The British Library Indexing - a word of warning

I paid a wasted visit from my home in Kent to the British Library. I wanted to search for Kelly's Directories for the borough of Battersea in London, ones which are not held in Battersea Public Library. The assistant told me that a new indexing system has been introduced and it is not working properly. This was proved when the index showed me just one Kelly's Post Office Directory for Battersea, one I did not require. It did not help that the assistant was a foreigner and did not know what are Kelly's Directories. I now have to write to the BL and state specifically what I require and the staff in Boston Spa will make a physical search.

I also tried to locate Kelly's Directories for Jersey in the Channel Islands. The index revealed an early one for St. Helier, which I did nor require, and alongside it was one for Newark in Nottinghamshire!

I moved on to the London Metropolitan Archives, where I was told to go to the British Library, which holds all Kelly's Directories for London!

 

Although it was for a different purpose I recently paid a very worthwhile visit to the British Library Archives. Fortunately I was not deterred by a disappointing response to an on line inquiry that I had made from Canada a month before. Two very helpful staff members in the Newspaper archives section took time to assist me, having admitted that the search engine had not provided me with the vital clue I needed to dig down into the microfilm holdings. Even with their considerable expertise and through consulting a reference book on the reading room shelves it took almost half an hour to steer me to the appropriate holdings. Very fortunately the relevant microfilm rolls were on site and made available to me within an hour! So I was able to read a letter written by my grandmother to a rather obscure left leaning weekly publication in 1910. Even better I was able to email the scanned page to my account so that it could be downloaded as a PDF. With only one day to visit I had to concentrate on the time frame when I knew she had contributed her views, but now of course I'm anxious to return at some time and look for her contributions in later years. Scanning microfilm even when it's newspaper print is a tedious task as many forum members will know but I was fortunate enough to find the on-line evidence that supports my less substantive research about her life during WWI. The whole day including renewing my expired reader room card went so smoothly that I almost felt I had to pinch myself to be sure I wasn't dreaming.