The British Library | ||
The British Library came into existence in 1973 as a result of the British Library Act. | Párr. 1 | |
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. | ||
5 | 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 | ||
10 | the current British Museum. | |
Opening in 1857, the Library’s Round Reading Room – with its magnificent domed | Párr. 2 | |
roof – became an iconic destination in the literary landscape of London. George Gissing used | ||
the Library’s Round Reading Room 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 | ||
15 | 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 the library’s most precious treasures were | ||
20 | moved to a secure cave in Aberystwyth, with round the clock guards. Meanwhile, the | |
Newspaper Library in Colindale suffered substantial damage from bombing and some of the | ||
collection had to be transferred to quarries in Wiltshire while repairs were made. | ||
In 1961, the National Lending Library for Science and Technology became the first | Párr. 3 | |
organisation to operate in what would become the Boston Spa site. Formerly based in | ||
25 | Woolwich under the National Central Library (established in 1916), the team supported | |
lending to libraries and other research institutions, similar to the On Demand service today. | ||
Boston Spa also became home to the library’s legal deposit, receiving a copy of every work | ||
published in the UK. Today, the Boston Spa site continues to grow. The Reading Room was | ||
refurbished in 2014, and one year later, the National Newspaper Building, which uses robotic | ||
30 | cranes to retrieve newspapers, was completed. | |
One of the first challenges for the new British Library in 1973 was to find a site to | Párr. 4 | |
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 | ||
35 | 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 has become one of greatest libraries in the world. Its physical | Párr. 5 | |
40 | collections are growing all the time and so are its digital collections, which include Digitised | |
Manuscripts, the UK Web Archive and over 1 million rights-free images available on Flickr. | ||
With a lively events and exhibitions programme, free business advice and plenty of places to | ||
meet, eat, drink and shop, the Library welcomes 1.6 million visitors though its doors every | ||
year. | ||
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Fuente: British Library (10 de marzo de 2021). History of the British Library. | ||
https://www.bl.uk/about-us/our-story/history-of-the-british-library# |