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The British Museum Reading Room, situated in the centre of the Great Court of the
British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It documen ...
, used to be the main
reading room Reading room may refer to: * Reference library * British Museum Reading Room The British Museum Reading Room, situated in the centre of the Great Court of the British Museum, used to be the main reading room of the British Library. In 1997, ...
of the
British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...
. In 1997, this function moved to the new British Library building at
St Pancras, London St Pancras () is a district in north London. It was originally a medieval ancient parish and subsequently became a metropolitan borough. The metropolitan borough then merged with neighbouring boroughs and the area it covered now forms around h ...
, but the Reading Room remains in its original form at the British Museum. Designed by Sydney Smirke and opened in 1857, the Reading Room was in continual use until its temporary closure for renovation in 1997. It was reopened in 2000, and from 2007 to 2017 it was used to stage temporary exhibitions. As of 2021, it remains closed to the public while its future use remains under discussion.


History


Construction and design

In the early 1850s the museum library was in need of a larger reading room and the then-Keeper of Printed Books, Antonio Panizzi, following an earlier competition idea by William Hosking, came up with the thought of a round room in the central courtyard. The building was designed by Sydney Smirke and was constructed between 1854 and 1857. The building used cast iron, concrete, glass and the latest technology in ventilation and heating. The dome, inspired by the Pantheon in Rome, has a diameter of 42.6 metres but is not technically free standing: constructed in segments on cast iron, the ceiling is suspended and made out of papier-mâché. Book stacks built around the reading room were made of iron to take the huge weight and add fire protection. There were forty kilometres of shelving in the stacks prior to the library's relocation to the new site.


The British Museum Library

The Reading Room was officially opened on 2 May 1857 with a 'breakfast' (that included champagne and ice cream) laid out on the catalogue desks. A public viewing was held between 8 and 16 May, attracting over 62,000 visitors. Tickets to it included a plan of the library.Invitation to a private view of the Round Reading Room
British Museum
Regular users had to apply in writing and be issued a reader's ticket by the Principal Librarian. During the period of the
British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...
, access was restricted to registered researchers only; however, reader's credentials were generally available to anyone who could show that they were a serious researcher. The Reading Room was used by a large number of famous figures, including notably
Sun Yat-sen Sun Yat-sen (; also known by several other names; 12 November 1866 – 12 March 1925) Singtao daily. Saturday edition. 23 October 2010. section A18. Sun Yat-sen Xinhai revolution 100th anniversary edition . was a Chinese politician who serv ...
, Karl Marx,
Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...
,
Friedrich Hayek Friedrich August von Hayek ( , ; 8 May 189923 March 1992), often referred to by his initials F. A. Hayek, was an Austrian–British economist, legal theorist and philosopher who is best known for his defense of classical liberalism. Haye ...
, Marcus Garvey,
Bram Stoker Abraham Stoker (8 November 1847 – 20 April 1912) was an Irish author who is celebrated for his 1897 Gothic horror novel ''Dracula''. During his lifetime, he was better known as the personal assistant of actor Sir Henry Irving and busines ...
, Mahatma Gandhi, Rudyard Kipling, George Orwell,
George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...
, Mark Twain, Vladimir Lenin (using the name Jacob Richter),
Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. Woolf was born i ...
,
Arthur Rimbaud Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud (, ; 20 October 1854 – 10 November 1891) was a French poet known for his transgressive and surreal themes and for his influence on modern literature and arts, prefiguring surrealism. Born in Charleville, he star ...
,
Mohammad Ali Jinnah Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد;  570 – 8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet divinely inspired to preach and confirm the monoth ...
, H. G. Wells and
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for ''A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Hol ...
. In 1973, the British Library Act 1972 detached the library department from the British Museum, but it continued to host the now separated British Library in the same Reading Room and building as the museum until 1997. The British Museum Library still exists, but as of 2021, the Reading Room is not open to the public.


Closure and restoration

In 1997 the British Library moved to its own specially constructed building next to St Pancras Station and all the books and shelving were removed. As part of the redevelopment of the Great Court, the Reading Room was fully renovated and restored, including the papier-mâché ceiling which was repaired to its original colour scheme, having previously undergone radical redecorations (the initial design of the roof was considered excessive at the time). The Reading Room was reopened in 2000, allowing all visitors, and not just library ticket-holders, to enter it. It held a collection of 25,000 books focusing on the cultures represented in the museum along with an information centre and the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Centre.


Exhibition space

In 2007 the books and facilities installed in 2000 were removed, and the Reading Room was relaunched as a venue for special exhibitions, beginning with one featuring China's Terracotta Army. The general library for visitors (Paul Hamlyn Library) moved to a room accessible through nearby Room 2, but closed permanently on 13 August 2011. This is an earlier library that has also had distinguished users, including Thomas Babington Macaulay, William Makepeace Thackeray, Robert Browning,
Giuseppe Mazzini Giuseppe Mazzini (, , ; 22 June 1805 – 10 March 1872) was an Italian politician, journalist, and activist for the unification of Italy (Risorgimento) and spearhead of the Italian revolutionary movement. His efforts helped bring about the i ...
,
Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended fr ...
and
Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian er ...
. The Reading Room is no longer used for exhibitions. A selection of past exhibitions:


References in art and popular culture

The British Museum Reading Room is the subject of an eponymous poem, "The British Museum Reading Room", by
Louis MacNeice Frederick Louis MacNeice (12 September 1907 – 3 September 1963) was an Irish poet and playwright, and a member of the Auden Group, which also included W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender and Cecil Day-Lewis. MacNeice's body of work was widely a ...
. Much of the action of David Lodge's
1965 Events January–February * January 14 – The Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and the Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland meet for the first time in 43 years. * January 20 ** Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn in for a full term as ...
novel '' The British Museum Is Falling Down'' takes place in the old Reading Room. The 'Glass Ceiling' of Anabel Donald's 1994 novel is the ceiling of the Reading Room, where the denouement is set.
Alfred Hitchcock Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featur ...
used the Reading Room and the dome of the British Museum as a location for the climax of his first sound film ''
Blackmail Blackmail is an act of coercion using the threat of revealing or publicizing either substantially true or false information about a person or people unless certain demands are met. It is often damaging information, and it may be revealed to fa ...
'' (1929). Other movies with key scenes in the Reading Room include ''
Night of the Demon ''Night of the Demon'' (in the United States, released as ''Curse of the Demon'') is a 1957 British horror film, produced by Hal E. Chester and Frank Bevis, directed by Jacques Tourneur and starring Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins and Niall MacG ...
'' (1957) and in the
2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a multi-national coalition in an invasion of Afghanist ...
Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...
anime is hand-drawn and computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japanese, (a term derived from a shortening o ...
OVA , abbreviated as OVA and sometimes as OAV (original animation video), are Japanese animated films and series made specially for release in home video formats without prior showings on television or in theaters, though the first part of an OVA s ...
''
Read or Die is a Japanese light novel series written by Hideyuki Kurata, published under Shueisha's ''Super Dash Bunko'' imprint. ''Read or Die'' follows Yomiko Readman, codename "The Paper", an agent for the (fictional) Special Operations Division ...
'', the Room is used as a secret entrance to the British Library's fictional "Special Operations Division". In Sir Max Beerbohm's short story, ''
Enoch Soames "Enoch Soames" is the title of a short story by the British writer Max Beerbohm. Enoch Soames is also the name of the main character. The piece was originally published in the May 1916 edition of ''The Century Magazine'', and was later included ...
'', first published in May 1916, an obscure writer makes a deal with the Devil to visit the Reading Room one hundred years in the future, in order to know what posterity thinks about him and his work. The British Museum and the Reading Room serve as the settings for ''An Encounter at the Museum'', an anthology of romance novellas by
Claudia Dain Claudia Dain is an American author of romance novels. She is a two-time Rita finalist, and a USA Today Bestselling author. Biography Claudia Dain attended the University of Southern California , mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear ...
and Deb Marlowe, among others.
Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. Woolf was born i ...
made reference to the British Museum Reading Room in a passage from her 1929 essay, '' A Room of One's Own''. She wrote, "The swing doors swung open, and there one stood under the vast dome as if one were a thought in the huge bald forehead which is so splendidly encircled by a band of famous names."
Richard Henry Dana, Jr. Richard Henry Dana Jr. (August 1, 1815 – January 6, 1882) was an American lawyer and politician from Massachusetts, a descendant of a colonial family, who gained renown as the author of the classic American memoir ''Two Years Before the Mast''. ...
visited the Reading Room on 10 September 1860 with his London friend Henry T. Parker, and reported that
Parker calls & takes me to the British Museum, to see the Reading Room, wh. has been built since 1856 ana's prior visit It is the room where students & readers have their desks, & consult the textbooks, cyclopedias, catalogs &c., & from wh. they send orders for books to the Library – the Library not being visited, at all, for study. There is no such room as this in Europe. It is a circle, with a dome, lighted from above, & its diameter is 4 feet greater than that of the dome of St. Paul's. The autographs are now open to the view of all, spread out in glass cases, – as well as much other lit. curiosities. This is the grandest Literary & Scientific institution (not for instruction) in the world. The Reading Room, I told Parker, was a temple to the deification of Bibliology.
The writer Bernard Falk (1882-1960) quotes the British historian
Thomas Carlyle Thomas Carlyle (4 December 17955 February 1881) was a Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher. A leading writer of the Victorian era, he exerted a profound influence on 19th-century art, literature and philosophy. Born in Ecclefechan, Dum ...
(1795-1881) as having declared that the Reading Room of the British Museum was a convenient asylum for imbeciles whose friends wished them out of mischief's way.Falk, Bernard (1951) ''Bouquets for Fleet Street'', London, Hutchinson & Co, p.157


See also

*


References


Further reading

* ''A History of the British Museum Library, 1753–1973.'' London: British Library, 1998, , * Caygill, M. ''The British Museum Reading Room''. London: The British Museum, 2000. * Wilson, David M. ''The British Museum; A History''. London: The British Museum Press, 2002,


External links


British Museum Reading Room Information
{{Authority control 1857 establishments in the United Kingdom British Library
Reading Room Reading room may refer to: * Reference library * British Museum Reading Room The British Museum Reading Room, situated in the centre of the Great Court of the British Museum, used to be the main reading room of the British Library. In 1997, ...
Domes Grade I listed library buildings Buildings and structures completed in 1857 Buildings and structures in Bloomsbury