The Barbican Library

           The Barbican Library is a part of the Barbican Centre, is the major lending library for the City of London, and it opened in 1982.  When we got there, we were split into two groups: one to go with Jonathan Gibbs and the other one went with Geraldine Pote.  They split us up by handing out red and yellow pieces of paper and depending on what color you got decided whose group we were.  I got the color for Jonathan Gibbs’s group.  Jonathan started our wonderful tour with leading us downstairs to the music library to get a tour from Richard Jones, who is in charge of that section.  The music library has two pianos that patrons can book in advance to use to practice with or to try out some of the sheet music that they have in the library.  This is a really cool concept to help promote music.  Also, they have the largest music library in the United Kingdom and they have the largest collections of CDs. 

           

            Next, we went back upstairs to a sitting area where we met up with the other group to have a snack of biscuits and juice or water.  While we were having our snack, Natalie, the library assistant that helps a lot with the children’s library, came and talked to us because the children’s library was being used during our visit.  She told us about the different programs that they do there.  After that, he gave us a tour of the rest of the library where they have the London collection, the crime collection, fiction, nonfiction, and more.  In their London collection, they have a lending book that dates back to 1739.  Also, they have about 200,000 books for lending with self-service machines that the patrons can use to renew or to checkout materials. 

            This library was one of my favorites to visit because first: it is a public library and we had not visited many in our time here and second: our tour guide.  He made the tour.  He was funny and informative and you could tell that he has good relationships with his coworkers just by how they interacted with each other.  Also, it was nice to see how public libraries differentiate from academic and special collection libraries.  

Philip Richardson Library Visit

            For my research paper, I decided to focus on the Philip Richardson Library which is one of the largest dance collections in the United Kingdom.  The library officially opened in the 1980s. 

Today, I was able to visit the library and meet with Rebecca Blackbourn, the Library and Research Services Manager.  During my visit, Rebecca gave me the tour of their small library and archive.  She showed me their book collection.  For their dance and dance related books, they are classified with their own classification system called RADPAC which stands for Royal Academy of Dance Performing Arts Collection.  Also, it is loosely passed off of the Universal Decimal Classification because it lets the classifier expand the collection to their needs.  For their non-dance books, they use the Universal Decimal Classification.  They have books, DVDs, CDs, VHS, journals, Benesh Movement Notation Scores, theatre programmes, photographs, pictures, and artefacts.  During the tour, Rebecca pulled one of the Benesh Movement Notation Scores for me to look at.  She was explaining to me how she would get emails about looking at a particular part of the scores and she would have to do research online to figure out how to read the scores to get as close as possible to what the patron wanted.  It was nice to know to see how she has to do research to do her job to the best of her abilities. 

Rebecca and I talked about the users of the library.  The users are: faculty and students, RAD friends and members, subscribers, and the public.  They also have had book launches in the library.  They hope that this will help publicize the library. 

Next, we talked about their policies which are that they do not have any formal policies currently, but what they are working towards them.  One of the guidelines for collection development is that they get items that promote the ethos of the Royal Academy of Dance and whatever the teachers put on the class reading lists.  For weeding, they do not weed the dance items.  They keep all of the copies that they have no matter how out of date they are or if they have newer editions.  However, they do weed their non-dance related items.

My talk and tour with Rebecca was extremely helpful.  I was able to learn more about the library, how it runs, whom it helps, and how things are classified.  This will be extremely helpful for my paper.

Courtesy of Philip Richardson Library website

Edinburgh Central Library

The Edinburgh Central Library is a lending library for the city.  It was opened on June 9, 1890 as a Carnegie Library and this year they celebrate 125 years of being opened. 

Our visit started with us going to the George Washington Brown meeting room to talk about what we will be doing at the library: tours of the library and three talks from professionals at the library.  For our tours, we were split in to three groups and were led to different areas of the library so that we could all hear and see the library while not running in to each other.  The places we saw in the library on my tour are: the children's library, the central lending library, we talked about the art and design library, reference, and the mezzanine which is where the music collection, video collection, teen area, the Edinburgh and Scotland collections, and one acoustic pod for groups. 

Once the tour was over, we made it back to the meeting room where we were given coffee or tea for our three talks.  The first talk was by Karen O'Brien called "Never Too Old" about the history of the library, acquisitions, and some of the items in their collections.  The second talk was by Sarah Forteath about some of the outreach programs that the library hosts and about how to get more users in to the library.  The last talk was by Alison Stoddart about the digital side of the library.  All three of the talks were interesting and informative.  This visit was by far one of my favorites because the setup of our visit was different then our other tours.  One of the facts that I learned about the library on my tour is that the library is two buildings that were merged together in the 1930s when they acquired the building next door.

 

 

University of Edinburugh New College Library

            Today we went to the University of Edinburgh New College Library.  It began in 1843 because of the formation of the Free Church of Scotland’s New College.  The library has over 250,000 volumes and is one of the largest theological libraries in the United Kingdom.  In their beginnings, they asked for book donations from women, private individuals, authors, and publishers and in their first year, they received 10,000 books.  In 1936, the library opened in its current building which was a church, they repurposed the pews from the church as shelves, and they have furniture from the 1930s in use.  In the library, they have self-issuing machines and five floors of materials.  Of those materials, only 60% of the items are online in their catalog and most of that are special collections. 

           

            For our tour there, we were in one group at the beginning where we were given a brief history of the library and the building that it is in now.  Then we were split up in to two groups: one group to stay behind and look at the special collections items that they pulled for us and the other group to get a tour of three of the five floors.  I was in the first group so I was able to see The Book of Common Prayer from 1637, the Galileo: Dialogus de Systemate Mundi from 1663, an historical geography of the Old and New Testament from 1809 which has a unicorn in the picture (at the bottom of the second picture), Calvin: Institutes of Christian Religion from 1536, and more.  Then we switched with the other group.  Our tour started on the first floor where our tour guide showed us the periodicals which are still used and demanded by patrons which is pretty awesome because most patrons in other libraries that we have seen prefer online resources rather than print resources. 

           

            Next on our tour, we went down one floor to view the stacks.  The stacks are made into the framework so they cannot move the stacks or change them without putting the building in danger.  This also goes for the floor below it that we looked at.  This is unfortunate because they cannot change it to add more storage for books so they have to store their books at an outside storage facility.  However, they have to find a new one because their current outside storage is full. 

           

            The best thing about visiting this library was being able to hear about the patrons wanting to come in and use the periodicals rather than viewing them online.