I’m beginning to find myself preferring working in the library at the Bishopsgate Institute rather than the British Library. There are less books, that’s true, but then I never look at the vast majority in the BL, so what the heck.

Arriving at the BL, you’re now always greeted by the invasive ’security’ which really isn’t going to make any difference to anything. I note in *some* (but not all) airports you now have to remove shoes. But not at the BL; neither is there a full body search so simply looking through my grubby rucksack doesn’t seem comprehensive enough.

There’s been some grumblings in various parts of the press recently about the BL’s open access policy, and why there are now so many undergraduates in there? I suspect it’s partly because universities have turned to factory farming as a model for education; cram in the students, take their fees and send them anywhere to get access to books.

From my own general egalitarian view, I find it fills the desks up with lots of people who prefer talking to reading and it makes it almost impossible to get a coffee as there is usually a huge queue. I often wonder whether this is deliberate policy as the coffee shops are one of the few areas the library can make money and so increasing the profits here can make the management believe they run a business.

Now, I discover that the Bishopgate’s Institute has an online catalogue at http://bishopgate.org.uk/catalogue - and it’s wonderful.

And when you want a coffee, you can pop round the corner to Spitalfields instead confronting the stupidity and nonsense of Kings Cross.