A celebration of learning

B N Goswamy

There is, at once, something remarkably old and something remarkably young about one of the great centres of learning in the world: the British Library. Literally seen, the library was established only in 1973, by an act of the Parliament passed a year before. But the collections that now form part of its vast resources, and the institutions that were merged in it by the Parliament, go much further back in the past. The singularly large, maddeningly rich, collection of what was once the library department of the great British Museum — where the likes of Karl Marx, Charles Dickens, George Bernard Shaw, Virginia Woolf, even Lenin under a pseudonym, had laboured on their remarkable work once — and became the core of the newly set-up library, dates as far back as the middle of the 18th century. Of the many institutions merged in it — the National Reference Library, the British National Bibliography, the records of the Patent Office, the India Office Library and Records, the British Institute of Recorded Sound, for instance — many had been in existence for decades. But, in terms of finding a site for its new location — it is in the Euston Road/St Pancras area — and for its brand new building being built, not many years have passed. It is just 20 years ago that the new/old library was formally inaugurated!

  But to draw attention to the history of the British Library is not my aim in this piece. It is of the experience of being in the library, and its spaces — both closed and open — as they are now that I write. I was there earlier this month for presenting a lecture at the Jaipur Literary Festival of which the UK edition was being held on its premises. And the experience was, to turn to a possibly over-used term, simply heady. The moment you entered the premises — flanked by the buildings that house different wings of the library, there is an extensive, open paved area dotted with little restaurants, sidewalk café like, in which one saw people of all ages scattered around, seated, sipping coffee, reading or conversing — you could breathe the sense of energy and freedom in the place. Displays, freely sprinkled around the space, welcomed you to the British Library which offered ‘reading rooms for research and study, exhibitions, events and tours, and plenty of great places to meet, eat, drink, and shop”. All around there were large, very large, beautifully designed posters announcing what, inside, was on offer. One of these, for instance, proclaimed, to the accompaniment of visuals in which figures artfully crowded one another — Shakespeare and the Beatles, Jane Austen and Nelson Mandela, Leonardo and Mozart — that here you could discover, in a special exhibition, Stories that shape the world told in the form of the ‘world’s most exciting, beautiful and significant books, manuscripts, and sound recordings’. Attached to the pillars that dotted the huge courtyard were somewhat smaller, but riveting, framed posters from another very special exhibition titled James Cook, the Voyages. Two hundred and fifty years have passed since that remarkable, untiring sailor set forth from England, not once but three times, upon voyages that were nothing less than world-changing. And he and his voyages — the first ever crossing of the Antarctic Circle, reaching further south than anyone in the world then — were being celebrated in that show. On view were Captain Cook’s handwritten journal, intricate maps charting the courses, artwork which included the first ever depiction of a kangaroo, drawings made by a Maori priest after his encounters with the ‘white man’: things that shaped Europe’s knowledge of the world. As if this were not enough, one learnt of a whole range of events inspired by Cook’s voyages that were spread over the entire period for which the show was to stay on: lectures by specialists, discussion of novels that focussed on the voyages, ethnographic recordings from the Pacific, films telling the story of Tupaia, the Tahitian who accompanied James Cook on the first Pacific Voyages. A rich, remarkably rich, fare was on offer.

I picked up a brochure that listed ‘What’s On’ at the library during the summer of 2018 — July to September — and found the programme put into place simply overwhelming. Consider this: you could pick whatever you chose, for instance, from going to lectures on race relations, translating cultures, preserving the manuscripts of Mali, the Koran in Bangladesh, theatre and censorship; from seeing an exhibition on philately featuring rarities of the postal world to sitting down to listen to masterworks from the library’s sound archives. Here, you could also subscribe to events for families which range from watching Polynesian dances to hearing poetry in creative workshops, and listening to stories told by master storytellers. On offer, too, are courses for adults that include drawing master classes, writing life stories, and getting to know the history of the book from papyrus fragments to early printed books. Overwhelming, as I said, but fun at the same time, a celebration of life, as it were.

There was not enough time for me to explore the library further — the programme of the literary festival, which I had gone to attend was in itself completely packed — but I could imagine the atmosphere in the reading rooms, having worked there long years ago when the library used to be a part of the British Museum: an atmosphere of utter calm in which minds constantly collided with those of the past, and felt uplifted.

I admit, however, that I did not leave the premises of the library without feeling a pang of envy, and without my sad thoughts going back to what most libraries — pustakalayas, essentially — are and do/do not do in our own land: seen as they are simply as repositories of books and journals, to which some people make mostly unwelcome visits.