Spare Parts

Sand art by the Thames

My first Sunday at Hyde Park. The most heated exchange was among a pro-Israeli speaker and a group of Arabs. The funniest was the anti-Imperialist from Africa. It would be inappropriate to quote him.

A monument to the animals that died alongside the British in 20th century warfare.

Oceanic feeling at Hyde Park.

Scotland

Joy and freedom on the Southbank.

Final time at my haven. It did not help what the Scottish air did to my sinuses. The effect of the surgery I had in April was undone by the dampness.

Turtle!

London Zoo? Don't mind if I do.

Chillin'

I relate.

Is your mama a llama?

I pissed off the macaw.

Butterfly Love

Grooming?

With Carey before the symposium. By this point in the summer, people were asking if we were sisters.

Brick Lane

Le sigh!

Maughan Library

Our last tour was of Maughan Library, the King's College humanities library on Chancery Lane. This academic library has over 1,000 reader places, over 330 computer places, and 750,000 volumes. It serves 11,000 students on the Strand, although any of the 20,000 King's College students may use their building or services. Its strong points are War Studies and Theology.

The Maughan librarians have gone rove. They lurk near entrance areas attempting to look friendly and offer help. Given the massive size of the library, I expect this is much appreciated. There will always be people who do not want to be helped, but it is good for both users and the profession for librarians to thwart stereotypes and aim for the ideal. The roving librarian is much discussed in school, yet this is the first time I have encountered an organized effort to make this a reality.

The staff room has a very nice librarianship collection that they keep up. The room has comfortable, multi-colored chairs. You can tell the staff is valued. The entire library makes good use of space.

National Archives of Scotland

The purpose of the National Archives of Scotland is the maintenance and preservation of the records of Scotland. The earliest surviving records are from the 12th century. The NAS buildings house over 70 kilometers of records. Of the millions of documents you can find Parliament papers, railway records, valuation rolls, government records, maps, Register of Deeds, and much more.


During the tour the librarian stressed the importance of weeding. She told us to be brutal. Although I agree with the sentiment, I was surprised that was the philosophy of a library whose mission is record keeping. Space and funding are always issues. The NAS opened their 3rd building in 1995. The Thomas Thomson house is entirely a storage facility. It was supposed to last them until 2020. It is virtually full. At the moment, the NAS is trying to convince to the courts to be more selective in what they preserve.

The impact of WWI is soon to be a topic for compulsory exams at Scottish universities. Laid out on a table set up for us were applications from men to be exempted from the war. One could become exempt on the basis of conscientious objection or hardship. The latter means that, for example, a young man who is the only child of a widowed mother could apply for a hardship exemption. In a 1916 application, James Hamilton explains that his family's farm will not survive if he goes off to war. The military took his request to be genuine and gave him a temporary exemption until he reaches 18 years and 8 months. They were not always so kind.

Image from NAS website.

Dunfermline Public Library

Andrew Carnegie was born in Dunfermline. It is only natural that he offered a 5,000 pound donation to his hometown to build what became the Dunfermline Public Library. This first Carnegie Library was a main library when it opened in 1883, but is now considered a branch library. There is homage to the philanthropist throughout the site. You can find a bust of his mother or a portrait of the man himself.

While DPL is a lending library, it is known for its reference services. In particular, they get a lot of family history enquiries from around the world. It is apparently the place to go to for anyone doing Fife research.

My class was shown both the George Reid and the Murison Burns collections. Reid collected early, printed books. This valuable collection holds a medieval Book of Hours (14th C), Aquinas' Summa Theologica (15th C), the works of Euclid (15th C), and a Bassandyne Bible (16th C). The Burns collection struck me as rather odd. Who is Murison Burns? Once I realized that Murison was the collector and Robert Burns was the subject of the collection it made much more sense. Robert Burns was a poet during the time of the French Revolution. He is perhaps thought of as the grandfather of Romantic poetry.

Image source here.

Edinburgh Central Library

Our bus ride from England to Scotland started early in the morning and contained myriad accents. Amidst the stream of background educational commentary, I managed to get in 50 pages of a book that Sam Harris recommended on his website. I snatched up Aaronovitch's Voodoo Histories at a rest stop. The first chapter dealt with the history of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the famous Russian forgery of the Jewish plan for world domination that continues to be widely read and accepted in parts of the Middle East. This is the book I turned to when I realized our homebase in Dalkeith was not safe enough for nightlife outside my locked hotel room.

We checked out several book and information havens in Scotland. For too long Edinburgh did not have a free public library. The town had a lackadaisical attitude about fulfilling the Public Library Act. They already had subsciption libraries, so the expense was deemed a taxpayer burden. Andrew Carnegie's 1886 donation of 25,000 pounds inspired the Town Council to approve the building of the Edinburgh Central Library. It opened to the public in 1890.

Our tour was thorough, starting with 3 presentations. Alison talked about the ways in which they are working to improve their virtual library. You can read the library's blog here. Staff members go so far as to survey Twitter for people's compliments and complaints. Karen told us a little about their special collections, which span the 15th century to present day. The biggest treat for me was the presentation on reader development. Annie and Colm try to set up at least 1 author event a month. The bring in literary fiction writers, well known Scottish writers, and emergent writers. Crime is the highest circulating genre at the Barbican in London. This trend is no different at Edinburgh Central Library. In March, they built off this collective passion and did a successful program of events called Crime in the City.

Photo courtesy of the Central Library.

Freud House

When I learned that Freud had only lived in the Freud House for the last year of his life, I felt I had been fooled. It seemed like a pattern was emerging. London has been the home and stopping point for many genuises. There is not a street that does not have grand intellectual significance tied to it many times over. Dickens lived on Doughty Street for about the same amount of time Freud lived in Maresfield Gardens. Unfair comparisons twitched through my mind. It's as if I became a big and important person and after my death they started doing tours of Stamford Street!

Of course, the house a man dies in is significant. Freud fled Vienna in 1938 when paying off the Nazis no longer offered security to his family and home. As Freud quoted in "Civilization and its Discontents": homo homini lupus. He was able to take all his belongings with him, including a large selection from his library. His personal collection of over 1600 titles requires a catalogue. Most prominently displayed in his study is a set of the complete works of Goethe. He also had a taste for Shakespeare, Hawthorne, Poe, and Twain. There are numerous book on science and psychology, some even dedicated to him. Many are still sitting on his shelves with the pages uncut.

A salient portion of Freud's library is devoted to books on archaeology, one of his most passionate interests. He surrounded himself with an always growing collection of artifacts. The rich rugs, the fertility figures, the Ancient Egyptian mummy bandages, and more were almost all from his main home in Vienna. They came with him to London and remain in the Maresfield Gardens house, preserved as they were during Freud's year there. When you walk into the British Museum you expect to be surrounded by history. Museum displays can become tedious. Keys to our past are locked away behind glass. The Freud House is not like that. There is a path that visitors are permitted to walk through before the velvet rope indicates not to get one step closer to Freud's couch and buddha figure. Freud lived in a museum of his own making only without the protective glass. That has more impact for me than any museum exhibit, no matter how beautiful, exciting, or intellectually stimulating. Freud's house is a window into his psyche. The experience of being there is visceral. He considered himself an archaeologist of the mind.

In keeping with the no photopraphy policy of the Museum, I took pictures in the bathroom. I wish I had a better shot of the reading material:

And what better setting for a narcissistic photo shoot into a reflective surface?

Bodleian

Oxford is the oldest English speaking university in the world. They claim an origin of at least 1201. Unsurprisingly, one of the later buildings was designed by none other than Christopher Wren. Is there anything this man did not do? The library got its first real start when Duke Humphrey donated his collection in the 15th century. Sir Thomas Bodley, husband of a rich widow, gave the library a giant donation and, thus, new life at the end of the 16th century.

Ranganathan's first law of Library Science is books are for use. The London Library takes this concept very seriously and lends out almost all materials. Oxford's Bodleian has a different tradition. They do not lend out anything. Even Charles I was denied the privilege, though a room was built specifically for his reading pleasure. To this day they still have chains on books. This idiosyncrasy is compensated for by the meticulous job the conservation department does in caring for the materials. Books are even stored backwards.

The Bodleian has copies of Blake's Songs of Innocence, The Book of Thel, and The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. My catnip!

Image from Bodleian website.

National Art Library

The Victoria & Albert Museum was founded on the basis of a simple principle: to make art available to the public. Sir Henry Cole wanted to educate the working class and inspire artists. The financial success of the Great Exhibition of 1851 allowed for the funding of the V&A, as well as the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum.

According to our tour guide, the Museum's National Art Library averages about 100 visitors a day. It originated as the library of the School of Design in 1837, predating the Museum.

Art books create a special shelving problem. The National Art Library deals with it by shunning a classification system altogether. They shelve based on size. This makes browsing impossible, but it does save space.

The Library houses more than just art books. Some items are so valuable that they are locked away. John Forster, an early biographer of Dickens, donated his collection of over 18,000 books for use by the nation. The photograph to the left is of a copy of the biography held at the Dickens House. Forster was such good friends with Dickens that the latter bequeathed the former a corrected proof of Bleak House. The copy the Library owns is heavily corrected, much like the work of J.G. Ballard on display at the British Library.

William Blake is my favorite poet. Seeing his art was a highlight for me. In one of my library classes last year, a student and professor both came to a very passionate agreement about the horror of looking at reproduced art in books and online archives. His paintings are something to behold, yet Blake's visual sense is so strong that they can be pretty well absorbed in any fashion. What I want to see in person are the plates. I should have thought of that at the British Museum! Nevertheless, I was quite pleased to look at the 2 Blake works. He painted in tempera instead of oil because he thought it was more ethical to not be able to do corrections. Take that Dickens!

Image "Eve Tempted by the Serpent" taken from here on the V&A website.

London Library

The London Library is on to something. It is so unassuming from the outside. The inside is an Alice in Wonderland labyrinth of shelves and bad heel surfaces (the photo to the left is a floor). My first reaction was that it was too hot. Then our class spoke to the librarians. Their enthusiasm was infectious. They clearly loved where they worked. I internally scoffed when they explained their policy of never weeding. It makes no sense, I thought. They are not a copyright library. As it turns out, they are a subscription lending library. Their members love them so much that they pay for the privilege of using their books and services. T.S. Eliot's widow still receives royalties from Cats. She donates millions to the library. This is the kind of thing that allows them not to weed. Another unique policy is that the London Library lends out rare books, which shows their patrons (they would call them members) an admirable respect. One very understandable exception is their 1st edition copy of The Origin of Species. Darwin's formative work on worms, The Formation of Vegetable Mould, is open to the public.

The library owes its existence to Thomas Carlyle. He did not appreciate the reference nature of the British Library. Well before the digital era, he envisioned a nation where information could be accessed at home. The library was founded in 1841 and has since enjoyed administrative association with heavyweights such as Thackeray, Tennyson, Kipling, Eliot, and the current president Tom Stoppard.

The London Library housed the meetings of the Philological Society. It was here that Richard Chenevix Trench first presented the idea of a dictionary that describes words as they are, not as we would like them to be. He critiqued work that had been done in the past, even by Samuel Johnson. Thus began the idea of the Oxford English Dictionary in 1857.

An unexpected favorite, the London Library most challenged my preconceptions and made me go back to the my early library school lessons. I was conditioned to be a weeder because that makes the most sense for most public libraries. If your founding and mission statement are based on offering the wealth of a nation for home use and you can afford it, go forth and expand! Use non-eye catching library binding to preserve your collection. Your patrons want to be here. You do not have to convince them to read.

Greenwich Maritime Museum

The site of the Greenwich Maritime Museum was once a school for the children of seafarers. It became what it is today due to the persistence of the Society for Nautical Research and the generosity of member Sir James Caird. It incorporates the Royal Observatory and the Queen's House.


The Caird Library is one of the largest reference libraries in the world. It is undergoing its first major redevelopment since its founding in 1937. There is talk that when the new library is complete that discriminatory age barriers on usage will be removed. I hope this happens. If a research library in which there is no smutty fiction cannot treat the young like human beings then there is no hope for public libraries. In addition to reference section and some current fare, the collection includes over 100,000 books, 20,000 pamphlets, 20,000 periodicals, and 8,000 rare books spanning 1474 to 1850. They are known for their manuscripts collection, which takes up over 4 miles of shelf space. The collection covers all things maritime, piracy, astronomy, horology, and biography.

Martin and Hannah shared a number of gems with the class. We looked at the Aurora Australis, the first book written, illustrated, and bound at the sign of the Penguins. Sir Ernest Shackleton allowed a printing press on the expedition because of the down time in the Antarctic when traveling is impossible due to pack ice. He was so serious about the avoidance of "polar ennui" (and also about the creation of a nice promotional souvenir) that he had a printing firm provide 3 weeks of printing training to his men. The book contains fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. The illustrations were by expedition artist George Marston.


Image from National Maritime Museum website.

British Library

This picture pretty much sums up how I feel about the British Library. I visited for the first time last summer. My best laid plans to explore the library were thwarted by an extensive Henry VIII exhibition that I wrongly thought would only take me an hour. One year later, I have no regrets.

The British Library branched out of the British Museum and became the legal deposit library of the U.K. and Ireland in 1973. It may have the largest collection in the world, touting 200 million items. Then again, the Library of Congress, Bibliotheque Nationale of France, and the Russian State Library are also contenders. As our tour guide clarified, national libraries grow at exponential rates, so it is hard to say one is the biggest.

Such an important library must be run with caution. Anyone desiring to use the reading rooms must prove genuine need. It does not have to be PhD level need. An elderly man wanted to look at a book he remembered from his childhood. That was enough. However, if he had wanted to look at Shakespeare's 1st folio he likely would have been turned down. The system of records and barcoding led to the catching of a book vandal. A man who smuggled in a knife and cut pages out of books was sentenced to 2 years in prison. He was a top researcher in his field.

While I expected that the library would house manuscripts, periodicals, maps, and even patents, I would have never guessed they had the ashes of Percy Bysshe Shelley. The story from our guide is that someone took a handful from his cremation site in Italy. Why this happened and how the British Library obtained the physical remnants of the French Revolution obsessed Romantic poet remains to be discovered. I am on it.

There are too many treasures in the Treasures of the British Library to do the collection justice. I am going to note just a few of the most interesting to me (not necessarily the most interesting to the anyone else):

• Beowulf. This copy from Cotton's collection was saved from a fire by a servant. It is charred.
  
• J.G. Ballard Archive. So now we know the claim that Ballard did not keep archives was a lie. The recently deceased British author kept documents relating to his experiences in WWII, including a map of the Internment camp in which he and his family were held. On display is evidence he heavily edited and rewrote his works. There are pages from his manuscripts filled with illegible (at least to me) words and lines in red and blue ink. An ink-filled page is one of the more visceral windows into brilliance.


• A letter by Charles Darwin where he asserts he is "confident in the truth of my main doctrine." For the record, I can read no one's handwriting. I know what the letter says because of signage. Darwin is not even the worst offender.
  
• The diary of Robert Falcon Scott and photos from his ill-fated polar expedition. When he learned that Norwegian Roald Amundsen had beaten him to the South Pole he wrote that it was "a horrible day" and went on to express his correct fear that he and his own crew would not survive.

Image of "The Funeral of Shelley" by Fournier is from the National Museums Liverpool website.
Image of Ballard manuscript from bibliokept.org.
Image of Scott's Journal from British Library online gallery.

British Museum

Charles Dickens was once a reader at the British Museum. The first public library in Britain was bound to attract important literary figures. It all started when physician and naturalist Sir Hans Sloane bequeathed his entire collection of over 71,000 items to the nation in 1753. Such a vast collection is bound to be diverse, but its chief focus was natural history specimens. Another early user of the reading room was Charles Darwin. Who knows how library access may have furthered along the revolutionary thinker who led to the greatest paradigm shift since Copernicus?

Flux is the prevailing condition of the structure of the British Museum. It used to be all encompassing, handling the materials that have now branched off into the Natural History Museum and the British Library. Its own libraries include the Paul Hamlyn Library, which is open to the public for on-site research, and a lending library for the staff, which is accessed by a book camouflaged door in the Enlightenment Gallery. The collection is made up materials relating to archaeology, museum studies, and the history of the museum.

Our tour guide, Charles Hoare, explained the many location changes the museum library has endured over time. In the 20 year tenure of his boss, the library has moved 14 times. This often occurs in order to make room for an exhibit. As we walked through the museum, Hoare would point to off to some gallery and tell us that the library used to be there. It had the feel of a Kids in the Hall skit. Upon reflection, I found it to be logical that the library would so often get the shift. It makes more sense for the staff library to be in a cramped "Long Room" than it does for the Enlightenment Gallery to be.

The tight space of the Long Room holds the library's most expensive collection: The Witt Collection. It is made up of books, Roman sculptures, Indian objects, and Middle Eastern objects. Books that jumped out at me were Lives of the Ancient Philosophers and India's Moor's Narratives.

Hoare quietly warned us against the massive consequences of a poorly thought out classification scheme. The museum originally classified things based on the departments. Classification needs an anchor and the departments are always shifting. They still have 25,000 items to redo.

The image above is the Gilgamesh Flood Tablet, something I wish I had thought to look for in person. When British Museum assistant George Smith discovered that this Assyrian tablet contained a flood story that predates the Old Testament, he apparently got so excited that he jumped around the room and undressed in front of his colleagues.

Fun Fact: James Murray applied for a job at the British Museum in his pre-OED days. He was rejected.

Image courtesy of the British Museum website.

Charles Dickens House Museum

Charles Dickens lived on Doughty St. in London from 1837 to 1839. His eldest children, Mary and Katey, were born there. As Dickens's fame grew he moved to bigger houses. Other places he lived have been demolished. This museum opened in 1925. Its point of pride is that it contains and cares for the National Dickens Library, which has all the author's works in various editions, translations, and adaptations locked up in what used to be Dickens's basement.


Other Highlights:






An 1835 map of London













A copy of Dickens's magazine in which he curiously chose to announce his separation from his wife.





The museum also houses some of Catherine Dickens's jewelry. I could not get a clear shot of her gold and diamond serpent ring. The Museum paid over 5,000 pounds for this item that is believed to have been a gift from the Count D'Orsay.

The video room showed a documentary on Dickens's life. Unlike many writers, Dickens was neither tortured nor anti-social, (though he may have been a bad man). He was friends with actors, fond of his children, and always had a sense of fun. Whereas his father spent 3 months in debtors prison (the museum showcases the grille), Dickens took good care of his money. Dickens fought for what he felt was rightfully his when he went to America and lobbied Congress to recognize the copyright of British authors. The American reaction to his copyright crusade soured his view of the country.

LOST may be over, but it is impossible to see a copy of Our Mutual Friend without thinking:

I'll see you in another life, Brotha!

Link to an incredible LOST rap video: We have to go back!

The Worshipful Company of Clockmakers

I did not know the Clockmakers' Museum even existed until I found myself in a group of library students heading to the single room attraction in the Guildhall Library. It is a collection of timekeeping devices that has items dating back to the 17th century. The most unexpected pieces in the collection were the works of art, such as the portrait of a lady and her watch. The main attraction is John Harrison's 5th marine timekeeper pictured in the top right, courtesy of the museum website.

A year ago I would have had no interest in such a museum. It was through a piece of historical fiction on the doomed 1845 Franklin Expedition that I came to appreciate polar exploration. The Terror is about 600 pages too long and more monster-centered than I would have liked, but Dan Simmons captures an authentic sense of time, place, and explorer mentality. It prompted me to research the history of the search for the Northwest Passage, which is where I first came across the problem of determining longitude at sea. The unhappy tale of Henry Hudson sailing blindly with no map and keeping time with a sand hourglass before John Harrison was even born is the image that has stayed with me, even moreso than him and his son drifting aimlessly to an unknown fate after mutiny.

John Harrison solved the longitude problem long before he was satisfied enough with his work to submit it for final appraisal to the Board of Longitude. His first 3 timekeepers were substantially sized. It was not until his friend John Jefferys made him a pocket watch inspired by his larger devices that he realized he could make a small watch that held up against the elements and remained accurate at sea. Jefferys was a freeman with the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers. The inspiration for Harrison's H4 is on display at the Clockmakers' Museum.

Proponents of intelligent design always offer up the oft refuted teleological argument to prove the existence of a grand designer. William Paley presented this idea at the start of the 19th century based on the science of the time. The universe seemed too complex to not have been consciously designed by a higher power just as a watch with all its cogs and springs is designed by a watchmaker. Now we know enough about biology and natural selection to see the error of this argument. As it turns out, H1, H2, H3, H4, and H5 have a craftsmanship and a foresight that we lack. In my early exposure to the question of design, I had always been more focused on the universe. The Clockmakers' Museum caused me to finally reflect on the planned complexity of the watch and the genius of the watchmaker.

Barbican Public Library

Barbican still has remnants of the wall built by the Romans to fortify themselves against likeminded invaders. The London Wall would seem to exist in order to protect valuable resources within a valuable site, and this is certainly true. Yet, the wall was not built until 150 years after Roman settlement. The Romans had flourished for over a century in London without such ostentatious protection. Perhaps the wall is indicative of a crisis in confidence.

The Barbican area went on to attract creative types in the 16th century. It is fitting that what was once the home, albeit temporarily, of Shakespeare and Ben Johnson, has become host to a world class multi-arts centre. One complex offers dance, theatre, music, art, and a public library.

The library was not always part of the greater vision of the Barbican Arts Centre. While the nearby Guildhall Library has existed since the 15th century, the idea of lending libraries in the U.K. did not pick up much steam until the Public Libraries and Museums Act of 1964. The act placed public libraries under the supervision of the Secretary of State. The City of London is now required by law to provide its population with a public lending library.

The Barbican Public Library opened in 1982. It has always been a child of government regulations. The benefit of having a watchdog is that the library must measure its accomplishments and shortcomings with a bi-yearly survey. These surveys have true impact. The library has changed its hours of operation in response to public desire. Electronic loan services are being further developed because of these surveys. The location and demographic of the library has led to complications with attempted YA programs. The average customer (their term) of the Barbican, which is in the financial district, is a white adult male with full time employment. Despite that, the library is trying to establish a focus group to see how they can better attract and work with young adults.

On our class tour, librarian John Lake showed us what appeared to be an expertly presented Young Adult section. I can only assume his comment that the section contains "nothing obscene" is the flip side of government regulation. In fact, this may be the key to their difficulty with the young adult population. Further, they do not seem to have a (comparatively) large science fiction collection because they say it does not circulate. If they were to reach out to teens, boys in particular, with science fiction they might have more success.

The Barbican has a nice budget that is enhanced by renting out space for art exhibits each month. They take a commission of sales. The fiction collection has 35,000 titles, which are displayed beautifully. The Barbican is the only public library I have ever seen that combines the best of bookstores (hence the word "customer" and the presentation of space) and libraries.


The best tour of the trip.

St Paul's Cathedral

The only inconveniences of London are the immoderate drinking of foolish people and the frequent fires.
-William Fitzstephen

There has been a site dedicated to the Apostle Paul at the highest point in London since 604 A.D. The location has has gone through various sackings, fires, and rebuildings in its long history. The most recent iteration was designed by Renaissance man Sir Christopher Wren following the Great Fire of London in 1666. He had a complete vision of London itself with St. Paul's as the center from which the streets unfolded. The St. Paul's Height Code (undermined by former Mayor Ken Livingstone) was passed in the 1930s after the newly built Faraday House obstructed the view of the famed dome and spire from the Thames. A comparable debate is occurring right now in New York over a skyscraper that would tower over the Empire State Building. Never underestimate the impact of skyline on psyche.

The library houses an estimated 21,500 items. Although many historical materials were destroyed in the Great Fire, librarian Joseph Wisdom was able to share with my class a pre-Reformation psalter that may date back to the 14th century. Newly acquired items all relate to the Church, Wren, and the Cathedral.

It is an open question what makes the library smell like brown sugar. (Probably something to do with deteriorating books.)

Faciendi plures libros nulles est finis. I thought it was fitting that our first library tour should be at an institution which has this much quoted phrase from Ecclesiastes above one doorway. The full quote from the Bible: "Of making many books there is no end, and much study is weariness of the flesh." St Paul's may be a religious institution, but it was not an accident that the latter half of the quote was left out. In the biblical context, the quote has to do with the vanity of human knowledge and its irrelevance to entering the Kingdom of God. I find the splitting of the quote to be subversive, highlighting the organic nature and the value of knowledge. In "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell", William Blake explains the ideal qualities he thinks art should include. Briefly, a work of creativity should offer a new and lucid way of viewing things, it should appeal to the senses, it should provide the reader with a sense of the infinite, it should be full of the author's rage, and it must be so original that there is not yet a name to describe what you are doing. Most importantly, a work of art should end up in a library. The fact that a book end up in a library and actually be read by people was a revolutionary idea. The Blakean perspective is that there is no end to creativity and there is no book that should become anyone's Bible. Of making many books there is no end. Indeed.

Nor could thy fabric, Paul's, defend thee long.
Though thou wert sacred to thy Maker's praise:
Though made immortal by a poet's song;
And poets' songs the Theban walls could raise.
The daring flames peep'd in, and saw from far
The awful beauties of the sacred quire:
But since it was profaned by civil war,
Heaven thought it fit to have it purged by fire.
Excerpt from "Annus Mirabilis" by John Dryden

Images from independent.co.uk and stpauls.co.uk
"The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" and some of Blake's art, including the image used here can be found at levity.com

Return to the Motherland

My penultimate graduate semester has a symmetry with my penultimate undergraduate semester. I crossed the Atlantic for the first time in 2006 to learn about Shakespeare. This time around I am studying Library Science. To prove our technological literacy, each student is required to blog about all our class visits. I spent 2 hours in the computer lab debating a title for my blog:

A Daughter of Albion Returns

Pretentious

A Long Islander in London

Generic

The U.K. Library Challenge
Irrevelant

Arcadian Archives in the U.K.
Serious

Pornographic

Chronicles of a Thames Junky may not be alliterative and may not be library related, but for someone who has broken the bank 4 out of the past 5 summers just for a view of the Thames, it is true.

Why, Sir, you find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.