This message is in MIME format. The first part should be readable text, while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIME-aware tools. Send mail to [log in to unmask] for more info. --------------1361253E794D Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=us-ascii Content-ID: <[log in to unmask]> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 26 Oct 1997 06:09:21 -0500 From: Germaine Warkentin <[log in to unmask]> To: Multiple recipients of list FICINO <[log in to unmask]> Subject: The British Library Reading Room's last day -- cross-post I thought Ficinians might be interested in this account. Perhaps when the St. Pamcras readng room opens in a few weeks, someone currently working in London might post a "review"? -- *********************************************************************** Germaine Warkentin // [log in to unmask] English, Victoria College, University of Toronto *********************************************************************** --------------1361253E794D Content-Type: MESSAGE/RFC822 Content-ID: <[log in to unmask]> Content-Description: Received: from library.berkeley.edu (library.Berkeley.EDU [128.32.224.55]) by artemis.chass.utoronto.ca (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id BAA13614; Sun, 26 Oct 1997 01:35:55 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost by library.berkeley.edu; (5.65v3.2/1.1.8.2/29Oct94-1209AM) id AA15750; Sat, 25 Oct 1997 22:32:47 -0700 Date: Sat, 25 Oct 1997 22:32:47 -0700 Message-Id: <[log in to unmask]> Errors-To: [log in to unmask] Reply-To: [log in to unmask] Originator: [log in to unmask] Sender: [log in to unmask] Precedence: bulk From: "Ton Cremers" <[log in to unmask]> To: Multiple recipients of list <[log in to unmask]> Subject: tearful librarians call time in the British Library Reading Room X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: EXLIBRIS Content-Type: text Last year my wife and I tried to visit the famous British Library reading room and had bad luck. The same week we visited London the reading room was closed for inventory reasons. We even tried to 'bribe' the guard to allow us a quick peek into the room. The following article (Daily Telegraph London) shows that it really was our last chance to see it. Ton Cremers --------- Last orders as tearful librarians call time in the Reading Room By Christy Campbell IT was closing time in the British Library yesterday. Assistants swept up books and whispered to readers as they had done for decades - "the Reading Room closes in 15 minutes". But this time it was different. At 4.30pm Brian Lang, the library's chief executive, addressed assembled readers. "I have never before been allowed to use my voice loudly in this space," he said as Spanish sparkling wine was hauled in on book crates. "This is the end of an era," he said, standing on the central desk under the middle of the dome, which opened in 1857, "a very, very sad day. I ask everyone here to observe a minute's silence to reflect on the scholarship and the literature that was made in this room." About 300 readers duly did so, dewy-eyed. Emotion had been building all day. There was a threat of mutiny on Friday night, when some readers refused to leave. Now, on this very last day, readers grumbled as journalists and tourists were led among them. A woman librarian was weeping. Some readers took snapshots of their leathery desks. They suddenly seemed compelled to speak to each other. "I used to tell my wife I was going to work - but I came here nearly every day," said Pol Foti, 68, a Hungarian emigr=E9 and the reader at seat GG 44 for the past decade. A nearby reader glowered when a mobile phone rang. Nothing was sacred - this really was the end. Mike Crump, reader services director, took us inside the cast-iron stacks. Assistants were crating up books - 12 million of them will move a mile across London from Bloomsbury to St Pancras over the next two weeks. A run of the Monster Book for Tinies, 1924-34, was treated with the same reverence as leather-bound early texts. "Everything is important," said Bart Smith, the information director. "Our job is to conserve everything for future generations." "It is the power of the collections that draws readers here - it will draw them to St Pancras," said Mr Crump, who has worked at the British Library for 20 years. "Yes, there are ghosts here in the old library, but just wait and see. Scholars and writers not yet born are going to weave themselves into the new library." A fenced-off stack was still full of books under padlock. "Ah yes, the Private Case," said Mr Crump, "the collections of erotica. That will move next week in an anonymous van, but you will no longer need a letter from a bishop in order to consult it." The first phase of the new library opens on November 24. Most of the 1,300 staff will move there. The dome will open as an "information centre" for the British Museum in 2000. We popped out from the director-general's office through a bookcase in the museum's public galleries, surprising some Japanese tourists. "I always enjoy that bit," said Mr Crump. But one elderly reader could not be appeased as he shuffled off. "Something of me has died today," he said. Library officials last night revealed that the last book to be ordered in the reading room was A General View of the Agriculture of the County of Kent by John Boys, published in 1805. ---- Museum Security Network http://museum-security.org/ http://www.xs4all.nl/~securma/ [log in to unmask] [log in to unmask] ---- --------------1361253E794D--