With fewer than 3 weeks until Christmas – how on earth has it arrived so swiftly? – we’re sure we’re not the only ones having a last-minute panic about certain people who are hard to buy for!

While we won’t ordinarily be using the blog to talk about things we have for sale, we thought now was a good time to share some ideas that might help with those festive gift quandaries. With everything from stocking fillers to the exceptionally generous gift of Library membership, we have something for most budgets. Book lovers will be thrilled with a London Library gift, and you will have the satisfaction of having purchased from a registered charity.

Here are our top Christmas ideas for the bibliophiles in your life:

• Canvas bags – strong, sturdy, stylish and perfect for heavy books! 100% cotton, available with short or long handles.
• Pencils and notebooks – our A4 soft-cover notebooks and black pencils (featuring quotes by 5 distinguished past London Library members) make excellent stocking fillers.
• Membership Gift vouchers – The perfect way to help someone purchase London Library membership, Gift Vouchers can be used as full or part payment towards the cost of an annual or life membership. Available in denominations of £50 or £100.
• Gift membership – the ultimate treat for any bibliophile, London Library Gift Membership provides access to 1 million books on 15 miles of open shelving, electronic resources and much more. A very special gift indeed!

You can purchase London Library merchandise and Gift Membershiponline or in person at the Library – just ask at Reception.

Merry Christmas and happy shopping!

Time to introduce Rosie, the third of this year’s Graduate Trainees here at the Library. In her first post for us, she finds a particularly intriguing shelfmark in the History stacks…

The posts by Carley, Alice and Xavier have already provided London Library blog readers with a great introduction into the world of a Graduate Trainee at The London Library. So much so that I was struggling to find inspiration for my first post!

As the job title suggests, the three of us current trainees are recent graduates from different universities across the country, and the subjects we studied provided us with an excellent foundation to complement the large arts and humanities collection housed here in the library. Alice studied Archaeology and Anthropology at Manchester University, Xavier studied English Literature and Creative Writing at Bath Spa University and I thoroughly enjoyed my three years at Teesside University studying for a History degree. My love of history has resulted in me developing a particular soft spot for the Library’s History section, spread across Levels 2, 3 and 4 in the famous ‘Back Stacks’. This section boasts a wide variety of shelfmarks such as: H. England, Kings and Queen; H. Goths (not the kind wearing PVC and black lipstick); right through to exotic locations such as H. Schleswig-Holstein and H. Zululand.

Whilst exploring the History section, I came across the shelfmark: H. Imaginary Hist. and was suddenly hit with inspiration. I realise that many historians would balk the concept of counterfactual history, and I must admit I would probably be of the same mindset. Is it productive to spend time musing over what would have happened if the Gunpowder Plot had succeeded? Or if the Brighton bomb had killed Margaret Thatcher in 1984? (See What might have been: leading historians on twelve ‘what ifs’ of history, edited with an introduction by Andrew Roberts; who is himself a Library member, appropriately enough.) Personally, I would disagree with this school of thought, but as human beings we can’t help but rely on hindsight and wonder if certain decisions or chains of events would have resulted in things turning out differently.

The notion of ‘what might have been’ also made me wonder what would happen if there was no London Library. What if Thomas Carlyle had never decided to create an alternative to the British Library with an extraordinary emphasis on making the collection available on open shelves? Or, worse still, what if the London Library had been reduced to rubble when it was hit by the Blitz during the Second World War?  What if there hadn’t been a team of staff dedicated to the preservation of the London Library’s collection over the last 170 years? As a relative newcomer to the library profession, and as someone who wishes to pursue a long and hopefully fruitful career in this field, my traineeship here has made me consider the importance of places like The London Library, and libraries in general, to assist in the preservation of the printed word. We hear horror stories about the closure of public libraries and the ‘Google Generation’ relying on the internet to find the answers they need. However, the optimist in me firmly believes that the digital age will only serve to enhance the provision of our libraries, and that books and periodicals can survive in harmony alongside a growing number of e-resources and new technologies. I’m positive that The London Library has at least another 170 years left in it, if not longer!

On this day one hundred and fifty-two years ago, the first edition of a truly extraordinary book become available to the public. The book was Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. Its short title was later changed to The Origin of Species - and it is frequently and erroneously referred to as Origin of the Species – but by any name, we understand this book to be one that forever changed our understanding of the world around us.

Charles Darwin was among the first members of The London Library when it was created by Thomas Carlyle in 1841. In fact, we know that Darwin was London Library Member No. 593, because we can see his name and address in our original register of Library members:

Among the many treasures the Library possesses, our first edition of On the Origin of Species is among the most thrilling. Together with our 1611 King James Bible, rightly celebrated in this, its quincentenary year, we have two volumes which trace centuries of human belief and knowledge.

In addition to its first edition of On the Origin of Species, the Library has many other editions, including three of the six editions which appeared in Darwin’s lifetime. We also have first and later editions of many of Darwin’s other works, including The Descent of Man, The Power of Movement in Plants and The Formation of Vegetable Mould, Through the Action of Worms. While The London Library is primarily a Humanities library, we have plenty of treats for Science buffs; though, for obvious reasons, we can’t let you take this particular edition of On the Origin of Species home!

We continue our series of blog entries by this year’s intake of new Graduate Trainees with news from Xavier. Here he tells of the delight in re-discovering ‘AWOL books’ and getting to grips with the Library’s one million titles!

During a recent training session in the Acquisitions department, the two other trainees and I were shown a book which had been out on loan for over a hundred years, recently returned by an unknown bearer. Perhaps this book had been stuffed away in an attic somewhere, found hidden behind a beam or in a dusty forgotten box. Could it have been, however, that its time spent ‘AWOL’ was much more exciting? One can only speculate, but maybe the book accompanied several non-paying borrowers during its absence, until it finally reached one honest enough to return it? Anyhow, encounters like these make me feel extremely new to the London Library, so I should probably introduce myself. My name is Xavier and I am one of three Graduate Trainees here at the London Library. If you didn’t know, the London Library employs up to three of us each year. The traineeship is designed to ready us for the Masters degree in ‘Information and Library Management’, whilst giving us an insight and a part to play in the daily running of a library.

The competition for these placements is fierce (who wouldn’t want to work here!?) and so I feel privileged to have been offered a position following interview. The training that the London Library provides us has, thus far, exceeded my expectations and goes beyond the experience I gained from working part-time in my university library. In return for our training (and salary!), we play a crucial role in the daily running of the library by being put to work in various departments, my favourite of which has been the enquiries desk.

I enjoy the preliminary research we carry out for members and have been impressed by the vast array of resources The London Library owns to draw upon for them. What with over a million titles as well as all the digital information we have access to, I have, on occasion, found it difficult to know where to begin. Those who have worked here for a number of years have acquired this kind of instinctual ability to seek out information and always seem to know where to look, even when faced with the most obscure kinds of requests. Some enquiries (particularly those related to foreign languages) are extremely difficult, yet the Enquiries Staff almost always manage to conjure up exactly what it is the member was looking for, as well as suggesting other resources that might be useful.

Despite having been here for nearly two months, I am often faced with questions concerning resources I know little or nothing about. Perhaps by the time I’ve written my second blog post nine weeks from now, I’ll feel much more confident answering questions about the library’s collections. Until then, I’ll continue pestering everyone with questions…

Do look out for Xavier’s next entry and for news from our other Graduate Trainees, as well as other Library departments, in the next few weeks…