Jun

Bookmarking the British Library

by Joyce McGreevy on June 20, 2016

The carved lettering of the British Library's main gate, an artifact of English cultural heritage designed by David Kindersley, (Image C.G.P. Grey)

As designer of the iconic main gates, David Kindersley was truly a man of letters.
By C. G. P. Grey – C. G. P. Grey’s Photography, CC BY 2.0

Online Treasure Hunt of the World’s Cultural Heritage

Search engines—including some that rhyme with kugel, king, and kazoo—are the world’s “auxiliary brain,” the one we count on to have all the answers, all the time. But when it comes to repositories of cultural heritage, literary artifacts, and linguistic wisdom, all search engines lead to London. There you’ll find the ultimate must-know for all who must know: The British Library.

The interior of the British Library, with the smoked glass wall of the King's Library reflecting England's cultural heritage.

Every year, six million searches are generated by the British Library
online catalogue–more than 12 times the number of on-site visitors to the building.

Global Treasure Trove

The British Library is that figurative extra room that householders often dream about. And with 14 stories, nine above ground, its stacks are packed with treasure.

This 1899 book cover, A Floral Fantasy in an Old English Garden, found at the British Library online reflects Victorian English cultural heritage.

From the whimsical to the wonderful, the library’s
digitized images inspire obsessive exploration.

Officially tag-lined “The World’s Knowledge,” the library’s a mere babe by British standards. It was founded in 1973. Before that, collections were chambered within the British Museum. In those pre-digital days, “oculus” referred to an eyelike opening in the dome of the passholders-only Reading Room. And how did one obtain a reader’s pass? It helped if your name was Charles Dickens or Virginia Woolf.

The oculus in the dome of the British Museum Reading Room was part of Victorian England's architectural cultural heritage.

The oculus of the British Museum Reading Room
watched over a privileged few.

Today everything from the handwriting of Woolf and Dickens to artifacts of punk rock are on offer to everyone who navigates busy Euston Road, crosses the brick piazza beside King’s Cross and St. Pancras Stations, and enters the stately portico.

Or who simply logs on.

Want to see the world’s earliest dated printed book? Here it is. Care to leaf through Leonardo da Vinci’s notebook? Leaf away. Shakespeare’s First Folio? Hie thee hither.

A design by Leonardo da Vinci for an underwater breathing apparatus, one of the treasures of world cultural heritage found in the online archives of the British Library.

Da Vinci’s design for an underwater breathing apparatus rises
to the surface of the British Library’s digital archives.

Oh, I see: There are more things in the British Library, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. If you looked at five items every day, it would still take 80,000 years to see the entire collection, give or take a century. So let’s tour just a few highlights of the Library’s incredible treasures.

Sounds Amazing

An image of two birds on branches from the book British Ornithology (1811), reflecting the visually rich cultural heritage of the British Library.

A pre-digital era “tweet”?

The Sound Archive dates back to 19th century recordings made from wax cylinders. So after reading the Incomparable Bard, listen to an “Immortal Bird.” It sings in the manuscript of John Keats’ “Ode to a Nightingale” and in this recording. You can even tweet it to your followers.

Discover the origin of the word soundscape and explore countless such audible places. Travel in two clicks, from the Amazon riverside at night to a distant thunderstorm in Zambia.

You can also experience the peaks and valleys of language itself. Anyone who’s seen Colin Firth onscreen as George VI in The King’s Speech will appreciate the poignancy of this example from the real-life royal.

Mystery Miscellany

Does your curiosity tend toward mysteries? Point your online magnifying glass at text evidence of how J. Sherrinford Holmes—alias Sherlock—became the world’s most famous literary detective.

Then hear the chief witness, Arthur Conan Doyle, reveal his real-life model for Holmes. The famed empiricist also enthuses about Spiritualism, reflecting a popular obsession of his era made all the more understandable by the tragic losses of World War I.

The library hosts hundreds of historical resources from both sides of the conflict, from personal letters and poetry, to speeches and posters.

The cover of Revelations of a Lady Detective (1854), reflecting the range of artifacts from English cultural heritage found online at the British Library.

The trail of online clues leads to 1854, when the fictional
Mrs. Paschal became one of the first female detectives to appear
in a novel—30 years before real-life women could land such jobs.

Artifacts of Peace

Humanity’s quest for peace and universal cultural respect is also represented here. “When I despair,” wrote Mahatma Gandhi, “I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won.” Nelson Mandela, in a now-famous speech, urged his audience not to let fear get in the way of racial harmony and freedom.

The original pamphlet of Nelson Mandela's speech during the 1963 Rivonia trial in South Africa, reflecting the range of world heritage artifacts at the British Library.

After Mandela’s 1963 speech, he was sentenced to 27 more years in prison,
not to be released until 1990.

You can read their words in such primary resources as Gandhi’s letter to a South African newspaper in 1903 and a booklet of Mandela’s speech at his 1963 conspiracy trial. Mandela, who refused to testify in his own defense, instead expressed his ideals.

Sights Onsite

Here, too, are more than one million public-domain images, including maps to get lost in, art for finding creativity, and illustrations and photographs for traveling through time.

A lion-shaped historic map (1617), reflecting an artifact of cultural heritage available online at the British Library.

The British Library holds a vast collection of historic maps,
some of them meticulously “drawn within the lions.”

Travel to specific moments—like the day that T.S. Eliot wrote a rejection letter to an aspiring author:

A rejection letter by T.S. Eliot to George Orwell, reflecting England's literary and cultural heritage, as archived at the British Library.

In his 1944 rejection of George Orwell’s manuscript, T.S. Eliot suggested that what the novel
really needed was “more public-spirited pigs.”

Or, listen as a former drugstore employee recalls how she found a more fulfilling career.

Unlimited Discoveries

Still, you’ve only scratched the surface. From apps that put library collections on your cell phone to music that puts a smile on your face, the online universe of the British Library rewards exploration.

The one thing this resource of British and world cultural heritage cannot offer you is a proper cup of tea. For that, there’s simply no substitute for the piazza café known as—what else?—The Last Word.

A graphic treatment of "Finis" (The End), one of countless free images reflecting the world's cultural heritage and available online at the British Library website.

The end? Or just the beginning of
another online search?

Unless otherwise stated, all images in this article are in the public domain.

Tour British Museum highlights here. Explore the 1,023,705 images here.

See a totally hip video on “A Day in the Life of the British Library” here.

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Joyce McGreevy Comments

Cultural Heritage & Traditions/England/Language & Culture

Jan

Coffee Culture: Slow Down and Focus

by Joyce McGreevy on January 18, 2016

Cameras on display at the Camera Museum, part of London's coffee culture and a place to slow down and see things differently. (Image © Camera Museum)

Café, what café? Let’s see what develops.
© Camera Museum

To See the World, See Things Differently

There was only one logical conclusion: the café had been stolen by elves.

Sightseeing can mean seeing things differently–only now I couldn’t see the site at all. In search of a rumored gem of café culture, I paced the short stretch of London footpath. On that bitter cold morning in Bloomsbury, outdoor tables and chairs were sensibly tucked away. So I checked the street address again and again. But where the café was supposed to be, I saw only a shop front, its window chockablock with camera gear.

Then again, the café’s name had a photography reference, so it had to be right there. Yet when I glanced inside, there was only a small, softly lit shop. It barely looked big enough to contain its glass counter, across which two elderly men affably debated the merits of tripods.

Obviously, there was no room for a café.

Obviously.

Customers checking out photography gear at the Camera Museum, part of London’s coffee culture and a place to slow down and see things differently. (Image © Camera Museum)

There’s more brewing here than first meets the eye.
© Camera Museum

The Case of the Vanishing Café

Perhaps the café was like Brigadoon, the fictional Scottish village fated to reappear only one day every 100 years. Perhaps it was cousin to the London pub that mysteriously disappears in the madcap detective novel The Victoria Vanishes: A Peculiar Crimes Unit Mystery, by Christopher Fowler.

Or perhaps I just needed to slow down and focus.

Back I went to the camera shop. This time, instead of tentatively glancing through the door, I walked right in. There were new and vintage cameras, elephantine lenses, flashes, and battery grips arrayed in display cases everywhere. Stacked boxes filled the gaps between shelves and ceiling.

No coffee culture here.

From Scattered Photons to Single Focus

Just as I was about to leave, I looked up and saw a sign that said “Dessert.” (Some details naturally rivet my attention.) As a customer stepped away from the counter, another sign, “Coffee Shop,” was revealed.

Then I looked to the left, around a display case, and down a short hallway half in shadow. There it was, aptly underexposed—the Camera Café. To find it, you had to be fully inside the building. You had to observe your surroundings.

Oh, I see: As a photographer might say, I needed to adjust my focus. First, slow down that snap-happy shutter speed. Then, expand the depth of field and explore the entire scene.

A vintage camera, water glass, and coffee cup, illustrating how savoring the moment can help people see things differently. (Image © pia–ch/iStock)

Take time to focus, and savor a sense of place.
© pia–ch/iStock

That was years ago. Today the café, renamed the Camera Museum, is so heavily signposted that no passerby could miss it. But at the time, as befuddlement turned to “Eureka!” it held a mythic quality.

Call it a Narnia moment, because it felt like finding a world behind the wardrobe.

Ever since, I’ve reveled in witnessing the hidden, which, admittedly, often includes delayed discoveries of the obvious.

The street view of the Camera Museum, a place that invites passersby to slow down, see things differently, and enjoy London’s coffee culture. (Image © Camera Museum)

Once easily missed, this London café draws full focus today.
© Camera Museum

To Look or to See?

Sometimes the most delightful details are hidden in plain sight.

Recently, while waiting my turn in a coffee house in Ann Arbor, Michigan, I decided to take in the details of the setting rather than reflexively stare at my cell phone. That’s when I saw it—the fairy door in the baseboard. It stood just a few inches high, but it had a big place at Sweetwaters Coffee & Tea.

A miniature fairy door set into the baseboard of the Sweetwater Café in Ann Arbor, Michigan, illustrating a beloved element of the coffee culture that invites people to slow down and see things differently. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

Children’s book author Jonathan B. Wright (who also happens to teach design) created the fairy door, now a beloved element of local coffee culture. The one I spied is just the second of several such doors that mysteriously appeared in Ann Arbor, beginning in 1993.

What about the first fairy door? As coincidence would have it, that one appeared in the Wrights’ own home.

Soon, fairy doors and windows turned up all around town. Locals and visitors began to see the world differently.

Inspired by this stumbled-upon whimsy, I decided to track down other fairy dwellings. My favorite was the fairy house at the Ann Arbor public library.

Fairy houses hidden within books at the public library in Ann Arbor, Michigan, inviting people to see things differently in miniature. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

When Details Become Doorways

So you might say it was the fairies who led me to yet another serendipity.

The library happened to be hosting a sale of vintage children’s books. There, for the grand sum of two dollars, I discovered a pristine copy of a book I had cherished as a child, The Grandma Moses Storybook for Boys and Girls, published in 1961.

1969 U.S. postage stamp (6 cents) honoring the art of Grandma Moses, illustrating how looking carefully into something as tiny as a stamp can help people see things differently. (Image by Bureau of Engraving and Printing [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)

You can even see the world in a postage stamp!

Like many another sentimental object, it had fallen down time’s rabbit hole.

Now here it was. With the slight vanilla scent of each familiar page, a world of memories opened up and invited me back in.

See what happens when you slow down and focus?

Savoring the local coffee culture or simply pausing to see things differently can give you a deeper sense of place. It might take you to a half-hidden café in London or a fairy house in the Midwest. It might even take you all the way back to your happy childhood.

To stay up on what’s new with the fairies of Ann Arbor, visit the Urban Fairies Operations (UFO), a site maintained by Jonathan B. Wright. Find his books and a tour map to the fairy doors here.

Grandma Moses stamp credit: by Bureau of Engraving and Printing [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Joyce McGreevy 24 Comments

Art of Travel/England/USA

Feb

On London Streets: Gum Globs Become Art

by Sheron Long on February 17, 2015

Street art showing a surreal figure smoking with cigarette butts and dropped gum littering the sidewalk in front. (Art © Otto Schade; photo © Sheron Long)

Cigarette butts and gum litter are the bane of London’s walkways. Is there a creative solution?
art © Otto Schade; photo © Sheron Long

Ben Wilson Gives Us Something to Chew On

Gum litter is a problem you step into quite unknowingly. It’s a worldwide issue, but when in London, where 3.5 billion pieces of gum end up as litter every year, chances are you’ll sense the problem up close and personal, like on your shoe.

When this happens, most of us utter an epithet, get out of the sticky situation, and go on our way. But Londoner Ben Wilson, an outsider artist, has a more creative reaction. He transforms the disgusting gum globs into tiny underfoot paintings—spots of color that delight the eye of passersby.

Sidewalk with several gum globs, one of which has been painted by Ben Wilson, a London street artist. (Art © Ben Wilson; photo © Sheron Long)

Two gum splotches side by side, one of which has been painted by street artist Ben Wilson. (Art © Ben Wilson; photo © Sheron Long)

Wilson’s street art highlights the problem of gum litter by juxtaposing a thoughtless act with an act of beauty.

Sheron Long 1 Comment

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