British Library

Who we are

When the UK’s national library was founded in the 1970s the first emails were being sent and innovators like Apple and Microsoft were just starting up. We emerged in this era of great creativity and ingenuity and today we continue to help inspire the next big (or small) idea. An award-winning novel. An innovative new business. Or a scientific breakthrough that could change all our lives.

And while we’re relatively young our collection goes back more than 3,000 years, but also includes this morning’s newspapers, blogs and tweets. They all add up to more than 170 million items – from Leonardo da Vinci to Benjamin Zephaniah, Florence Nightingale to Andrea Levy – and a vast digital archive, making us one of the largest libraries in the world. We open up this world of inspiration to everyone: at our sites in London and Yorkshire, through our partnerships with local libraries across the UK, and in homes and workspaces everywhere online.