Bonus Visit: Roman Baths

https://www.romanbaths.co.uk/

I actually visited two museums in Bath before visiting the Roman Baths, and though this one is the least related to libraries and archives, I was very impressed with the measures taken here to promote accessibility, so this is the one I choose to write about.

A bit of background first: in 60 AD when the Romans came through and conquered the Celts in England they discovered a hot spring, and decided to set up a temple to the goddess Minerva, who the Romans figured was the same as the Celtic goddess Sulis. After the temple, they built this huge spa/ bathing house to relax and recharge in their leisure time because, you know, #selfcare.

For a while the Baths were neglected, but had a renaissance in the 18th century when it became extremely fashionable to spend a season in Bath "taking the waters" and attending dances. Even Jane Austen lived in Bath for a short while at the end of her life, as it was considered the best place to go for anyone with ailments.

Much of the ruins have been preserved and the site is now a museum drawing in tourists from all over the world. What I found most impressive about the museum was how the experience was designed to accommodate peoples with disabilities and who spoke different languages.

When you first walk in audio guides are available in several different languages, and there are even three separate audio guides for English speakers: a straight forward standard tour, a Rick Steves travel tour, and a tour for children. I appreciate how they thought to design a separate tour just for kids to make the experience more enjoyable for them.

I also noticed that at a lot of the different exhibits, where sculptures or dioramas were on display, or in places where there was an impressive view, great measures were taken to accommodate blind people. On the stand where the descriptions were, they would also be available in braille, along with a plastic replica fixed to the podium that a blind person could feel to get an understanding of what everyone was looking at. The maps were designed this way as well.  I have never seen that before!

Honestly, between the very descriptive audio guide and model sculptures for the blind, I probably could've gone through the entire museum with my eyes closed and still leave with a clear understanding of the place. That is quite an accomplishment!

There were also elevators to help those less able to see all of the different levels of the bath house, and all of the walkways were wide enough for wheelchairs.

It was probably an expensive undertaking to make the museum so accessible but not a single penny has gone to waste. User Experience design has become a bit of a buzz word in the library community but it's important to make sure that if you're going to make changes to the library to facilitate use, that you consider it from everyone's perspective-- including those with disabilities.

They've done a great job at the Roman Baths, and I sincerely commend them.

Bonus Visit: Marylebone Library

https://www.westminster.gov.uk/library-opening-hours-and-contact-details

I was really bummed to miss the Barbicon Library site visit because I actually do work full time at a public library. That visit would have been the most relevant to my current job duties and area of expertise. Due to a misunderstanding about the mini break and when it officially began, I missed it. So to make up for it, I decided to visit Marylebone Public Library, a lending library that was right around the corner from our residence hall.

It was a very small library with a basement and ground floor, and it had books and DVDs for adults, and an adorable little children's section. The library on duty, Sabrina was more than happy to answer all of my nosy little questions, so it was a delightful visit.

I found their organization system for non-fiction books intriguing especially because we've been playing around with the idea of changing the way books are organized in the non-fiction area for teens at my library.

First, the books are organized by alphabetical categories: Art, Cooking, Sports, etc. Then, in each section they are arranged by Dewey. I really like this system because this way, a person can find all books related to their topic of interest in one area. Art books in the 700s are no longer separated from traditional folk art in the 300s. Sabrina said they changed to this method about 5 years ago, and it's worked really well at their particular location. In the picture you can see that they have a section for Media and Performance, followed by music, and then Nature.

There was a similar organization schema going on in the children's section. Fiction and non fiction were separated, and then grouped together by categories, like "Animals" and "Colors."

As Sabrina and I spoke, she was interrupted by various patrons, and it was nice to see that all of the questions were the same: "May I have the key to the bathroom?" "I would like to pay my fines" and the ever popular, "Can I have my computer time extended?" The only difference is, that at this particular library, patrons must pay to extend library time, which I thought was interesting, but makes sense considering they have such a limited amount of computers and space. 

Because the library is so small in such a big city, I assumed it was a branch, but it doesn't quite work that way. Usually in big cities in the US there is one big central location, and then a few smaller branch locations which might have their own feel, but ultimately they all share the same director. And if one branch makes a change they all do. In London, they seem to be less centralized the librarians at each location decide for themselves how things will run, and how books will be organized.

However, several of the libraries in London, including Marylebone Library fall under the larger umbrella of Westminster Libraries and if you have a card at one you can use it for other locations, and they all share the same website and blog.  I also visited Paddington Public Library, another branch of Westminster libraries. I tried to stop by the Barbican after that, but apparently they closed early that day at 2pm, which is absolutely outrageous to me, but whatever. 

I really enjoyed my visit to Marylebone Library and had an interesting conversation with Sabrina about professional development and the professional organization in the UK. In America we have ALA, but they have CILIP. Actually, after talking to her for a while, I decided to focus my research paper on professional development instead of my original topic regarding sewing patterns. 

Royal Geographical Society

https://www.rgs.org/about/our-collections/the-foyle-reading-room/

Our very last site visit was to the Foyle Reading Room in the Royal Geographical Society. This is a place dedicated to the study of geography dating back hundreds of years. The society was established in 1830, and is still the go- to place for conducting geographical research 188 years later.

I was late to this site visit, so I missed the beginning of the presentation. Due to a delay in my flight when coming back from mini break I got in super late the night before, and didn't realize that we still had one site visit left.

Our guide for this visit had rare items and artifacts displayed on the table and told us about explorers throughout time and all of the adventures they embarked on. It's very interesting to think about the fact that everything we know about the geography in the world is thanks to the contributions of very brave souls. They would go on these daring adventures to parts unknown, and many men have died on their quest to contribute information about the lay of various lands.

While most guests stop in to Foyle Reading Room to peruse maps and travelogues, they also have a lot of interesting artifacts on display. Apparently they used to actively seek and ask for artifacts, but they no longer do this because they would not have enough room to keep everything. 

St. Paul's Cathedral

https://www.stpauls.co.uk/history-collections/the-collections/the-library

What I found most interesting about St. Paul's Cathedral was that this was one of the only libraries where it seemed they cared more about the appearance of the books rather than the actual contents. When we came to visit, everything was disorganized because they were making an effort to preserve the fabrics and furniture in the room as opposed to the books.

The librarian, Joe Wisdom, said that they don'r conserve the books because it's too expensive. But in my opinion, the purpose of a library is to house knowledge. The content of the books should be the most important part-- but it's clear that here, the main goal is to impress people with how nice the room is. When we asked him about the preservation efforts for the books, he mentioned that the only clean the covers. To me it seems like the books might as well be blank.

I did think it was really cool that they had a rock collection near the library, though. All of the rocks were pieces of previous cathedrals that stood on the same spot. And instead of just tossing them into the Thames, they kept them and actually cataloged them.

He did bring up an interesting issue on the difference of restoration and preservation. When curators and archivists restore materials, they are taking liberties and making assumptions about what they thought the item might have been like when it is new. They would probably rebind a book, or repaint an item to try and get it looking as if it just popped out of a time machine. Preservation on the other hand, is about keeping the material in good condition--fortifying pages so that they don't rip, cleaning the leather on the cover, etc.

It seems like in the 1960s archivists were more likely to restore items, but now the practice is generally frowned upon because it actually covers up the historical value that they seek to highlight.

National Museum of Computing

http://www.tnmoc.org/

The National Museum of Computing was absolutely fascinating! To be honest, I was not that excited for this tour. I'm not very interested in computer science, but our tour guide Sheridan was so excited about his topic that it made me excited!

I didn't know anything at all about the enigma machine or all of the code breaking going on there at Bletchley Park! All of those old computers were fascinating because each one just had a specific, simple task but they were so huge! And logical!

I've  never seen The Imitation Game, and even though our guide said it's more like "The Irritation Game" because Hollywood got all of the facts wrong, I would still like to learn more about this interesting time in history. It was so cool to see all of these old machines that were still in perfect working condition. We saw the world's oldest working computer, the WITCH, and I even got my name printed in ASCII by the Elliot 903! Here's a link of the WITCH in action: https://photos.app.goo.gl/NpgEwKQVTzVrij7P9 

At the end of the tour he mentioned that the museum is not officially accredited, which surprised me. Apparently it's a hassle because the accreditation officials stick their nose into everything and enforce all of their little rules.

There's an interesting division happening because the National Computing Museum and Bletchley Park have so much in common. To quote a Walk The Moon song, Their "Venn diagrams are one circle". Apparently they used to be more connected, but split recently when Bletchley Park decided to apply for lottery money. The people at the National Museum of Computing decided that there were too may strings attached and opted out.

That's so interesting to me. I've never heard of the lottery applying to non profit organizations before, but it sounds a lot like grants. So often in the LIS world, everyone sings the praises of grants. And there's  a grant for everything. Need books? There's a grant for that. Need to build a programming space at your library? There's a grant for that! But all of those grants have strings attached, just like the lottery.

Before accepting or even applying for grant money, it's important to consider if you actually want to go ahead with the stipulations of that organization. Grants may seem like an opportunity for free money, but it always comes at a cost.

Middle Temple Law Library

https://www.middletemple.org.uk/library-and-archive/library

Today we visited the Middle Temple Law Library, which apparently belongs to Prince William? Not clear on that part. Anyway, my biggest takeaway from this visit was that England doesn't have normal lawyers. They have solicitors and barristers. A solicitor is like a lawyer who wants to get everything settled out of court. A barrister is the type of lawyer we would make a TV show about back in the US.

The library was founded in 1641, and holds the legal texts of England, Wales, and EU law documents.  They also keep law books from other countries including America. They are a reference library, and just like the V&A, they close for two weeks each year. Which, I will state again, I love.

Our guide said that for his job, he often holds sessions, teaching law students about the library, how to research, and what materials they can find in the library. That sounds familiar. :)

Victoria and Albert National Art Library and Museum

https://www.vam.ac.uk/info/national-art-library

My favorite destination so far!!! The V&A might just be my favorite place in all of London. And to be honest, this was one of the only tours I've been on that actually seemed relevant and interesting to me because she actually talked about how the library is run, and not just the history of ships or something!

The V&A National Art Library collects  books and publications about art. Or sometimes books that are works of art in themselves. All their books are reference books, so none of them are allowed to leave the library, but many of the materials are considered part of special collections. That includes books that are very old, one of a kind, a work of art in its own right, or donated by a very prominent person. Or maybe even all of the above.

The National Art Library never really removes anything from their collection, so space is a precious commodity. To maximize this resource, they have started shelving books by size. Incidentally, this is also how Amazon stores things in their warehouse. I wonder if that's where they got the idea from?

Each year in August, the library closes for two weeks so that they can work on projects, and maintain the collection. I am sooo jealous of that. Honestly, that sounds like just the best thing in the world to  me, and I sincerely wish we could do that at my library. When she said that, I immediately started wondering if they have any job openings.

They have 25 staff members and they even held a program for children recently and are considering hosting more. I could be that person for them! I could plan and develop programming for children!! Must figure out where to send my resume...

I also love love loved the fashion exhibit at the V&A. Without a doubt, my favorite museum!