The British Library by Nurin Choudhury, Woodford County High School

Located on the north side of Euston Road lies the British Library: the national library of the UK, the largest national library in the world by the number of items catalogued, and a heaven for book-lovers everywhere.

Established in 1973, the British Library is a legal deposit library, meaning that at least one copy of every book published in the UK must be sent to the Library. The five other legal deposit libraries in the UK are: the National Library of Scotland, the Bodleian Library in Oxford, Cambridge University Library, Trinity College Library in Dublin, and the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth. Ranging from children’s storybooks to official historical documents, the British Library harbours a wealth of knowledge and information, free for the general public to browse at their leisure.

In order to use the Library’s reading rooms, one must have the Reader Pass, which can be attained through an application and proof of address. Historically, the reading rooms have been available for anyone with a genuine need to browse the material, meaning that often the majority of Reader Pass holders are university students. However, the Library’s Online Gallery also contains historical material which are available to view on the web - from images of medieval books, all the way to newspapers from the 18th and 19th century. With such a broad scope of information, it is easy to see why millions of people flock to the British Library.

I had the pleasure of visiting the Library for an literature-based context workshop, and while the workshop itself was informative and engaging, I was also in awe of the Library itself. Another student who attended the workshop, who wishes to remain anonymous, remarked that “Coming to the Library has reinvigorated my love of books - I want to start catching up on my backlog of book now!”

Visiting the Library has reminded me of how lucky we are to be living in such close proximity to such a  bank of knowledge, and has convinced me to return again in the near future, both for my studies and for my enjoyment.