500 Years of Lesbian and Gay Related Material in the British Library

about a talk held in the British Library Conference Centre 9th Feb 2010 hosted by Amy Lame as part of LGBT history month.

I went with high expectations. For a start, a talk at the BL generally will be of genuine academic interests, and given my invested interest in Libraries I thought it would be brilliant.

But it really wasn’t. The speaker, who was a reference librarian (Bart somethingorother) was an embarrassment. He’d been given a three month research break to develop a way of making the LGBT material at the library more accessible, mainly online from what I can gather. His research had clearly been intense, but the parts of it he decided to share were indulgent and just-for-laughs, and the whole charade was campy and cringe-worthy.

It was mostly things to do with erotica, be it early manuscripts or recent porn, and there was some mention about people being hung/persecuted etc. But there was no mention of AIDs? Obviously trying to cover 500 years of LGBT history in an hour is ludicrously ambitious, but you’d think that AIDs would play an important part and be a rich source for some genuinely exciting material? And his quick and flippant references to the legalisation bill and to lesbians were more like asides.

If you didn’t go, you didn’t miss much apart from seeing a manuscript where the word “pooff” first appeared and some fairly bland newspaper articles (which are available online anyway and can be accessed through most good universities) the talk should have been about promoting the massive wealth of unique material, giving an overview of the breadth of it and explaining how it can be accessed and used to educate. Instead it was a flamboyant pantomime of cocks and innuendoes.

I should have known, and not even taken my seat, because as we were entering the auditorium, Gimme Gimme Gimme by Abba was playing by KD Lang... how obvious, embarrassing and patronising.

farewell beautiful brotherton and all those who sail in her

My last day at the Brotherton Library.

I'm really sad to be leaving, doubt I'll ever again work in such a beautiful building. Made so many great friends there too. I'll miss you all!

love love x

bizarre bookmarks

Another fun perk of my job is that occasionally I discover some very unusual, or in this case, some rather beautiful things being used as bookmarks... so naturally I claim these for my own and take them home.

These two things I found in the last week, the first, I found in a Hokusai book which I issued to myself to look at for future tattoo inspiration, I've become a bit obsessed with Hokusai since my Art History classes, which were about the build up to the Impressionist movement and I had never been aware before of what a huge influence on the Impressionists that Hokusai had been. I particularly love the 100 views of Mt Fuji, which almost it almost pains me to say as being a fan of Hokusai these days is such a cliche.

Anyway, back to my point, I found this dashing little polaroid tucked in amongst the pages of japanese marvelousness- and I get the impression that it was being used as a bookmark because it is out of focus, however, I LOVE it. From what I can gather it's a flower- though it's difficult to tell, but I really like it's blurriness. It kind of reminds me of the front cover of Cyndi Lauper's most recent album.



This second one is MUCH better, and along a similar theme. I found it today. It's funny to find something so beautiful in amongst the pages of (what I find to be) a very dry subject. It was in a book about Human Law, which I had recalled as it was to be withdrawn. It's a pressed flower as you can see, and the petals are a kind of deep purple. I presume it was being used as a bookmark and wasn't actually just forgotten about when being pressed- because as far as my flower-pressing knowledge goes (which isn't dreadfully far, I pressed a corsage after a wedding once in a bible- the only use that book has EVER had for me) one should put a sheet of paper or tissue around it otherwise the pages would become stained. Just a guess anyway.



This seemed almost like an omen (if I believed in that tripe) as I found it just after I had been invited for a job interview and just seconds after a bird had flown into the office window. Strange events coming in threes indeed.

Just thought I'd share my finds!

Love love x

judging books by their covers

One of the perks of my job is that whenever we're discarding unwanted books- I get first call on them. I don't normally come across that many books of interest to me, but occasionally a gem or two will crop up.

I have a bit of a fetish for books. Content aside, I love them as artefacts. Used books with annotations in them are particular favourites of mine, and books that have been passed around with loads of varying notations from different people are brilliant because they really clearly show all of the layers of history that continue growing once the book is published, it can show how views have changed, as well as more glaring things like how handwriting and the words people use have changed.

Sometimes, however, I stumble upon books that are brand new, that I like simply because of the cover... you know the saying 'always judge a book by its... blah blah and so on.'

Anyway, the books pictured below are a 2 part series and were complimentary copies to the Library- that we didn't want or need. I absolutely loved the front covers, particularly the first one, I think mostly because it made me think of Stephen King's The Shining, where the young boy is having the flashbacks to all of the dreadful things that happened in the presidential suite (it's in the book, not the Kubrick film).



They're written in a Scandinavian language, probably Danish. Holger Danske was a resistance group in world war two (thanks Wikipedia).

I have little intention of looking into the subject anymore to be honest, but as vacuous as this may potentially sound- I'm glad these books have come to a good home, if only so they can be appreciated for their aesthetics, rather than their content.

love love x