THE TRANSMISSION OF INTERLIBRARY LOAN REQUESTS: A REVIEW OF METHODS, WITH COMMENTS ON THEIR USE AT THE BRITISH LIBRARY LENDING DIVISION

Many institutions, colleagues, and friends have helped bring this volume together. The seeds began at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2009; they grew significantly during a stay at Durham University from 2012 to 2014; they bear fruit finally at the University of Nottingham now in 2015. I am grateful to all three universities for the opportunity to work on this project, grateful to the library staffs and interlibrary loan departments who consistently accepted and processed hundreds of my requests. I have been lucky to fall on my feet here in Nottingham, where new friends and colleagues have managed to make me feel at home in a matter of months, this despite consistently pointing out my unconscious Americanisms. The archives in which these documents are found deserve thanks not only for permission to publish but also for the courteous service I received while in situ. The British Library is justifiably a magnet for many early modernists, but Lambeth Palace Library has a wonderful charm all its own, the Huntington offers an idyllic setting in an otherwise busy environment, and the National Library of Scotland felt a home away from home for a time. For fellowship support during the research and writing, I am grateful to the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Department of History, the European Union's COFUND/Marie Curie Actions, and the Huntington Library.

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3. The British Library Lending Division

Journal of Information Science ◽

10.1177/016555158000200307 ◽

1980 ◽

Vol 2 (3-4) ◽

pp. 173-182 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Maurice B. Line

Keyword(s):

Conference Proceedings ◽

English Language ◽

Fast Rate ◽

Great Majority ◽

British Library ◽

Interlibrary Loan ◽

English Music

The British Library Lending Division, formed in 1973 from the former NCL and NLLST, is planned on the principle that the great majority of interlibrary loan requests should be met from a central lending collection. Demand has risen at a very fast rate, and the Lending Division handles 3 million requests a year - three-quarters of all British interlending demand. Acquisition aims to be comprehensive, above a certain level, for serials, English-language monographs, report literature, conference proceedings, translations into English, music scores and British and international official publications. The collection is supported by ‘back-up’ libraries to which requests may be passed and by union catalogues giving locations of libraries that may be approached direct. 83% of valid requests are met from stock, as many as possible by photocopies, and a further 7% from other UK sources. Requests from abroad (currently over half a million a year) have grown very rapidly. Systems and procedures are designed for simple, fast and economical operation. Among other activities, the Lending Division serves as a repository for material withdrawn from other libraries and as an exchange centre, and arranges for translations to be made.

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Kharita: the royal art of letter dispatching

Afghanistan ◽

10.3366/afg.2019.0030 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 2 (1) ◽

pp. 141-152

Author(s):

Ula Zeir

Keyword(s):

British Library

The practice of dispatching kharita had been part of the royal correspondence of Muslim rulers for centuries, particularly in Persia and India. Originating from Arabic, the term kharita refers to a pouch fabricated from leather or silk, or possibly other material. Although the dictionary definition applies to the pouch itself, the act of sending a kharita indicates that a royal letter is placed inside the pouch. Therefore, a kharita is the pouch and its contents. The article examines one particular kharita (Mss Eur F111/361, ff 2–5 at the British Library). The study identifies the elements that comprise the kharita item, and make it a piece of royal art.

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Music, Landscape, and the Sound of Place

Journal of Musicology ◽

10.1525/jm.2016.33.1.11 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 33 (1) ◽

pp. 11-44 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Daniel M. Grimley

Keyword(s):

Sense Of Place ◽

Natural Environment ◽

Cultural Geography ◽

Continental Philosophy ◽

British Library ◽

Musical Meaning ◽

Final Time ◽

Walking Tour ◽

Meaning Representation ◽

Critical Literature

One of the most poignant scenes in Ken Russell’s 1968 film Delius: Song of Summer evocatively depicts the ailing composer being carried in a wicker chair to the summit of the mountain behind his Norwegian cabin. From here, Delius can gaze one final time across the broad Gudbrandsdal and watch the sun set behind the distant Norwegian fells. Contemplating the centrality of Norway in Delius’s output, however, raises more pressing questions of musical meaning, representation, and our relationship with the natural environment. It also inspires a more complex awareness of landscape and our sense of place, both historical and imagined, as a mode of reception and an interpretative tool for approaching Delius’s music. This essay focuses on one of Delius’s richest but most critically neglected works, The Song of the High Hills for orchestra and wordless chorus, composed in 1911 but not premiered until 1920. Drawing on archival materials held at the British Library and the Grainger Museum, Melbourne, I examine the music’s compositional genesis and critical reception. Conventionally heard (following Thomas Beecham and Eric Fenby) as an imaginary account of a walking tour in the Norwegian mountains, The Song of the High Hills in fact offers a multilayered response to ideas of landscape and nature. Moving beyond pictorial notions of landscape representation, I draw from recent critical literature in cultural geography to account for the music’s sense of place. Hearing The Song of the High Hills from this perspective promotes a keener understanding of our phenomenological engagement with sound and the natural environment, and underscores the parallels between Delius’s work and contemporary developments in continental philosophy, notably the writing of Henri Bergson.

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