#167. 大英图书馆的珍本怎么借？

歌手：小黄鱼播客

专辑：博物志|艺术美学

时间：2015-11-20

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#167. 大英图书馆的珍本怎么借？专辑《博物志|艺术美学》小黄鱼播客

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上期节目开头说过的在小宇宙上听不到的这个问题

后来通过小宇宙那边的负责人跟我主动联系

把这期节目又上架了

所以现在还是可以听到的

就是来给大家汇报一下进展

好

在一百六十五期节目中呢

我和大黄

小爱讨论了普通人能不能利用博物馆馆藏文物进行学习或者研究这个话题

其中也采访了一些国内博物馆的工作人员

基本上答达成一个共识

就是目前在中国呢

这个操作难度极大

几乎不可能

节目中我们也提到了

图书馆在这个问题上

比博物馆似乎要平易近人的多

于是这期节目呢

我就采访了来自大英图书馆的jimmy andrews

请他讲了一下普通读者怎么利用大英图书馆馆藏的真本善本或者是其他的珍贵馆藏

这个节目是英文进行的

在开始之前呢

我先跟大家介绍一下

大英图书馆是英国的国家图书馆

曾经是大英博物馆的阅览室

他在一九七三年正式独立出来

当时也继承了一大波来自大英图书馆的藏品

大英图书馆是一个很庞大的机构

里面有好多部门

并不是一个简单的有很多书的地方

他负责收藏英国的一切出版物

包括图书

报刊

影像制品

网页等等

大英图书馆他接待读者

也办展览

办活动

一般博物馆所具有的收藏

展示教育

研究的功能

它全都有

不过呢

大英图书馆不是一个可以把书借回来拿回家的那这种图书馆

而是有很多个阅览室

每个阅览室

用来查阅不同种类的资料

比如社会科学啊

新闻地图

音乐手稿等等

你只能在这个阅览室里面去查阅想要看的资料

那接下来就是我和mister

Jimmy

Andelws 的这个访谈的部分

如果你英文不太好

可以直接跳转到下一个章节

我会再用中文简述一遍

都说了啥

So everyone

I am very happy er to have misjjtish angeles head of lture and learning from the british library with us here today

如果你angy

Please introduce yourself with it

And explain what do a heads of culture and learning do at a library

Please okay

你好

Um planted to be here

And thanks thanks for asking me to talk with the um yes

So my

My job

But get oso

So i work for the british

British library with dying too shoga mi guess youd say shes see the

The

The national library of the united kingdom

Um were

Were very large organization with lots of different audiences and the areas that i work with is really the broad of public

Really we comand see see our exhibitions

Are events

Our festivals

And also are learning audiences

So i work or my teams work with events with young people and actually with learners audiagces

So really that role is about expanding the audience of the library

To make us accessible to everyone

The reason

Why i invited you on our show

Is that we have previously a releced an episode

Where we talked about research requests in museums

And we know that british library has an extent collection of a rare items not only modern books

But some very rare items

And you are very generous to lend out those items to your readers

And personally i should i had this idea to someone from the british library is because im a huge potter head

And i knew you did an exhibition with harry potter serious ed a year before last i think and in that documentary jackaralling herself was in your reading rooms checking out and very rare manuscript was demdrarayes

So that was my inspiration

Yes of i would like to invite you to share with us a little bit division or the reason of being off the museum

But h sorry off the british library

Okay

Well theres res a lot

So so me let me

Me answer that in little bit

I ppse the first first

The first thing say is

Is our mission

The reason that we exist and we define that mission with

With a statement

That we make our intellectual heritage accessible to everyone for research inspiration and enjoyment

Um its aa tively short relatively pithy mission statement

And i suppose the key things

There um are firstly the fact that we mention everyone

Thats everyone around the world

Not only everyone in the uk

Well its a really good

Thats a really good question

The answer is yes though of course asked the national library and as a library that effectively is paid for by the people of the united ingingdom

We get money from ingand government gets money from the people

Of course we do have a particular emphasis on making sure that everyone in the uk

Feels that this library is for them

But youre absolutely right that although were called the british library in reality were in were international national library

And that stems from many things

It stems from the large number of partnships

That we have internationally we work with alnational liners in the world

We have great relationships with friends and partners in china

With work with the national library of china

I know youre in shanghai

We have a very good relationship with the the shanghai library

We h and we want to do more with them

But weve work with museums

Uall bookstores and all sorts of people across china and certainly international

Tionally know know our users literally go from from eight is ed

We have users from albabia through zimbarabi

We really do have users from every country in the world

So absolutely that word everysers is massive

But it really does focus what we do

And i think its its fair to say that perhaps

If youre talk to say or to someone from the british library twenty dsg

We wouldnt have expressed what we do

In quite those words

We probably wouldnt have been brave enough to talk about the word everyone

Because traditionally perhaps

People had the impression that the british library was maybe a slightly closed place

A place that worked with academics

With universities

But maybe the british library a few years back wasnt really

For there wasnt really everyone and thats

Why we were very careful

When we we

We renewed our mission five or six years ago

Where we was so careful to put the word everyone in there

And well talk about what that means later im sure

You

You tiontionharharry parswhich

Which it very well remembered um absolutely that was one of the well it

It was the biggest exhibition

The most successful exhibition that weve ever done and actually um it was in london

In twenty seventeen

Um h the twtieth anniversary of the first harry potter book

Um it went in

In yororum year or so later

And actually

Harry potter that you mention is a really good example of that everyone

Because the harry potter exhibition wasnt just about the harry potter stories

Although course it

It was

It was also about those long traditions of magic and folklaw and miss that we hold in the british library

And so in that harry potter exhibition

You could see everything from um material owned by jk

Rolling drafts

Manuscripts and so on

But also material that was hundreds and in many ways

Thousand years of thousands of years old

That inspired the creation of the harry potter stories

And really that meant that the exhibition was of huge inteinterest harharry

Tter

Tter ans like yourself

Self

It was also of inteinterest

Did people who were interested in medieval manuscripts in um early modern depictutions of magic

Um really probababmore than than anything weve done that harry

Harry potter exhibition

Did did

Did did did get towards reaching everyone

Um you then asked about the way that we make our collections available

And certainly

If we are promising to be for everyone

We have to think carefully about how everyone can access cess

Not just our exhibitions

Not just our learning programs

But can access the actual collections for themselves

And thats really

Really difficult

I mean you talk about advice the museums

But

But you know

Because we wldnt but

But certainly

But we wouldnt underestimate the challenge

And not least because of the size of our collections

We are in many ways like a museum

But were also much much bigger

Because unlike a museum that may take in hundreds or maybe thousands of new collections

Every year

We already start the moment with two hundred million collections

So the the corpus is massive imagine the challenge of making two hundred million things available

And then on top of that

So top of that uua massive collection tions

We have already were getting in thousands or hundreds of thousands of new collections every day

So we get about eight sorory

Every year

So we get about eight kilometers of new collections in every year

So when you we add that together

Trying to make that available to anyone is a massive logistical challenge

But we try and meet it

We try and meet it

And we do that through our reading rooms in our london building

And actually may not know

But we have a building in leaps as well in the north of england

So people can come either to london or to leds

And they can access those collections in principle

Anyone can access any one of those two hundred million collections now in practice

There are certain collections

That are so fragile

Theyre so delicate

That it would be irresponsible to make those collections available to people and in those occasions

We may ask people to look at digital copies or some other forms so good

But really that is a minority of the collections

And we only do it

In order to not damage the collections

Further

Pretty much

Everything else

If youve got a good reason for seeing that collection

Then you will be able to do it

And a good reason doesnt just mean that youre an academic

Or that you work in one of the big universities in the uk or internationally

It just means quite simply that youve got a question

That those collections can answer

So it could mean that youre a business person

And youre trying to set up a new business

And theyll be something in collections that can help you

It could mean an youre stustudent preparing for your exams

It could mean that re an academic writing a book

Of course

It could mean that youre a writer or a painter or an artist

Who who

Who has some need for something in our colcctions to inspire your ativity

All of those reasons

A valid in all of those reasons would mean that you could come into our buildings and look at those collections

Oh my god

Your word

Your word almost brought ears

Because the dimission of the british library like you said is very simple and bold

Actually

I think our umost most

Our listeners would know this is the british library was once part of the british museum

As the reading room of the british museum and in the seventies

I think the ninety three

There was that british library act

Where the british library became on its own

I think its fair to say that the british library have some museum dna in its

In itself i would like also mention to our listeners that british libraries that loove is special

Its uh its not a library where you go register and borrow book ook home

Its a reference library mi right here yes

So its a couple ple of and

And ah im you clearly on your research so im very very impressed

Yeah

We people imagine that the british library must be a very old organization that goes back hundreds of years

Um and in reality

As you said

In fact

We were created in nineteen seventy three

There was an act of parliament as you say in nineteen

Nineteen seventy two

And we were created in nineteen seventy three

Which means that um were coming up to our fifty of birthday

And as someone myself coming up to my fifty of birthday

I think that means were still pretty young

Um certainly much younger than people might think

And thats a really great thing

Because it means that were not weighed down by history

It means that we were created at the same time of that

That kind of technological revolution when companies like apple or microsoft

Um re been created when there was a move to an early move towards digital

Um really very very

That eethos is still with us now

But you said with this very special thing of being quite young

But also at the same time quite old

And thats

Because when we were formed in the ninehundred and seventies

We took on as you say part of the british museum collections

Which go back to the mid eighteen centurturbut we

We took on

On colleletions tions

And i do want to emphasize this

We didnt just take on the library of the british museum

We took on a lot of other really really important collections

Including the national science library

People sometimes forget that have have role in science

We do

And we also took on the national science library

Uh we took on a number of other different kinds of collections

Uh including eventually the sound collections

We have five million sound recording

And people dont necessarily associate that with us so yes

The nineteen seventies was yere a comsh together of lots of different collections under this new title of the britimusic c the british liliary ary confusing myself

Then you

You

You also asked about yeah not role youre right were not a public library

We work really really closely with public libraries

We public libraries are brilliant

They are close to their communities

They are in every pretty much

Every village

Every town

Every

Every city

In the u uthey are very rooted very close to their uuers and their brilliant things

But we not that and as you say you cant take our collections out of the building in the way that you can with our public lebrary out

But what we can do with what we do do is work very closely with public libraries

To support them

Simply to learn from them

But also to give them resources so a lot of the time

And again you mention ed harharry potter exhibition a lot of the times

H we will do exexhibitions in london

And there will be different satellite versions

We call them different satellite versions in many public libraries across the united kingdom

And that was certainly the case with our big writing exhibition last year

Ah it was the case with a harry potter exhibition

Itll be the case with an exhibition

That we hope will open later this year

Uum so not a public library

But working closely with public libraries

But we do have something else like exhition tion

Which is a service

Where we supply documents

Copies of documents

But nonetheless we supply documents to people remotely which means that if you in

In shanghai

Or or

Or wherever you are need a copy of a particular article or book

And you need a urgently you can contact us

And we will send you a copy

嗯嗯

Traditionally through the post or delivered

And now of course digitally

And the reason

I say that is that obviously um as we all know

Were in the middle of a of ppanddmiof covit in nineteen

Um i think thankfully in shanghai

But i understand

Correctly

Youre

Youre coming through the other side

Which is

Which is great

Were still

We still think this crossed absolutely

But

But i heard things are beginning to move again in shanghai

Which is great in the uk

Were still

But under a form of lock down

But the reason

I mention that is that the impimpcorrectly

That document supply service was really brought home to me at the beginning of the pandemic

When we were being contacted by researchers and scientists and doctors from the uk and from all over the world

And i believe from china

And who were researching uh

Uh h coroner viruses

Researching uh the background of the virus

And traying of course to work towards understanding it better

And maybe working towards the vaccine

And there were lots of scientific article papers

Research papers in our collections

Ah that had been done in the past

That people thought could be helpful in trying to understand copic

Nineteen

Nineteen today

And we were able despite the lock down

To get copies of those articles

And to be sending them all around the world

To scientists to health systems

That was something that we prioritize during lock down

And really that just goes to show that when you think about our elections

That they

That their larger and more variary than you might ever think

But they can be so

So urgent and so vital

Um at times of crisis

Like this

I might have a question

Here is uh compared to your precoof it times

Do you have a surge of request at this moment

Well

How many requests do that get on the datbasis normally well

Its

Its tricky

Theres been because we cant have many people in the buildings for obvious reasons and certainly in london

Its much more difficult

Because of public transport in our building

And leads its slightly easier to get too so so it has been difficult

It has been very difficult to deliliver a noral al

If you so

If i compare

Maybe the time just before covered

The year that finish

Just before covered

Started

We had about four hundred thousand

People coming into our building

To look at collections about four hundred thousand visits and those people collectively over the year

Looked at about one point four million objects

So that was lets say a normal year

But we can come to the building

Now for

For understandable reasons

That we are beginning to move

Towards reopening

But we do know over the last monthful

So although we havent been able to let people into the building

We have been able to support at least around four thousand and research requests

So so were doing the best we can

But its you know its

Its undereniable that during lock down

Although people have been able to consult our digital collections

Um they havent been able to have the full service that that

That would normally service

I think

Uh i think we could probably also explain a bit to our listeners ers

How you works add british library

If i

If i want to uh consult some cucument or recent books

Do i borrowed from the library

So well

When we say borrow

We were talking about

Looking at

Looking at the object in

In the building

Yeah

So were firstly

I should say actually you were talking about the history of the british library um of the history of bribritish library in the british museum

So i should say firstly that if you are walking into the building

Um to use our reading room

Youd be following in a great tradition of

Of readers

Who use are collections

And i just think uh in chchina people might be interested to know that every

Everyone from coal marks

Coalmarks in the nineteen hundred th century was a reader in our reading room

And he would have done

Exactly the same process that you would do

Although he wouldnt have used the computer uwhich is to go in

And to get a reader ticket

Um thats not

Not get that you have to pay for

But its just the way of i identifying uh uh the user

And so youd get the reader ticket

And youre explain really what the question is that youre trying to ask so

So early

You might be writing a book

You might be doing uh h uh a paper for your

For your studies

Youd explain what the question is that youre trying to answer

And then we would suggest that perhaps

You know you would be wanting to go to look at manuscripts or sound repordings or books

And

And would help you into one of those reading rooms

Where we have those different kinds of material

Because obviously if you were looking at a book that was published last year

Then the space that you would need to look at is very different than if you were looking at an early sound recording from the late nintenth century

Where of course there would need to be machinery in technology

In order to play it for you which a game would be different from if you were looking it a manuscript from five hundred years ago

Where would need to have you in a smaller er agwith perhaps more indiviglaation more support but fundamentally would direct you to the right place to look at that material

And then youd be free to order up the collections uh theres

Theres a limit of how many you can look at a day

But within reason you can order up what you want

And youd be able to have that collection item in front of you for as long as you needed

You might

You might be looking at one particular object for two weeks

Because you were studying it in great deaths

Because you might be looking at you know ten objects a day

That would be your choice

And really

Then youre left alone to

To do your research

To consult the material

To look at some of our digital resources

Alone side it depending on copyright

You might be able to take a photograph of it with your phone

If you had your phone in

And thats it

Its really

The simple sign

So when it comes to uh valuable items

Rare items

Whats the process here do you deny requests or do whats ts uh criterious for granting those requests

And how many stuff do you have how many employees do you have to work on that well so a few things that in terms of numbers were a massive organization

So overall between our site in the north of england and our site in london

We have about fifteen hundred one thousand

Five hundred people

But of course theyre working on everything from exhibition to lelearto

The shop

To the

The shoto

To the reading rooms

In terms of the reading rooms

Themselves at any given moment will probably have about fifteen staff

One five fifteen staff in each reading room

Um providing a mixture of of research support in viglaation and just the practicality of of finding the collection for you

And i should say and ill come to your point about valuable objects in a minute one thing that i should have explained to people is that were not like a public library

Where everything is on the shelf

Where you walk into the room

And everything is on the shelf

And thats because there isnt the shelf in the world

Thats big enough to hold two hundred million things

So we we store our elecments

That not in the room

Where youre walk in but either in london

In the basements

So when you walk into the building

Youre effectively walking on top of a basement

That goes down as deep as a tube

And in our site in leeds

Which is a far bigger site ght esestially mmsive ve ororshhouses massive warehouses which are automated

So the temperature huhudity is automtomtically controroled

And the retrieval of the books or the newspapers

Or the objects is done essentially by robot

So its all automated

And then if youre in london

And the thing you want to look at is in the north of england

Then

Of course there will be await

Because youll have to wait for us to deliver that book from the storage

In leagus down to london

We have vans that are constantly going up and down

So you wont have to wait more than twenty four hours

But of course you will have to wait

If the object is in london

In those basements

Down by the tube

Youll have to wait about an hour

So i should set that first and in terms of presciitems

Uh if its really valuable

Really precious

Well course have to ask the curators to make an assessment about whether its safe for you to look at it

And the kind of criteria that would use there ah or fundamentally the

The safety of the object

It may be that uh its possible for you to look at it with a curator so weit wheres normally we would give you the object you would sit down

You would examine it yourself

It may be that for something especially precious

A curator

A professional would turn the pages

Would open it for you

Youll be able to look at it

But you wouldnt necessarily touch it

And thats

That

Thats a reasonable compromise

Theres a very few items

That it is so precious

That

That its too dangerous

To manipulate them

To expose them

To light and those cascases have full high resolution digital coverage

And which suggest that

You know what you use the digital coverage um which is not the same

But in some ways

Does bring advantages

You know with high resolution digital coverage

You can really zooming to things that are vivible ble your nanaked ee e

Which is

Which is something you can

You

You to so easily with the original physical object um

And people understand that

But as as i say vvast majority of material

You can

You can access um the original objects

Now we re on to digitalititizzation

How is everything in the british library digitalized well i wish it was if that helps

Yeah We

We have an ambition of course in a

In a perfect ideal world

Everything would be digitized

We dont live in a perfect ideal world

The challenges there are firstly just just sized that two hundred million things is enormous and remember that

When we say two hundred million objects

Each object might be a book with five hundred pages

So thats you know its more than two hundred million images

So so so we 是的

是的

We do our best as the answer

We work in partnership

And we invest ourselves in a program to make our heritage digital um

We work with commercial partners like google

We work with charities and trusts um

And as i say we invest ourselves

And so every year we digitize more or more of material

Its still every year small percentage of the overall total

But were getting there the second thing to say

Ys of course that digitiztion the physical material is

Is absolutely crucial

But remember that a lot of what we collect nowadays is digital to start with

So we have something called legal to posit

And this is something that uk focused

You are asking about the mixture between britain and international

Legal to posit is focused on

On our country

On the uk

And it means that anything new

That is published

Automatically comes to the british library

For preservation

So if you publish in the uka book or a newspaper or aa record

Music recording uor stamp

Everything comes to the british library

And a few years ago

In in twenty thirty

The definition was expanded to include digital publications

Which means that everything from uh uh university

Acdedec journals

So are now diggital h or newspapers

Which are increasingly digital sound recordings

Which are almost one hundred percent digital now and or even websites comes to the british library

And we collect that digitally

So im in already weve got over um

Um just last year we

We took in a hundred terrobites of uk websites

We literally collecting the web

Because you might think that the web is permanent

But websites change they disappear from quickly than you think exactly so

So i suppose there the challenge is not so much digitzing because it was never physical start with the challenge is to preserve those digital objects

Which is way more difficult than preserving the phsical

The chysical is you put a book in a reasonably cool drive space a hundred years later without doing too much to it itll probably still be there

If you put a digital file in a cupboard and come back a year later

It may not be possible to read it

It may have corrupted or degraded and so constltely making copies

Exactly it

Its essentially

Thats essentially that um

And it means that the challengthat isisnt space with the physical

Of course its just about space

How do do keep builbuilbuilbuilings big big ouough for phphyical objects

The challengge with digital is exactly as you say its about the technology to keep up dating it to make sure that researchers in a hundred years

Years in the future

Whatever we using when people have forgotten what microsoft is or rapollisor

Whatever theyll be able to still access that file for museums

The digital is

Is even harder because theare objects mostly three

And when we want to examine something when we have a research requequest is

Is harder der them

Them the

The acters to

To bring those objects out from their warehouse to researchers

So thats also one thing

Which maxit it harfor

Uuh seararchto use objejects in museums

So well its

It is

If you dont want me interrupting it is

But then of course again thats the advantage and new technologies because we have objects

As well we have three the objects

We have paintings

We have uuh stup shoes

And so so as well well as well as two d objects um

And it is a challenge

But of course

With the kind of three d visualization that we have now um we have

We have three d cameras

We have essentially studio with three d cameras

Which can capture three d renderings of those objects

Which means that you the research uh online can

Can manipulate

Can

Can see that object from all sides

And its actually

Really

Really impressive ve in some ways that can have immersive experience gets you even closer than the kind of two d uh digitization that we also do um

I know my understanding is from looking up what museums were doing in china and lbraries

During lotdown is that there was a very strong um directive

I guess from government to be

To be making your collections and your exhibitions available digitally um

And from what ive reten seen um that

That led to some really interesting thinking about how perhaps the experience of the museum can be more digital and more remote than perhaps would thought that

Its not always about going into that space and certainly as far like i can see some very interesting things came out to that um this ook

But digitcondition is very expensive to for museums who are less

Less well funded

It would take even longer times for them to bring that to life for their visitors

During this pandeamic times

Then my

I think my last question here really is to ask you to share some of experiences from a librarious perspective

We know that museums start a museuum today there are not only about preserving artiffects and put on shows museums are trying hard themselves too to bring in the general public and to share the knowledge

But they probably dont have the means and the nature of their work

Dont allow them to run as a library

So perhaps

You could give them some advice from a librars

Perspective so perhaps persumptious enough

But i ppose some observations would be first you dont have to do everything

Yourself and working in partnership with other organizations is a really good way to get more done together

Than you would do individually

I think that in the uk sector

So that is increasingly the case

That libraries

Other cultural organizations and museums are all in the same city

Often in the same area of the city are beginning to work together

And the gning to work toforance and indeed mixing it up

So that you could have life performance in a library

And that a theatre could be looking at its arcer

Even trying to make it available

So i think partnership is

Is part of the solution

Not necessarily worrying about any individual organization

Trying to do everything

Um i think secondly though it is about rethinking assumptions

And just really getting down to what your mission is

And whether your a library

Or your a museum

Or a theare

Or any other organisation

The audiences

The users should be at the heart of what youre doing

And if your public fund it in some way

You should not be excluding anyone

So you should be thinking about that everyone

That we were talking about earlier

And i think once you start thinking about that everyone

And start thinking about not excluding anyone

So yes of a sudden

It becomes seaseasier to do things

That previously thought were impossible

So yes its difficult to digitse three the objects as we were saying earlier

But actually if thats the way to make your collections closer to people

And to allow them to

To access the collections in the way that they want to

Then

Maybe you do invest

Or maybe you do part ner with people to

To do that

Its

Its really hard

And its hard for museums to make absolutely every object available on demand

But i think nonetheless theres an increasing awareness

That museums will ever be able

Able to display twenty

Twenty five percent of their objects

No museum

Hohover many extensions we build

However many anexs we

We builit will ever be able to everyeverything on spsplay

Acacwhat youll find in the uk

Now is that museums are really

Really taking

Seriously this idea of allowing people into their storage

Visible storage

We call it seeing the stacthat behind the scenes

Seeing everything thats in the museum

Not just the things

That we the curators decide to put in a gallery

And that i think does stefrom from uthat that

That

That sense of everything

Not just everyone

But everything we have is valuable everything we have could change someones life

So why we only letting them see ten twenty percent of them

So really i think its a mindshift

Its also just a mdshift

Uh Uh

Um a mdshift change of minds life uh that can be part of

Of that like you said actually

Most of the museums here in china are gon find

Find it thats what makes me angangry our current rent uation ation here actually after our last episode aired uh

Some of our listeners

Roroad emails to us

Saying that they never thought that is possible for individuals to request an object for research purposes as in museums

Thats where we add right now well no ii mean

I cant

Cant

I meknow the situation in china

Well enough so certainly cant comment in detail on that

But just listen to you

I would say that yeah in

In the uk

Its a journey

Its not

Its not the case that when although

Although

All the

All the national museums and liberies were set up with that civic duty

You have been open to everyone

But it

It was a journey that we went on and gradually opening up more and more um

These things dont happen over night

It is Is

Is gradual and progressive

But i think if your headadfor that that

That big idea that everyone

Then every step you take

Takes you towards that h

Thank you again

Thank you very much for your generacity was your time uh with our listeners hearing ilet you go now

Thank you so much

Very being for so no so have good good evening

You too oonot not venvenbut 是我们录you very much by

好的

录音到这儿就结束了

在我们摁掉录音之后呢

其实我又多问了一个问题

就是上次我和大黄

小爱录节目的时候

大黄说图书馆的罕见书比博物馆的文物更容易出界

是因为书是众多复制本中的一件

而文物是独一无二的

这里misr angelws 他就说

总的来说

虽然是这个道理

但是还是要具体问题具体分析

因为很多罕见书早就绝版了

本身也就是独一无二的珍贵文物

而博物馆的馆藏却并不总是那么少见

那么独一无二

那么有价值的

所以非要对比唯一性或者珍贵性的话

是不能简单下结论的

那说回刚刚的录音

接下来的内容呢

我不是逐字逐句翻译的

而是我的一个复述

中间略去了一些细节

如果你要在自己的文章或者节目中引用的话

请以mister

Andrews 他的原话为准

首先

我请他介绍了一下大英图书馆的mission

这个是我们在看博物馆的时候

首先要考察的一个关键问题

一个博物馆的使命就是他的行动纲领

这一点对于图书馆来说也是一样的

大英图书馆的mission 非常的简洁明了

The british libraries mission is to make our intellectual heritage accessible to everyone for research inspiration and enjoyment

翻译一下就是

大英图书馆的使命是让所有人都能够研究

享受文化遗产

并从中汲取灵感

这个新版本的使命呢

是二零一六年修改的

我问了一句

这个everyone 指的是全英国每个人

还是全世界每个人

回答说

是全世界每个人

但是尤其希望使每个英国人都能感觉到这是属于他们的图书馆

因为毕竟这个图书馆是由英国纳税人的钱支持的

大英图书馆虽然叫大英图书馆

但它实际上是一座国际图书馆

他们与世界上几乎每一个国家都有合作

当然

这其中包括了中国

如果二十年前问mr andrews 或者是大英图书馆的其他人

他们可能都不敢放这个话

就for everyone 的这个话

因为以前大家对大英图书馆的印象还是比较封闭的

与学校

学者这种关系比较紧密

对

然后我们就讲到了藏书向所有人开放的问题

不仅是让人来大英图书馆看展览

参加活动

而是真的能够接触到每一件馆藏藏书

大英图书馆从很多方面讲

其实都很像一座博物馆

但是从藏品数量上来说

又比博物馆大很多

因为现在它的馆藏已经有两亿亿件了

而且这个馆藏还在不断的增加

原则上说呢

任何人都可以接触到两亿件藏品中的任何一件

这么多的馆藏

要让所有人接触到

物流就是一个很大的问题

除了伦敦的阅览室

英格兰中北部的城市利兹的boston spa 这里也有阅览室

从操作上来讲呢

有些馆藏极为脆弱

直接拿出来给人看是对藏品的不负责任

这种时候

图书馆就会给人看电子版或者是其他的复刻版

另外

他还提到

想要查阅珍贵的馆藏

不一定非得是为了学术目的

只要你怀抱一个疑问

而图书馆里的某件藏品可以帮你解除这个问题

那就可以申请查阅

很多人以为但图书馆是一个几百年历史的机构

但它实际上是一九七三年才正式从大英博物馆里面独立出来的

是一个很年轻的组织

跟苹果

微软这种公司是同时代建立的

但同时

大英图书馆也是老的

因为它独立出来的时候

接管了大英博物馆的十九世纪以来的很多藏品

以及英国的国家科学图书馆和其他的一些馆藏

比如声音记录没呀

此外

大英图书馆不是一个public library

也就是说

不是那种可以把书借回家看的图书馆

而是只能在阅览室里看的

但是大英图书馆与英国各地的public library 也有着紧密的协作

呃

一些展览除了在伦敦的总馆展出

也会在各地的图书馆搞分展

或者说卫星展

大英图书馆也提供远程服务

在世界上的任何角落都可以申请书或者是文件的副本

以前是靠邮寄的

现在是通过发送电子邮件

这项服务在新冠肺炎疫情期间发挥了巨大的作用

近来有很多来自世界各地的医学家和科学家通过这种方式从大英图书馆借阅获取了很多关于新冠肺炎研究的资料

当然了

疫情也很大的影响了图书馆的正常运作

二零一九年

有四十万人次来到图书馆

并且查阅了一百四十万份馆藏

但是过去几个月

图书馆关闭

他们这期间呢

就一共接待了四千单左右的远程查询

接着我问到了

如果想要在大英图书馆借书

应该怎么操作

那miss andrews 说

这个程序是很传统的

呃卡尔

马克思当年也是这么操作的

当然了

我觉得他觉得跟中国观众提马克思是一个很好玩的槽点

那说回来

就是你得先办一张借书卡

这个借书卡是免费的

就是要登记一下信息

然后提出自己想要查询哪方面的书

图书馆就会建议你去哪个哪个部分找

因为不同的阅览室对应的信息是很不一样的

比如说

如果你想看你们去年出版的书

那是一个阅览室

如果你想听十九世纪的一个早期录音

那就是另外一个阅览室

因为需要相应的音像设备

如果你想看一个五百年前的手稿

那就要到一个更小的阅览室里面

里面的监控也更严格

还有更多的工作人员指导

这些具体的操作

在大英图书馆的网站上很清楚啊

包括一次可以借阅几本书

或者说几件文件嘛

借阅时间能有多长等等

每个阅览室同时都大约有十五名工作人员在里面工作

帮忙回答问题

找资料

维持秩序

十五个人

这个人员配置我觉得是非常奢侈的

与一般的图书馆不同

大英图书馆的这个书

它不是放在书架上让读者自己去找

而是在巨型的仓库里的伦敦总部的地下书库有地铁那么深

而北部分管的仓库就更大

读者要求看某件馆藏

这件东西就会通过自动分拣的机器人送出来

如果是在本地的

那就需要等待一个小时左右

如果你想看的书在另一个仓库

就需要等他运过来

一般是二十四个小时

图书馆有很多运输的货车

不断的往返于伦敦和例子之间

就是为了完成这件事

那如果要借阅的东西实在很珍贵

很脆弱

保管员就会进行评估

原则呢

是保证这个东西的安全

有时候是你自己就可以看

有时候是你只能坐在那儿由保管员来翻书

你只能看

不能碰

但如果真的是极为脆弱的物件

不能拿出来

那么会有高清的数字文件可以看

大英图书馆的数据化在持续的进行中

但是这显然是一项非常费力的工作

他们会和一些商业伙伴

比如说谷歌

还有一些慈善组织

基金会合作来完成这部分的工作

目前只有馆藏的一小部分完成了数字化

此外

今天大英图书馆的很多新馆藏

直接其实就是数字的形式了

嗯

他们有一个叫legal deposit 的制度

就是英国国内出版的任何东西啊

输入报纸

印象制品

邮票等等

都会自动送一份到大英图书馆备份收藏

从二零一三年开始

电子出版物也包括在内了

呃

光是去年一年

他们就新增了一百tb 的馆藏

而保存数据比保存实体书是要难得多的

因为一本纸质书

只要保存环境得当

放一百年之后可能也没什么变化

但是数据则要不断的备份迁移到新的储存介质上

否则今年的数据可能明年就读不出来

对呀

大英图书馆除了书

还有很多的书画

雕塑

物件之类的馆藏需要进行三d 扫描

有了三d 扫描

我们就可以在浏览器里面全角度的观察藏品

那mister angels 也提到