British Library and Conservation Centre

Today we went to the British Library and Conservation Centre! 

Behind the scenes at the Conservation Centre

The British Library's Conservation Centre works to preserve and safeguard the items in the British Library's collections. During our visit, we saw three items being restored: a book from 1647 India bound in the Islamic tradition; a photo album from the British occupation of India; and a silk flag that hung in the military committee room in Whitehall from 1777-1779.  These projects require different levels of attention. For instance, the photo album was estimated at 95 hours to clean and repair while the silk flags will take approximately 400 hours. In one year, there are 10,000 hours dedicated to conservation between the 20 full-time employees. Since there are significantly more items to be restored than time to restore them, prioritizing projects is a complicated process. At the Conservation Centre, I appreciated that the ultimate goal was accessibility. Rather than preservation for preservation's sake, the conservators work to make each item usable. (I also enjoyed chatting with Clara, a summer student at the British Library studying textile conservation!)

The King's Library Tower

The British Library itself is the national library of the United Kingdom. Following the British Library Act of 1972, the British Library was separated from the British Museum in 1973 and moved to its current location in 1998. The catalogue includes 170 million items, most of which are held off-site in a high-density storage unit in Yorkshire. The central feature of the library's entrance is the King's Library Tower. This structure contains the personal collection of George III, which was a workable, circulating library during his reign. I am interested in the sheer scale of this site. Our guide took us behind the scenes to see the fully computerized document retrieval system. It is an impressive accomplishment!

For more information about the British Library, see the full website at https://www.bl.uk/