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Royal Geographical Society Library and Archive

Our final journey to the Royal Geographical Society's (RGS) Library and Archive brought us to a quiet little corner north of the bustling sidewalks outside The Victoria & Albert Museum and The Natural History Museum and directly across the street from an entrance to Hyde Park.

 Upon entering we made our way downstairs to the reading room and settled in for a briefing on the history of the RGS, given by the Principal Librarian, Eugene Rae.

A table in the Reading Room laid out with the items Mr. Rae discussed.

  • In 1830 the Geographical Society of London was formed and its precursor was the Raleigh Club, a sort of dinner club for gentlemen who traveled and explored and would share their findings.
  • It was a way to gather and then disseminate data by publishing articles and journals to exchange their data information with other geographical societies.
  • The RGS also offered training in the use of navigation instruments.
The items that Mr. Rae shared with us are rare or one-of-a-kind items that have come to the RGS through donation or bequests. To better care for these items, in 2004 they added two climate-controlled rooms which also helped with the ever-present and ever-growing issue of storage. When it was built in 2004 they were told they had 10 years worth of space to grow, which was an accurate estimate ass they are currently seeking solutions to the storage problem.

The creation of the Reading Room brought the different collections of the varying departments of the RGS together and therefore allows for much more collaboration and simplifies research request fulfillment. 

When we asked Mr. Rae about the digitization of the collection he informed us that the actual digitization had be done in India. The items had been photocopied at RGS first before being sent to India. One issue that he reported was that the catalog needed some adjusting upon completion due to the complexities and intricacies of the items. For example, the name of a location would be mixed up with the name of the person in the image.

In terms of their collection development policies, the library still actively collects books but does not actively seek artifacts. They also do not accept donations unless they maintain full copyright.

It was a lovely place for the final class visit, as there were plenty of interesting artifacts to look at. Mr. Rae was also very kind after his talk to answer all of our many LIS related questions.


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