A new library card for my collection
Feb. 25th, 2016 09:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ossamentaThe Oxford university library is good, but it doesn't have everything I need for my reports and for my research. Luckily on Copac you can search for books and journals in several university and institute libraries all over UK and Ireland. So this week I took a trip to London, to the Natural History Museum's library. Normally, say if I need a book at the British Library, I'd go on a Saturday, so I can combine work with meeting up with friends, but the NHM (and many other libraries) is only open weekdays... On the other hand, it was quite nice to be able to walk straight in, no queues and no hordes of screaming small children all over the place.
I did go for a wander around the museum afterwards, seeing the stone pillars with carved fish in the minerals section (I assume that's where the old fish collection was), and one of the Tower lions in the treasures room. I had seen that skull before, when it was included in the royal manuscripts exhibition at the British Library a few years back. I even bought a little badge with it as a souvenir (which is how I could see it was the same skull).
I also nipped in to the Victoria and Albert Museum across the street, to see the Europe 1600-1815 galleries that had been closed for a long time. There were lots of very pretty things (as you would expect from the V&A). I think my favourite was this glass goblet: a trick goblet, where you have to know exactly how to drink in order to not pour the wine all over yourself.
A little tip: if you're going to visit either museum (or, for that matter the neighbouring Science Museum) on a weekday, go on Tuesdays. That's when they have a farmers' market on Queen's Lawn (off Imperial College Road) and because it's in the middle of the university, around lunch hour, there was one man selling bread, one man selling vegetables, and about fifteen stalls selling hot food and about five stalls selling cake. Lots of queues to all food stalls so I was pretty certain that whatever I chose would be tasty.
I did go for a wander around the museum afterwards, seeing the stone pillars with carved fish in the minerals section (I assume that's where the old fish collection was), and one of the Tower lions in the treasures room. I had seen that skull before, when it was included in the royal manuscripts exhibition at the British Library a few years back. I even bought a little badge with it as a souvenir (which is how I could see it was the same skull).
I also nipped in to the Victoria and Albert Museum across the street, to see the Europe 1600-1815 galleries that had been closed for a long time. There were lots of very pretty things (as you would expect from the V&A). I think my favourite was this glass goblet: a trick goblet, where you have to know exactly how to drink in order to not pour the wine all over yourself.
A little tip: if you're going to visit either museum (or, for that matter the neighbouring Science Museum) on a weekday, go on Tuesdays. That's when they have a farmers' market on Queen's Lawn (off Imperial College Road) and because it's in the middle of the university, around lunch hour, there was one man selling bread, one man selling vegetables, and about fifteen stalls selling hot food and about five stalls selling cake. Lots of queues to all food stalls so I was pretty certain that whatever I chose would be tasty.