Hello!

Welcome to my blog where I’ll share all sorts of tidbits and photos about the libraries, archives, and special collections that I visit as a Library and Information Studies student abroad in London.

I'm Jessica, an LIS student at the University of Alberta. Together with other students from around North America, I will spend a month in London, England to learn about librarianship, collections management, and archival preservation at various British institutions. Check back often to see where we visit and to read what was shared by the fantastic librarians, archivists, and information professionals that lead us through these stunning locations.

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King's College - Maughan Library, Foyle Special Collections

At King's College, we visited the Foyle Special Collections in the Maughan Library . Katie Sambrook, the head of Special Collections, and her colleague Adam showed us a selection of items from their collection. The photos below showcase some of the material we saw, but another not shown was a tour book documenting the 1860 royal tour taken by the Prince of Wales, Edward, who was rumoured to have been chosen for it to quell his wild ways. It didn't work. Another interesting item was a book about the Polish ghetto, donated by a Holocaust survivor who collected items about the Jewish experience. Conservators deacidified the pages and laminated them to preserve them as much as possible. Vesalius' On the Fabric of the Human Body (1543) John Ogilby's America, Being an Accurate Description of the New World (1671) A 1799 map of London Extensive conservation has repaired the map's frayed edges An example of a 19th-century chapbook K...

St. Paul's Cathedral

St. Paul's Cathedral is on the must-see list of everyone I have talked to about London, so it was great to see the visitor points of the Cathedral but even more great to get the behind the scenes "attic room" tour. Our guide, Yvonne, was an informative and lively woman who has been with the St. Paul's for 12 years. She shared with our group the history of the Cathedral, saying that what we see today is actually the 5th iteration of the religious space, having most recently been replaced after the 4th cathedral burned down in the Great Fire of 1666. It took Christopher Wren about 40 years to complete this project, finishing in 1710. A facsimile of the cathedral made by Christopher Wren After bringing us up to the triforium, or what she dubbed "the attic", Yvonne showed to us some of the treasures the Cathedral has no space for in their main areas. Included here were daring paintings, Viking tombstones, and stones from former cathedrals (ie. a pil...

Royal Geographical Society

A trip to the Foyle Reading Room of The Royal Geographical Society (RGS) this morning marked the final program visit of our time in London. While it's sad to see our time coming to a close, it was lovely to spend the morning with Eugene Rae, the principal librarian of the reading room. I, unfortunately, did not bring my phone (ie. camera) into the room and so do not have photographs of this experience. Apologies for a text filled blog post! By Steve Cadman [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons On a large table in the reading room, Eugene laid out many documents and facsimiles from the RGS archive. Using these to illustrate his stories, he told us about s ome of the grander voyages undertaken by members of the society. Using photographs of key players, maps highlighted with routes, and genuine artifacts he told us about the journey to find the Northwest Passage, the African expedition to find the roo...

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