Shakespeare Centre Library and Archive

Everywhere I visit -- in class, and on my own as well -- I think "Wow! So-and-so would love this! I wish they could be here." Yesterday at the Shakespeare Centre Library and Archive my thoughts turned to my good friend Lesley. Although the library and archive is a wonderful resource for students of literature and history, I was struck by its relevence for students of theatre as well. After all, they have photographs, programs, posters, costume designs, set designs and prompt books from the Royal Shakespeare Company dating back to the 19th century!
The Shakespeare Centre Library and Archive is located in Stratford-upon-Avon in a building right next to Shakespeare's birthplace. The library is part of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, which was founded in 1874. Jo Wilding, one of our guides at the library, said the intention was always to collect items for a library on Shakespeare's life, his works, the times, and his contemporaries. Today, the collection is comprised of two parts: the local collection, which includes a variety of material on the area, particularly during Shakespeare's time, and the Shakespeare collection which contains material related directly to Shakespeare's life and work such as early editions of his work, sources he may have used, criticism and commentary, and performance materials. The Shakespeare collection includes many items from the Royal Shakespeare Company archive which moved into the care of the library in 1964.
The library contains many unique and valuable items, some of which we were priveleged to see, including three of the 228 surviving copies of Shakespeare's First Folio, published in 1623. There are 17th century books that Shakespeare may have used as sources and inspiration, including a book of Plutarch, and a book on herbs that misspells thyme exactly the same way Shakespeare did. And as one of my fellow students who is a teacher pointed out, she always suspects students of cheating when they misspell exactly the same word exactly the same way, which means chances are pretty good that Shakespeare referenced that exact book.
The Shakespeare Centre Library and Archive receives about 3,000 readers each year and 5,000 phone and email inquiries. Library visitors include school children doing projects on the local area, people researching their family history, new homeowners researching the history of their house, high school aged students doing projects on Shakespeare performance history, and fans of various Shakespeare actors usually looking for a copy of a photograph (which the library is happy to provide for a small fee). The library's deputy head Clare Maffoli said that they don't aim to be a comprehensive collection of all things Shakespeare-related, but that they try to maintain a useful, well-rounded, unique collection.
As part of a private charity, the Shakespeare Library and Archive receives all of its funding through the Shakespeare House and private donations. Although Clare did not consider the library under-funded, there are some projects that have been put on the back burner indeffinitely because of limited time and resources. For example, all material collected before 2000 is still catalogued in card catalogues and not included in the online catalogue. In addition, the library has an extensive collection of RSC video recordings that have very little chance in the near future of being transferred to DVD or other digital format. Clare said they do have a wonderful volunteer base who help them with projects such as database creation and conservation.
In addition to being a treasure-house of resources on Shakespeare and his life and times, the Shakespeare Centre Library and Archive also has a treasure in librarians and archivists that are truly thrilled and excited about the work they do and the materials they have to share.