Check out the website: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/library/visiting/maughan.aspx
I will admit, I fell asleep during Mr. Ray's and Katie Sambrook's presentation on their displayed collection. While my diet in London is much healthier back at home, I've found I'm having trouble being awake.
Nevertheless, I did find parts of the collections interesting--at least the parts I was awake for. I was confused as to why Benjamin Franklin's copy of the Pennsylvania charter would be here of all places until I remembered Franklin did build up a name for himself and was from England, like everyone else in the late 1700s. I also found the conservation philosophy interesting. Function over form does work better on the long run, but that would remove the originality of the materials. Personally, I would go with function above all else. Form is only something one should considers if they can afford replacing it, and we all know how little funding libraries have.
Further along our tour, I became moreover interested in architecture than librarianship. It began in the cell room, a room of unused iron shelves that made the room seem like a prison, and yet sometimes students come to study in this room. If I were to study here, I would end up reminding myself of the student debt imprisoning me once I leave college.
Anyway, this geared me towards why this library was built the way it is. The reconstruction of buildings after the fire of 1666 shows in the Maughan Library. Giant iron doors are to always remain closed, and the ceilings are extravagantly high. The floor is all stone tiles and bricks. Any wooden floor is linoleum. To prevent any fire hazards, huge windows Honestly, a focus on the development and improvements of architecture in terms of housing a library would have better made the Maughan Library more distinct than any other library.
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