British Library

The Magna Carta, Leonardo da Vinci's Notebook, and Beatles manuscripts... these are a few of the 150 million items in the collection of the British Library. The British Library was opened in the 1970s and currently consists of the Library of the British Museum, the Patent Office Library, the National Central Library, and the National Lending Library for Science and Technology. At the heart of the British Museum lies the round Reading Room, opened in 1857. It is temporarily in use as an exhibit display space and will revert back to a reading room in 2010.


More on the British Library:
Facts and Figures
The British Library on the Web
History of the British Museum