I stopped by the British Library at St Pancras again this week for research purposes. I endeavour to stop by at least once a fortnight but since a cyberattack at the end of October things have been awkward.
At the moment there is working wi-fi and a read only on-line catalogue. Essentially you can (probably) order books that are on site. You can only do this on site by using a paper slip and the items requested should appear in 70 minutes or so. I did this a couple of weeks back and it worked fine.
This week it also worked fine, noting the paper slips have been reprinted to omit a long list of reasons for non-delivery (rather like the old Round Reading Room days) and a space provided for a reason instead.
The book I wanted to briefly consult- a volume of Tony Benn’s Diaries covering the mid-1970s that is out of print and not available digitally- duly appeared after an hour and bit. It remains noticeable though that the shelves were delivered books are placed for readers collection remain very empty. Pre cyberattack they are invariably fullish
The BL CEO promised readers an updated timeline on progress by the end of February and this duly appeared. Cyberattacks take ages to sort and since the Government has not bothered to do anything about sorting out what is not just a national but international cultural resource, I expect it to be ages.
On this occasion I had been working nearby so I had limited time as I also had a later engagement in Hackney (ok, beers in the CockTavern with friends). Pre cyberattack this would not have been an issue. I would have ordered the books I wanted to consult on-line remotely a few days before and collected them on arrival at the reading room. That isn’t possible at the moment.
However I was able to continue my long running research project into Fletters published in the New Musical Express in the 1980s and 1990s. The NME is available in hard copy, open access, in the Humanities 2 Reading Room.
It is perhaps a salutory reminder that not all research is fruitful in that I looked through all issues for the first half of 1998 and all issues for the final quarter of 1996 and found no fletters. As often with research there were more questions than answers. Had I stopped writing to the NME (pre e-mail probably by fax) in this period? Or were they simply not printing my fletters (which did happen). Then again on occasion, because of that I used pseudonyms (as did most NME letter writers), but can I remember what they are.
Research in progress. I already have quite a collection of NME fletters by the way
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