Additional Entry: The Wellcome Collection

The Wellcome Collection, located within London can be described as a free museum for those with a penchant for odd items. The Wellcome Collection is part of the Wellcome Collection, founded by Henry Solomon Wellcome. Sir Henry Wellcome was a traveller and collector of rare and unique oddities. His affinity for oddities lives on in the Wellcome Collection. The museum itself houses a mixture of medical artifacts and new age art. All art exhibits tie into the connections between medicine and art.

At the Wellcome Collection, I had the amazing chance to view a large gathering of Sir Henry's own personal collection, titled Medicine Man. The collection was vast and contained items from multiple cultures. Each item was tied to the medical field in its own odd way. The collection contained a large amount of paintings, medical devices such as birthing and dentist chairs, jars, and personal items of Wellcome. Majority of the exhibit was a collection of items that covered the multiple stages of life. As someone who enjoys things of the macabre nature, I was immediately drawn to the items concerning death. Among these were a shrunken head, guillotine blade, memento mori, and other items related to death. There was even a mummy within the collection!

Aside from that collection, there was also exhibits titled States of Mind and THIS IS A VOICE. These two exhibits were both very unique! The first looked into exactly what being conscious was through a large set of art pieces. THIS IS A VOICE looked at what exactly a voice is and how it define us in the numerous aspects of life. 

Of the two I enjoyed THIS IS A VOICE more. It was set back in a closed off room with very low lighting and no photography allowed. Each part of the exhibit was interesting. One major part was a movie showing through a cylinder. To watch it, you had to look through a hole. There was also another movie playing concerning a sleep walker. Leaving the exhibit I played with an interactive screen that taught me about synesthesia. After learning about it, I was allowed to play a game of sorts that psychologists use to cause people to have synesthesia. Playing it, I personally began to associate certain colors with the letters they had been assigned to.

This place was amazing! I enjoyed all three exhibits, but mostly Medicine Man. One thing I couldn't help but notice was the various places that items from the exhibits came from. I had been to many of those places! 

https://wellcomecollection.org/

Edinburgh Central Library and New College

Edinburgh Central Library, opened in 1980, was Edinburgh's first public library. Famed philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie, first funded the library with 50,000 pounds. Over the years the library has grown into an amazing part of the community, with an entire children’s section with planned activities and events.

This library was gorgeous, both the architecture and the decoration. It was simple, yet not plain. I especially enjoyed the look of the children’s room It was bright and colorful without being overwhelming and overstimulating the senses. There were even multiple rooms for different activities. One room was for group reading, another was for arts and crafts, and the main room was for finding books and parents to play with their children. 

Adding to the library’s influence on the younger generation was their involvement with the local teen population. Despite it being small, the teen population was seen in a negative light. This was mainly due to the lack of options for the teens to occupy themselves with when outside school. Working with a group of teenage girls and various other organizations, the library put together a group that worked to restore relations between teens and the community. Alongside that, the library has worked to increase children’s interest in the STEM field. Using things like minecraft and mechanical objects to interact with the children, they are creating a love for the field at an early age. 

All in all, this was a phenomenal library! There were tons of fiction books, nonfiction books, audiobooks, access to ebooks, graphic novels, and programs catering to the younger generations. The Edinburgh Central Library really puts an effort into helping the community and students.

http://yourlibrary.edinburgh.gov.uk/

New College Library in Edinburgh, Scotland has been part of multiple colleges over the years. It first began in the 1800's as part of the Free Church of Scotland, but now it is part of the School of Divinity in the University of Edinburgh. The library originally began with the Disruption of 1843. Today it is home to students pursuing a degree in Theology and Religion.

This library was great! I certainly appreciated that the staff had pulled out a few of their more interesting items for us to look at. Going downstairs into the stacks upon stacks of books was so much fun. It's amazing to think about the number of bibles and other religious text from hundreds of years ago. 

http://www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/library-museum-gallery/using-library/lib-locate/newcoll-lib

Durham

 Durham, England is home to Durham Cathedral. Durham Cathedral was built in the early 1000's and continued on into the next century. The cathedral is a focal point of town. Surrounded by water, it is only accessible by three bridges. There are daily services with a men's choir.

I loved Durham Cathedral! It was amazing, especially the great architecture. To see such a magnificent building and walk inside was astounding. Even amazing is how old it is. The stonework of the cathedral is one of the first times such a technique was used, and it still stands to this day.

http://www.chch.ox.ac.uk/library

Bill Bryson Library, the latest library on Durham university campus, is used as the main library. It has a unique spot as one of the original non-academic libraries in England. It catered more to lawyers, doctors, and those sorts. They originally used six different classification systems, but have switched over to the Dewey system.

This library was really interesting! The architecture was unique in that the surrounding water really limits their ability to expand. Being confined in one space has made them come up with some interesting add ons with multiple floors. I also find it interesting that they have a separate room for grad students. Colleges I've seen don't do that. It makes me think of them as spoiled lol. 

Ushaw College, a branch of Durham University, lies offsite of the original university. The college, founded in 1808 is its own small town. It wasn't monastic in reality, but followed very similar conditions. Students were policed on where they went and who they associated with, much like a monastery. The big library, dating around the 1850's, contains over thirty thousand titles. About twelve thousand were donated by Thomas Wilkinson. The big library is a theological library, and yet it contains a large array of literature on math, science, bibles, law, and church history.

Ushaw College was gorgeous and I really wish we would have had more time to look at the grounds. It really was its own small town, away from the rest of Durham. The room we dined in was beautiful, with some really amazing paintings adorning the walls. To be seated at such a historic table and dine in the room was a real treat! 

https://www.dur.ac.uk/library/

Additional Entry: Stonehenge

Stonehenge, one of the world's oldest mysteries, is a collection of stones dating back to the Neolithic era. In the surrounding countryside are hundreds of burial mounds. The rock formation is protected and managed by English Heritage.

No one is quite sure as to why Stonehenge was created, but there are many theories out there. A prolific one is that Stonehenge is a burial ground. Human bone deposits have been found in the area, dating back to around 3000 BC. There is also an idea of the site being used to mess with sound. The large stones and their circular formation has an interesting effect on acoustics. There is even an idea that it was used an observatory, keeping track of the sun and other celestial bodies.

The building contained an exhibit of the known information and theories surrounding the large set of rocks. There were small plastic formations that showed the evolution and movement of the rocks over the years. Aside from that was information on the people who created Stonehenge, including things such as what they looked like, how the moved the rocks, tools they used, and how they lived. 

I'm so glad I got the chance to go here! The area around Stonehenge was gorgeous. Even better, there were tons of raven in the area. The rocks themselves were smaller than I imagined. It was also disappointing that tourists had to stay so far away from the rocks. I understand the need for preservation, but it was still disappointing, seeing as how people used to picnic among the rocks. 

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/stonehenge/

Middle Temple Library

Middle Temple Library, part of the four Inns of Court, is a law library specializing in American and European law. There are over two hundred and fifty thousand items within their collection, for any member of the four Inns of Court to use. Middle Temple library works in tandem with the other three libraries so as not to do any unnecessary work.

The library, founded in 1641, actually began a century prior. Sadly, the library was open to everyone with doors wide open. This lead to the books being stolen and the library no longer being useful once all said books were stolen. It was re-founded in 1641 by Robert Ashley. Upon his death, he left his own collection to the library. Since his initial contribution, the library has added to its collection through donations and acquisitions.

Middle Temple Library was a truly spectacular building. Books aside, Middle Temple Hall was gorgeous. The large room is used for lunch, music, and can even be rented for special occasions. The room is filled with large dining tables, the windows are paned with historical stained glass, and the walls are covered in shields.

http://www.middletemple.org.uk/library-and-archive/library

Maughan Library

King's College Library, founded in the 1800's, specializes mainly in humanities, law, and special collections. There are currently over two hundred thousand items within their collection, which is taken care of by seven workers and extra volunteers. The Foyle Special Collections Library itself holds over one hundred eighty thousand items.  Like most other libraries and archives of our times, they are undergoing a digitization project to make their collections more accessible.

When we were brought in, we were sat down among a carefully selected example of what the library had to offer. There were so many items that interested me, but the one that stood out the most was the Hortus sanitatus. Translated as 'Garden of Health', it dates back to 1491. The book covered hundreds of medicinal plants, animals, minerals, and other interesting topics. Even more interesting was the inclusion of random facts such as detecting an errant spouse, how to capture a unicorn, and how to never suffer from sickness or tiredness again.

The library itself contains traces of its old architecture while offering students and researchers more modern conveniences such as elevators, self checkout kiosks, laptops, and other things of the sort. One thing of note was the care taken in how the library was built. The bookshelves are all made of metal, each room has its own fireproof door. Even zinc, a nonflammable substance, was used for decoration.

The Weston Room, site of the recent Shakespeare exhibition, was truly beautiful. Once used as a records room and a chapel, it is now used for special functions. The antique tile floor, stained glass windows, chandeliers, and statues all make it one of the more interesting rooms within the library.

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/index.aspx

Royal Geographical Society and Archive

The Royal Geographical Society and Archive, begun in 1830, is one of the world's leaders in geography. There are over sixteen thousand members and two million items housed within the archive. Within these two million items are one million maps, four thousand atlases, half a million photographs, two hundred and fifty thousand books, and many more items such as globes and glass slides.

There was so much to look at in the Royal Geographical Archive! Maps, journals, a compass, a boot, old food, all of it interested me! But the thing that interested me even more was the story behind each item. Each and every item could be accounted for and described in great detail why it was important. It was this alone that made each item in the collection that much more important!

The story I was most interested in was the exploration and search for the Northwest Passage in the 1820's. The search for a sea route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans was a task the Royal Geographical Society decided to undertake, sending out numerous members. Many men left and few returned. One man, John Franklin, died while searching for the Northwest Passage. His second in command took over, and slowly the crew died in the harsh conditions with no way back to sea.

It's stories like this that pull me into history. Things were so much different back then, life so much more uncertain and frightening. It's through the Royal Geographic Society that we can know what happened and properly recall and understand these pivotal moments in the history of exploration. The brave men that ventured into unknown territory should be immortalized for their contributions and sometimes sacrifices.

http://www.rgs.org/ourwork/collections/collections.htm