The British library is the national library of the United Kingdom. She is in London, and its affiliate, the archive and reading room is located in the town of Boston Spa in West Yorkshire. It is the largest library in the world by number of items – over 150 million.

The British library was created on 1 July 1973, prior to that, she was part of the British Museum. In 1983 the library was transferred to the national archive of sound recordings – more than a million discs and thousands of tapes.

The core library consists of those collections that formed the basis of the library of sir Hans Sloane, the founder of the British Museum, sir Robert cotton, Robert Harley and king George III. Together with the collection of the Royal library the British library has inherited the right of legal Deposit for each printed in the country book.

For many years the library was kept in different places, both in London and beyond, and only in 1997 it was collected in a new purpose built building in Euston road.

Get a library card can anyone who has the need to use the holdings and services of the library. You need to provide a permanent residential address and specimen signature. Part of the medieval books digitized and available online, including the famous gospel from the Lindisfarne Gospels VII century.

The library's collections include not only books and magazines, but also Newspapers, postage stamps, a Grand audio archives, manuscripts, maps and much more. Most famous books from the collection of the British library: the Diamond Sutra – the world's earliest dated printed book; the gospel from the Lindisfarne Gospels VII century; two Gutenberg Bible; two copies of the Magna Carta (Magna Carta) of 1215; the only surviving medieval manuscript copy of the poem "Beowulf"; the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci; the gospel that belonged to Anne Boleyn.