We were delighted to welcome as part of the conference our friends at the Barbican Library with a stand for delegates to browse through samples from their amazing Golden Age Crime Collection. 

The collection was acquired in the mid-1980s, largely through the efforts of the then Director of City of London Libraries, Melvyn Barnes. Melvyn has never held truck with the snobbery about detective fiction in certain circles and is the author of Murder in Print: A Guide to Two Centuries of Crime Fiction.

I was delighted to find when I checked their catalogue that one of the speakers’ recommended list books, of which I hadn’t been able to get a copy, was there. 

I was even more delighted to discover that if I turned up with proof of address at the Barbican Library, I could become a member and immediately take out the rare book in question on loan for 3 weeks. 

How good is that? Don’t you just love our fantastic library services?