Sunday, October 22, 2017

Largest Public Library in the world

Answer: 
British Library is the largest library in the world!
According to British Library's  facts and figure,

We receive a copy of every publication produced in the UK and Ireland
The collection includes well over 150 million items, in most known languages
3 million new items are added every year
We have manuscripts, maps, newspapers, magazines, prints and drawings, music scores, and patents
The Sound Archive keeps sound recordings from 19th-century cylinders to CD, DVD and MD recordings
We house 8 million stamps and other philatelic items
All this requires over 625 km of shelves, and grows by 12 km every year
If you see 5 items each day, it would take you over 80,000 years to see the whole of the collection
The world's earliest dated printed book, the Diamond Sutra, is sometimes on display in our exhibition galleries alongside many other treasures
We have on-site space for over 1,200 Readers
Over 16,000 people use the collections each day (on site and online)
Online catalogues, information and exhibitions can be found on this website
We operate the world's largest document delivery service providing millions of items a year to customers all over the world
In depth
Access
The British Library serves business and industry, researchers, academics and students, in the UK and world-wide
Each year:
o Six million searches are generated by the British Library online catalogue
o Nearly 400,000 visit our Reading Rooms
Over 100 million items have been supplied to users all over the world
Collections
Treasures include:
Magna Carta
Lindisfarne Gospels
Leonardo da Vinci's Notebook
The Times first edition from 18 March 1788
Beatles manuscripts
The recording of Nelson Mandela's Rivonia trial speech
Holdings include:
Material over 3,000 years old (Chinese oracle bones) - and today's newspapers
310,000 manuscript volumes: from Jane Austen to James Joyce; Handel to the Beatles
60 million patents
Over 4 million maps
Over 260,000 journal titles
The building at St Pancras:
The largest public building constructed in the UK in the 20th century
The basements extend to a depth of 24.5 metres
A total floor area of over 112,000 sq metres spread over 14 floors - 9 above ground, 5 below
10 million bricks and 180,000 tonnes of concrete were needed to complete the building
Awarded grade I listed building status in August 2015
The buildings at Boston Spa
Originally an ordnance factory
Specifically designed for document delivery service processes
Over 100km of shelving housing a collection devoted to interlibrary loan.
Source: http://www.bl.uk/aboutus/quickinfo/facts/

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