The British Library was a super fascinating place with a TON of important materials for study. Unlike some of the libraries we toured, you simply had to find a material that was housed in the British Library but not another location and prove your identify to get a reading card and view materials in one of their reading rooms. Additionally, they had several exhibits (Punk 1976-78 is an example of one exhibit) that are on display for several months at a time. While all of these details are entirely useful, they are not what I found most intriguing about the British Library.
The British Library used to have a set up like the National Art Library--it was located in the British Museum...until it wasn't. In 1971, the printed books section of the British Museum was removed and eventually housed in a new space, The British Library. The history and politics of it are fascinating, and readily available on the British Library website, but I am more interested about how the two were separated. These materials had to be hauled, carefully, from one location to another and stored with precision and care in a location that would allow all of the original collection to both exist along side and separate from the new materials gathered. This was done through an internal vault with glass windows. This makes the vault somewhat viewable to the patrons of the building, but totally unaccessible to them (as they have to request all materials in order to use them). Additionally, this offers protection of those materials and allows them to exist within the collection and separate (as a display) of the collection. So you may be asking yourself, how did this move impact the British Museum?
The Reading Room at the British Museum sits with its original furniture in it, but not open to the public at all. It is a dome-like fixture that is allegedly quite beautiful inside. The British Museum functions seamlessly as a museum would, but the archives in the basement of the museum still show signs of bleeding and blending of materials. The archivists working at the British Museum has worked there for under five years and the previous archivist had worked for the museum for less than a decade. That means that most of the archival material had previously been handled by librarians or other museum staff before the 21st century. These archived materials include information about new acquisitions, finance details, correspondences between founding parties, as well as numerous other details about the running and practices of the museum. Additionally, there are historical documents from the reading room such as reading room registration forms from famous authors and thinkers as well as ledgers showing visits from esteemed historical figures. And there are probably numerous other materials of interest in the basement of the British Museum, but materials have yet to be catalogued. Correspondences were bound long ago, but the reasons for the groupings have been lost in the bowels of time.
Some of the information stowed in this basement could be incredibly fascinating to those using the British Library, but because the materials have not been catalogued, the are mostly inaccessible. Additionally, the archivist's task is to manage these materials, but also use them to prove ownership (and alleviate other discrepancies). That means that her task does not include, and has never included, determining what information "belongs" to the British Library. This blending and bleeding of archival information fascinates me because these two buildings, however separated they are by distance and goals, can never be fully removed from each other. Their hues will always slightly alter each other.
Some of the information stowed in this basement could be incredibly fascinating to those using the British Library, but because the materials have not been catalogued, the are mostly inaccessible. Additionally, the archivist's task is to manage these materials, but also use them to prove ownership (and alleviate other discrepancies). That means that her task does not include, and has never included, determining what information "belongs" to the British Library. This blending and bleeding of archival information fascinates me because these two buildings, however separated they are by distance and goals, can never be fully removed from each other. Their hues will always slightly alter each other.