Though we've only visited two libraries thus far, I have to say this has been my favorite and will likely remain so. We began our tour in the Conservation Center of the British Library. We started in learning about an ongoing digitization project with a team from the British Library that is partnered with the Qatar Foundation. The project is extremely extensive in selecting, retrieving, preserving, cataloging, imaging, and translating items on the history of the Gulf and Arabic Science. This project will make the items from this collection available online to people across the world. I found it so amazing to see how methodically and carefully a team can work together to achieve something so huge and beneficial for scholars and intellectuals on an international level. The further we ventured into the center, the more I wanted to drop what I'm doing and begin a degree in conservation. The different materials that these conservators get to work with on a daily basis is just amazing, and the work they're doing to make sure people can still access and use these materials in the future is beyond meaningful work. One of the conservators we spoke with said that the general rule of thumb at the British Library was that repairs on books or pages should not be able to be seen at 6 feet away, but should be seen at 6 inches away. This way the repairs are not ruining the aesthetic and originality of what the book or item should look like, but if they figure out a better way to make repairs in 50 years from now they could undo the work that is being done today. It is wonderful that the library not only has the future in mind with repairs and conservation, but also is humble enough to realize we might not have it perfect yet in terms of repairs.
The second part of our tour was just as fascinating. The one thing that stuck out to me during our tour was the architecture of the building and the interior design inside; it was meant to look like a boat. Once our tour guide pointed this out to us, I couldn't stop seeing it and it really made you feel as though you were aboard a cruise ship. The design was supposed to represent the British Library sailing on a sea of knowledge, our guide finds this incredibly cheesy, but I thought it was kind of nice. The library contains approximately 50 delivery rooms for book request and receive about 3,000 requests daily. I don't think we even have 3,000 people in my home town. That said, the size and extensive subjects and materials that the library has to offer is just incredible. You could spend a lifetime here and not get enough of it.
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