In Which Matilda Becomes a Disney Princess for a Morning

You know that scene in Disney's animated Beauty and the Beast where Belle sees the library for the first time? And you know that other scene where she gets all gussied up and the ballroom is all gussied up, too, and it's this big beautiful room where magical things happen?

Ok, combine those two scenes in your head: turn the ballroom into a library that no one has visited for a long, long time, and imagine how amazing that would be, and what a Disney princess you would feel like.

That was today's visit.

Our librarian wore polka dots, and so did I. Coincidence? I think not!

  

Pure joy:

Even Dr. Welsh had never been into this room, so it was an extremely special visit for all of us. The room was the Round Reading Room at the British Museum, which was closed off to visitors in the 1990s when the books were all moved to the British Library. Now, the room houses the museum's archives, due to a mold problem in the basement where the archives were kept until recently.

The archivist is a brilliant woman who saw the need for better archiving, told the museum her ideas, and was immediately put to work. That was nearly two decades ago, and more work awaits her and her staff of one, but from what we could see, the work is challenging and rewarding. As she told us, to understand the archives, you have to understand two centuries of the museum's history and the nine departments that have separate sets of archival materials here.

Those damned cameleopards:

Bram Stoker had to ask for permission to use the reading room:

She receives roughly 4,000 enquiries a year, and she told us that the toughest one yet has been, "When did the giraffes arrive at the museum?" One thing she found out the hard way was that giraffes used to be called "cameleopards," so in looking for giraffes, she was on the wrong track for some time!

There are over 8 million objects in the museum itself, and there are records for the items, for meetings about the items, for hiring people to staff the museum, for wartime preparation, for repairs, etc. The archives hold some unique items, particularly in the records for the reading room.

We saw Queen Victoria's signature.

We saw information on Victoria Woodhole, a woman who ran for president long before Hilary, and who saw unflattering information about herself on a visit to the museum. She sued, but lost, a case that established the idea that the museum should not and would not censor information.

We saw some other famous signatures and items of interest in the museum.

Leaving this room was difficult, but the bonus was that we had the whole of the museum to explore. Somehow, I had completely missed the Egyptian room, so I went straight for the mummies.