5-6 steps down or up in either direction. Very cool spot. The pints and gin are cheap, and I had their own "house" gin, which was especially good this evening. Rachel and I had some chips and bar food (yum) then ventured off towards the cathedral and basically walked around Old town for a while. Very neat.

The pint in the picture was purchased for £1.80p which is virtually unheard of. It's a bitter made by Smith's. The £1.80p was donated by my friend Meredith Richards, so I wanted to make sure I put a picture up as proof that I took advantage of her kindness. Thanks Meredith, look how happy I am!

We ended the evening at Young's, after crossing the river on Millenium Bridge. I've walked across so many bridges lately it is completely surreal. I keep taking pictures, trying NOT to look like I tourist.

But I'm starting to settle in. Tonight was the first night that felt like any night I'd say, "hey, want to run to Byrne's?" and instead of Grandview Ave. being the scenery, it was the skyline of London. Normal, homey and breathtaking at once. Love it.

The weather is confusing. Cold then the sun gets hot for a minute, then cold again, then cool. So basically it feels like Ohio in the end of September.

I'm having a fantastic time, and have little time to get online and look around/email, etc.
I miss you all, but instead of me coming home---why don't you all just book tickets and come here? :o)

Tuesday July 10th, 2007

2007-07-11T08:30:00.000-07:00

Oxford and Stratford-Upon-Avon

So yesterday was my first visit to Oxford and Stratford-Upon-Avon, the birthplace of Shakespeare. I have wanted to visit Stratford since reading Julius Caesar for the first time in 6th grade...and finally I got to go. It was an interesting day, starting with waking up at 6am, RUNNING to the only open coffee shop I could find...in Waterloo Station. I have to cross four roads with crazy traffic going 500 different directions before having coffee, which is probably hilarious to watch.

Our bus left at 7am sharp, and we embarked on a day trip to Oxford first. Oxford is a college-town, and incredibly OLD college-town. It's busting at the seams with tourists right now, and the bulk of the people walking around the streets are pretty young. I loved this city. Because we're visiting Oxford again later next week, I decided to shop a little bit instead of going to see all of the touristy sites within the hour and a half we were there. So I sat down with my friend Rachel and had a Tomato, Basil and Cheese Pasty-- mmmm (they're these tasty little Hot-Pocket-like things they have here. Delicious). So that was my breakfast/lunch for the day. Then I walked around with Rachel some more, found a hairdryer (finally) and took a few pictures of Oxford. Most of the pictures are just random things I found pretty. Next time we get to Oxford I'll be seeing the Bodelian Library, so I'll have more historic-type things to report on that day.

After the light shopping (we were able to leave things on the bus) we got back ON the bus for another 2 hour trip from Oxford to Stratford.

If you know me, you know that I own more Complete Works/Anthologies of Shakespeare's plays than one would probably admit publicly. I just love it all so much...well, that's not entirely true. I never liked (or read) the Histories...just the Tragedies and Comedies, because they're a lot more entertaining.

Stratford looks, well as I imagined it would. It's a lot like Oxford in size, however it's definitely capitalized on the fact that Shakespeare was born, and is buried there. So, it's a little (what I call) "Disney-fied". Of course, if you're a big nerd about him, then that's just find for someone like me.

Shakespeare's Birthplace

We started off at Shakespeare's birthplace, which is really neat. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures of the inside, so you'll have to take my word that it's a lot bigger than you'd think. The house is recreated to look as it would in Shakespeare's day in the 1500's. The inside walls are covered with painted fabric for insulation, and the ceilings are painted with lye to prevent the wood from deteriorating, so they were white.

In addition to the regular house-portion, there was also a loft-room for apprentices (John Shakespeare-- William's father) was a glove maker and would have had apprentices living with him. Another neat thing about the house was that the front door was wide enough for a carriage to bring in carcasses for John to skin and make gloves from. The front door leads directly to the back door, where he could unload the truck of dead animals, and begin tanning the skins. He used sheep and rabbit fur, which had to soak for 6 months in huge tubs of urine (gross & surely smelly) in the backyard before the pores would shrink up, and it would be good enough to make pretty leather gloves/goods from. John's business was also located in the house, and the front window where his "office" is located would have shutters that horizontally to create a counter and an awning. That way, customers could stop as they walked down the street to purchase his products. It was pretty neat.

Hall's Croft

The next stop we went to was Hall's Croft, a house where Susanna (Shakespeare's daughter) lived with her husband (a doctor). The house itself is also beautiful, though the garden was breathtaking. I took more pictures of flowers than anything else at this place. It was absolutely amazing. We also learned something interesting about her husband, Dr. Hall. He created a remedy for scurvy-- that included three different herbs steeped in warm beer. It worked for people because the herbs he chose had high ascorbic acid content, which is Vitamin C. Apparently the richer folk got scurvy quite a bit, because they gave the healthy (cheap) foods such as fruits and vegetables to the peasants, and kept the white-bread and red-meat for themselves. So, the malnutrition would often lead to scurvy (like the type pirates supposedly had) where those afflicted would lose their hair and teeth and become very very weak and ill. Because Dr. Hall used so many herbs, there are many flowers and herbs around the house in beautiful arrangements, and they smell fantastic. In the backyard, the scent of the different herbs can be overwhelming! Also, there was a friendly garden kitty who loved getting his picture taken.

Nash House/New Place

The Nash House is also called New Place. After Shakespeare became wealthy from his plays, he purchased a beautiful country-style house with many bedrooms and gardens and a courtyard that was located conveniently in-town. After he died, it was purchased by a jerk who had problems with his taxes, and tore it down to avoid having to pay more taxes on it. Now, only a church and small portion of the foundation are seen here, along with a Mulberry tree, that is likely a remnant from those Mulberry trees that Shakespeare had in his courtyard, before his death. There is a stunning Knott-style garden that can be viewed through a covered hallway of orchids. Again, breathtaking flowers/landscaping! Upstairs there was a collection of Shakespeare's Completed Works, all behind glass of course. I noticed little papers in the corners of the displays that measured the humidity, and also air filters in the back of the display in order to keep the books in good-condition. Then I noticed that one of the books looked VERY similar to my own copy of the Complete Works of Shakespeare (that my brother bought me for christmas) and I wondered, hmmm...is it the same one? So I sparked up a conversation with a person "standing guard" there and he mentioned that I could contact one of the librarians for the Shakespearean Complete Works Archives. I think my eyes glossed over and I know I got really excited because I immediately said, "I'm in school to be a librarian!" like an idiot. I guess I should've known they would have particular librarians for this sort of thing...but in Stratford, dealing only with these books?! It was like finding out that I could potentially become a millionaire or something. To think that a job opportunity like that exists...well I was floored. So I plan to contact them at some point, and see exactly what it is they do there. And also find out if they know how much my own copy of Complete Works is worth....not that I'd ever part with it.

Trinity Church/Shakespeare's Grave

Perhaps my favorite/most important destination on this trip was Trinity Church. I have to say, that I had an overwhelming sense of sadness and appreciation as I walked in, and I wondered if Shakespeare would laugh at the fact that he's now buried beneath the stones where priests now stand to preach. The same people who called his plays blasphemy...irony at its best. I have many photos from this church, and will try to post them here in a way that looks decent. I particularly love the quote on his headstone, and was able to get a re-print of it that I plan to frame and hang in my house.

In addition to these lovely things, I was also able to have some time to stroll around and have lunch at a place called Caffe Uno with two friends. We had a LARGE lunch (we were starving) that included dessert. I would've felt guilty had I not walked for 8 hours that day. Phew! My feet and back were killing me! I was glad I brought a backpack to shove all of my gift shop purchases in.

Macbeth

And lastly, perhaps the most pivotal point of the evening, as a class we attended a 7:30pm showing of Macbeth in the Swan theatre by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Never in my life have I seen anything like it. Macbeth wasn't even one of my favorite plays, however I was on the edge of my seat and hanging on every word. It was thrilling and exquisitely performed. At one point I realized that I have memorized a 40 line soliloquy by Macbeth in undergrad and as he was speaking aloud, my mouth started moving. I can't believe I remembered that much of it! "If it were done, when 'tis done, t'were well it were done quickly..." Wow. At any rate, the play finished and we were piling on a bus again at 11pm, arriving back in london at 1am, and I was finally asleep by 2. Talk about exhaustion! But every minute was worth it, and so far it's been my favorite part of the trip. (of course I couldn't take pictures of any of that!)

I miss you all and think about all of you all the time!!!

2007-07-09T12:37:00.000-07:00

Monday, July 9th, 2007 (continued)

Today's Events

So today I went on a tour with a "professional story-teller" entitled: Your Home on the South Bank: Bards, Bishops and Brothels. It was pretty neat. We started out at the National Theatre and walked along the Thames River, while our tour guide (a local) explained how things were back in the 1300-1800's. Apparently the South Bank was quite a Red Light District. I knew that from the map that's currently hanging in my dining room (Shakespeare's London) that I purchased years ago at the Globe. However, neat little details emerged regarding St. Paul's cathedral dome being hollow, the pillars that still stand across the river, without a bridge to hold up, the Bride's Church on Fleet Street was the inspiration for our modern-day wedding cakes, the South Bank was once a swamp/marsh area, the Globe and the Rose theatre's remains are still where they were originally found....submerged under water. And apartment/office buildings (ARGH!).

I also got to see the last remaining wall from Winchester Palace....among other things. I wrote a lot of it down....Here are some pictures of it. Gorgeous day today as well.

Also, we were given a reception at the King's College, in the Chapel there that inspired the Harry Potter movie great hall. Took pictures of that. It was amazing. Here are some of them..... (just for you Carissa! :-) )

Speaking of which, I've told everyone about our Harry Potter extravaganza, how we were sorting people into houses before I left, and everyone was very jealous. Then they asked what house I was sorted into...when I said Slytherin I think they judged me. Oh well. hahaha!

Still having fun!

So here are the photos from the inside of the Chaplain Center at King's College. It's a place where all people can worship-- regardless of faith or denomination. King's College was created based on the idea that the King wanted people to seek holiness in conjunction with knowledge. At one time their lecture hall/auditorium looked like a chapel (as seen here) while the bottom half looked like a classroom. It was created to remind students of their reasons for seeking knowledge. Nowadays they're much more liberal about it all, but I thought it was a nice concept, and am glad that King's is the college we're affiliated with while we're here.

2007-07-09T02:39:00.000-07:00

Day 3- First day of official "class"

So this morning was our first REAL day of class. I'm sitting here in class right now. (We're on a break). A gentleman named Stephen Doerr is the class coordinator for all of our "outings" and since there are only 17 students in LIS he asked us our interests so we may be accomodated with proper educational resources for our research paper, etc. I mentioned conservation and preservation of books and paper in general. He immediately knew of a person involved in (what the brits call) "book-binding", and he's hoping to be able to provide me with some interesting resources (possibly a special tour?!) to witness the different types of conservation for print materials here in the UK. Very cool.

Today we have class until 12, then we have our "london alive" classes for the next three days. We were given options (before getting here) of two different tours we can take. The one I'm doing today is Bards and Brothels: your Home on the Naughty South Bank. I'm thinking it probably will cover a multitude of historic areas that were involved in debauchery of all sorts. So I hope to have more to write about that later on.

It's difficult to manage all of the writing. I've got my hand-written journal, this blog, emails, myspace blog, and then my course through U of I to juggle while I'm here. I'm lucky that (due to the time change) I have an extra 7 hours to get my homework done for my U of I class. They have really packed in a lot of things for us to do. It's fantastic.

I'll post some pictures below from yesterday, mostly of my meandering upon the river Thames, and also my jaunt to Picadilly Circus with Rachel. There are surprises and intriguing things around every corner here...

To the left is a sculpture outside of the Dali museum. I MUST go back there and get inside. There were several sculptures of familiar works by Dali here. Amazing.

To the right is a street performer that was very familiar....I think he may have been here when I came on a previous visit. If you give him a coin, he'll ride the bicycle, beep his horn and ring his bell.

To the left is the book store that I imagined while reading 84 Charing Cross. Rare books up to the ceiling. One particular book is there, housed in glass, and awaiting to come home with me. Heroines of Shakespeare circa 1888, from Angela Clark's personal library. Inscribed to her.

To the right is one of the entrances to China-Town, which was right around the corner from the bookstore on Charing Cross. Lots of trinkets, great smelling food, and manga shops.

To the left: View from the end of my street....across the Thames of course Parliament and Big Ben. I have a million pictures like this one, but very few with blue beautiful skies and white fluffy clouds. So I'll continue to take more pictures of the same thing. :o)

2007-07-08T02:23:00.000-07:00

Day 2- London

Last night was a lot of fun. I went on the obligatory walking tour, where I was slightly embarrassed walking in a large group of Americans behind a woman yelling, "Follow the water bottle!" as she held the water bottle high above her head and walked us around to all of the places we'll probably need to know about...like the Tube and groceries, the computer lab, etc. Of course, I'd found all of these things within the first 4 hours of being here, so not only was I embarrassed by being in a herd of obvious Americans in busy downtown London, but it was pretty boring too.

The National Theatre is right down the street from here. We ended the walking tour there, where we could either split up and have dinner on our own, or stay with the group and have either pizza or seafood at these over-crowded restaurants at the foot of the Waterloo Bridge, on a saturday night.

I opted to keep walking with a friend who is also in my program, Rachel. We just met, and she's really nice. She got her MA in creative writing from Lancaster so she lived here in the UK for two years to write a novel and finish grad school. I think we connected because of the mutual humiliation of being in a crowd of americans as a woman yells, "And if you start to get home-sick, there's the McDonald's". Both of us were red and attempting to fall behind the group at that point. ARGH!

Anywho, we walked all the way down to the Millenium bridge, which reminded me of when my sister and CJ (her boyfriend) were here in 2004 and he freaked out while going across it. We also passed the Tate Modern, which is huge and not all that attractive from the outside. And of course we passed the Globe, St. Paul's was across the river, and the sun was hitting the dirty Thames River in a way I've never seen before. I kept looking at the water and imagining all of the disgusting things it's been through. It's beautiful, but if anyone fell in I would give them a 50-50 survival rate. haha!

We had dinner at a place on the river. I had Fishcakes (98% cake, 2% fish) and rice. It was pretty good. The best part of the meal was the Hendrick's Gin and Tonic I had. The gin tasted like cucumbers, and they put a cucumber slice in the drink. It's an expensive but entirely worth-it type of gin. Yum!

After dinner Rachel and I continued to walk all over Southwark (aimlessly as it ends up) for about an hour. Then we ended up back at the dorms, where we rested for a bit before going to this little pub called HITW (Hole in The Wall). It's right across from Waterloo station. We picked up another person from our group and had a few pints there. We met some great people and laughed alot. Even met a girl who lives in Yorkshire who offered me a place to stay if I would like to come visit over my mini-break.

So in short, the trip so far has been great. I still need to find a hair-dryer, so my hair may look goofy in pictures for a while.

:o) More to come! Here are some pictures so far.

Above, you'll see a picture of my teeny tiny room, and fridge.

Here's a view of the building I'm staying in on Stamford Street.

Here's a view of the building across the street, which is where I am right now. It has classrooms, auditoriums, and the all-important computer lab, where I sit typing at this very moment.

This is plain embarrassing. This monstrosity (sp?) is smack-dab in the middle of the roundabout outside of waterloo station. You'll notice it's an enormous Imax theatre with even more enormous Ford car advertisements in the windows. Ick. Looks out of place, and who drives Fords over here?!

2007-07-07T07:57:00.000-07:00

Safe and Sound- Across the Pond

Well I'm here- in london. I believe it's about 5am US time. I believe it's about noon UK time. Honestly I'm not entirely sure about either of those statements, but I'm trying my best to get acclimated to being here. It all happened very very fast. And just as I suspected, I felt rejuvenated and ecstatic the minute we landed at Gatwick. Customs and security weren't bad at all- I'm guessing because Gatwick is a smaller airport...? than say Heathrow.

My room is pretty much what I expected, though the bed appears more comfortable than I thought it would be. There is a nice little fridge in the room. I've unpacked and I don't think I have anything to do until 5 pm. I'm debating on whether or not I want to go out and about on my own to try to find some things-- like a hairdryer.

And it looks like my adaptor for my laptop isn't going to work. The laptop has a three-pronged electrical cord and my adaptors only have spaces for two...so I'm using the battery right now and I don't know how long this will last me. HOpefully I can find out from someone if it's okay to just plug in the two prongs into the adaptor...(which I doubt is OK) or if I need to go buy another adaptor. Either way is fine with me. I'm just thrilled to be here. The London Eye can be seen from the front of the dorms...where I must go out to the sidewalk to smoke since the UK went smoke-free just 5 days before I got here. I'm not really that worried about it though- I imagine it will be just like being in Ohio...for smokers anyways.

People here aren't very happy with the smoking-ban situation. The first conversation I had with a local (while standing outside the airport in a clearly marked 10foot by 10foot area designated for us) touched on the following topics: immigration, terrorism, visiting Poland (which is apparently much better than the UK) and how human rights are being violated with the smoking-ban. So really it's not that different here. hahaha!

I'll post some picture soonish of the various things I've encountered thus far. My blogging was just interrupted by a classmate who wants to try to find groceries before our "tour" at 5. So...I'm off to find groceries! Right now the plan for blogging is to write in notepad, save to flash disk, upload to blog in the student computer center until I get my laptop electrical outlet situation figured out.

So here I go!!! (My mouth hurts from smiling already.)
:o)

And now to continue from the PAWS (Public Access Workstation) computer lab:
A girl I met has kindly lent me her adaptor so i should be able to type properly on my laptop now, while it's plugged in in the dorm. Biggest problem so far? Feeling disconnected from the internet. How did I ever survive without wireless?! It's insane. I feel so behind just because I haven't checked my google reader.

I've changed my shoes 4 times since i got here. I bought a cell phone, which is a crazy cobalt-blue color. I also bought some groceries and CRUMPETS! Oh they're so good and mushy and wonderful. I'm still fighting the urge to eat Hob-Nobs, as I can easily down a sleeve of those tasty cookies in less than five minutes.

Our locale seems nice enough-- there's a pub I've eyed already called Hole in the Wall which is within walking distance. The people in my program seem nice...but there are a lot of younger people here too. I find myself looking around to see who I'll most likely end up hanging out with...but right now it's hard to tell.

At five tonight we're going on a brief walking tour with our professors, so we know where things are, etc. I don't know if that will include dinner or what. I've already had 2 lattes since i've been here. Why do I love it here so much? The only thing that's irritated me thus far is the enormous Imax theatre that Ford sponsors. it's this enormous hideous building with a huge picture of a Ford truck on it.

Okay I realize this is disjointed. I think I'm going on about 4 hours of sleep and my gut is rumbling. Tomorrow will be better. Right now I'm just overwhelmed, exhausted, and ready to get going and settle in at the same time. Gotta love changing time zones! More to come.

today's the day!

2007-07-06T08:14:00.000-07:00

(Mom took this pic of me at the Cleveland Airport. Dorky but appropriate, no?)

So after a nice little get together with my family last night, I'm now in Akron, awaiting to have lunch with my sister-in-law and my mom before we head to Cleveland. My flight takes off at 7pm this evening, and I'll be landing in the UK at 7:50am their time. I'm hoping to get a cell phone there but I'm not sure how much shopping I'll be doing once I land. I'm pretty sure our orientation isn't until 2pm the following day, so I will be able to get settled a bit first.

Also, I managed to fit everything into the following: a medium sized suitcase, a tiny carry-on roller bag, and a briefcase. Of course all of my electrical devices will be with me at all times, because I would be lost without my laptop and iPod. I don't want to dig my camera out, so you'll just have to believe me when I say that I packed fairly efficiently, given that I was in bed sick the day I was supposed to pack.

Oh, and my headaches are minute at this point. I got in with a dentist yesterday who filed down one of my teeth that was causing my bite to be off...so I feel MUCH MUCH better!

Bon Voyage---

Countdown begins.

2007-07-04T08:29:00.001-07:00

So I'm sitting in my "spare room/office" staring at all of my stuff to take. I was originally going to take one suitcase, but now I'm told a bus will be taking us from the airport to the dorms, so I'm not as worried about traveling with too much luggage. I'm still going to shoot for one suitcase, but I may add an extra one, mainly to put all of my souvenirs in. :-) Let me know if anyone has any requests.

Yesterday my co-workers threw me a lovely little going-away soiree. It seriously prompted a lump in my throat and at the end of the day I had to hold back tears hugging everyone. I feel so lucky/blessed to be able to take this trip and come back to my job that I love. Even though I'm only going to be gone for 4 weeks, yesterday as I was walking from the backroom to the info desk, I thought to myself "I'm going to miss this place" which is a strange and great way to feel about your job!

One of the funniest things about the party was the attempt to sing the British National Anthem, "God Save the Queen". They basically knew the tune, but didn't know the words except for the last line (which is God Save the Queen). It was hilarious and adorable.

Astrid, if you're reading this- please send me the recipe for that great dish you made! (Everyone brought in british-types of food. It was great, and surprisingly healthy.)

At any rate, I'm still fending off a killer-headache. I had to take a vicoprofen again this morning, so I feel a little bit better but good lord, this had better stop before I get there. I'm thinking it will.

Alright, I'll have to start putting this stuff together. I'll enclose a picture for you all to see my messy messy pre-packing room. Note there aren't any clothes involved in the packing process yet. That's a WHOLE other situation. I'm still trying to figure out which shoes to take.

We'll call this room the "staging area".

Cheers!

explanation

2007-07-03T04:36:00.000-07:00

I've gotten several questions concerning one of the things listed in the "Hates" portion of my profile. To clarify (from The Society of American Archivists' website)

Red Rot:
1. The deterioration of leather into a powder.
2. The hardening and embrittling of leather.
Notes
"Leather bindings before 1830 may become hard and brittle. Later leather bindings suffer red rot, which may completely destroy the leather."

So basically, it's irreversible and often inevitable that goregeous old books become riddled with this sad red-mold, and it makes me angry.

What will Mandy be Doing?

2007-06-28T20:49:00.000-07:00

I thought I would share with you all my tentative itinerary during my 4 weeks in London. This is what's planned as far as "sights" go, and I'm assuming the lectures will be in conjunction with whatever we're seeing at that time. I can't believe that i'm going to get to see all of this, and earn 6 credit hours at the same time. Unbelievable! I'll try to keep up on here, promise.

"Scholarly and enriching activities are scheduled most mornings, while afternoons are free for you to pursue your own individual research. There will be two full-day trips--one to Stratford and one to Oxford**."

** A family of Brits came into the library yesterday and I mentioned my upcoming trip and studies. The father told me I MUST go to Oxford, that I would love it, assuming I loved books-- particularly first editions. He raved about it, so I'm thrilled it's worked into my schedule already.**

Course Schedule (tentative)

Friday 6 July Depart US
Saturday 7 Arrive London
Sunday 8 St. Paul’s (optional) - 9:00 a.m. http://www.stpauls.co.uk/
Orientation - 2:00 p.m.
Monday 9 Introductory Lecture - 9:00 a.m.
London Alive, p.m.
Tuesday 10 Day Trip to Stratford-on-Avon http://www.stratford.co.uk/
London Eye – 9:00 p.m.
Wednesday 11 Royal Geographic Society in a.m. http://www.rgs.org/OurWork/Collections/Collections.htm
Reception – 7:00 p.m.
Thursday 12 British Library in a.m. http://www.bl.uk/
7:00 p.m. Party at Stamford Arms
Friday 13 Houses of Parliament in a.m. http://www.parliament.uk/
Saturday 14 NON-ACADEMIC DAY - Canterbury/Dover (optional)
Sunday 15 NON-ACADEMIC DAY - Salisbury/Stonehenge (optional)
Monday 16 Museum of London in a.m. http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/English/EventsExhibitions/
Tuesday 17
Wednesday 18 Victorian & Albert Museum & National Art Library in a.m. http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/index.html http://www.vam.ac.uk/nal/index.html
Thursday 19 Day Trip to Oxford and Bodleian
Library http://www.ox.ac.uk/museums/http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/
Friday 20 Lecture
Saturday 21
Sunday 22 Depart London for EdinburghMonday 23 National Library of Scotland in a.m. http://www.nls.uk/
Tuesday 24 National Archives of Scotland in a.m. http://www.nas.gov.uk/
Wednesday 25 Writers’ Museum in a.m. http://www.cac.org.uk/venues/writers_museum.htm
Thursday 26 Mini-Break
Friday 27 Mini-Break
Saturday 28 Mini-Break
Sunday 29 Mini-Break
Monday 30 Mini-Break
Tuesday 31 St. Paul’s Cathedral Library in a.m. http://www.stpauls.co.uk/page.aspx?theLang=001lngdef&pointerID=27433oOH1QXTGfJUU5XiLE4TBvERKbu0
Wednesday 1 Aug Greenwich National Maritime Museum & Collections in a.m.Royal Observatory in p.m. http://www.nmm.ac.uk/http://www.nmm.ac.uk/server/show/nav.005002
Thursday 2 ACADEMIC DAY/PRACTICUM AND SYMPOSIUM
Friday 3 Maps and Clockmakers Guildhall Library in a.m. http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/Corporation/leisure_heritage/libraries_archives_museums_galleries/city_london_libraries/guildhall_lib.htm

Saturday 4 FINAL EXAM (MORNING)

Sunday 5 DEPARTURE DAY

Preliminary Posting

2007-06-28T06:29:00.000-07:00

This is the new "travel blog" that people OTHER than my myspace friends will be able to read. Basically I wanted to create a place where people can catch up with me while I'm in London- see what I'm seeing, comment on things, etc. I'm hoping that posting pictures will be easier here than embedding them in myspace blogs. I'll still be keeping up my myspace blog, but this is more of a public place- a place to chronicle my journey as...."Mandy Does London".

P.S. I can't take credit for the witty title- a fellow librarian where I work made it up and I just had to take it.

P.S.S. Now let's just hope my passport gets here in time...

And now to practice photo-sharing..