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June 24, 2005
Travels to the UK - British Library
I spent June 1 - 15, 2005 working with colleague Beth Neil at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, England. While there, I did a bit of traveling, and one memorable stop was the British Library in London. Long a part of the British Museum, the Library now has its own new building - less than 10 years old - on Euston Road near Kings Cross / St. Pancras underground stop.
I arrived on a beautifully sunny, warm day. This is the courtyard entrance to the British Library on Euston Road. Even though it's on a very busy street, the courtyard effectively uses walls and shrubs to create a sense of intimacy out of the center of London's hub-bub.
This is the entry to the Library.
The information counter....
The stairway leading to the exhibits literally invites visitors to come on in and see what's inside.
An interesting image for a library....
One of the treasures I picked up at the Gift Shop was an interactive CD-ROM featuring 12 teasures from the British Library, including The Leonardo Notebook, The Lindisfarne Gospels, Blackwell's Herbal, The Golden Haggadah, and the Sforza Hours.
It allows you to turn the pages of the book (which you certainly can't do in the exhibit at the library!), gives written and spoken narration, and - coolest of all - it provides a magnifying glass that you can move around the page in order to see greater detail. Some of this functionality can be experienced by going to the British Library's website: http://www.bl.uk
In addition to seeing documents such as the Magna Carta, Gutenberg Bible, and Lindisfarne Gospels all in the same room, the Library has original scores of musicians from Handel (see score to "Messiah" below) to John Lennon.
Posted by hgroteva at June 24, 2005 10:47 PM | Travel