British Library

The British Library was a fascinating place to go for a library school class. Our guide, a librarian himself, was very informative and interesting. He showed us staff areas that normal tours don't go to so that we could understand more about the workings of the library.

He told us that the library has 3 functions: acquire a national bibliographic archive, keep the national bibliographic archive forever (i.e. once it comes in, it never leaves), and to make the archive accessible to all those who want to see it. This means anyone can get a card with the proper identification within 20 minutes. The 20 minutes is a very important time frame because the library is required to process applications by order of the government and so they can keep getting money.

It was very interesting learn that the library processes over 1 million requests per year and approximately 22,000 requests each day. Wow, to have that amount of circulation! Just think that each of those requests are processed in 70 minutes or less.

Another thing I found interesting was that the library classifies its books by size rather than some other type of classification system. Once I think about it, this makes complete sense. They only have so much space so it is logical to maximize what you do have. Books are able to be found by using their shelf mark or holding mark on the spine of the book. This mark tells whomever is retrieving the book exactly where to find it in the stacks and on the shelf. Our guide said that, if something is misshelved, however, it usually is never found again. Well, unless someone happens to run across it while looking for something else.

I think my favourite part of the library was the collection of King George III. This column of books was really displayed in a wonderful way, almost like artwork. When he donated them, he stipulated that the books must be on public display and must be used. I'm thinking that he never thought of the difficulties this might cause much later. The architect did a wonderful job fulfilling those directions and making the collection something that everyone could enjoy.


The last part of our tour took us to a small model of the library. Our guide had us look at the model and tell him what it looked like to us. He then told us that the library was designed to look like a ship. (Personally, I would never have guessed this!) The architect, who was in the navy during WWII, never had command of his own ship so he built himself one instead!

Here is a picture of some of us on the book bench in the lobby area of the library.