Form Follows Function

LAMs (Libraries, Archives, and Museums)
MLIS (Master’s of Library and Information Science)

Week Two
Day Ten: King’s College Maughan Library
A 90 Tonne Cell? Surely He’s Joking??

“The older the book, the less the preservation challenges”

Katie Sambrook, Head of Special Collections, King’s College London

Everywhere in London is an abundance of history. King’s College Maughan Library is no exception. The gorgeous Victorian Neo-Gothic exterior brings gazes ever skyward. That clock tower? That’s not a clock tower. That was for the water reservoir for firefighting. The windows? They are not there to be beautiful and to let in light. They are there to lessen the need for artificial light, which was a fire hazard in 1851 when construction began. England was responding to the burning of the Houses of Parliament in 1834, and fire-proofing new construction was serious, serious business.

This building was not built to be the library, however. It was acquired by King’s College in 2001 and renovated. Its original function was as the Public Records Office. The building was originally a series of “cells” to house the racks of scrolls that were produced as official documents for the realm. The history of site, however, goes back to medieval times and the Knights Templar. There is one remaining partial archway left from the original medieval building that Gift Collections Coordinator, John Wilby, pointed out on our tour of the building exteriors and interiors. Another fun fact is that the original doors to the individual storage cells weighed half a ton, while the rooms themselves, with all the wrought iron racks, slate shelves, and stone walls and floors, each weighed 90 tons. The building contained 300 cells.

The contents of the Foyle Special Collections Library shared with us by Katie Sambrook, Head of Special Collections, and the rest of her team, were quite extraordinary. The signed Charters of the Province of Pennsylvania and City of Philadelphia by B. Franklin, the copy of Thomas Payne’s Common Sense, and the hidden letter in the back cover of a medical text, it’s printed contents overshadowed by the hidden letter to the exiled Jacobite Court.

Katie went into detail about the MARC 21 records for several of the books, and discussed RDA and DCRM(B). (For the non-librarians reading this, skip to the next paragraph. Explaining the alphabet soup of cataloging is something you really don’t want me to do.) We didn’t get into the MARC 21 fields for rare books too much in my cataloging class, and I wonder now how much time Dr. Lesniaski spends on it in his Advanced Cataloging class at St. Kate’s. There is so much here to unpack. 

The Reading Room at The Maughan Library is designed after the Reading Room at the British Museum. Though much smaller, the resemblance cannot be ignored. It is beautiful and awe-inspiring still. It is also one of two zinc ceilings in the building from the original structure. Not for decorative purposes, but again for fire-proofing. Both are painted to appear more decorative than their construction material belies.

3.6 miles/8,400 steps/12 flights climbed