I'm interested to hear that others are enjoying record numbers of users:
Lambeth Palace Library has also been experiencing a rise in visitor
numbers since the New Year (Millennium resolutions?). Although we did
feature in "Breaking the Seal" two weeks ago, and will be on again,
there haven't been any noticeable effects from that exposure so far -
though as Bettany forgot to inform the audience what they were looking
at, that might explain matters (it was Archbishop Warham's register).
We haven't got any hypotheses as to the reason for this - we're too busy
trying to cope eg. with last Friday's record 20 readers in our
14-working-spaces reading room...
However, last year when I was at Wolverhampton Archives & Local Studies
and we managed to get a piece into Midlands Today (local TV news) about
the cataloguing I'd been doing, numbers of people asking for "the big
maps that had been on telly" rose dramatically for a while.
Incidentally, in the light of our experiences with Picture House TV (who
make Breaking the Seal) I drew up a document which attempts to
formalise/improve the relationship between the library and film crews in
the future including arrangements for parking, handling and description
of the material used, and the general impression given by the programme
of using the Library (eg.if "readers" are shown then a shot of the
reading room is to be included rather than focussing on the Great Hall
which is rather more pictorial but is not where readers work). I
haven't yet used it for real, but if anyone would like a look (Word 97)
then email me & I'll send.
Sarah Wickham
Assistant Archivist
Lambeth Palace Library
London. SE1 7JU
+ 44 171 898 1400
+ 44 171 898 1299 (direct)
+ 44 171 928 7932 (fax)
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