London Buildings West End British LibraryThe British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and based in London. It is one of the world's largest research libraries, 
holding over 150 million items in all known languages and formats; it keeps books, journals, newspapers, magazines, sound and music recordings, patents, databases, maps, stamps, prints, drawings and much more. There are two things which guarantee to have me clicking away from a page when attempting to convey scale, one is the use of the long list (sorry about the above) and the other: statistics with huge numbers attached. e.g. if you laid out all the pages they would stretch to the Moon and back. They do nothing for me, so I'll try to avoid them.
The British Library used to be housed in the British Museum (and numerous other locations) and you can still walk around the original reading room there (it's the circular building at the centre of the Great Court). It's being used for temporary exhibitions until 2012, then it will revert to its original use again - a place to access books held by the museum.
In 1997 a new building was built which caused suitable controversy since it was everything the old building was not. Unashamedly 'new-build' in architectural style, it was also huge and capable of storing and cataloguing the enormous collections in one place. Its new site, in St. Pancras, is just on the fringes of the West End of London (the Euston Road effectively acts as a boundary - The Wellcome Collection is not far), so is not in the direct path of London visitors. You have to go there to see it, if you catch my drift.
If you love books, then go; and even if you don't - give it a try. The Reading Room at the British Museum was only accessible to a select few but the British Library is open to all members of the public. Many of its features will be used purely in the name of academic research, but its contents and the stunning architecture make it a 'must-see'.
It has some enviable items in its collection, which include:
- - The Diamond Sutra: the world's oldest printed book (with a date) from 868 AD. It's a Buddhist text, translated into Chinese and is often memorised by monks and chanted, since it takes about 45 minutes to read.
- - The Codex Sinaiticus: a handwritten copy of the Greek Bible dated to around 350 AD. It's written on both sheepskin and goatskin (vellum) and is incomplete. Its complicated history and geographical movement have left it in four separate locations, but the majority is housed in the British Library.
- - The Codex Arundel: a personal notebook belonging to Leonardo Da Vinci spanning 40 years of his life, including many diagrams. Some about mechanics and the flight of birds are familiar, from their frequent reproduction in books attesting to Da Vinici's genius and mechanical vision. If you presented this on 'Antiques Roadshow' they would likely pass out, or just keel over permanently. Of interest to artists and engineers alike, it is a spectacularly insightful piece of work.
- - Anne Boleyn's copy of the New Testament, by William Tynedale: Tynedale's Protestant Bible from Greek and Hebrew texts was the basis for the King James Bible. Tynedale influenced many, including Martin Luther, but perhaps he should have considered more carefully his choice of targets for criticism. His accusation that Henry VIII's divorce from Catherine of Aragon was 'unscriptural', so enraged the King that he asked Emperor Charles V to apprehend him in mainland Europe. Tynedale was seized in Antwerp and condemned to death for heresy in 1536, two years after Boleyn's New Testament was printed and the same year that she herself was executed.
In addition, The British Library has numerous well known works on permanent exhibition including: Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens, an early Beowulf, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and one room entirely dedicated to the two copies of the Magna Carta the collection contains.
The British Library's Timeline - a method of storing and accessing the archive chronologically.
As a legal deposit library, the BL receives copies of all books produced in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, including all foreign books distributed in the UK. It also purchases many items which are only published outside Britain and Ireland. The British Library adds around three million items every year.
The British Library is free to enter and being a modern building has the requisite and necessary disabled access. It was eye-wateringly expensive to build, but it belongs to the British Public, so was designed with use in mind. Anyone can use its research facilities (you have to have an address and a subject to research, in order to obtain a Reader's Pass), and that makes it more than a little bit special.
For opening times see the British Library website: http://www.bl.uk/ - in the Quicklinks section.The British Library, 96 Euston Road, London, NW1 2DB.
Call: 020 7412 7332
Nearest Tube: King's Cross/St. Pancras or Euston.
