Jessica Markwell

When I was a student,  the circular Reading Room of the British Museum was like a club. Passes were only handed out to an exclusive few. Readers  who researched there - seated next to the ghosts of Karl Marx, Lenin and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle -   were highly privileged. Now the Reading Room is closed, and it has been superseded by the much more egalitarian British Library. A pass can be acquired si