St Paul's Cathedral Library

I had my first experience riding a double decker bus today. I felt like I was riding the Knight Bus from Harry Potter...only the driver drove a little bit better.

The first order of business once I had arrived at the Cathedral was to do the tourist thing and try to get as many pictures as possible of the church and the fountain as possible. We were split into two different groups so that half of us could go to the library and the other half could explore the cathedral. I was immediately drawn to the sculptures spread throughout the space. It is always amazing to me how someone can take what is essentially a hunk of rock and carve out something so magnificent. While wandering around a couple of us ran into these two women volunteers of ALMA. There is a City of London Festival which is on right now that ends this week. They had several prints (done with oil and inkjet transfer on jute) and a few statues (made from guns) which were done by artists from Mozambique and Angola. We got some pamphlets about an exhibit being held at St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate which features the garments which are worn by the women of those countries. We are going to try to visit it by Friday.

Joe Wisdom, the librarian at St Paul's, took us up what seemed to be a million stairs (which are supported by the walls and adjoining stairs) to the "backstage" area of the cathedral. We passed by an area where excavated stones are being cleaned into the space where the old pulpits are kept. It was strange seeing these decommissioned pieces sitting dormant in the dark recesses of a church.

The library was just as spectacular as I imagined it would be and the smell of those old books was fantastic. Joe Wisdom explained to us that 85% of the library's collection has been cataloged (most imported through OCLC) but some of it has to be manually entered to preserve the providence, or originality, of the item. When in charge of a special or historical collection, he advised, that you should never get rid of the old catalog when creating a new one.

The highlight of the tour was the 12th century psalter, the earliest item in the library. This book was from before the 1666 fire. We all took turns staring at this illuminated masterpiece which literally took my breath away. I think I could have wandered around for hours and still have found more to see.



Picture credit goes to the St Paul's Cathedral Library website.