Heritage and Cultural Memory: The Milestone of the British Library - Essay Example

Heritage and Cultural Memory: The Milestone of the British Library Introduction Heritage and cultural memory are concepts expressed primarily withinthe concept of culture as ‘ways of life’. While various human populations identify particular traditions and items or artefacts as ‘heritage’, and while they think about heritage to mirror some kind of cultural memory, the strength of the relationship between heritage and cultural memory becomes apparent. Heritage and cultural memory have each been richly and comprehensively examined from the point of view of various disciplines. Between the two concepts, the one that is distinguished worldwide as an area of public cultural guidelines or legislation is heritage, or more particularly, preservation of heritage (Anheier & Isar, 2011, pp. 4-5). This involves preservation and commemoration by groups and individuals of historical relics that are believed to represent their cultural identities (Van Dyke & Alcock, 2008, p. 18). The field of heritage preservation has developed much recently, bearing witness to the cultural self-awareness of the contemporary period, as an outcome of which the notion of ‘culture’ itself has turn out to be increasingly changeable, its selections, treatments, and forms more and more complicated and varied. Several of the extension was symbolic but in actual terms the concept of heritage has also been twice as extensive: expanding to the whole of ‘material culture’ and to immaterial culture currently recognised as ‘intangible heritage’. The processes and standards of heritage preservation—and restoration—are widely recognised in modern cultural life, requiring substantial political and economic exchanges in identifying what objects and sites are to be conserved, protected, renovated, reconstructed, or not (Derclaye, 2010, p. 72). The sequence of events that ties these public choices together also influences the social symbols and values that are fundamental to the creation of cultural memories. Several scholars claimed that both intangible and tangible heritage “has become central to contemporary perceptions of collective memory” (Anheier & Isar, 2011, p. 5). and that “an increasing number of cultural groups now articulate their struggles for rights and recognition around the ownership and representation of their cultural heritage... And these representations—or negations of them—have often become conflictual, yoking history and culture to the purposes and acts of war” (Anheier & Isar, 2011, p. 5). Conflict, war, and other temporary or spatial disturbances have an effect on the permanence of cultural memory, and are committed to memory by different groups, who may espouse different understanding of the historical fact or genuine memory of the episode. Heritage and cultural memory are commonly viewed to be the property of an entire society, although specific historical objects may be owned by institutions, groups, or individuals instead of the state (Borelli & Lenzerini, 2012, p. 52). This is apparently the case as regards the heritage’s intangible features; nobody have possession of the works of Shakespeare although a massive number of libraries and individuals have copies of them. This is contrary to a land or building owned by a family or a person, although both the building and the land may belong to a common heritage. In almost all societies, the polarity of heritage ‘ownership’ is identified in the connection between the intangible, tangible, and state heritage (Borelli & Lenzerini, 2012, pp. 52-53). State institutions are normally partly responsible for the preservation of heritage and cultural memory. This could be an umbrella organisation which oversees and partially finances the preservation of heritage sites, structures, and objects, as well as perhaps those which are privately owned (During, 2005, p. 44). Hence, the proprietor of a historic building, even though indisputably its owner may not be allowed to perform renovations without the authorisation of the organisation tasked to represent the common interest in this particular decision. Furthermore, there are public agencies which in fact have possession of heritage objects, which implies that they are custodians in support of the national objects which are state-owned (Howard, 2008, p. 15). This is the status of a national archive, a national library, or a national museum, like the British Library. The British Library In 1973, the British Library (BL) was formed as part of the 1972 British Library Act, but its roots can be traced back to 1753 with the formation of the Act of Parliament of the British Museum from the compilations of Sir Robert Cotton and Sir Hans Sloane. In 1757, King George II included the Royal Library to these collected works (Chesser, 2011, p. 325). The collected works are composed of not just written documents and books but relics, archaeological finds, and natural history samples as well, hence the new library held such a diversity of history and cultural that it was actually both a museum and a library. The irony was that even though the foundations were upper-class in nature, they are currently owned by the people, and they can access them for at no cost. That ideal has continued until now, although financial demands on the public coffers may question whether this generosity can be sustained (Chesser, 2011, p. 325). Nowadays access to the reading rooms of the British Library is given to all those who have to see or make use of the collected works, irrespective of racial/ethnic affinity, academic standing, or institutional connections. Thus the duty of the British Library is to be a “guarantor of continued public access to both our rich legacy of content and new forms of digital content even in today’s climate of significant financial challenge” (Chesser, 2011, p. 325). The British Library and the National Library of France, both popular institutions in Europe, embarked on a library renaissance project. The fruition of the new manifestation of the British Library required millions of dollars and almost four decades of continuous effort. The new building of the National Library of France took a huge $1.5 billion but only ten years to complete (Gilbert, 2000, p. 1). The National Library of France and the British Library are comparable, both are national libraries and both contain a rich diversity of collected works ranging from written materials to historical relics (Gilbert, 2000, p. 1). The law requires that the British Library get a duplicate of every newspaper, magazine, and book published in the United Kingdom. Materials issued abroad are usually bought for the compilation. The records of all added materials are made public by the British National Bibliographic Service as the British National Bibliography (Kowal & Martyn, 2009, p. 108). It can be accessed through CD-ROM, computer units, the Internet, and print. The British Library accommodates the biggest and most wide-ranging western illustrated documents across the globe, strongly equalled by the Vatican Library in Rome and the Bibliotheque nationale de France in Paris (Backhouse, 1997, p. 7). The British Library amassed and organised different bodies at its institution and was enhanced, later on, by the inclusion of the National Sound Archive, the India Office Library and Records, and the British National Bibliography. Until 1997 the British Library sustained its services in the different edifices all over London that had accommodated its components (Feather & Sturges, 2003, p. 48). From the launching of the new British Library edifice at St. Pancras, the services and compilations of London have been mostly pulled together on only one location. The department of research and development has been transferred to Resource, the Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries. Although the services of London are provided from the St. Pancras edifice, two London storehouses have been maintained for excess materials. A new conservation facility is being constructed on the location (Feather & Sturges, 2003, p. 48). The Newspaper Library is still located at Colindale. Some of the employees of the British Library and a substantial portion of its collected works is transferred to Boston Spa, Yorkshire, where the documentation of the materials of the inquisition and numerous of the IT activities occur (Milo, 1993, 11). The arrangement of the British Library has changed throughout time since its birth as it has tried to a greater extent to form one organisational body from its components. The newest structure reflects, as well, the purpose of serving a crucial function in the archiving and preservation of electronic documents. Scholarship and Collections is in charge of the handling and protection of all collections; Operations and Services is in charge of all services; an advisory group of E-Strategy and Programmes supervises collections on the Internet and the creation of services (Howard, 2008, p. 82; Feather & Sturges, 2003, p. 48). Even though of comparatively new foundation the British Library identifies its origin with the formation of the British Museum Library in 1753 and its collected works manifest this. The collected works of the British Library include all identified languages and all periods of recorded civilisation. Particularly, the range and historical variety make it of international significance. The British Library is the recipient of official deposit policy which makes sure that UK documents are delivered and stored (Milo, 1993, pp. 11-12). Nevertheless, millions of dollars are also allocated annually for the inclusion of foreign materials and other layouts like electronic materials and texts that are not collected through official deposit. In 2000, “1,526,903 items were received by deposit, 70,133 items were donated, and 243,412 items, as well as 1.7 million patents, were purchased for the collection” (Feather & Sturges, 2003, p. 48). A system of charitable instalment of electronic materials has worked with publishers in the UK since January 2000. Since the 1995-1996 Collection Development Initiative, the collected works have been considered a solitary asset. Services intended for the users of the reading rooms and distant users are being worked out as an agreement. The obligation to acquire items to be transported either distantly or to the reading rooms signifies a particular necessity for acquiring on the Internet. The British Library sends millions of items annually (Howard, 2008, pp. 88-90). It releases the National Bibliography of every item distributed in the UK. General public services are delivered via publications, teachings, and exhibition courses of the British Library. The education division also offers greater access for educational institutions as well as information tailored for the national curriculum (Feather & Sturges, 2003, pp. 48-49). The British Library has the opportunity to broaden both the range of services and the patrons or clients to whom they are provided through electronic media. On the educational part this has resulted in programmes like the digitisation of the Gutenberg Bible in cooperation with Japan’s Keio University, and the digitisation of the Beowulf text in cooperation with the University of Kentucky (Feather & Sturges, 2003, p. 49). The Turning the Pages software of the British Library has been employed on a number of major collections to offer the experience of personally seeing and touching the polished pages of manuscripts and other documents. The major digitisation programmes, financially supported by the New Opportunities Fund, will additionally expand the scope of materials accessible in electronic format (Kowal & Martyn, 2009, p. 109). Heritage, Cultural Memory, and the British Library The custodial foundations, the libraries and archives, and museums, have a fundamental role in heritage preservation, and this is especially factual of the task of libraries and archives in the protection and conservation of the printed or documentary heritage. Obviously, there are key private compilations, and several foundations can be classified under the vague boundary between the private and public domains (Feather, 2004, p. 6). Nevertheless, according to Feather (2004, p. 6) no matter what their official legal standing is, and it differs from nation to nation, such foundations as public libraries and archives have a definite and usually clear responsibility to protect the heritage and cultural memory and in fact to encourage public access and appreciation of what is basically public goods or assets. The status of libraries is possibly vaguer than that of archives. Several libraries have a rightful and definite obligation of which cultural heritage is not involved, even though these libraries certainly belong to a national and in fact global mechanism of information dissemination which cannot work successfully unless information, regardless of medium or form, is made accessible to the people (Lerner, 2009, p. 27). In contrast, archives are essentially preservation bodies. Even though they are tasked to make written or printed materials available, their main task is to guarantee their dissemination and preservation. Any knowledge of preservation in libraries and archives starts from the idea that it is a fundamental component of their task as heritage organisations. Even though a great deal of the tangible heritage of many nations is either partially preserved or owned by the state, much of it is in fact built or produced by individuals and private groups for their personal intentions (Nickson et al., 1998, p. 93). Such intentions could be literary or artistic; they could be business-related; or they could be basically supplementary to the intentions for which the manuscript is written or the object is created. It is the latter of such classifications that poses a specific concern for heritage custodians to deal with. Although it is apparent that documents produced by a government in handling public affairs have a possible enduring importance and are public, it is quite unclear that the same is factual of a cluster of documents produced by, for instance, a for-profit organisation. But in libraries and archives the documents of trades and industries, manufacturers, banks, insurance companies, and professions are very useful to historians for the data which they have about political, social, and economic affairs (Feather, 2004, p. 6). Their continued existence is mostly by chance or unexpected until they are housed in a relatively secure sanctuary of an archive or a library. But if individuals or groups assert having better knowledge of the value of heritage and cultural memory than previous generations had, they should take into account how current documents produced by voluntary agencies, charities, businesses, and so on can be conserved for future generations in a manner which will provide a momentous idea into the work or creation of the institutions or entities by which they were produced (Feather, 2004, p. 6). To carry out this duty, an extra effort outside the task of individual organisations could be integral. The present trend of heritage and cultural memory has brought about the ‘inflation’ which has been illustrated by David Lowenthal along these lines (Anheier & Isar, 2011, p. 4): Like identity, heritage is today a realm of well-nigh universal concern. It betokens interest in manifold pasts—family history, buildings and landmarks, prehistory and antiques, music and paintings, plants and animals, language and folklore—ranging from remote to recent times. So widespread and fast-growing is such interest that heritage defies definition. Indeed, the term celebrates every conceivable thing and theme: anchorites and anoraks, Berlin and Bengal, conkers and castles, dog breeds and dental fillings, finials and fax machines, gorgonzola and goalposts are topics typical of a thousand recent books entitled Heritage of _____. Pervading life and thought as never before, heritage suffuses attitudes toward everything. In the case of the British Library, these approaches have produced a variety of exhibition, preservation, categorisation, and identification. These practices of the British Library are currently considered as comprising a new form of cultural production that merely has routes to the materials of the past (Twyman, 1998, p. 61). This is largely true perhaps to the concept of ‘intangible heritage’, as described by the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage: “the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills... as well as the instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces associated therewith—that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals, recognise as part of their cultural heritage” (Borelli & Lenzerini, 2012, p. 202). Not like the conservation of the material heritage, which is preserved in its existing form, the conservation of the intangible heritage requires documentation and cataloguing (Borelli & Lenzerini, 2012, p. 202). What form of ‘preservation’ is happening in the British Library? In the department of oral history, preservation would imply protecting the existence of these old forms by putting in objects to the Library’s collection, not merely guaranteeing the continued existence of available histories. With regard to time-honoured music, it would be to guarantee the survival of such forms and their usage (Twyman, 1998, p. 48). However, actual processes do not and in fact cannot protect the survival of all these forms. Rather, the British Library is taking part in a ‘metacultural’ method, which does not really guarantee that the information or wisdom symbolised in those who own it may vigorously perform or act out itself (Anheier & Isar, 2011, p. 4). But the intangible heritage is basically collection symbolised, expressed and passed on in performance. Any collection is rooted in symbolised knowledge and entails dynamic social relations for its production, performance, diffusion and reproduction. When weighed against the items usually exhibited in the British Library, intangible cultural memories can be less simply disconnected from the individuals who represent them (Tahan, 2008, p. 44). However, this attitude “seems to be occupying ever larger chunks of everyday culture and experience” (Anheier & Isar, 2011, p. 4), as well as “the electronic totalisation of the world on data banks” (Anheier & Isar, 2011, p. 4), making the British Library and other major libraries in the world way more than a sheer cultural foundation but “a key paradigm of contemporary cultural activities” (Anheier & Isar, 2011, pp. 4-5). As cultural memories are more and more assembled and activated in a library complex, heritage has essentially become a ground for deliberate preference, rationalisation, and embodiment. This has resulted in a sort of ‘obsession’, as ritual performances and adaptations of cultural practices are commemorated in the form of dance, music, clothing, and so on (Van Dyke & Alcock, 2008, p. 39). So what is the purpose of preserving heritage and cultural memory in libraries and archives? As cautioned by Richard Kurin, this is to overlook the “intricate and complex web of meaningful social actions undertaken by individuals, groups and institutions... Whether they survive or flourish depends upon so many things—the freedom and desire of culture bearers, and adequate environment, a sustaining economic system, a political context within which their very existence is at least tolerated. Actions to safeguard ‘tangibilized’ inventoried items of cultural production are unlikely to safeguard adequately the larger, deeper, more diffuse cultural patterns and contexts” (Anheier & Isar, 2011, p. 5). Processes of diffusing cultural memories produce streams of, and creations of, memories where in specific images and narratives are replicated and recreated, but also disputed and challenged through new media. Mediated cultural memories are essential in the generation of both collective and individual identities (Kowal & Martyn, 2009, p. 109). Scholars have examined the developments in latest media technologies as they affect how people commemorate the past, and claim that “media and memory, as cultural concepts, form the metaphors we live by: present technologies invariably and inherently shape our memories of past and present life” (Anheier & Isar, 2011, p. 9).The British Library building at St. Pancras will pull together most of the humanities, technical, and scientific services currently scattered all over London, developed enhanced preservation methods, and improve services to users (Milo, 1993, p. 12). Illuminated texts from the collections of the British Library have been showed off to visitors since 1851 and a whole portico in the British Museum edifice has been dedicated to Western illuminated volumes in an exhibit frequently depicted as a ‘national gallery of medieval painting’ (Backhouse, 1997, p. 9). The artistic works of the Renaissance and the Middle Ages is hence more and more well-known to numerous audiences. Electronic processes of heritage preservation and reproduction appear capable of guaranteeing that the contents of the texts will in the coming years become widely recognised. It is nevertheless unlikely to envision a period at which the prospect of this material will be capitalised on (Backhouse, 1997, pp. 9-10). The utter magnitude on which it lives on, not just in major national libraries like that of the British Library but in smaller private and public libraries as well across the globe, makes sure new images will be surfacing in the near future. There is currently more emphasis on the value of making the collected works of the British Library more available and accessible to a larger number of audiences. This is apparently a widely accepted proposal which tries to create a balance between heritage preservation and performance of cultural memories. With regard to heritage there have been uninterrupted efforts to endorse, made public, and familiarise it in ways that lessen or avoid possibility of damage (Howard, 2008, p. 76). Exposure and treatment are especially damaging to delicate objects and illuminated texts. Hence, the British Library persuades users to make use of existing slides, prints, microfilms, and other alternatives as much as possible. Reproducing a number of illuminated texts has been one way of popularising these splendid painted volumes globally and locally (Tahan, 2008, p. 45). The British Library’s advantageous practice of granting subsidies to other cultural foundations in the UK and abroad, although under highly rigid terms, has led to a rising demand for other collected works. Current technological developments, digital technology and the Internet have generated new means of making the collections of the British Library accessible more quickly; reaching more and distant audiences (Kowal & Martyn, 2009, p. 109). Systems devised by the British Library like Turning the Pages can now be accessed worldwide through the web. The new Aleph cataloguing process of the British Library, which was launched in 2004, now contains more than 12,000 lists of Yiddish and Hebrew literatures from its collected works (Tahan, 2008, p. 45). These lists can only be accessed through the Integrated Library System of the British Library which is accessible through the World Wide Web (Tahan, 2008, p. 45). With the acceptance of British publications, the British Museum’s book departments started to create a completeness of bringing together British materials; and the corresponding purchase of overseas and archaic materials indicated that the Museum was getting the references and materials which have guaranteed that the current British Library is at the heart of global scholastic activities (Howard, 2008, p. 81). At present the publicised strategic plans of the British Library for 2011 to 2015 are among the paramount signs of the British Library’s own view of its function and duty as a contemporary national library in terms of heritage preservation and performance of cultural memories. The first objective is to ensure access to its collected works, not just to its past and present collections but also to those it gains in the future, which ever more will be in novel forms (Tahan, 2008, pp. 45-46). Collected works of this magnitude and value have massive importance for the preservation of heritage and cultural memory, and this obliges the British Library to collaborate with the right organisations so as to guarantee that what it collects and what it does afterwards is valuable to those organisations. This, consequently, opens up major opportunities to look for mutual partnerships, the evident advantages of which involve mutual development expenses and guaranteeing proper communication with its users. In carrying out all of this, the British Library understands that its collected works have the capability to deepen the heritage and cultural life of its communities by introducing and familiarising those collections to the largest number of audiences possible (Twyman, 1998, p. 102)—not merely through prestigious symbolic objects, valuable and interesting though they certainly are, but in the finer points of what the British Library has, all of which has a value, essence, and maybe a future narrative to recount. Conclusions The concepts of heritage and cultural memory are strongly interconnected. Heritage, as a matter of public policy, has been the priority of custodial institutions, like the British Library, because it inevitably carries the performance and survival of cultural memory. Heritage involves preservation and commemoration by groups and individuals of historical relics that are believed to represent their cultural memories and identities. Two categories of heritage have been of substantial value to the discussion, namely, material (tangible) and immaterial (intangible) heritage. The British Library, as one of the major libraries in the world, has developed techniques to preserve both its tangible and intangible materials. The institution aims to reach a wider audience and promote greater understanding and appreciation of the national heritage and cultural memory of Great Britain by exploiting all possible media, such as print, electronic, and so on. The diversity of the British Library’s collection makes it one of the most valued heritage institutions in the world. References Anheier, H. & Isar, Y.R. (2011) Cultures and Globalisation: Heritage, Memory and Identity. London: Sage. Backhouse, J. (1997) The Illuminated Page: Ten Centuries of Manuscript Painting in the British Library. London: British Library. Borelli, S. & Lenzerini, F. (2012) Cultural Heritage, Cultural Rights, Cultural Diversity: New Developments in International Law. Danvers, MA: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. Chesser, R. (2011) ‘Music in the British Library: The Present and the Future’, Fontes Artis Musicae 58(3), 325+ Derclaye, E. (2010) Copyright and Cultural Heritage: Preservation and Access to Works in a Digital World. UK: Edward Elgar Publishing. During, S. (2005) Cultural Studies: A Critical Introduction. London: Routledge. Feather, J. (2004) Managing Preservation in Libraries and Archives: Current Practice and Future Developments. UK: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. Feather, J. & Sturges, P. (2003) International Encyclopedia of Information and Library Science. London: Routledge. Gilbert, E. (2000) ‘The High Tech and the Beautiful: Library Buildings, Digital Libraries, and the Future’, Library Philosophy and Practice 3(1), 1+ Howard, P. (2008) The British Library: A Treasure House of Knowledge. UK: Scala. Kowal, K. & Martyn, C. (2009) ‘Descriptive Metadata for Digitisation of Maps in Books: A British Library Project’, Library Resources and Technical Services 53(2), 108+ Lerner, F. (2009) The Story of Libraries: From the Invention of Writing to the Computer Age. UK: Continuum International Publishing Group. Milo, N. (1993) ‘The New British Library: Thirty-One Years in the Making’, Computers in Libraries 13(9), 11+ Nickson, M. et al. (1998) The British Library: Guide to the Catalogues and Indexes of the Department of Manuscripts. London: British Library. Tahan, I. (2008) ‘The Hebrew Collection of the British Library: Past and Present’, European Judaism 41(2), 43+ Twyman, M. (1998) The British Library Guide to Printing: History and Techniques. London: British Library. Van Dyke, R. & Alcock, S. (2008) Archaeologies of Memory. UK: John Wiley and Sons. Read More