Encyclopedia > British Library

Article Content

British Library

The British Library (BL) is the national library of the UK and one of the world's greatest libraries. For many years its collections were dispersed in various buildings around central London, in places such as Bloomsbury, Chancery Lane[?], and Holborn. Since 1997, however, the entire collection has been housed in one building, designed specially for the purpose by the architect Colin St. John Wilson[?]. The new building is sited near the Kings Cross and St. Pancras[?] rail stations in the London Borough of Camden.

An Act of Parliament in 1911 established the principle of the Legal Deposit[?], ensuring that the BL, along with five other libraries in Britain and Ireland, is entitled to receive a free copy of every item published in Britain and The Republic of Ireland. The other five libraries are :- the Bodleian Library at Oxford; the University Library at Cambridge; Trinity College Library in Dublin; and the National Libraries of Scotland and Wales. The British Library is the only one that is entitled to receive a copy of everything within one month of publication; the other five have to wait for up to one year.

At the time of writing (March 2003), there is currently a Private Member's Bill going through Parliament, which (if passed) will extend the Legal Deposit to electronic documents such as CD ROMs and selected websites.

The British Library holds over 150 million items.

It has a project called 'Bibliotheca Universalis' which aims at publishing major works on the web.

It also holds the Oriental and India Office Collections (OIOC), which contain the collections of the India Office Library and Records[?], and materials in the languages of Asia and of north and north-east Africa.

Highlights of the collections

The Stein collection from Central Asia.
The Diamond Sutra[?], claimed to be the world's oldest dated printed book
The Lindisfarne Gospels
The Gutenberg Bible[?]
The Magna Carta