[Q] India Office Library in London

[chattrj at is3.nyu.edu]

>I am planning to visit India Off. Library in London during my trip to U.K.
>Could someone please provide information about its location, opening times, 
>whether photocopying facilities are available, etc. etc.!

The hours of IOL are  9 am--5:30 pm, I believe. It's located at the British
Library's Orbit House on the South side of the Thames, on Blackfriars Road.
The exact address is 197 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8NG. The closest Tube
stations are Waterloo (on the Northern and Bakerloo line) and Blackfriars
(on the District and Circle lines). It's closer to Waterloo but the walk
over the Blackfriars Bridge is quite pleasant, if the weather is pleasant,
too! The telephone number is 0171-412-7000. You can e-mail them at
"oioc-enquiries at bl.uk" with your questions. I don't think they have a
website and even if they do it's not very good, but it's worth checking with
them. Yes, photocopying facilities are available, but don't bank on it
because it is 20 p per page on the self-service machine and more if they
have to do it for you. Depending on how old your requested books are, they
might not allow you to use the self-service machine, in which case it not
only gets expensive, you lose time too, since the turn-around time is
normally 24 hours! A good idea is to use a lap-top computer (they have a
special room for lap-top users) and/or use a small tape recorder into which
you could whisper-in your readings and transcribe them down later (I have
done that and it works!).

Good luck!

:Sudipto Chatterjee
New York University
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