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Revolution at the London Library

The Stalinists have taken over the London Library

Paul Barker

Wednesday, 7th November 2007

High drama at the AGM of a literary institution

The lights blazed out across St James’s Square from the high, first-floor Reading Room of the London Library as members crowded up the handsome staircase, last Thursday evening, to take part in the fiercest row the library has seen for many years, or maybe ever. Some members had to squeeze on to narrow upper galleries, where you search out dusty dictionaries in obscure languages. From there, they intervened in the to-and-fro of hot argument down below, like shabby cherubs in a Raphael painting.
This wasn’t some minor fluttering in a dovecot for eggheads. The London Library is one of the capital’s most discreet but most valuable adornments. Tucked away behind an unassertive Victorian frontage, it was founded by Thomas Carlyle because the Reading Room of the British Museum wouldn’t lend; its successor, the British Library, has the same policy. The outcome, 150 years later, is a wondrous collection of books which the 8,000 subscribers can wander through and take out to read at home. (Fortunately, many are rare users, keeping up their subs out of friendship: a pleasant charitable gift.) The library and its assiduous staff are constantly listed by authors in their acknowledgments.

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Margaret Gaskin

November 11th, 2007 3:06pm

As a member of the Library who swallowed the increase but didn't attend the meeting, can I thank all those who did for putting up a fight –not against higher prices, which may be inevitable, but against an apparently high-handed attitude that does indeed seem to go against everything I have ever felt about this great institution. The committee may feel they have been preaching to the choir for years now and this sudden increase has at least stirred members from their desks. Well, clearly, all members who care about the institution must stir their stumps and be prepared to give more (in time and commitment) in return for their great inheritance to ensure that a genuine democracy of intellect prevails. We none of us created the London Library, but we should be ashamed to feel that we stood by while its spirit, if not its substance, was destroyed.

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