Tuesday 26 November 2013

Pictures from my British Museum visit...

Below are pictures from my visit to Libraries at the British Museum - a full report can be found here.

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The British Museum Main Entrance

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The View inside the Great Court

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My Visit Badge with Strange Date

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The Anthropology Library

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The Aztec Codex

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A Rare Book on South Australia - We were told that one of these sold in Australia recently for many thousands of pounds

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The Prints and Drawings Study Room from Below

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The Prints and Drawings Study Room from Above - the items out were for people visiting that day, the boxes in the cupboards contain the collection.

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And the Library Tucked Away at the Back


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A Bay of Shelves in the Prints and Drawings Study Room - Cm denotes the bay and is used as part of a map grid type system for finding books

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Views of the Middle East Library - the lower level is a Cuneiform Tablet Library

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The Books in the Upper Levels of the Middle East Library

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Looking down through the floor!

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One of the numbers used to help find books.  Nowadays they are all arranged by subject and/or geographical area - we were told that at one time the British Library would shelve books in the order they were purchased, in other words put each new book on the shelf next to the last one - possibly not the best system.

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Looking up to the upper levels in the Middle East Library

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The Central Archives - didn't get a very good one there

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One of the library cupboards in Europe and Prehistory

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And the journal collection


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Finally, rare books in Europe and Prehistory: the stamp in the one in the foreground denotes that it was part of Hans Sloane's collection (they stamped them all after he died) - his books were largely sold off as duplicates but the British Library have sought to locate them all...

Friday 23 November 2012

Friday 16 November 2012

Library life: It's embarrassing when....

you use the service desk computer to add a new profile picture of yourself when you were about 7 (here, as it happens - do you like?) and somehow accidentally add it to the screensaver slideshow!

Wednesday 14 November 2012

Library Life: You fear library work may be doing your head in...

...when you are shocked that the new edition of Chitty on Contracts has a different colour title patch to the old one.

Thursday 1 November 2012

Books on the loose!


I can tell from the shelves there are books on the loose,
Like that song with the lines about a moose in the hoose.
Scattered they lie on tables like the wounded in battle,
Round them up I must like great herds of cattle.
Out to them I trudge like a shepherd in fog,
Or another part in the library machine, a cog
And build mini towers of books to carry home,
Back to the shelves and place in the order of tomes
As prescribed by our old friend Melville Louis Kossuth Dewey,

Knowing that it’ll be the same again real soon - oh phooey!

Tuesday 9 October 2012

Library Life: I'm liking...

working in a VERY quiet library with the sounds of clock bongs every 15 mins or so.