The BM is a huge labyrinth, there are lots of stairs all around, doors which are not available for the mass, rooms for elite and many other secret spaces about which an ordinary visitor cannot even think.
In the first part of the day, we have covered the topic of collection management. While discussing the standards of storage I could not forget the memorial house-museum of Aybek. The BM has perfect conditions for storing their enormous collections, and they still try to find ways to update the rooms.
I was lucky enough to visit the actual storage of Egypt and Sudan. Every material has its own way of preservation. For example, some of the papyruses are stored vertically, some of them horizontally, but all between two glasses molded from pests. At the moment, the museum has a huge work of standardizing the coding of all the exhibits (since the system is different at different departments, and it is different at different periods of time). Same is happening in Uzbekistan right now, all the museums are struggling with transferring all the data to the electronic system.
I was very surprised to see that some of the items like jewelry have the number right on the surface, which looks unesthetic. In the room of pottery, I was about to puke because of a very specific smell. When I asked about it, the collection manager said that before it was a room for mummies and the smell of dead bodies is still here.
I just cannot imagine how passionate a person should be about the work he or she does in order to work in the basement with a lack of air surrounded by old or dead objects.
The second part of the day was even more impressive. We had a lecture about the libraries and archives, which were followed by the tour to these places. The library of the BM is scattered around the museum and is divided into different sections. We were taken to the archeology and anthropology department where we saw the books which are invaluable, some of them are even older than my great grandparents. Afterward, we were given a task to find a book related to our home country...I could not find anything. I was very sad and confused, I could not understand the reason: is our history poor or we just do not present the books to other countries or nobody is interested in Central Asia. After walking between aisles for half an hour I finally decided to talk to the senior librarian -Antony Loveland (cool surname). He explained to me that most of the exhibits and books the BM has are from the countries which were their colonies before. And he kind of reminded me about the Russian Empire.
I was also surprised that the BM does not have its own publishing, and most of the books are published in Thames and Hudson. At some point in history, the BM closed its publishing, but most of the people working there right now think that it was a mistake. The board of trustees is seriously thinking to have it in the future plans, we will see how it will work.
What do you think about when you hear the word archives? I think about some dusty basement with piles of paper all around. But it turned to be that the BM archives are located in the former public British library which looks freaking amazing. The library was established in 1753, and it looks exactly the same today. There are many archive documents stuffed on the shelves such as property plans, political documents, and even the books of the library visitors. It was terrific to see the registration of such people like Karl Marx and Oscar Wilde.
The end of the day was full of adventure with my new friends. We went to the London Eye, saw homeless musicians, used London underground, and ate Indian food.
