St. Paul's Cathedral

Pictures of the interior are from the St. Paul's Cathedral website as no cameras were allowed inside.

St. Paul's Cathedral was our first official trip as a class. We met with Joesph Wisdom the librarian of St. Paul's Cathedral. I explored the cathedral as only half the class was to be allowed up at a time. I can understand the people of the past would be in awe and humbled in the house of God as I stood in the middle of the rotundra and looked up. The trip down the stairs into the crypt of the cathedral was also amazing. I wondered how they were able to get the tombs and statues downstairs.

We went up towards the library in which one of the original rooms that could've been a library or scriptoruim housed Wren's great model. Into the library we went afterwards and saw the sulta psalms book that was illuminated and is belived but no provonence was given that to have survive the pre-fire that struck the cathedral. Joesph spoke about how catalogs and lists of the catalog was how they knew what books the library had.  During WW 2, the books were house in an underground cave in Wales. Although the library has their books catalog onto a database, that database is not published online openly. The do import / export some of their database with OCLC.  The problem with using exisiting records by other is there are extra things that only pertain to the creating library for it to matter. The card catalog still remain for the St. Paul's Cathedral library as it is relavent to the copy that is in the collection. Even if the library went digital, the master catalog lists should never be tossed out. It is a more permanent and complete list. At the moment, the collection is about 85% cataloged into the database. The collection is only available to researchers with prior approval and arrangement with the librarian. I found that by having a closed database makes this library more like a special collections archive.  Users would have to know roughly what their collection contained and ask the librarian for additional research help. 

After our library tour, we were allowed to go about on our own. I, decided to continue climbing up to the Whispering Gallery of the dome. After whispering to someone across the way, I continued to climb up to the Stone Gallery. That was a workout. I then climbed the last 152 steps up to the Golden Gallery. I thought it would be the same tower stone or wooden steps. No, it was not. It was a winding, metal, see -through shaking stairwell. To say I was frighten was an understatement and there was no way to turn around, so I went up. It was the most amazing yet frightening view I've seen.  I was lucky enought to have made it to the top as I was part of the last group up and down. I had climb up 528 up and down within 1 hour. No need for the stairmaster machine. When I am able to upload my personal photos, you will see the amazing height and view. You can see the webpage here to read about the climb. Climb the Dome at St. Paul's