From the title you may think this is going to be a very deep in-depth discussion about philosophy and such, however i'm here to quickly tell you that it is not. What this very ambiguous title is referring to is actually about the events that unfolded yesterday in my attempts to get a readers pass at the British library.
My aim yesterday was to travel into London, go to the British library, register for a readers pass so that I could access there historical books and archival resources and then to continue with some of my dissertation research. Although this my seem simple enough that's not how events played out.
Due to storing such rare and fragile sources, there is a different way of doing things at the British library compared to normal libraries. One of the first big differences being that you are not allowed to take out any of the archive resources, due to there often being no copies and that they are fragile and need to be looked after. The second thing is that you need to have a readers pass, kind of like a library card, but this allows you to get into the various reading rooms and allows you to look up and order the sources you want to examine.
How does this fit in with the whole title malarkey you ask though. Well in order to register for a readers pass you need two specific things, a document displaying your signature and a separate document with your current address on. These documents however have to be from their list of specific examples and have to be no older than three months old. Upon searching my flat, I found a few things that cover my signature document I.e my passport and driving licence, but only had one letter with my current address on that could work, that being a letter from the NHS saying I'd registered nearby at the GP. Both of these documents I thought were sufficient enough examples but it later turned out that they did not accept any letters from the NHS as proof and I was not allowed to get my pass, meaning I could not go in and do my work.
After trekking back home I again decided to go through all my papers to see if there was anything else I could use and discovered that my life on paper is pretty divided or don't exist. Because I currently don't drive I still haven't changed my address from the one up in Scarborough, my passport doesn't show an address, my bank cards are all set to my 'family home', all of my banks now have me on paper free statements meaning that they are only seen online, I don't pay council tax or utility bills as I am in student accommodation, and they won't accept letters from eBay or Amazon as valid proof.
I have managed to sort something out now so should hopefully be able to go back next week and finally register, but I will have to try sort out all of these different things and get them updated to current contact details and addresses etc... Who knew there would be all of this hassle over just trying to get a pass so that I can do some work in a library.
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