HARDY FORUM ARCHIVE H0101 12/15/00 "BRITISH MUSEUM READING ROOM RESTORATION" ================================================================== Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 20:30:32 -0500 From: Robert Schweik Subject: British Museum Reading Room Please forgive an old man--speaking for many not so old--who wants to share a moment of celebration. When I last visited the British Museum, it was a mess. The Reading Room was closed off and the whole was a shambles. Today, I'm happy to say, the British Museum Reading Room has finally been restored to something like its former glory. Hardy worked there. So did Carlyle, and Marx, Woolf, and thousands of others. Some of those lucky among you can remember what it was like for the first time. To walk into that reading room! To gaze with awe up at that sky-blue dome and the book laden shelves beneath it. To look down and around at those radiating scholars' seats where so many of the world's most memorable thinkers had sat and worked. To hesitantly take one's place in that hallowed ground. That was an experience which those who have had it will never forget. Now, the Reading Room is once more open, fortunately, restored to at least a semblance of its former glory. Including the semi-circle of old guard-book catalogs, with entries on slips pasted in, that were the *vade mecum* of scholarly lives in times past. If you haven't been in that holy ground, the next time you are in London--and before you begin research in that marvellous resource that is the new British Library--take just a moment, please, to visit a scene where before you so many of your predecessors labored. For those of us who have had the privilege to have worked there, it will always be a very special place. You've got pressing work, I know. And time will be short. But take just a moment. Don't miss it. Bob Schweik ========== From: JWWhipple@aol.com Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 20:51:12 EST Subject: Re: British Museum Reading Room Dear Friends, Last summer I lived for about a month, near and visited often, the British Museum, always sad to see the Reading Room cordoned off. Unlike many others, I was quite pleased with the new British Library though had mixed feelings about the modernity and ambiance. It will be fine to get back to hallowed "ground"! Julian ==========