The British Library, as fiefdoms

Cortez writes “Ever the British, ever the rank: http://books.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,16488, 1578496,00.html “The British Library is a calm, civilised place. Within its high-ceilinged, monastic rooms academics, writers, researchers and students pass their days in silence, committed as they are to the noble pursuit of reading. Who would have thought that these rarefied halls, a world away from the polluted streets of nearby King’s Cross, are a seething hotbed of elitism and hierarchy?””