You could spend the better part of a lifetime there. And unless I missed it, not a computer terminal in sight! Fantastic!
There is much more than my few photos could show. To provide a ridiculously truncated overview of the
library, it is laid out on one
complete floor of a building and split conceptually into four parts
-
Collection catalogues and monographs (specialist books) in the reading
area. Various separate rooms contain:
-
Auction catalogues
- Periodicals and offprints from periodicals
-
Library tools: card
index, computer, bibliographies, books about books etc.
But it is true that this is a traditional
library and less computerised than most. I asked
BCD to
help me look out a number of
rare references (
auctions and offprints) which I
had never before touched. With the aid of the card
index we found every item I sought. In several cases I then photographed the entire offprint or set of plates. However one point that
BCD stressed, given that offprints usually don't have readable spines, is that if an item is every wrongly placed back on the shelf then it is potentially lost forever and no amount of indexing or computers could locate it. So users should treat the shelf arrangement with a great deal of care, especially in replacing items correctly.
Whilst the reading room
area with the lovely books will attract everyone at first sight, the real riches for the specialist are probably to be found in the
rare auction catalogues and offprints, because these will include thousands of items that will not be found in any other numismatic
library in the world. Hence one of my illustrations above is of a room stacked with industrial shelves and box-files containing such gems.
