Now I work nearby, I have joined the City of London's Barbican library, and Islington's Finsbury library. After all, one can never have too many library tickets.
I last visited the Barbican library as a library school student in 1983, when I was on the postgraduate course at the Polytechnic of North London. As far as I can remember, we were asked to visit the Barbican individually and record our impressions; we then went en masse by coach to Chesterfield, to see a new library building there, and then had to compare and contrast. Even the dullest student could not fail to notice the difference between the vast wealth of the City and the modest budget available to a provincial library service.
On my return visit, some fragmentary memories returned. I remembered, for example, that I find the Barbican as a whole rather hard to take. The monumental slabs seem to me threatening and vulgar, but what do I know about architecture and, in any case, I do not wish to find myself in the PoW camp. Owen Hatherley could expound it to me, I'm sure.
The services, though, are a joy. I concetrated on the music collection, alwys strong, because of the proximity of the Barbican and the LSO, and of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Thus, if one looks for something in the CD collection, one will find it in strict order, unlike other libraries I know, no names, no packdrill, who think that if everything by a composer whose name begins with B is in roughly the same place, they have done their job. It seems fitting to observe the day after the RFID conference, that the self-issue system is fast, a thousand times faster than the feeble one at Brighton's Jubilee library, where men have grown waist-length beards while waiting for their books to be issued or discharged. And, when I asked the staff a question, they were prompt, accurate and courteous; I wanted to know if there was any central listing, on paper or electronically, of the rich lunchtime musical life in City churches and other venues. If anyone is interested, they referred me to Bachtrack. It isn't entirely comphrehensive but with that, the London Organ Concerts Guide and a look now and again at the websites of some of the City churches, I should have what I need.
Why can't every town have a library like this?
