British Library Printed Collections

Title: British Library Printed Collections

Description: The British Library has responsibility within the legal deposit system as the National Published Archive. In cooperation with the other legal deposit libraries, it seeks to ensure comprehensive coverage, recording and preservation of UK and Irish publications in all subject fields. In addition, the Library's pattern of acquisitions for all disciplines provides extensive converage of:

• serials of research interest, wherever published
  
• English language books of research interest, wherever published
• European language books of historical and cultural importance
• the world's major national newspapers, including comprehensive collection of UK national newspapers
• 
  the world's patent literature
• the world's conference literature of research interest in all disciplines and languages
• the world's printed music, including comprehensive collecting of UK printed music
• the world's cartographic materials , including comprehensive collecting of UK cartographic materials
• philatelic collections, including the National Philatelic Collections
• Selective coverage of published sound recordings building on the strengths of the National Sound Archive collection
• selective coverage of ephemeral and grey literature of research interest in all disciplines published outside the UK.

For Western manuscripts the Library builds on its existing strengths. Priority is given to the acquisition of material of permanent value to the national heritage. It seeks to create coherent and representative collections relating to the 20th century, developing its strengths in holdings of literary manuscripts and personal political papers, and acquiring selectively archival collections relating to national institutions or associations, working in close collaboration with other archives, seeking not to duplicate their areas of primary interest.

For the Asian, Pacific and African Collections, the Library builds on its strengths, in coordination with other centres of excellence in the UK and Western Europe, to ensure maximum access and availability of material in a range of languages and from major centres of importance. The British Library also aims to establish itself as a major world centre for the storage and transmission of digital texts required for research and scholarship.

It is important to note that there are no separate collections for the Caribbean, or for the history of the Black and Asian communities in the UK. However, the collecting policy outlined above has resulted in the presence of significant quantities of relevant material, both primary and secondary, distributed throughout the collections.

Strengths: All subjects, but especially strong in history, literature, the slave trade and abolition.

Size: Over 150 million items

Catalogue: Many of the catalogues are now available through the BL website, although some collections are still only accessible via card catalogues onsite.

Catalogue URL: http://www.bl.uk

Main URL: http://www.bl.uk

Access: Reader's pass required. See website for further information.

Acquisition dates:

Note:

Interest: Caribbean Black Asian

Complete: Complete

Subjects

Cultural heritage

Performing arts

Colonial countries

Colonialism

Abolition of slavery

Slavery

Politics

Sociology

Geography

History

Interethnic relations

Literature

Personal/Corporate names

Places

Caribbean

Asia