Maughan Library, King's College

Maughan Library

This morning, our class had the option to visit Maughan Library at King's College London. Because this was one of the few academic libraries on our agenda, I jumped at the chance to go. The building was formerly a public records office, so the building is a bit like a maze. The old iron fire doors have been removed and retained by mounting them on the walls next to the doorways. They also have a round reading room that looks really impressive from the outside. Unfortunately we couldn't go in because the room was in use during our tour.

Laptop rental machine

I was most impressed with the technology and services the library provided. The library has an automatic book sorting machine that separates books into piles based on where in the library they need to be shelved. It was fun to see it in action, and I bet it saves their employees lots of time throughout the day. Another really cool service is a laptop rental system the library has in place. The laptops are stored in lockers that keep them charged, and students can check them out without the assistance of a member of staff. This is in addition to the self-checkout and self-return machines in the main lobby. Staff members are on hand at the Enquiries desk to answer questions, and machines like these allow them to devote their time to helping students.

Weston Room

Another gorgeous space in the library is the Weston Room, which was housing a World War I exhibit during our visit. The room is an old chapel space with stained glass windows depicting the coats of arms of previous Masters of the Rolls. The exhibit is one of several in London this summer commemorating the 100th anniversary of the start of the war.

After our tour through the library, we visited an area with several items from the library's collections on display for us to see and touch. King's mainly collects items related to theology, health, history, and foreign policy. They are also especially interested in where the items they collect have come from -- who they used to belong to and where the document has been during its life. There were many really cool items including a book called The Charters of the Province of Pensilvania and City of Philadelphia that had Benjamin Franklin's signature on the cover page. They also have a book on sanitary history with the first published colored graphs and an inscription by Florence Nightingale. My favorite item from the collection was a scrapbook of photographs and memorabilia from Queen Elizabeth II's coronation celebrations across the globe.

New College Library, University of Edinburgh

New College Library

We started the day today at New College Library, which is a part of the University of Edinburgh. The library holds over 250,000 items (50,000 of which are special collections) and is one of the United Kingdom's biggest theological libraries. The library is used primarily by the students of the Divinity School, but can also be accessed by other University of Edinburgh students and the public.

The space is absolutely stunning and was used until the 1930s as a church. The original pews were used as much as possible in the redesign, so the desks and shelving have a very unique look. The stained glass windows have an especially interesting story because they were funded by the church members but were finished after the space had become a library.

Torah

New College had an intriguing set of special collections items on display including a massive eighteenth-century Torah scroll. The scroll was left open to a place where we could see the details of the hand stitching holding the pieces together. They also had several editions of the Bible from the fourteenth century, including one made by the "printer to the Queenes most excellent Maiestie" in 1585, also known as Queen Elizabeth I's printer. It was interesting to see that the edition was printed with extensive notes in the margins because this edition was used by the church members, not the general public. There were also a couple of works by John Knox on display, which is especially relevant because his statue is in the courtyard outside of the building. There was also a first edition of John Calvin's Institutes of Christian Religion.

Hymnal collection

We were able to journey into the stacks outside of the main reading room where the journals, pamphlets, overflow books, some special collections, and oversize books are housed. Here lives one of my favorite parts of our time at New College -- a donated collection of old hymn books. My fingers itched to go through them, and I secretly hope one of the 1928 Oxford Book of Carols is among them. If not, many of the hymns from that amazing anthology are probably contained in these old hymnals from around the United Kingdom. Because some of my all-time favorite Christmas carols are old British ones no one in America has heard of (e.g., "Poverty," "Gloucestershire Wassail," "Children's Song of the Nativity," "Coventry Carol"), I would have loved to spend more time perusing the shelves.

Bodleian Library

The highlight of my day today was our visit to the Bodleian Library at Oxford University. The building was started in the 1400s but the library itself did not flourish until the late 1500s when Thomas Bodley granted the university a large sum of money to restore and maintain it. This is why the library still carries his name over 400 years later.

Medieval shelving in Duke Humfrey's Library

Entering the hallway with the medieval library (called Duke Humfrey's Library) was like stepping out of a time machine. You can feel the weight of the ages in a room this old, and it pained me not to be able to take photos of such a beautiful space. (The photograph to the right is courtesy of TripAdvisor.) The shelves in the library are short, long, and set perpendicular to the walls rather than the floor-to-ceiling wall shelving that would later become popular. This was an effort to protect the books from dampness that might come seeping through the walls. Interestingly, the books were once stored in these areas horizontally until the library staff realized around 1600 that 10 times more books could fit in the space if they were stored upright. If I had unlimited space, I would actually prefer to store my books horizontally because I like the way it looks. I guess this makes me very old fashioned, at least in that regard.

Selden End expansion

An expansion was added next to the medieval library with wall shelving for 14,000 more books, and this area is what dominates the hallway as you enter. This area, called Selden End, has the floor-to-ceiling wall shelving covering two stories. The top half has books shelved normally because the staircases leading to the walkway above served as a barrier against their removal. The books on the bottom were chained to prevent their theft. Again, no photographs were allowed so the one on the left comes courtesy of IES Abroad. The books are shelved in categories, with the books for a Bachelor of Arts in the gallery. A printed catalog was sent to every university in Europe with the books available indexed by author.



This building in many ways reflects the old notion of librarians as guardians of the collections. It defeats the notion of a modern library to hoard books as if the patrons are thieves and destroyers rather than seekers of knowledge. Much of this stems from books' rarity before the invention and widespread use of the printing press, but it still strikes those from modern society as a little outrageous.

One of my favorite stories about the library during our tour was about the boys who worked underground in the early 1900s carting books from storage to the library. These "Bodley Boys" were hand-picked by the librarian for their intelligence. The poor boys who would otherwise have had no formal education were allowed to take books home with them. They would return to the library after reading their books to discuss what they had learned with the librarian. This generosity towards the poor was surprising and the librarian's thinking was far ahead of his time.