Having the job as carpenter to the British Library must be as daunting as being employed as the painter on the Forth Bridge.
The British Library is one of six copyright libraries to which publishers in the United Kingdom are required to send a copy of every new book. Each year it receives three million new books. Hence a requirement for twelve kilometres of new shelving per year. (Source: Observer).
It has been calculated that, if a person looked at five books per day (note that I wrote 'looked at', not 'read'), they would require a life-expectancy of at least 80,000 years to see the entire library.
Now, just where did I leave my bookmark...
No comments:
Post a Comment