The British Library, one of the biggest libraries in the world, was “established in 1973 by an Act of Parliament that brought together a number of famous old institutions into a single organization” (Howard 8). Thus, its history can be considered relatively young. Before the establishment of the British Library organization, it once belonged to the Library Department of the British Museum, which was founded in 1753.
Sir Han Sloane, who highly interested in collecting books, was a very important person that we cannot overlook in the history of the British Library as well as in the history of the Museum. After his death, his will stated that his “collection in all its branches, as described in forty-six volumes of catalogues, should be kept together, and that his trustees should offer them to the Crown for the sum of £20,000” (Esdaile 17). During 1753, the trustees of the act paid £20,000 to buy the Sloane Collections. With the bequeathed Sir Solane Collections, a library at Bloombury called Montagu House, the British Museum was finally established.
With the legal deposit policy, the British Museum Library could enjoy the right to own a copy of every book or periodical published in the United Kingdom (The Libraries of London 14). Therefore, most of the book collections were received as gifts by provision of the Copyright Acts, while some of them were purchased outside the country.
Not until 1959 was the British Museum first opened to the public with the exhibition of “Cotton, Sloane, and Harley collections” (Treasures of the British Library 19). However, people still needed to apply for a ticket in order to enter the library or the reading room, even though the museum was open everyday.
The first reading room was built in the same building, but there were “complaints that the room was damp and dark” (James 83). In October of 1774, therefore, a second reading room was built. By 1857, the chief librarian, Antonio Panizza suggested building a Round Reading Room, lined with numerous bookstacks, to facilitate the problem of inadequate space, a construction that would become the most famous reading room in the British Library (James 84). To request for a book, readers needed a ticket to give to the Reading Room Staff, in order for their desired book to be delivered to them.
Lack of space had always been a serious problem in the library. In 1971, White Paper realized this problem and claimed that “rehousing the collections [was] a priority” (Smith 276). Colin St John Wilson, the designer of the new British Library which located in St. Pancras, decided to express in its intimacy the very nature of the Library, which made everyone who visited the library feel like it was “home”. The new library building did not officially open until July, 1997 (Day 3) and Gothic architecture was the model for construction of the library (Stonehouse & Stromberg160). However, the management still chose to use dual storage operations, storing little used material at Boston Spa (Day 43).
Inside the library, there were many new kinds of facilities, for instance, exhibition galleries and a Library Bookshop that demonstrated to people the history of printing. The formation of these exhibition galleries could be seen as one of “milestones in the phased opening of St Pancras”(Smith 280). In addition, new reading room provided readers with better conditions, with its more than adequate space, brightness, and airiness.
Since the materials of the Library were “expanding at a rate of around 12km a year” (Sims, 85), some systems of the new British Library became digitalized, “50 catalogue records for books, maps, manuscripts, journal articles, conference papers, audio CDs and newspaper [became available] online”, as well as with automated book request and delivery systems (Smith 281).
As one of the world’s biggest and most plentiful libraries, its online database, saved in the library server through the internet, allowed people who could not access the library physically to obtain the necessary information with only a few clicks. The British Library has become a great success, not only to the people in the United Kingdom itself, but also around the world.
 
Work Cited

Day, Alan,” Inside the British Library”, London, Library Association Publishing, 1998. Print.

Day, Alan, “Turning Point for the British Library?”, Library Review, Vol. 44 No. 2 (1995): 38-43. Print.

Esdaile, Arundell, “The British Museum Library”, London, George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1946. Print.

Howard, Philip, “The British Library—A Treasure House of Knowledge”, London, Scala Publishers Ltd., 2008. Print.

James, Stuart, “Moving the British Library”, Volume 47 Number 3 (1998): 83-86. Print.

Sims, Johnathan, “Librarianship in the 21st Century: a British Library Perspective”, Legal Information Management, 8 (2008): 84-91. Print.

Smith, Bear, “The New British Library: First Anniversary”, Volume 99 Number 1145 (1998): 276-286. Print.

Stonehouse, Roger, Gerhard Stromberg, “The Architecture of the British Library at St
Pancras”, London, Spon Press, 2004. Print.

“The Libraries of London”, Ed. Irwin, Raymond, Ronald Staveley, London, The Library Association, 1961. Print.

“Treasures of the British Library”, London, The British Library, 2005. Print.