As you might have gathered already from the current content of this blog, one of my major interests is books. High-brow, not-so-high-brow, non-fiction; if something strikes my fancy I'll read it. As such you can't make me happier than by taking me to a library or bookshop, and letting me loose in there for a few hours reading back flaps, admiring cover art and fondling thick, sturdy hardcovers in a haze of new-book-smell. But there is one library, no matter how vast, exclusive and beautiful, that I will no longer set foot in. Not even for their original manuscript by Tolkien.
That place, ladies and gentlemen, is the British Library. Yes, the big one in London near King's Cross with the imposing security people. The presence of evil-eyed bag-checkers alone should have tipped me off that this Library (note the capital L) is a prime example of pompous, bureaucratic ineptitude.
I'm sure this sounds like blasphemy, but hear me out. For my dissertation this year - I think you're already as sick of hearing about it as I am thinking about it - I need two Japanese daily newspapers spanning the period of 12 March 2011 to 25 March 2011. I won't bore you with the specifics of why and what for, but it requires copying of some sort of these two weeks of coverage.
So, naïve thing that I am, I searched in the British Library's online catalogue, which is the first stop for researchers. 'Lo and behold: the newspapers, which a person on the phone confirmed to me. Then, just to be sure, I checked copying possibilities, one of these being remote copying, which I tried to arrange, but was then informed that as the item was available in the collection, I had to come to the Library and do it myself.
So, all boxes checked, I followed standard procedure: pre-register for reader's pass; request items from remote storage to reading room (can imagine no one needs Japanese newspapers all that often) taking into account the time it takes for them to arrive from friggin' Yorkshire; get ID-card and evidence of address; book hostel and bus journey. Sorted, I thought.
WRONG.
The trip started well enough, in the sense that I found my way to the library just fine, and finished registering for my reader's pass no problem whatsoever. The trouble started when I got to the African&Asian reading room, and the lady behind the counter tells me that the items I requested are not there. This is strange, as they should only take about 48 hours to arrive, and I requested them 4 days ago. She digs a bit more, and finds a ticket saying that they don't have any files for March 2011. Bit strange.
But she doesn't much care, and it must have been only because I looked quite distressed that they called a Japan expert (the awesome Mr Hamish) from the office in the back. He is just as baffled as I am, and calls directly to storage in Yorkshire. Turns out they can't find it. Or better yet, the searching took too long so they just said they don't have it. Mr Hamish then sent another request on my behalf, which would take another 3 days.
To make a long, tedious story short, I spent 3 days sightseeing in London because I had nothing else to do but wait after I fruitlessly visited the library in the morning - where each time the same lady behind the desk had no idea who I was and I had to explain it all over again.
So, on Thursday I finally get the newspaper Mr Hamish called in for me, but the other one has apparently also been lost in the depths of the Boston Spa storage facility. Seeing as I can't stay in London indefinitely, I decide to cut my losses and settle for the one newspaper, and proceed to copy it.
Where the lady behind the counter tells me I can't take photos, I can't copy it myself on the machines because of the sizing and some more rubbish I don't entirely get, and they can't do it for me either because they're not authorised and would take too long.
She says I'll have to put in an online order for remote copying, which will take a month.
I'm silently boiling, because that's exactly the opposite of what I was told before I came, and no one told me it was going to take a month and cost me at least £80 for 3 CD-ROM discs with scanned pages. But what can you do? So I fill out the online form, and spend another day in London. Yay.
You'd think it was over after that, but no: last week I got an email saying that I need official permission from the publisher of the work for the copying to be possible, in a letter to be posted within 10 days. Try and get permission from Asahi Shimbun Japan in official writing, within a week.
Exactly.
So, I went to my very last option: the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (incidentally who I had to call in my first blogpost). I was about ready to cry and beg, but they answered my email (phone wasn't picked up - got worked up about nothing) quickly, and succinctly.
Turns out I can make a personal appointment with them, they have the reduced size edition for both papers (confirmed by a real live person, twice) and I get to take photographs as long as I sign a piece of paper saying it's not for commercial use.
Done.
That's how easy it is. German efficiency at its finest, and a real willingness to understand my position and difficulty.
Which enrages me all the more when I think about the bloody British Library.
Where do they get off having such an air of superiority, as if they're the be-all end-all of libraries, when their storage facilities are apparently organised quite badly, the automated cranes are too weak to lift the big newspaper crates (swear to god that's what they said), the online catalogue is obviously inaccurate, and the amateurish "we can't find it" is easily translated into "we don't have it".
And not a single one of them apologetic about it except for Mr Hamish who is solely exempt from all these accusations.
I know my dissertation won't be a life changing revelation, and that they probably have visitors who are far more important than I am, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't deliver on the service that they promise. If you want to stick your nose in the air and act posh, fine, but then you bloody well make sure you've got the action to back it up.
They profile themselves as a reliable institution and research facility, and demand all sorts of security measures from their readers (it's like passing airport security, only worse), and then they display such astounding incompetence. It boggles the mind.
So for my part, I'm sick of the British Library, and will finally end my quest for research material in a week's time at the Staatsbibliothek Berlin. Who, by the way, were quite surprised when they heard that the British Library didn't have these publications.
So I've got a short summer trip to Berlin to look forward to, and the snobs at the BL can choke on their original manuscripts for all I care.
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