British Library
Location	London, England, United Kingdom (Boston Spa, Collingwood, Palace of Westminster, Great Russell Street, Euston Road)
Established	1973 (1753)
Collection size	25,000,000 books (150,000,000 total items)
Budget	£100,000,000[1]
Director	Lynne Brindley (Chief Executive)
Website	http://www.bl.uk/

The British Library (BL) is the national library of the United Kingdom. London ( ˈlʌndən is the capital and largest urban area in the United Kingdom. England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located Boston Spa is a Village and Civil parish in City of Leeds Metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England, 3 miles Great Russell Street is a street in Bloomsbury, central London, England. Euston Road is an important thoroughfare in central London, England and forms part of the A501. Year 1973 ( MCMLXXIII) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display full calendar of the 1973 Gregorian calendar. Dame Lynne Janie Brindley, DBE, is the Chief Executive of the British Library (BL the National library of the United Kingdom. A national library is a Library specifically established by the Government of a country to serve as the preeminent repository of information for that country The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located It is based in London and is one of the world's most significant research libraries, holding over 150 million items in all known languages and formats; books, journals, newspapers, magazines, sound and music recordings, patents, databases, maps, stamps, prints, drawings and much more, making it the largest collection in the world. London ( ˈlʌndən is the capital and largest urban area in the United Kingdom. This is a list of notable libraries. It includes both notable public lending libraries and research libraries. A Book is a set or collection of written printed illustrated or blank sheets made of Paper, Parchment, or other material usually fastened together A journal (through French from late Latin diurnalis, daily has several related meanings a daily record of events or business a private A newspaper is a written Publication containing News, information and Advertising, usually printed on low-cost paper called Newsprint. Magazines, periodicals or serials are Publications generally published on a regular schedule containing a variety of articles, generally Sound' is Vibration transmitted through a Solid, Liquid, or Gas; particularly sound means those vibrations composed of Frequencies A patent is a set of Exclusive rights granted by a State to an inventor or his assignee for a fixed period of time in exchange for a disclosure of an A Computer Database is a structured collection of records or data that is stored in a computer system A map is a visual representation of an area—a symbolic depiction highlighting relationships between elements of that space such as objects, Regions, and Themes Securities Trading Access Messaging Protocol (STAMP is a message format protocol used in Canadian Stock market describing electronic communications between exchange Printmaking is the Process of making artworks by Printing, normally on Paper. Drawing is a Visual art that makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium The Library's collections include around 25 million books,^[2] along with substantial additional collection of manuscripts and historical items dating back as far as 300 BC.

As a legal deposit library, the BL receives copies of all books produced in the United Kingdom and Ireland, including all foreign books distributed in the UK. Legal deposit is a legal requirement that a person or group submit copies of their Publications to a repository usually a library. It also purchases many items which are only published outside Britain. The British Library adds some 3 million items every year.

Historical background

The British Library from the concourse

As an independent institution the British Library is young compared with its equivalents in other countries, having been created in 1973 by the British Library Act 1972. Prior to this, the national library was part of the British Museum, which provided the bulk of the holdings of the new library, alongside various smaller organisations which were folded in (such as the British National Bibliography). The British Museum is a Museum of human history and culture in London. In 1983, the Library absorbed the National Sound Archive. The British Library Sound Archive in London, England is one of the largest collections of recorded sound in the world including Music, spoken word and The core of the Library's historical collections is based on a series of donations and acquisitions from the eighteenth century, known as the 'foundation collections'. These include the books and manuscripts of Sir Robert Cotton, Sir Hans Sloane, Robert Harley and King George III. Sir Robert Cotton may refer to Robert Bruce Cotton, 1st Baronet of Connington (1571&ndash1631 English antiquary Sir Robert Cotton 1st Baronet Sir Hans Sloane 1st Baronet, PRS ( 16 April, 1660 &ndash 11 January, 1753) was an Ulster-Scot Physician and Robert Harley may refer to Robert Harley (1579-1656 Robert Harley 1st Earl of Oxford and Mortimer Robert Harley (c George III (George William Frederick 4 June 1738 George III's long reign was marked by a series of military conflicts involving his kingdom much of the rest of Europe and places

For many years its collections were dispersed in various buildings around central London, in places such as Bloomsbury (within the British Museum), Chancery Lane, and Holborn, with the lending library at Boston Spa, West Yorkshire and the newspaper library at Colindale, north-west London. The term Central London refers to the districts of London England which are considered closest to the centre Bloomsbury is an area of central London in the south of the London Borough of Camden, developed by the Russell family in the 17th and 18th centuries into The British Museum is a Museum of human history and culture in London. Chancery Lane is a London Underground station in central London. Holborn (ˈhoʊbɚn or /ˈhoʊbɝːn/ "ho bun" is an area of Central London, England Boston Spa is a Village and Civil parish in City of Leeds Metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England, 3 miles West Yorkshire is a Metropolitan county within the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England with a population of Colindale is an area in the London Borough of Barnet, although its main shopping street is in the London Borough of Brent on its west side However, since 1997 the main collection has been housed in a single new building on Euston Road next to St. Pancras railway station. Euston Road is an important thoroughfare in central London, England and forms part of the A501. St Pancras railway station is a major railway station situated in the St Pancras area of Central London between the British Library and King's Cross The new library was designed specially for the purpose by the architect Colin St. John Wilson. Sir Colin Alexander St John ("Sandy" Wilson, FRIBA, RA, ( 14 March 1922 – 14 May 2007) was a British 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 Anthony Gormley. Euston Road is an important thoroughfare in central London, England and forms part of the A501. The term public art properly refers to works of Art in any media that has been planned and executed with the specific intention of being sited Eduardo Luigi Paolozzi KBE, FRA ( March 7 1924 &ndash April 22 2005) was a Scottish sculptor William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827 was an English poet, painter, and Printmaker. Sir Isaac Newton, FRS (ˈnjuːtən 4 January 1643 31 March 1727) Biography Early years See also Isaac Newton's early life and achievements Antony Gormley OBE RA (born 30 August 1950 is an English sculptor. It is the largest public building constructed in the United Kingdom in the 20th century. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located However, post-1800 newspapers are still held at Colindale, and the Document Supply Centre is still in Yorkshire. The Library also has a book storage depot in Woolwich, south-east London. Woolwich (ˈwʊlɪtʃ or /ˈwʊlɪdʒ/ is a suburb in south-east London, England in the London Borough of Greenwich, on the south side of the River

At the heart of the building is a four-storey glass tower 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. The King’s Library was the original name applied both to the British Royal Collection of over 60000 books and to the room in the British Museum that housed them George III (George William Frederick 4 June 1738 George III's long reign was marked by a series of military conflicts involving his kingdom much of the rest of Europe and places

Since 2000 the Chief Executive of the British Library has been Lynne Brindley. 2000 ( MM) was a Leap year that started on Saturday of the Common Era, in accordance with the Gregorian calendar. Dame Lynne Janie Brindley, DBE, is the Chief Executive of the British Library (BL the National library of the United Kingdom.

Legal deposit

Interior of the British Library, with the smoked glass wall of the King's Library in the background.

An Act of Parliament in 1911 established the principle of the Legal Deposit, ensuring that the British Library, along with five other libraries in Great Britain and Ireland, is entitled to receive a free copy of every item published in the United Kingdom. An Act of Parliament is a Law enacted as Primary legislation by a national or sub-national Parliament. Legal deposit is a legal requirement that a person or group submit copies of their Publications to a repository usually a library. See also Kingdom of Great Britain Great Britain (Breatainn Mhòr Prydain Fawr Breten Veur Graet Breetain is the larger of the two main islands Ireland (pronounced /ˈaɾlənd/ Éire) is the third largest island in Europe, and the twentieth-largest island in the world The other five libraries are: the Bodleian Library at Oxford; the University Library at Cambridge; the Trinity College Library at Dublin; and the National Libraries of Scotland and Wales. The Bodleian Library ( the main Research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in England Oxford is currently bidding for the 2010 Wikimania Conference Oxford () is a city, and the County town of Oxfordshire, The Cambridge University Library is the centrally-administered library of the University of Cambridge in England. The city of Cambridge (ˈkeɪmbrɪdʒ is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England The Trinity College Library, the centrally-administered Library of Trinity College, Dublin, is the largest library in Ireland. Dublin (ˈdʌblɨn/ /ˈdʊblɨn or /ˈdʊbəlɪn/, bˠalʲə aːha klʲiəh or cliə(ɸ is both the largest city and capital of Ireland. The National Library of Scotland is the Legal deposit Library of Scotland. The National Library of Wales (Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru is the national Legal deposit library of Wales, located in Aberystwyth. The British Library is the only one that must automatically receive a copy of every item published in the UK; the others are entitled to these items, but must specifically request them from the publisher after learning that they have been or are about to be published, a task done centrally by the Agency for the Legal Deposit Libraries. The Agency for the Legal Deposit Libraries (formerly known as the Copyright Libraries Agency) acts as on behalf of five of the Legal deposit libraries defined in

Further, under the terms of Irish copyright law (most recently the Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000), the British Library is entitled to automatically receive a free copy of every book published in the Republic of Ireland, alongside the National Library of Ireland, the Trinity College Library at Dublin, the library of the University of Limerick, the library of Dublin City University and the libraries of the four constituent universities of the National University of Ireland. Ireland ( Irish: Éire, ˈeːrʲə is a country in north-western Europe. The National Library of Ireland (Leabharlann Náisiúnta na hÉireann is a National library located in Dublin, Ireland, in a building designed by The University of Limerick ( UL) (Ollscoil Luimnigh was established in 1972 as the National Institute for Higher Education, Limerick and Dublin City University ( DCU) (Ollscoil Chathair Bhaile Átha Cliath is a University situated between Glasnevin, Ballymun and Whitehall The National University of Ireland ( NUI) (Ollscoil na hÉireann is a federal University system of constituent universities, previously called The Bodleian Library, Cambridge University Library, and the National Libraries of Scotland and Wales are also entitled to copies of material published in Ireland, but again must formally make requests.

In 2003 the Ipswich MP Chris Mole introduced a Private Member's Bill, which eventually passed, becoming the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003. Ipswich is a Borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Christopher David Mole, known as Chris Mole, (born 16 March 1958 Bromley) is the current Member of Parliament for Ipswich in eastern England A Private Member's Bill is a proposed Law introduced by a backbench member of Parliament, whether from the government or the opposition side to that The Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003 (the 2003 Act is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (citation 2003 c This Act extends United Kingdom Legal Deposit requirements to electronic documents, such as CD-ROMs and selected websites. CD-ROM (an initialism of "Compact Disc Read-Only Memory " is a pre-pressed Compact Disc that contains data accessible to but not writable A website (alternatively web site or Web site, a back-construction from the Proper noun World Wide Web) is a collection of Web pages The BL explains its policies on legal deposit here.

Using the Library's Reading Rooms

The Library is open to everyone who has a genuine need to use its collections. However, it is most suited to those wishing to use specialised material that is not always available in public or academic libraries. Anyone with a permanent address who wishes to carry out research can register for a Reader Pass, providing they provide proof of signature and address for security purposes. The Library has come under criticism for admitting undergraduate students (who have access to their own university libraries) to the reading rooms, but the Library says that they have always admitted undergraduates as long as they have a legitimate personal, work-related or academic research purpose. In some Educational systems undergraduate education is Post-secondary education up to the level of a Bachelor's degree. ^[3]

Catalogue entries can be found on the British Library Integrated Catalogue, which is based on Aleph (a commercial Integrated Library System). Western Manuscripts are indexed and described on MOLCAT and the Digital Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts. The Library's website also offers other specialised catalogues and research services.

According to the website, more than half a million people use the Library's reading rooms every year. The large reading rooms cover hundreds of seats which are often filled with researchers, especially during the Easter and Summer holidays.

Exhibitions

Bronze sculpture Newton, after William Blake, 1995, by Eduardo Paolozzi

A number of important works are on display to the general public in a gallery called the Sir John Ritblat Gallery which is open to the public seven days a week at no charge. Eduardo Luigi Paolozzi KBE, FRA ( March 7 1924 &ndash April 22 2005) was a Scottish sculptor Some of the treasures visitors can see in the Gallery include the Magna Carta, Captain Cook's journal, Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, Geoffrey Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales', 'Beowulf', Virginia Woolf's 'Mrs Dalloway', Lewis Carroll's 'Alice's Adventures Under Ground', Jane Austen's 'History of England', Rudyard Kipling's 'Just So Stories, Thomas Malory's 'Le Morte Darthur' (King Arthur), Charles Dickens' 'Nicholas Nickleby'. Magna Carta ( Latin for Great Charter, literally " Great Paper " also called Magna Carta Libertatum ( Great Charter of Freedoms Jane Eyre (dʒeɪn ɛə by Charlotte Brontë, published by Smith Elder & Company of London in 1847, is one of the most influential and King Arthur is a legendary British leader who according to medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against the Saxon invaders

The Library also stages temporary free exhibitions on a wide range of subjects.

The current exhibition Breaking The Rules - The Printed Face of the European Avant Garde 1900 - 1937 includes a variety of artistic styles and movements – Cubism, Expressionism, Futurism Dadaism, Suprematism, Constructivism and Surrealism and explores common themes and the creative transformation which took place at the time as well as the continuing impact of the Avant Garde on contemporary culture.

Previous exhibitions include London: A Life in Maps and the Front Page: 100 years of newspapers in Britain.

The most recent exhibition, Sacred: Discover What We Share, featuring over 150 holy texts from the religions of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, ran from 27 April-23 September 2007 and drew over 200,000 visitors.

Business & IP Centre

In May 2005, the British Library was awarded £1 million by the London Development Agency to transform two of its reading rooms into the Business & IP Centre. The London Development Agency ( LDA) is the Regional Development Agency for Greater London, England. Intellectual property ( IP) is a legal field that refers to creations of the mind such as musical literary and artistic works inventions and symbols names The Centre was opened as a permanent resource in March 2006. It holds arguably the most comprehensive collection of business and intellectual property (IP) in the United Kingdom and is the official library of the UK Intellectual Property Office. The UK Intellectual Property Office, or UK-IPO is the operating name of what was until April 2 2007 called The Patent Office.

The Business & IP Centre is separated into two distinct areas:

Business information

The collection is divided up into four main information areas: market research; company information; trade directories; and journals. Market research is the process of systematically gathering recording and analyzing data and information about Customers, Competitors and the Market A journal (through French from late Latin diurnalis, daily has several related meanings a daily record of events or business a private It is available for free in hard copy and online via approximately 30 subscription databases. You must have a reader pass to access the collection and the databases.

Patent and intellectual property information

There are over 50 million patent specifications from 40 countries in a collection dating back to 1855. A patent is a set of Exclusive rights granted by a State to an inventor or his assignee for a fixed period of time in exchange for a disclosure of an The collection also includes official gazettes on patents, trade marks and Registered Design; Law reports and other material on litigation; and information on copyright. A trademark or trade mark, represented by the symbols ™ and ®, or mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual Industrial design rights are Intellectual property rights that protect the visual design of objects that are not purely utilitarian In law a lawsuit is a civil action brought before a Court in which the party commencing the action the Plaintiff, seeks a legal or equitable remedy Copyright is a legal concept enacted by Governments, giving the creator of an original work of authorship Exclusive rights to control its distribution usually for This is available in hard copy and via online databases. You must have a reader pass to access the collection and the databases.

Impartial information experts are trained to guide SMEs and entrepreneurs to use the full range of resources. Small and medium enterprises (also SMEs, small and medium businesses, SMBs, and variations thereof are companies whose headcount or An entrepreneur is a person who has possession over a company enterprise, or Venture, and assumes significant accountability for the inherent risks and the outcome The Business & IP Centre also offers additional services including:

• The provision of a networking area for SMEs to meet and network with other SMEs, find out about the Library's full range of services and get inspiration from success stories about products and services conceived by other centre users.

• Workshops and clinics run by the British Library and its business partners on subjects including: using intellectual property resources to check if ideas are novel, how to protect your ideas & designs, capitalising on market research resources, financing, marketing and selling skills, and pinpointing customers. Some of these workshops have a specific focus on supporting the needs of women, black and Asian minority ethnic groups, and entrepreneurs with disabilities. These are free or charged at a subsidised rate.

• 'Ask an expert' sessions. These are one-to-one advice sessions with notable business figures. Previous experts have been the late Anita Roddick and Tim Campbell. Dame Anita Roddick, DBE (23 October 1942 &ndash 10 September 2007 was the founder of The Body Shop, a British Cosmetics company producing and

• Events featuring successful entrepreneurs. Previous events have included ‘Winners – The Rise and Rise of Black British Entrepreneurs’, ‘The Asian Advantage’, ‘Mothers of Invention’, and talks by Anita Roddick. These are available as webcasts.

Sound Archive

The British Library Sound Archive holds more than a million discs and 200,000 tapes. The British Library Sound Archive in London, England is one of the largest collections of recorded sound in the world including Music, spoken word and The collections come from all over the world and cover the entire range of recorded sound from music, drama and literature to oral history and wildlife sounds, stretching back over more than 100 years. The Sound Archive's online catalogue can be viewed at http://cadensa.bl.uk, and it is updated daily.

It is also possible to listen to recordings from the collection in selected Reading Rooms in the Library through their SoundServer and Listening and Viewing Service, which is based in the Rare Books & Music Reading Room.

Researchers will need a Reader Pass to access these services.

In 2006 the Library launched a new online resource Archival Sound Recordings which makes over 4,200 hours of the Sound Archive's recordings available online for UK higher and further education. Background information Archival Sound Recordings is a British Library service funded by the JISC, which provides free online access to spoken word

Newspapers

British Library Newspapers, Colindale

The British Library Newspapers section is based in Colindale in North London. Colindale is an area in the London Borough of Barnet, although its main shopping street is in the London Borough of Brent on its west side The Library has a more or less complete collection of British and Irish newspapers since 1840, owing in part to legal deposit legislation of 1869 mandating that the Library receive a copy of each edition of a newspaper. London editions of national daily and Sunday newspapers are complete back to 1801. In total the collection consists of 660,000 bound volumes and 370,000 reels of microfilm containing tens of millions of newspapers with 52,000 titles on 45km of shelves. Microforms are any form either films or paper containing microreproductions of documents for transmission storage reading and printing

A collection of particular interest is the Thomason Tracts, containing 7,200 seventeenth century newspapers, and the Burney Collection featuring newspapers from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The Thomason Collection of Civil War Tracts consists of more than 22000 pamphlets broadsides manuscripts books and news sheets most of which were printed and distributed in London As a means of recording the passage of Time, the 17th Century was that Century which lasted from 1601 - 1700 in the Gregorian calendar The 18th century lasted from 1701 to 1800 in the Gregorian calendar, in accordance with the Anno Domini / Common Era numbering system The 19th century of the Common Era began on January 1, 1801 and ended on December 31, 1900, according to the Gregorian calendar The Thomason Tracts and Burney collections are held at St Pancras, and are available in facsimile.

The section also has extensive records of non-British newspapers in languages that use the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets. The Cyrillic alphabet (səˈrɪlɪk also called azbuka, from the old name of the first two letters is actually a family of Alphabets, subsets of which are used by The collection is less substantial for languages of the Middle East and the rest of Asia, though some holdings of these are held at the main library in St. The Middle East is a Subcontinent with no clear boundaries often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East. Pancras.

Philatelic collections

The entrance gate and its own shadow. The gate was designed by Lida and David Kindersley. David Guy Barnabas Kindersley ( 11 June 1915 -1995 was a British stone letter-carver and Typeface designer and the founder of the Kindersley

The British Library Philatelic Collections are the National Philatelic Collections of the United Kingdom. Philately is the study and collecting of revenue and postage stamps The Collections were established in 1891 with the donation of the Tapling Collection, they steadily developed and now comprise over twenty five major collections and a number of smaller ones, encompassing a wide-range of disciplines. The collections include postage and revenue stamps, postal stationery, essays, proofs, covers and entries, 'cinderella stamp' material, specimen issues, airmails, some postal history materials, official and private posts, etc. A postage stamp is an adhesive paper evidence of pre-paying a fee for postal services A piece of postal stationery is a stationery item such as an Envelope, Letter sheet, Post card, lettercard aérogramme or wrapper with An essay is usually a short piece of writing It is often written from an author's personal point of view. Proofreading traditionally means reading a proof copy of a text in order to detect and correct any errors In Philately, a cover is an Envelope or Package, typically with stamps that have been cancelled A cinderella stamp is a label similar in appearance to a Postage stamp but which does not normally pay a fee associated with sending mail beyond a purely local service Airmail (or air mail) is Mail that is transported by Aircraft. Postal history is the study of Postal systems and how they operate and or the collecting of covers and associated material illustrating historical episodes of postal Mail, or post, is a method for transmitting information and tangible objects wherein written Documents typically enclosed in Envelopes and also , for almost all countries and periods.

An extensive display of material from the collections is on exhibit and is probably the best permanent display of diverse classic stamps and philatelic material in the world. Approximately 80,000 items on 6,000 sheets may be viewed in 1,000 display frames; 2,400 sheets are from the Tapling Collection. All other material, which covers the whole world, is available to students and researchers by appointment.

As well as these extensive collections, the subject literature is very actively acquired, and makes the British Library one of the world's prime philatelic research centres. Research is defined as Human activity based on Intellectual application in the investigation of Matter.

Miscellaneous information

The Library also holds the Oriental and India Office Collections (OIOC), now called APAC (Asia, Pacific & Africa Collections) 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. The Oriental and India Office Collections ( OIOC) form a significant part of the holdings of the British Library in London, England.

The British Library does not specifically serve the legislature. Parliament has its own libraries, the House of Commons Library and the House of Lords Library. The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom and British overseas territories The House of Commons Library is the library and information resource of the lower house of the British Parliament. The House of Lords Library is the Library and information resource of the upper house of the British Parliament.

In the British Library's Digital library project collections can be toured online and the virtual pages of Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks and other great works can be turned electronically. A digital library is a Library in which collections are stored in digital formats (as opposed to print Microform, or other media and accessible by computers Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci ( April 15 1452 – May 2 1519 was an Italian Polymath, having been a scientist Mathematician, Engineer The British Library's secure electronic delivery service, started in 2003 at a cost of 6 million pounds, brings access to more than one hundred million items (including 280,000 journal titles, 50 million patents, 5 million reports, 476,000 U. An alternative to localized repositories of physically secured documents Secure electronic delivery services such as that opened in 2003 by the British Library Document S. dissertations and 433,000 conference proceedings) for researchers and library patrons worldwide which were previously unavailable outside the Library due to copyright restrictions. Copyright is a legal concept enacted by Governments, giving the creator of an original work of authorship Exclusive rights to control its distribution usually for

The use of the Library's web catalogue also continues to increase. In 2003 more than 9. 7 million searches were conducted.

The Guinness Book of World Records currently lists the American Library of Congress as the "World's Largest Library". Guinness World Records, known until 2000 as The Guinness Book of Records (and in previous U The Library of Congress is the De facto National library of the United States and the research arm of the United States Congress ^[4] However, this is based on the shelf space the collection occupies; the Library of Congress states that its collection fills about 530 miles (850 km),^[5] while the British Library reports about 388 miles (625 km) of shelves. ^[6] On the other hand, the Library of Congress holds about 130 million items with 29 million books,^[5] as against approximately 150 million items with 25 million books for the British Library.

Paradoxymoron, by Patrick Hughes is on show in the basement. Patrick Hughes (born 20 October 1939) is British artist working in London

Highlights of the collections

• The Stein collection from Central Asia.
• The Diamond Sutra, printed in 868 during the Tang Dynasty, claimed to be the world's oldest dated printed book
• The Lindisfarne Gospels
• Two Gutenberg Bibles
• Two 1215 copies of Magna Carta
• Papyrus Egerton 2, the Egerton Gospel
• The only surviving manuscript copy of the poem Beowulf^[7]
• 347 leaves of the Codex Sinaiticus
• The Codex Arundel one of Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks. The Diamond Sutra is a short Mahayana Sutra of the Perfection of Wisdom genre which teaches the practice of the avoidance of abiding in extremes The Tang Dynasty ( Middle Chinese: dhɑng (June 18 618&ndashJune 4 907 was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by The Lindisfarne Gospels is an illuminated Latin manuscript of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John Gutenberg Bible (also known as the 42-line Bible or the Mazarin Bible) is a printed version of the Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible that Magna Carta ( Latin for Great Charter, literally " Great Paper " also called Magna Carta Libertatum ( Great Charter of Freedoms The Egerton Gospel ( British Library Egerton Papyrus 2 refers to a group of fragments of a Codex of a previously unknown Gospel, found in Egypt and sold Cotton Vitellius A xv is one of the four major Anglo-Saxon literature codices. Beowulf is an Old English Heroic epic poem of anonymous authorship dating as recorded in the Nowell Codex manuscript from between Codex Sinaiticus (Shelfmarks and references London Brit Libr, Additional 43725 Gregory - Aland nº א (Aleph or 01, Soden Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci ( April 15 1452 – May 2 1519 was an Italian Polymath, having been a scientist Mathematician, Engineer
• Working manuscripts by J.S. Bach, W.A. Mozart, Arthur Sullivan, Gustav Mahler and Benjamin Britten. WikipediaWikiProject Composers#Lead section.2 This article is written in British English including maximised use of "-ise" Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO (13 May 1842 &ndash 22 November 1900 was an English composer of Irish and Italian descent best known for his operatic Edward Benjamin Britten Baron Britten, OM CH (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976 was an English Composer, conductor,
• My Ladye Nevells Booke of Virginal Musick by William Byrd, one of the two surviving collections of 16th century music for the virginal. My Ladye Nevells Booke is a compilation of keyboard pieces by the English composer William Byrd, and together with the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book

Threatened cutbacks to services

In February 2007 it was announced that threatened Treasury cuts to the British Library budget may necessitate cutbacks in services and facilities. These would include reducing the reading room opening hours, introducing charges for researchers and the closure of the public exhibitions, schools learning programmes and the national newspaper archive in Colindale. Colindale is an area in the London Borough of Barnet, although its main shopping street is in the London Borough of Brent on its west side There is considerable public resistance to this, especially from academics and students, and several thousand names have been subscribed to a petition to the government. ^[8]

References

• Philatelic collections. Retrieved on April 4, 2005.
• Sussex, John (editor) (1990). Stamp World London 90, souvenir handbook. Stamp World Exhibitions. ISBN 0-9515891-0-5.  
• Read or Die (OAV).

See also

• National Sound Archive
• British literature
• British Museum Reading Room
• Incunabula Short Title Catalogue
• Library of Congress Digital Library project
• List of digital library projects
• National Archives
• National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program
• National Library of Scotland
• National Library of Wales
• National Preservation Office
• Theatre Archive Project

External links

• The British Library homepage
• The British Library Catalogue
• The King's Library contained within The British Library
• The 'Bibliotheca Universalis' homepage
• The World's Earliest Dated Printed Book
• Turning the Pages, digitizations of a few important books, with explanations (Macromedia Shockwave format)
• The British Library Act, 1972
• The Business & IP Centre homepage
• Blog on entrepreneurship, innovation and business information by Neil Infield, Business & Ip Centre Manager at the British Library