The London Library

We met with Stella Worthington from the Preservation and Stack Management Department in the London Library. She gave us a brief history of the library as well as some statistics. There are 18 miles of shelving which includes 1 million books. The Preservation and Stack Management Department has the responsibility of taking care of the books, especially the rare materials. There are 35,000 rare books which have been processed thus far. The conservation studio was specially designed by the department with extra long drawers and cupboards all around the room. The London Library is a lending library which deals mostly with the Humanities. All materials post 1700 is on open shelves which is very rare. The other goal of Stella's department is to improve storage conditions. Right now the temperature is not as regulated as they would like but the hope is that in the future they will have better conditions for the rare collections. Also, they have to setup precautions against infestations which include making sure the stacks stay as clean as possible.

After meeting with Stella and getting to see some of the conservation techniques that they employ we went on a walking tour with Jane, Deputy of the London Library. She informed us that they are a members library which means that you must pay a membership fee in order to use their services. Materials are organized by subject and size on color coded stacks. Printed lists of all the materials are in the process of being put into the online catalog. The building is steel framed and the book stacks are part of the structure.

We ended our walking tour at the Carr Room where we met with Helen O'Neill, Head of Reader Services. Thomas Carlisle founded the library in 1841. There is 15 miles of shelving which makes the London Library the largest lending library in the world. The loan length for materials is 2 months and there is no limit on renewals. Because there is a subscription fee there are no late fees. The classification scheme is unique to the library and there is still 42% left remaining to be cataloged online.

The employees were enthusiastic and very knowledgeable about their subjects. I can unequivocally say that this was my favorite site which we have visited thus far and I am going to try to subscribe as soon as I get back home.