> > >I'm sure the librarians would *love* to retain paper copies > indefinitely. > >Unfortunately in the real world somebody has to pay for all > that climate > >controlled storage spage, and what the librarians would like > to do doesn't > >come very high on the list of spending priorities. > > I filmed in the vaults of the Bodleian library the other day. > There is a > copy of every book ever published down there, dating back hundreds of > years. They get 5000 volumes a week. Unsurprisingly, after a > few hundred > years, they are running out of space... > > <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/oxfordshire/7003810.stm> > > --
My first real job was at the British Library. They have lots of books too - like the Bodleian it is a copyright deposit library, so the publishers are legally obliged to deposit all new publications with the library at their own expense. At the time I was there - 30 years ago - the site where I worked in Yorkshire had (I think) 60 miles of shelving. It was really easy to get through a day's work, and a great pleasure to spend the rest of the day hiding in the shelves and reading. Like being inside the Internet. In addition to all the British and Commonwealth stuff there was a section dedicated to USSR scientific articles and they taught me rudimentary Russian so I could work in that section. They keep the newspaper collection at Colindale in North London. http://www.bl.uk/services/reading/newsrr.html Bob -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
