The last trip for the week was to the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Library in Stratford-upon-Avon. On this trip our group was joined by some of the other students as we had tickets to see a play performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company that evening. The bus ride was fairly quick and we arrived in the town early. The class walked to the Shakespeare Museum where Shakespeares home stood originally. The library is adjacent to the museum and its stacks are located in the basement.
The Trust was estblished after the purchase of the Shakespeare family home. The library was an extension of the Trust and is responsible for the managment of two collections. The first, Shakespeare Collection consists of printed collections of the Trust and an archive for the Royal Shakespeare Company. The second, is comprised of local historical documents including those related to Shakespeare and his family.
Our tour began in one of the reading rooms of the library. Sylvia explained how the library ran and its signifigance to the memory of Shakespeare and the RSC as well as to the community. She mentioned how local students used the library to support small research papers as well as Shakespeare historians and enthusiasts. The library is also used to trace family histories as they have many historical documents relating to the history of the town. An important fact that Sylvia mentioned was that the Trust, which includes the library, is not subsidized by the government in any way and relies on donations for funding. I was surprised to hear this because of Shakespeares importance as a writer and historical figure. It would seem that the government would help bolster an organization responsible for the preservation of such a noteable British subject.
The tour was continued by Jo Wilding in a nearby conference room. Jo had selected several items from the collection for us to look at. In the items she selected were photographs from past RSC performances, books printed during Shakespeare's life, and a copy of Shakespeares first folio printed after his death. This items were exhilerating to look at and we were quite lucky to have the experience. Jo extended our tour by taking us down into the various locked stacks below the museum. She showed us a copy of Shakespeare's quatro as well as some of the archived material from the RSC.
I found this trip to be interesting because it was one of the first small specialized libraries we visited. The difference between the Trust library and the enormous Bodleian was astounding. It was hard not to compare the two as we had seen them back-to-back. A library whose work is as vital as the Trust library should recieve funding from a government agency.
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