A LIMITED PROFESSION

Evening Star, Issue 19349, 8 September 1926, Page 12

A LIMITED PROFESSION

SEARCMI! FOE REKEREHCES When it was proposed some years ago to place restrictions on the uso of the reading room of the British Museum, so as to prevent it becoming overcrowded, it was humorously suggested that the most effective way in which to protect the rights of the “ regulars ’’ who have been using the room for many years would be to turn out any reader - who was found to be awake. There is no doubt, says a writer in the ‘ Age,’ that the atmosphere of the famous reading room is quiet and somnolent, but it is not true that the “ regulars,” most of whom are men of shabby appearance, go there to sleep. They go there to earn their living by searching for references, for which they are paid according to the nature of the job Uicy have on hand. Sometimes the job takes only an hour or two; sometimes it takes a week or two, and sometimes it lasts for years. Many of these shabby old men possess scholarly attainments, n.nu most of them are authorities ou some abstruse subjects. The reacting room of the British Museum is circular in shape, and the seats radiate from the centre. This circular room, which is covered by a dome 106 ft high and 140_ft fai diameter, is the largest domed room in the world, with the exception of the Pantheon at florae. There are 4,000,000 volumes in the library, aaid the total length of shelves exceeds fifty mles. The general catalogue consists of 1,000 volumes. Publishers in the United Kingdom arc compelled by law to send to the library a copy of every bock they publish, but the additions to the library also include some thousands of books published in other countries. In the reading room there are seats for only 458 readers, and the accommodation is usually taxed to the uttermost. Headers are not allowed access to the shelves (except those containing directories and reference books), but have to fill up a form for each book they want. Admission to the reading room is- by ticket, issued from the director’s office to tfiosc who apply in writing and support their application with a letter from a responsible householder. (Ordinary visitors to the museum, of which the reading room forms part, are not allowed into the reading room, but as a great concession they are allowed, under the guardianship of an attendant, to approach the glass doors and look in _ The reading room is used mainly by searchers, tho casual reader being catered for sufficiently by the public libraries and reading rooms in the various municipalities of London. Some people go to tho museum reading room and do their own. searching, but many pro f cr to pay to have it done by men who have had a groat deal of training in searching for references, and are so well acquainted with the resources of the reading room that they know where to look for what is wanted. Authors engaged in writing historical, scientific, br technical books have often to engage professional assistance in searching for information they need. People living at a distance from London write vo the museum authorities asking for information of the most varied kind, and if they are willing to pay a fee corresponding to tho amount of work involved, the task of supplying this information is handed over to one of the professional readers, who are in constant attendance at the reading room, though they have no official connection with it. Newspapers which make a practice of answering questions by correspondents have frequently to call in the aid of professional searchers in order to obtain information wanted. And in course of time a professional searcher builds up a clientele. When he knows that a client is interested in a particular subject he makes a note of everything he comes across in relation to that subject, and sends the information along to the client.

In the July number of * Cornhill,’ Mr John Gibbons, who, for the past twenty years has earned his living as a professional reader, gives an interesting account of the varied tasks he has been asked to carry out. One request was from a gentleman who wanted to know how the Abyssinian Church keeps its Sunday. The inquirer, in the course of years, had joined and left almost every known religious denomination, the reason for severance in each case being bis conviction that Sunday was not properly observed. Mr Gibbons was able to obtain the information required, and the inquirer was so pleased that he expressed his intention of settling in Abyssinia, as the Abyssinian Church was the true faith. Anotlier inquirer had jingling in his brain two lines of a poem that he had read fifty years ago. He did not know where he had read it; he did not know th© name of the poem or the name of the author. But ho was willing to pay for some weeks of searching to obtain the whole poem, and Mr Gibbses was able to run it to earth, though he declares that the achievement was due largely to luck. The professional reader has to be able to supply, at short notice, information on almost any subject, no matter now unfamiliar the subject has previously been to him. “ Even hard-headed trade brings its griss to the museum mills, and I must in my time have searched into tlie history of most things, from tobacco to locks and keys.” writes Mr Gibbons. “ Sometimes the story may be wanted for a brochure of the history of the house, and sometimes it is an amateur after more fodder for his lifetime's hobby horse. One trade case had to do with everything, good, bad, and indifferent, ever written on the properties of a certain foreign plant of which I had never heard. My prospective employer, 1 fancy, had it in mind to sift the grain from the chaff, and by printing everything 1 might find about the virtues of the article in question, while tactfully ignoring the other, and doubtless less well informed views, to tnm a vague something into a limited company. Unfortunately I have no note as to subsequent happenings, for before I began my actual work, it turned out that my own fee was payable in kind, to bo taken out in shares of the company-to-be. Pew professional readers have the financial mind, and I turned the offer down, thereby possibly throwing away the efaanco of a lifetime."

“An unusual problem,” continues Mr Gibbons, “ was presented by the question as to which of two Rumanian saints of identical name was the subject of a certain reference. At the British Museum I could find nothing, but I did find a gentleman who was an expert on the subject. Somewhere, if one can only find him, there is somebody with a knowledge of any and every point. The unravelling of obscure dedications is another matter that needs research, and I have even been consulted about details for a new stained-glass window. It was a foreign convent that wrote to know if I could trace its sisters during thoir exile in England in the times of the great French Revolution. Given the lay names, I was able to find the Mother Superior as plain Madame keeping a school for young ladies.” Although the “ regulars ” at the reading room see one another day after day for years, they soHam form friendships, and seldom even speak to one another. “ What we all are outside the reading room, whore wo live, what on earth my neighbor is searching for, has for twenty years been a perpetual puzzle to mo,” writes Mr Gibbons. “The old gentleman popularly supposed to live in a common lodging-house may be the greatest of scholars under a rather unconveutonal appearance; or again, he may be quite improperly collecting addresses for begging letters. I never knew, and I never shall know. An unsociable and deeply suspicious crowd of men, each of ns readers, is soraetlii.ng of a mystery to our neighbor. But at least among us all is always someone with a surprising knowledge of where to find all about anything the whole wide world, as I found when only a week or so ago ! was given a little commission in connection with some old prints. Two of them were titled in Dnlch of the early seventeenth century, and when I hunted round for a translator I found the reader next to my own seat an expert cn the subject. For twenty years I had been seeing him, and never knew him. For the matter of that, for twenty years I have been passing through the great entrance hall of the museum, and can hardly have turned half a dozen times off the beaten path to the reading room. Bo that the country friend who invites me, to show her children the mummy room must get a shock indeed. Twenty years at the British Museum, and I have to ask the attendant where the mummies ‘ live ’ ”