When the British Library moved to its current site at St Pancras in 1998, it was the start of a new chapter for the institution. But what about the history of its predecessor, the British Museum Library?

1998 also saw the publication of what is the comprehensive history of the British Museum Library, and now in 2026 BL is delighted to announce that this important work has been digitised and is available to everyone via the British Library’s Research Repository: P. R. Harris, ‘A History of the British Museum Library, 1753-1973’ (London: The British Library, 1998).

You can read more in this blog post – https://www.bl.uk/stories/blogs/posts/a-history-of-the-british-museum-library-now-digitised