Love in the Library

The third reason I haven’t posted as much is twofold: work and tourism. First of all, I am amazed by people who have full time jobs, social lives, etc. and still find time to post frequently. How do you do it? I find that getting up at 5:30, going to work for 7:30/8:00 until 17:30/18:00, and then coming home to relax and have dinner, takes up most of my time. Plus, one of the last things I want to do at home at the end of the day is sit in front of my laptop because I’ve been sitting in front of it all day long. And, no, I really cannot / should not post while at work because, well, I’m at work.

The other more exciting reason is that I’ve been trying to get out and about in London. Basically all I’ve done thus far is quite superficial – just walking around, looking at and taking pictures of the outsides of places. I just haven’t been able to motivate myself to get on a train and do a day trip outside the city. I want to sleep in on Sat and Sun, I have to do laundry, clean, etc. Plus, I now have a cold. Figures.

Anyway, the “new” things I’ve done (that is, things I’ve seen that I hadn’t seen when visiting London in 1995 or 1997) are the British Library and the town of Greenwich.

The British Library is fascinating – sure, it’s like any other library in that it’s freakishly quiet and a bit unwelcoming because of its extreme quietness – I don’t know, I just always have a fear I’ll go through some door I’m not supposed to or bother someone or something. The Sir John Ritblat Gallery is an amazing treasure trove of history. It includes things such as Shakespeare’s first folio (1623), Jane Austen’s handwritten correspondence, an original copy of Beowulf, original scores by Handel and Mozart, The Golden Haggadah, The Gutenberg Bible (1455), dozens of sacred texts and map, and the Magna Carta (1215). Plus, in the middle of the entire library, encased in glass, stretching six floors, is King George III’s Library. And, there is the British Library Sound Archive.

The library is huge, including over 150 million items, stored on over 625 km of shelves. At the main library, users do not have direct access – you have to have a reading card and then request books – it takes 70 minutes to retrieve something on site! In the Reading Rooms you cannot have coats or bags, no pens or highlighters, no sharp object, no food or drink, and no cameras. They seem to take their book collection seriously.

As I’m typing this, part of me thinks that these historic papers and sheer volume of books are just so cool, to be able to see the handwriting or read the author’s own comments or see the musicians’ scribbles and to appreciate them for what they are – amazing pieces of artwork, or first of their kind publications. The British Library was founded “on the belief that collecting world knowledge and making it available for investigation generates new ideas and advances society.” But if one reads 5 items/day, it would take 80,000 years to get through the library’s collections. So isn’t this a bit of information overload? And who has the time to do this?

Then part of me wonders why we take such pains to save all this and worship it? I mean, people used to write hundreds of letters – the famous and the non – all expressing thoughts and desires. Why are only the famous people’s letters important? What will happen in 300 years? Will the Ritblat gallery have printouts of emails or blog pages? Will we just stare at old computers and marvel at those the same way we do a Gutenberg Bible?

Posting of my tourist walking pictures and about the great town of Greenwich later, once I figure out how to use Flickr and have a link to it from my blog (as Tiggs does), and after I get a cuppa tea to assuage my sore throat and dual ear aches.