RSS feedsSolid and robust, the 14 floors of the British Library (nine above ground, and five below) are a monument to memory, a haven for information. Since Bart Smith joined the institution in the late 1970s, his role has been to support that purpose, and he has done so on the front line.
Smith has nearly 30 years of unbroken service to the British Library under his belt. He has seen some big changes to the institution in his time, such as its move into the largest public building constructed in the UK during the 20th century, at St Pancras, in London.
In possession of a quick, almost frantic energy, Smith peppers our interview with facts and figures galore. You can feel his enthusiasm in the revelation of a nugget of information, but however random and refreshingly off-message those rare titbits seem at first, they all add up to some interesting listening.
It helps that Smith has a playful, even mischievous streak. There are tongue-in-cheek tales of despicable journalists and rude royals.
Recalling the time when the British Library was no more than a construction site, Smith says: “It’s not like they were digging a hole in the middle of nowhere; there were the sewage works, gas, electricity, water pipes and the Underground system to consider. There was even a disused graveyard they discovered.
“Little wonder the British Library took 15 years to build!
“Before the Kings Cross and St Pancras site was a railway station, it was a goods yard, built to bring food stock into London.
“When the railway was built in the 1860s, the Victorians levelled what was there, and found a graveyard with bodies from at least the previous century. When the excavation work was being done they weren’t sure what it was and all work had to be stopped. In the end the local archivist, Malcolm Holmes, found plans of the original graveyard, so of course all the bodies had to be reinterred.”
Smith waxes lyrical about the 1980s, a period when the British Library was dogged by controversy over plans about the construction of the new national library, with critics lambasting its scale and design. But it is clear that Smith relishes the role of historical narrator.
Not just for academics
“It’s important that the library is a huge resource for business and
entrepreneurs,” says Smith, “but there is so much in the library, it is of use
to all kinds of disciplines. Of course, you can’t ignore your traditional
academic users, but there is also so much for the general public these days,
like the recent interest in family history.”
Smith himself, hails from the red-bricked terraces of 1950s Stoke-on-Trent, and his voice still has a noticeable lilt despite the many years he has since spent in London. In 1972 he graduated from the London School of Economics with an upper second degree in economics before joining the now defunct Civil Service Department (now Cabinet Office).
“While I was there it was fine,” Smith says after a guarded pause, “but I really didn’t see myself as a civil servant. In 1979 I saw an advert in The Guardian for a job in the British Library. It was for cataloguers of rare 18th century books. All credit to the British Library, the Eighteenth Century Short Title Catalogue [ESTC] was quite revolutionary for the time as it was recataloguing information onto a database. I applied, and got the role the same week as Margaret Thatcher became prime minister.”
A year before that, Smith had gained his doctorate (again from the LSE) on the topic of the Jacobite issue in Anglo-Spanish relations. By 1984 (and with the help of the library paying for a day-release course), Smith had been awarded a postgraduate diploma in library and information studies at University College London. He then took the next step in his career, working as a reference librarian.
In 1989 Smith became the British Library’s press officer.
“When the library opened [at the St Pancras site], it was an interesting time to
be there and deal with the very public criticism, some of which was
spectacularly ill informed,” says Smith, referring to the comments made by
Prince Charles at the time. (“How can you tell it is a library? It has no
character to suggest it is a great public building,” the heir to the throne is
credited with saying.)
Smith continued as the British Library’s press officer for another 15 years. It must have been rewarding to see something that was often maligned and beset by controversy become so popular with business, academia and the public since its doors were opened?
“Well, yes, there were horrendous predictions, but so far it has gone pretty well from day one. It has become a major national asset,” he says proudly.
Smith is referring to several British Library successes: its formidable digitisation programme, its role as honest broker in the current copyright and intellectual property debate, its moves to rethink what a library should be and its place in modern life.
So what about Smith’s post-PR role at the library?
“In 2004 I became a humanities reference specialist. I spend 60% of my time in
the humanities room, dealing with enquiries, mainly face to face on the desk,
although we do get a lot of enquiries remotely.
“I do tours occasionally and assist colleagues with media education.”
No ordinary library
He adds: “The British Library is not like your ordinary library, where you go in
and pull something off the shelves. People can sometimes have difficulty finding
what they want if they are only used to a public library; for example, you can’t
take things out, find a subject like cookery on a shelf and pull it out. People
require assistance to make the best use of their time.”
What this translates into, as far as Smith’s expertise is concerned, is ap proaching each query with some lateral thinking, some detective skills and a little guesswork as to what is actually needed.
He explains: “If you are a reference librarian, you have got to be able to listen and interpret what they say, because sometimes what they ask for isn’t necessarily what they want. An example might be to consider whether they are asking, does the library have a copy, or is it even in print?”
Then there is the matter of archiving websites. The voluntary scheme the British Library has set up aims to preserve some of the UK’s online material that would otherwise be lost in the electronic ether.
Smith enjoys helping to pick which sites to approach for archiving, providing
they adhere to the project’s criteria of being free to use and
UK-based.
“The library is legally entitled to published works by legal deposit,” he says. “However, you are getting more and more sound recordings, for example, and various works on the internet.
There are few people responsible for archiving any of that material.”
Chav archive
With a glint in his eye he adds: “It is not just serious sites I am supposed to
be archiving, religious sites and so on. I have also archived a site called
Chavscum.com, a social phenomenon!” He is talking about the popular (but notably
redundant) website dedicated to Britain’s Burberry-clad bling-lovers.
Then there is the matter of Smith’s brush with TV fame. Quite the quiz king, Smith has appeared on University Challenge: The Professionals, a spin-off from the long-running academic quiz. He has also been on Test the Nation and The People’s Quiz.
It was on the University Challenge series that Smith captained the British Library team all the way to the final where they beat Oxford University Press in 2004. The OUP’s captain, Smith magnanimously notes, was “absolutely formidable”.
Speaking of formidable, what about the show’s presenter, the indomitable Jeremy Paxman? “Absolutely charming, absolutely delightful,” says Smith. “He even gave a very nice speech at the end saying how pleased he was that respected institutions like the British Library and the OUP were in the final.”
His subsequent appearance on The People’s Quiz (a National Lottery vehicle) was notable for the presenter, “a very sweet” Jamie Theakston, “trying to catch me out with the date thing”, a reference to Smith’s ability to give the correct day of any given date. Smith didn’t fail to get one right when IWR tested him, adding the revelation of a shared birthday with Osama Bin Laden.
Looking towards the future, Smith reveals that another TV appearance is on the cards, although he is reticent to name the show in case the plans fall through.
So what about the longer term? Considering his energetic vigour, it’s a little surprising when Smith reveals that he is due to retire in 2010.
There is a sense, though, that a quiet life holds little appeal for him, what with a recent cross-country trip through India and plans for another in the not too distant future.
At the end of our interview, just as the photographer shows up, Smith admits
he is in rather a rush to get home and take delivery of a rug, shipped across
the globe from that particular expedition.
We part ways. It’s been a refreshing, if eclectic discussion. From cataloguer to
PR man to reference specialist and web archivist, Smith, like the British
Library itself, has kept pace with change and moved with the times. There is a
certain appropriateness in Smith’s choice of the British Library as the crucible
for his career and his professional passions.
Post-interview, IWR returns to an awaiting email from Smith about that rug he was so eager to get hold of. The message contains just two words: “Perfect fit!” Indeed.
KEY FACTS - BART SMITH
• Born in Stoke-on-Trent, 15 February 1950
• Graduated from the LSE with a BSc (2i) in Economics, 1972
• Postgraduate diploma in library and information studies from UCL, 1984
• PhD from the LSE; thesis on Spain and Britain 1715-19: the Jacobite issue,
1978
• Joined the Civil Service (Cabinet Office), 1977
• Joined the British Library, 1979
POSTS AT THE BRITISH LIBRARY
• Cataloguer of rare books, 1979-1983
• Reference librarian, 1983-1989
• Press officer, 1989-2004
• Reference specialist for the humanities service, 2004 to date
All Library issues
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