The British Library has one of the best collections in the world. The last time I was there, the person I was meeting with told me that the building was designed by a man who really didn’t want to design buildings. His love was designing cruise ships! So, he designed a building that looks like a giant cruise ship. It is fun to look out for boat features when you walk around the library!

Here is how they describe themselves:

“We are the national library of the United Kingdom and give access to the world’s most comprehensive research collection. We provide information services to academic, business, research and scientific communities.

Our collection of over 170 million items includes artefacts from every age of written civilisation. We keep the nation’s archive of printed and digital publications, adding around three million new items to our collection every year.

We have many books, but we have so much more. Our London and Yorkshire sites have everything from newspapers to sound recordings, patents, prints and drawings, maps and manuscripts. Our inspiring exhibitions interpret these collections and bring their stories to the public.”

While we are at the library we will be given a tour of the library, a presentation about their work and a ‘show and tell’ of some interesting collection items.

You can look at their ‘About us‘ web page so you can learn more about this wonderful library, and have a look at their homepage to learn about what they have happening at the moment.