British Library - Day 1

I walked to the British Library today for my very first day of archival research!

Fun Facts

In London the second floor is actually the third.

After I registered for my library card (whoo hoo!) I got desperately lost in the massive building. I had my little map out and I was wandering around what I thought was the 2nd floor for a good ten minutes before I realized that I actually had to up another flight of stairs. There were so many people of all ages in the library. I was expecting to only see stuffy older people buried up to their eyeballs in books but there were actually a lot of university age students (not quite a majority but close). Everyone had their laptops and their plastic bags filled with notebooks and computer chargers - you can't bring regular bags into the library. Everything has to go into the locker room and you can only bring research related materials into the rooms carried in a plastic bag. People who spend a lot of time seemed to have their own bags - much sturdier then the ones they provide. There were a number of people (I assume Oxford students) that had bags that said OXFORD big across them. 

 I had some amazing Indian food for lunch in the Library cafeteria. 

One number does not equal one document

Once I found the Manuscripts room - there are actually designated rooms for different types of archival documents- I had to request the documents I wanted. All I had from my secondary sources was a list of call numbers and I really had no idea what to expect. I could only request four items a day and I was expecting a small folder per number. I figured I'd blow through the four items by the end of the day. I went and sat down at my assigned desk and waited for them to bring me my folders. About 45 minutes later a man comes out with a cart with four massive (the size of a classroom desk) red books about 4 inches thick. I couldn't believe it. I suddenly understood why you could only reserve four things in a day- there was no way I was going to read it all before close. But the good news is I have plenty of research material!

Handwriting from the 1920s is hard to read

It was pretty hard to read all of the documents since they were all hand written in fancy script. I didn't really anticipate this and I was surprised how long it took me to actually read the documents. It was really exciting though to be reading all of the archival sources. As I was reading I kept recognizing passages that had been quoted in my secondary source research. It was so cool to think that Marie Stopes ( the women I'm researching) actually held these pages and wrote some these documents. As I looked around the room I also couldn't help but picture the authors of the countless books I've already read on the subject sitting with the same red books that I was. It was pretty exciting and also overwhelming. I think I'm just starting realize the magnitude of the research I'm undertaking this semester.