Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Day 5 - Barbican Library and St. Paul's Cathedral

Day 5

Today (July 2) was an extremely long day.  I had a lot of fun and saw some great lirbaries.  We started our day at the Barbican library.  This is a public library.  It moved to the Barbican Center in 1962 when the Center opened.  The Barbican Center was built after the bombing during World War 2.  The library is part of the City of London Heritage and the majority of the patrons are residents within the City of London.  The City of London is actually one square mile.  This means that there are about 9000-11,000 residential patrons in the  city. 

There ais a large self service area within the Barbican.  This area allows patrons to check and return items all on their own.  It is a really cool system.  I like the fact that they can check in materials themselves, even when the library is closed.  You just scan your library card and click the button you need for check out or check in. 


The library contains four main areas.  There is the general library, the arts library, the music library, and the children's library.  As this building was not originally designed for a library, there is an interesting layout to the library as a whole.  The oldest book held within the library, that can be checked out, dates back to 1738. 

The Arts Library contains a variety of DVDs from TV to instructional.  The area can also be easily converted for talks.  The Music Library is one of the largest that can be found in a public library.  It contains one of two of the largest music collections in London.  Westminster has the other one.  Barbican holds more of the popular music, musical theatre, pop and rock music.  They do maintain an ILL (Inter Library Loan) with Westminster on more of the older music.  One thing that I really liked was that there are two digital pianos that patrons can use for practice.  All you have to do is plug in your headphones and play.



The other popular thing that the Barbican Music Library does is that they offer a streaming service to their customers.  It is free and all the customers have to do is sign in.  This is the most used electronic resource available for both videos and music.  The Music Library is also the only truly quiet area in the library as a whole. 

The Children's Library is housed upstairs and feels small even though it is considered one of the largest children's libraries.  School come to visit for story time 3 times a week.  They have a Bookstart program for parents, crafts, guests, and author visits on Saturdays, and 3 separate reading groups.  Flat Stanley liked this library.  He found his story!



After the Barbican we got to visit a corporate library which was interesting.  Then we headed to St. Paul's Cathedral to visit the library there. 

Our tour started with some history.  The three main arches are patterned after Canterbury.  The library has many mosaics and murals as well as a variety of texts.  We went through an old hall with many flying buttresses.  The library was designed by Christopher Wren.  Above the door to the library there was a Latin transcription Faciendi plures libros nullus est finis, which translates to "Of making many books there is no end."  We also got to see a view from the West Galley.  Nearby was the spiral staircase that was used for filming in Harry Potter.  It was really cool to see in person.  Unfortunately no pictures were allowed.


When you walk into the library (pictured above) you get the smell of old books.  This lovely smell is actually the disentigrating leather.  This is where they work on conservation and preservation of old texts.  The clergy came together to rebuild the library after the fire of 1666.  Most of the books in the library are 17th century.  There are a few that date earlier than that. 

Overall, this is an incredibly beautiful library and cathedral.  I highly recommend visiting.  This was the end of a very long day. 

And yet more to come...

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