The British Library Explore the world’s knowledge Enter

Next Skip Intro After Parliament passed the British Library Act of 1972, the British Library, the new national library of the United Kingdom, was put into operation on July 1, Under the Act, several institutions were administratively combined to form the British Library: the library departments of the British Museum (which included the National Reference Library of Science and Invention), the National Central Library, and the National Lending Library for Science and Technology (the center for interlibrary lending, located at Boston Spa in Yorkshire). In 1974 the British National Bibliography and the Office for Scientific and Technical Information joined the UK's new national library. Later, two additional institutions became part of the Library: the India Office Library and Records (1982) and the British Institute of Recorded Sound (1983). The British Library’s collections are housed in four separate locations: St Pancras, Colindale, Boston Spa, and Yorkshire (storage facility only.) These locations hold over 150 million items in most languages, including 14 million books, 920,000 journal and newspaper titles, 310,000 manuscript volumes, 3 million sound recordings, 8 million stamps, 60 million patents, over 4 million maps, and more. All this requires over 388 miles of shelves, and grows by 7 ½ miles every year. Introduction QUIT

Next Skip Intro Introduction Sir Isaac Newton statue at St Pancras location Sitting on History, by Bill Woodrow, in the lobby of the British Library Reading Room at the British Library QUIT Over 16,000 people use the collections daily, both on site and online. If a person vising the British Library saw 5 items each day, it would take over 80,000 years to see the whole collection of materials. Approximately three million new items are added to the Library’s collection each year. The British Library serves business, industry, researchers, and students, in the UK and world-wide. Over 100 million items have been supplied to users all over the world. Every year, six million searches are generated through the online catalog and nearly 400,000 people visit the British Library’s Reading Rooms. Many users frequent the Library’s extensive website where patrons can find online catalogues, information and exhibitions.website

St Pancras Colindale Boston Spa Storage Facility British Library Locations MAIN MENU QUIT

Next The British Library’s St Pancras location is the largest public building built in the United Kingdom in the 20 th century. Located in Central London, the building required ten million bricks and 180,000 tons of concrete for construction. The St Pancras building measures 1,205,557 square feet. Of the building’s 14 floors, nine are above ground, and five are below ground. The basements extend to a depth of over 80 feet. In the middle of the building is a four story glass tower containing the King’s Library. This includes 65,000 printed volumes along with other pamphlets, manuscripts and maps collected by King George III between the years of 1763 and St Pancras PHYSICAL STRUCTURE QUIT RETURN TO MENU

Next St Pancras is also home to numerous exhibition galleries, shops, a reader registration office, Reading Rooms, a Conference Center and four restaurants. SERVICES St Pancras The St Pancras location of the British Library has eleven Reading Rooms, each specializing in a different subject area or type of material and with different operating hours. Reading Rooms include: Asian & African Studies Reading Room Business & Intellectual Property Center Humanities Reading Rooms Manuscripts Reading room Maps Reading Room Rare Books & Music Reading Room Science Reading Room Social Science Reading Room In the Reading rooms, patrons can consult books, journals and other items from the collections, access a wide range of electronic resources and electronic journals, receive help from information specialists at the Reference Enquiry desks, and consult subject guides, bibliographies and other research aids. Science Reading Room Peyton & Byrne restaurant QUIT Back RETURN TO MENU

OTHER INFORMATION St Pancras QUIT Back RETURN TO MENU Interesting items held at St Pancras include: Magna Carta Shakespeare in Quarto Caxton’s Chaucer Diamond Sutra, the world’s earliest printed dated book Lindisfarne Gospels Leonardo da Vinci’s Notebook The Times first edition from March 18, 1788 Beatles manuscripts The recording of Nelson Mandela’s Rivonia trial speech Chinese oracle bones over 3,000 years old Thomason Tracts, containing 7,200 17th century newspapers Burney Collection, featuring newspapers from the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century

Next The Magna Carta is commonly thought of as one of the most important legal documents in the history of democracy. Translated, Magna Carta means the “Great Charter.” Originally issued in 1215, the Magna Carta was the first document forced onto an English King (King John of England) by his subjects, in an attempt to limit the King’s powers and protect their own privileges. To date, almost all the clauses have been repealed. Only three of the original clauses remain part of the low of England and Wales. Throughout history, the Magna Carta has been an important symbol to show that the King was bound by the law. Early New England settlers were influenced by Magna Carta, and it later inspired constitutional documents including the United States Constitution. Magna Carta King John of England QUIT RETURN TO MENU GO TO St Pancras MENU

Next Magna Carta The British Library has two copies of the Magna Carta. Both copies had been part of Sir Robert Cotton’s personal library, Cotton Library. After Cotton’s death in 1631, his grandson donated Sir Robert Cotton’s entire manuscript collection to the British nation. While the collection was being stored temporarily, a fire broke out and damaged numerous manuscripts, including the Magna Carta. Following a 19 th century restoration project at the British Museum, these fire damaged items were made available for public use. Sir Robert Cotton’s collection of donated materials includes more than 1,400 manuscripts and over 1,500 charters, seals and rolls. The majority of this collection can be viewed in the Manuscripts Reading Room of the British Library. Robert Cotton, 1626 QUIT Back RETURN TO MENU GO TO St Pancras MENU

Magna Carta To visit the British Library’s website and get a close-up look of the Magna Carta, and view other interesting interactive features, click HERE.HERE QUIT Back RETURN TO MENU GO TO St Pancras MENU

Next Shakespeare in Quarto QUIT RETURN TO MENU Shakespeare wrote poems and plays that included comedies, tragedies, and histories. Some of his best known plays include Hamlet, Othello, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Little is known about Shakespeare’s early life. Although extensive research has been completed, there is no documentation on when he began acting or writing plays. Globe Theatre William Shakespeare GO TO St Pancras MENU

Next Shakespeare in Quarto The British Library has 107 copies of the 21 plays by Shakespeare printed in quarto before the 1642 theatre closures QUIT Back RETURN TO MENU A “quarto” is the term used for a small, cheap pamphlet. When Shakespeare’s plays began to be printed in 1594, they were printed in this format. Twenty-one of his plays were printed in quarto, the last three being printed after his death in The quartos are the only printed texts of Shakespeare’s that survives GO TO St Pancras MENU

Shakespeare in Quarto To visit the British Library’s website and view the 21 plays Shakespeare printed in quarto, along with other interesting interactive features, click HERE.HERE QUIT Back RETURN TO MENU GO TO St Pancras MENU

The collections at Colindale include: All UK national daily and Sunday newspapers from 1801 to the present Most UK and Irish provincial newspapers, some dating from the early 18th century Selected newspapers from around the world in European languages, some dating from the 17th century A wide range of UK and Irish popular periodicals Many Asian-language newspapers Many Western-language newspapers Next Colindale Since the 1820’s, newspapers have been collected and stored by the British Museum. When space ran out, a new repository was built in Colindale in In 1973, Colindale became part of the British Library and now holds the entire British Library newspaper collection. This facility is unique in providing for the collection, preservation and use of newspapers. A bindery, microfilming and reprographic units are available onsite. Located in northwest London, the Colindale houses the collections of British and overseas newspapers, popular magazines, trade papers and comics. Visitors to this location have access to over 920,000 journal and newspaper titles. An online catalog of 52,000 items allows users to order items by credit card. PHYSICAL STRUCTURE QUIT RETURN TO MENU

Next Colindale The Reading Rooms at Colindale, North London, provide access to most of the Library's major collections of British and overseas newspapers. Due to a recent expansion, the Reading Rooms now have 145 spaces for users, including 52 for microfilm users and two for microfiche users. Access is available for research and reference not readily available in other public libraries. The Library contains some 650,000 bound volumes of newspapers and magazines and over 320,000 reels of positive microfilm. Users can take advantage of the Library’s copy services and microfilm readers/printers. SERVICES QUIT Back RETURN TO MENU

Colindale Currently, the British Library has formed a partnership with the digital publishing firm Brightsolid, for the purposes of creating an online archive of most of the Library’s historical newspapers. Up to 8,000 pages are being scanned daily and plans are to digitize 40 million pages over the next decade. This information is available through the British Newspaper Archive website. The website can be searched and viewed for free at any of the British Library’s reading rooms.British Newspaper Archive website Outside of the library, free preview snippets are available. To download full images and articles, users have various payment and accessibility options. The launch and further expansion of the British Newspaper Archive website will help the British Library to fulfill its strategic goals of long-term preservation of and access to the national newspaper collection. Volumes of newspapers to be digitized The digitization process OTHER INFORMATION QUIT Back RETURN TO MENU

QUIT PHYSICAL STRUCTURE Boston Spa Many of the buildings at the Boston Spa location were built during the Second World War when they were used as an ammunition factory. Decades later, many other buildings were built, adding offices and storage space. A new storage building opened in December 2009, which marked the beginning of a 70-year master plan at Boston Spa. This new facility will store 163 miles worth of items in a humidity and temperature controlled environment. Items will be stored in 140,000 bar coded containers, and will be retrieved automatically by seven robotic cranes. The long term plan for Boston Spa will include 40 acres of high- density storage, 8 acres of conventional storage, and new office facilities. Patrons hope that the new advanced library storage facility will help to safeguard their extensive national library collection for the future generations. New storage facility RETURN TO MENU Next

Back Boston Spa SERVICES In the Reading Room, over seven million items can be viewed from the Library’s Research Collection. Users also enjoy listening to the Library’s collection of sound recordings. The use of SoundServer, the Sound Archives digitized sound service, provides instant, self-operated access to the entire collection of sound recordings, including the most popular items. QUIT RETURN TO MENU Users can compile their own individual playlists for their listening enjoyment.

Boston Spa OTHER INFORMATION The Boston Spa location of the British Library has been specifically designed for document delivery services. Over 62 miles of shelving house a collection devoted to interlibrary loan Those wishing to obtain a Reader Pass for the Library must first register at the reception desk to be issued a visitor's badge and a locker key. Notebooks, pencils, a mobile phone and a laptop are the only personal possessions allowed into the reading room. Lockers are available for personal items, and you will be given a key to a locker during your registration process. If you have previously requested certain books, you will find them waiting for you on a shelf near the reading room entrance. QUIT Back RETURN TO MENU

Next External Links The Philatelic Exhibition Sir John Ritblat Gallery: Treasures of the British Library EVENTS, EXHIBITIONS AND PERMANENT GALLERIES Writing Britain: Wastelands to Wonderlands Titanic Lives: Migrants and Millionaires, Conmen and Crew QUIT RETURN TO MENU

Site Map St Pancras Main Menu Introduction 2 Introduction 1 Title Colindale Boston SpaStorage FacilityExternal Links Services Information Services Structure Information Services Structure Chaucer 1Magna Carta 1 Submenu Information Shakespeare 3 Shakespeare 2 Shakespeare 1 Magna Carta 3 Magna Carta 2 Chaucer 3 Chaucer 2 QUIT RETURN TO MENU