Friday morning we took a coach to Stratford Upon Avon, Shakespeare's home town. It took about two hours to get up there. When we got there, we had time on our own for a while, before we had to meet up at the Shakespeare Library.Walking through the streets of Stratford was much easier and less congested than the streets of London. Stratford is a quaint and quite little town with Tudor style buildings and cute little shops. A group of us stopped for lunch at a little place called Cafe Pasta.
After lunch, we toured the Shakespeare Library. Madeline Cox first showed us around the reading rooms and the research center of the library before Jo gave us a detailed background of some of the artifacts in the library's possession.
The Library's collection started in the 1800s and is a combination of the Royal Shakespeare Company's collection and books on Shakespeare's history. Over 3,000 readers visit the library each year for various reasons; either scholars doing research, or a resident doing a genealogy search. To gain access to the collections, readers fill out a slip with detailed information of the book they need, and a library assistant collects it for them. Everything before 2001 is in the card catalog. Items after 2001 are in the online catalog. There is no government funding for the library, everything is based on charity, and therefore the library cannot afford to place every item of the 50,000 books and collections in the online catalog.
The Library's collection started in the 1800s and is a combination of the Royal Shakespeare Company's collection and books on Shakespeare's history. Over 3,000 readers visit the library each year for various reasons; either scholars doing research, or a resident doing a genealogy search. To gain access to the collections, readers fill out a slip with detailed information of the book they need, and a library assistant collects it for them. Everything before 2001 is in the card catalog. Items after 2001 are in the online catalog. There is no government funding for the library, everything is based on charity, and therefore the library cannot afford to place every item of the 50,000 books and collections in the online catalog.
The library also has in it's possession 250,000-300,000 photos. These include stills from the different productions of Shakespeare's plays. We were given the chance to view some of those photos, as well as a few books related in one way or another to Shakespeare. There were stills of Vanessa Redgrave portraying a role in one of the plays, as well as Sir Ian McK
ellen and Alan Rickman.
After a look at the artifacts, we were given a look at the stacks, where the books and photos are stored. There were 4 rooms, or stacks, filled with books dated before the 1700s, photos of productions and actors, and a collection of Bram Stoker's work as a Business Manager of the Lyceum Theatre in London and the Personal assistant to actor Henry Irving, the manager of the Lyceum. It was neat to see some of the older books. The smell of old pages and old leather in the third stack was incredible. We were able to feel the spines and impressions of the books, which was an amazing experience. You have to have a love for books to fully understand the awesomeness of this experience!
ellen and Alan Rickman. Later that night, we went to see a showing of Shakespeare's comedy, As You Like It, at the Courtyard Theatre. I love theater and went into the production excited but I soon found it hard to follow along and felt a few of the scene's didn't add anything to the storyline. It was funny though and a few quirky character's made it entertaining.
We didn't get back on the bus until 11:30pm, putting us back to the dorms at 1:30am. To say the least, it was a very long day and morning came way to soon.
Until next time.
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