Reading de Luxe

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 91, 21 March 1941, Page 5

Reading de Luxe

HE ticket gave me access to all the books in one of the finest libraries in existence, I think about 3,000,000 books, of which hundreds of thousands were available directly, ranged on the walls of the reading room. This splendid room is of great size, with rows upon rows of desks leading out from the circular centre desk, round which from floor to ceiling are ranged books, with many more books kept in other rooms. A reader has a comfortable, padded chair to sit in, at a large desk, well stocked with pens, paper, etc., and attendants bring to him, on a large sort of butler’s waggon on silent wheels, the

books he needs. Now, how does he get just the books he wants from the millions of books available? The first requisition of a good library is a _ properly arranged catalogue, and the catalogue of the library, itself a work in hundreds of volumes, is prepared on splendid principles. The reader goes to the catalogues, placed round the attendants’ desks in the centre of the room, looks up his book-this may take some little time — writes down the reference letters and figures on a form, and hands it to an attendant. In a short time the volume is brought to him at his seat. The cataloguing is so complete that a friend of mine who worked in the Museum, assured me that a publication, I think of a piece of music, entitled Popsy-Wopsy, was catalogued under "Popsy-see also Wopsy," and under "Wopsy-see also Popsy."-

(" The British Museum and Its Reading Room,’ by

Llewellyn

Etherington

IYA, March 2.)