British Library

The British Library came into existence in 1973 as a result of the British Library Act. Parliament’s vision was for a single institution at the heart of the UK’s information network, which would aid scientific and technological research, business, the arts and humanities.

To make this happen, several organisations were brought together to create a national library.

The British Museum Library, founded in 1753, contained one of the world’s largest collections of books, manuscripts and periodicals, both contemporary and antique, British and foreign.

It was created as ‘one general repository’ to hold the collections of Sir Hans Sloane, Sir Robert Cotton and Robert and Edward Harley. When it inherited the library of George III in 1823, its printed books doubled in number, prompting a move to the site of the current British Museum.

Opening in 1857, the Library’s Round Reading Room – with its magnificent domed roof – became an iconic destination in the literary landscape of London. George Gissing used it as the setting of his 1891 novel New Grub Street, describing it as ‘the valley of the shadow of books’, while lamenting the difficulties of obtaining a Reader ticket. Its roof was also used in the climax of Alfred Hitchcock’s film Blackmail (1929).

The room welcomed many famous visitors including Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, Karl Marx, George Bernard Shaw and Virginia Woolf. Lenin too applied for a Reader ticket, adopting the pseudonym Jacob Richter to cover his tracks from the Russian authorities.

During World War II, some of our most precious treasures were moved to a secure cave in Aberystwyth, with round the clock guards. Meanwhile, the Newspaper Library in Colindale, north London, suffered substantial damage from bombing and some of the collection had to be transferred to quarries in Wiltshire while repairs were made.

One of the first challenges for the new British Library in 1973 was to find a premises to bring together these disparate collections and institutions.

An old rail goods yard in St Pancras would become our home. Opening its doors to the public in November 1997 and receiving an official inauguration by HM Queen Elizabeth II the following June, the Library became the largest public building constructed in Britain in the last 100 years.

Although its modernist design by architect Sir Colin St. John Wilson originally divided critics, the building achieved Grade 1 listed status in 2015. Today it lies at the centre of an area of huge regeneration, home to the Knowledge Quarter and Google.

The British Library Board is a non-departmental public body operating at arm’s length from its sponsor, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). The Chief Executive is also the Accounting Officer appointed by DCMS, and a management agreement with the Secretary of State sets out our Grant in Aid allocation and funding conditions. The British Library has full charitable status, but has exemption under the Charities Act 2011 from registration and oversight by the Charity Commission. DCMS acts as the Library's principal regulator for charity law purposes.

Under the provisions of the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003, the British Library receives a copy of every printed publication issued in the UK. The Legal Deposit Libraries (Non-Print Works) Regulations 2013 extended this arrangement to include UK websites and electronic publications.

Since 2014, the British Library Board has been responsible for administering payments to authors under the terms of the Public Lending Right Act 1979.

The British Library Act requires the Board to manage the Library “as a national centre for reference, study and bibliographical and other information services in relation both to scientific and technological matters and to the humanities”. It also sets out the statutory aims of the Library, which must “make its services available to the public and, in particular, to institutions of education and learning, other libraries and industry”. It may carry out and sponsor research, contribute to the expenses of library authorities or other persons providing library facilities, and make any part of its collections, or of its premises, available in connection with events of an educational, literary or cultural nature.

Responsibility for managing the Library is delegated to the Chief Executive who, as Accounting Officer, is personally responsible to Parliament for the stewardship of public money and the Library’s assets, and for ensuring that the resources allocated to the Library under the authority of Parliament are used for the purposes intended by Parliament. Management of the Library is led by the Chief Executive, Chief Librarian and Chief Operating Officer (https://www.bl.uk/about-us/governance/leadership#:~:text=Management%20of%20the%20Library%20is,the%20following%20areas%20of%20responsibility.&text=The%20Chief%20Executive%20has%20direct,%2C%20governance%2C%20and%20strategy%20development.)

The British Library is dependent upon its Records in order to operate efficiently and effectively, and within the requirements of the law. This Records Management Policy is based on ISO15489 (Information & Documentation: Records Management), and also takes into account the requirements of the Lord Chancellor’s Code of Practice on the management of records issued under section 46 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and other relevant standards and regulations. (https://www.bl.uk/about-us/freedom-of-information/5-our-policies-and-procedures)

The new library was designed specially for the purpose by the architect Colin St John Wilson in collaboration with his wife MJ Long, who came up with the plan that was subsequently developed and built. Facing Euston Road is a large piazza that includes pieces of public art, such as large sculptures by Eduardo Paolozzi (a bronze statue based on William Blake's study of Isaac Newton) and Antony Gormley. It is the largest public building constructed in the United Kingdom in the 20th century.

The British Library with St Pancras railway station behind it In the middle of the building is a six-storey glass tower inspired by a similar structure in the Beinecke Library, containing the King's Library with 65,000 printed volumes along with other pamphlets, manuscripts and maps collected by King George III between 1763 and 1820. In December 2009 a new storage building at Boston Spa was opened by Rosie Winterton. The new facility, costing £26 million, has a capacity for seven million items, stored in more than 140,000 bar-coded containers and which are retrieved by robots from the 162.7 miles of temperature and humidity-controlled storage space.

https://www.bl.uk/catalogues-and-collections/catalogues

https://www.bl.uk/help/guide-to-explore-archives-and-manuscripts