Following the recent enquiry about the Selukwe Gold Mining and Finance Company, 
it occurred to me to enquire what the situation is these days regarding the old 
Institution of Mining and Metallurgy library which, following the merger of various
institutions, is now housed in the basement of 1, Cartlon House Terrace, London,
the headquarters of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (www.iom3.org).
 I asked Frances Perry, the librarian, what the situation is, and this is what she
says:
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The bad news is that alas, we are constantly inundated with historical enquiries from 

all sorts of people and that our staff resources are quite inadequate for dealing with 

them!  However, do keep mentioning to people that we exist (maybe one of these 

days we could get a lottery grant or something to fund a member of staff, as we've 

a valuable public resource here in historical terms - it's just that as a members' 

technical library we can't justify spending time on such things). 

 

At the moment my general policy is that we welcome all who can visit us to pursue 

their historical enquiries by themselves, i.e. with minimum help from the staff after 

an initial brief induction!  We still waive the non-member visitor's fee for bona fide 

not-for-profit historical researchers. E-mail enquiries from [IoMMM] members I would 

answer with an indication of what material we might have available and the offer of a 

quick (very quick) search on their behalf if they can't get up to London. However, for 

most distance enquiries I can only offer a full-scale search at our normal fee of £50 

per hour (minimum £50 - plus VAT). Even then, because I don't give priority to history 

enquiries, I occasionally have overseas enquirers who pay their £50 and are then kept 

waiting for weeks or months. I'm really struggling here now.             

 

The three resources I most commonly use are 

(1) Skinner's mining yearbooks and other early directories (c.1887 onwards); 

(2) Mining Journal (on film, 1837-c. June 1904, and hard copy thereafter - no 

microfilm printer at present, only a reader); 

(3) The old subject indexes to the library collection 1894-1949 (on microfiche 

and in tiny handwriting, so you need good eyes!) 

 

I should mention that I've just heard that library visitors will soon be heading for Grantham 

(an hour north of London by train) - Council decided at its last meeting to move the 

library up there, now that its use by visitors to  the expensive London premises is so low. 

There'll supposedly be a dedicated member of staff to service it, but in any case 

(provided there's a telephone handy for the library) users will be able to consult me by 

phone as to what they should look at next!  The alternative option will involve advance 

booking and the sending of relevant material down here, but I expect that will involve 

a charge. 

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Tony Brewis