The Helena independent., 1890-11-30
THE BRITISH MUSEUM.
The Many Advantages and Conven-
fences of this Paradise for
/ Students.
Simplicity and Facility Of the Ar
rangements of the Great
Library.
Fully 1, 100000 Volumes on the Shelves
Newspapers, Pamphlets and
Tracts.

Newspapers, Pamphlets and -.
Tracts.
The British Museum library is the stu
dents paradise. 1t has every modern con-
venience of light, heat, and service. The
main room ls huge, bright rotunda. with
walls covered with standard works, a great
expanse of skylight in the ceiling, and a
thick rubber mating on the floor to render
noiseless every movement of the little army
of scholars, attendants, and visitors VIII o
daily travel through its myriad passage
ways, says the New York Sun. Porters,
cataloguers, and assistant Librarians,
trained by long years of service. observe
and fill every want of the patrons as soon
as tits manifested, yet SO skilfully, swiftly,
and unostentatiously that confusion is un-
known and mistakes almost unheard of.
To the man accustomed to the inconveni
ences and practical unreliability of the Or
dinary American library. the operations
and system in the British museum seem
perfect. The student need not rummage
about for himself till his straining eyes
bulge and his throat is choked with dust.
He need not climb shaky stepladders and
hug dirty book shelves till his clothes reek
of mustiness. and look like an ashman's.
He need not even follow compound book
titles through huge catalogues and COM
plicated systems of arrangement. All this
wearyinR of flesh that in New York libra
ry consumes the students energy before he
sees even the outside OF the volumes he de-
sires is done for him In the British muse-
unl, so that his whole energy and uninter-
rupted attention may be concentrated on
mental labor. Tho simplicity of the whole
students is SO admirably calculated to in
vite and encourage scholarly research
that it is worth slightly detailed
description for the comfort of New
Workers who, after having exhausted them
selves in vain searches for special informa-
that they we're not up to the library stand
ard Of erudition, and must therefore resign
library advantages to the higher powers of
professional bookworms.
To get readers card to the British Mu-
seum library person needs only to be
is in the directory. A day or so after this
guarantee has been given the applicant
calls at the secretary's Office in the museum
building. receives his card, presents it to the
doorkeeper of the library. and is admitted.
Nobody without card can pass into the
this rule enables the directors of tho library
to Keep the big room clear of the multitude
of visitors to the outside museum and quiet
for readers. Within tho reader finds
long rows of desks and big ieather-backed
chairs, radiating from a double line of
circular book shelves, full of catalogues at
the centre of the room. In little circular
desk at the very middle, completely sur
rounded by catalogues, reference cards, and
volumes that tell everything about every
thing in the place, is the commander in
chief, either the head librarian or his assist
subject he wishes to study he goes directly
to this man at the middle desk and de-
scribes the line of research he wishes to
pursue. The line of research may be medi-
cal, metaphysical, or geological. or geo.
graphical, or ornithological or economical,
yet the man at the middle desk is always
able to give the names of eight or nine
special works with which the student NAV
make start. An attendant is called, the
titles are given to him, he hurries through
the catalogues under the supervision of the
reader, and having fouud the loca-
whole lot. The reader makes him
self comfortable at an unoccupied
desk provided with pens. ink, hlotters and
book blanks. In ten minutes his books are
laid on the desk. As he digs down into them
he begins to appreciate the paradise he has
fallen in. Whenever he finds foot-note
reference to other books on the subject he
is investigating, he is not obliged to hurry
off on q wild-goose chase up and down
stairs, through dust and dirt and drauRhts
aud dark passages, after the desired works.
He need not even 20 to the librarians desk.
He has simply to indicate on one of the
book blanks before him the volume or vol
umes he wishes, shove the blank into little
basket, and within ten minutes every VOL
ume is on his desk. An attendant whose
20 k, kOI, I'm bots ,scLo
out Immediately, hastened OF for the
books, brought them without an in
stant's unnecessary delay, and there
they are. Without a spoken word, a
wasted minute or useless step, the
reader may push on from one stage of his
to have been provided against by the man
agement of the library. The familiar "In
use'' of New York libraries is never heard
there. OF every work Of any popularity or
fairly general need there are duplicate
copies beyond all possibility of exhaustion.
No embarrassment or delay is caused by or
ders for many books at once. or especially
big ones. The attendant merely takes a
little cart with rubber tires on the wheels
with him to the remote recesses where most
of the books lie, and trundles back his load
as promptly as it he had been filling an Or
der for only one volume. In this way big
congressional documents, parliamentary re-
ports huge census compilations, and Ger
man histories are handled as easily and de-
livered as promptly as a Golden club tract
or the lightest novel.
Little idea of the inexhaustlble variety of
the books in the British Museum library is
conveyed by the statement that it contains
100000 or 100000 volumes. The figures
are staggering, but not SO staggering as the
minute completeness of the literature on an
infinite number of subjects. The sources of
original information on subjects old and
new, foreign and English, great and small.
are ample, beyond the conception of the
student who has not had an opportunity to
draw from them. Files of newspapers of
oil civilized countries, contemporary liter
ature up to the last few days, foreign
pamphlets and tracts, even to the most
ephemeral allow the painstaklng investiga-
tor to drink at the mainsprings of informa.
ton Of all topics of all lands.
An illustration of the cosmopolitan COM
prehensiyeness of the library may be had
in the abundance of the material on such
an entirely foreign subject as paper money
in the United States. The literature on
this topic reaches back to the beginning
American newspapers. 100. 40 and tx
years old are obtainable at q few minutes
notice. Piles of antiquated eighteenth
century pamphlets of cisatiantic publica
ton, with fs for SIS and yes for the's anG
ponderous explanatory titles, full of argu.
ments for and against revolutionary anG
ante-revolutionary paper. are stored away
in the innumerable alcoves of inner rooms
A. 4