One morning I went hunting at the British Library.  I was looking for a rare text from the mid-1600’s which I was sure would have some good information about gold threads.  It does – way more than I thought – enough to write an entire chapter for a book!

So I thought you might be interested in the process to get information from rare books at the British Library.  It takes FOREVER.  So when you read a book by an author who has taken the trouble to delve into those original papers in archives somewhere – appreciate it – those footnotes might have taken them easily a day to get!!

You start out by getting a Library card.  First check into the papers you need to get a reader card at the library you want.  At the British Library they want you to have a purpose to access the books but they don’t require a stack of recommendations from museum or university people to prove that (Folger does and requires a PhD or enrollment in a degree program of that type).  But the British Library will ask your reasons and purpose.  You also need to bring with you a selection of ID documents and proof of address.  There are tons of rules for what counts.  I had to have my Driver Licence, an AT&T Bill from last month and my passport.  That was the only combination I had that would suffice.  I watched them turn a quarter of the people in line away for not having enough!

You get there and stand in line, then register on a computer for a number.  You sit and wait for your appointment with the registrar.  My appointment was shorter as I had a recently expired card so I didn’t have to give a long winded explaination as to my intentions to use the books.  I did have to explain to them that I knew where the room was and what the ‘rules’ are on using the books (there is an entire book on using the books at the library and they expect you to read it!).

So a new picture is taken and my new card was imprinted.  Phew.  So off to the rare books room where I had previously booked a desk and ordered up my books.  That had taken an emergency phone call the day before I left the USA.  The last reference I had for the volumes I wanted was that they were in the British Museum.  The morning before I left the British Museum rare books person had finally emailed me to tell me that they had been transferred to the British Library a few years back.  OH NO!  With an expired library card I wasn’t able to order them up out of storage to be there the day I would be able to look at them.  And can’t renew your card unless you are in London.  But the nice research librarian who I talked to on the phone decided that it wasn’t my fault that I was last minute so ordered them for me as a special case.

So to get them…first, claim your desk and take down its number.  Then stand in line to have them get the books out of waiting for you (20 min).  Give them your desk number.  Ask about copy rules for the rare books – there is a copy room there.  Get sent to the copy room to stand in line with the copy librarian.  She looks at the books and tells you if you can use the copier or digital photograph machine to take a ‘print’.  For mine the answer was no, too early for her to decide.   I had to take them to the ‘exceptions’ desk to ask there.  Another line.  (Now I haven’t even read them yet and I have been in the library for over 2 hours).  This new librarian looks at them and will give me the green slip if there isn’t another way to get the info.  So she gets into the Early British Books database to see if they have ever been scanned before.  You can imagine with a rare book how many ways it could be entered into the database.  After about 20 minutes of digging, she finds that they have been microfiched.  I knew that – I had called the microfiche company before and asked to see if I could get prints of the fiche.  No go – they had changed their business model and only kept university thesis on file.  Trashed the old microfiches (what a waste!).  I would have to go to England to get these if I wanted them!

So I could look through the books at my desk but to record any info I would have to either write it down or order up the microfishe.  Lucky they were in the massive library building and not off-site storage.  Since my reader card was new, I had to go to another terminal and re-register to get my password.  Then use that to order the films.  About an hour the system said.  So I sat and took notes on the pages I wanted to print from these three books.  Good stuff.  Really good stuff.

Now the films were in.  So I had to return the books (stand in line) and get the film as you can’t have ‘out’ too many things at once.  Unfortunately you can only have two films out at once and so one had to stay back (i.e. will have to repeat that darn line process AGAIN).  Off to the microfiche copy room.  Stand in line.  Get a copy card.  Can’t until you get a new password after registering for a copy permission on another computer – sign rights waivers, etc.

You are getting the drift here.  You gotta WANT the info.  And I mean REALLY WANT it.

There is a line for the two microfiche machines.  Then the films are loaded onto the real backwards and upside down.  AFTER three tries to take all the film off and wind it correctly you get the machine loaded and start to print… without toner.

It goes on…but after another hour, you walk out of the building and collect your belongings out of a locker where you have stored them.  Bruised for taking five hours to get 50 pages of gold.  But I guess it is worth it.

Can’t say THAT in a footnote!

Tricia

So the Museum of London has three embroidered jackets in their collection.  They are all blackwork jackets and therefore are quite delicate.  We lifted one up and I was stunned by the amount of black ‘dust’ in the box which was formerly embroidery.  Too delicate really to flip over and study.  A need there is to get some money together to photograph in high resolution the back of these pieces to ’save’ the data for the future as the thread won’t be there someday soon.

As Curator Hilary Davidson and I studied one of the jackets, it became obvious that it had been cut from a larger piece of embroidery that was being re-purposed as a jacket.  I have seen a few things like this so far in collections – a piece where the embroidery style dates around twenty years or more earlier than the cut of the object.  There is a lovely little ‘jacket’ in the MFA Boston collection that is assembled from cuts of two coifs.  It was too hard to figure out what this jacket had been in its past.  But the embroidery style was more Elizabethan than Jacobean (cut of jacket).  It also makes sense why not only the embroidery but the linen was extremely damaged as well.

The thing I loved the most was when we were picking out ‘extras’ to have out on the tour.  The description of a nightcap in the database intrigued me.  So she pulled out the storage box.  When she opened it up (large box), there were five nightcaps in the box with tissue separating them.  They looked like a bunch of jeweled Easter eggs in their carton!  On one of them I found a variation to a gold stitch I hadn’t seen before.  Will have to add that as a bonus to the Tutor and Stuart Gold Master Class!

Tricia

I finally got internet access again today in England except it times out every 30 minutes.  That is kinda rough when trying to get things done – you have to do some of them twice.  So I won’t be able to do a bunch of posts until after I return to the USA.

Return to the USA?  Hmm.  That would be difficult as British Airways has now canceled all flights I was planning on taking home.  So the rest of the evening will be spent on hold with BA trying to reschedule.  Ah – love travel.

On the good side – I have studied seven jackets in detail in the last several days and have lots of stories and observations to tell soon.

Tricia

A commenter asked if the stocking pattern was available for the blue stockings.  I emailed Denise in the Wardrobe Department and got this response:

“Yes we do sell the “17thC Stocking”, however it is written for a heavier gauge of wool yarn. I had a chance to talk to Kate Moore about the silk stockings that she knit and if she has the pattern she used. She does not-she altered the gauge from the stocking pattern herself and did not keep track of it.

An experienced knitter should be able to do the same with the 17thc pattern we have.”

So I checked and here is the link to the pattern in the Plimoth Plantation store.

Tricia

The posts have been a bit erratic – I appologize.  I am preparing to go to London.  If all goes well, when you read this I have caught the ‘last plane to London’.  If it doesn’t go well I am on my way to some other European city and standing in line for Eurostar.  If it goes bad – then I will be sobbing in my tea and buying scones in this country.

That volcano.  What the heck.  ‘Nuf said.

Either way – I’ll be back to posting regularly in about 1-2 days.  Meanwhile – a lovely photo.

Tricia