ABSTRACT
Jack Simmons and I first met in the Reading Room of the British Museum Library in 1954.
Two years earlier an enquiry desk had been set up to deal with readers’ problems. Previously, newcomers had to try to find out for themselves how to use the catalogue and how to apply for books. If other readers were not sure that they could advise adequately, the enquirer would need to go to ‘the centre’, as it was called by the staff. This was the administrative hub of this round room, arranged on a raised circular dais, where sat the Superintendent and four clerks. It was to any one of these four that a reader would go for advice. The main responsibility of these four, however, was to control the issue and return of books, and with close on 400 reading places in the 1950s they could be fully occupied in this primary duty. Rarely could more than summary advice be given. It was not only new readers who sought guidance, and requests calling for a studied response would be referred to the Superintendent.
