About us
We are the national library of the UK. Our shelves hold over 170 million items – a living collection that gets bigger every day.
Although our roots extend back centuries, we collect everything written today, tomorrow, and decades into the future.
We have millions of 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.
Free to use and open to everyone
We work with partners and other libraries to make sure that as many people as possible have the chance to use and explore our collection. From fostering an early love of learning with local schools, to livestreaming events for audiences joining us from across the UK, to helping researchers around the world find the information they need.
Our spaces are open for research and study, to find business support, as a place to meet friends, or to get inspired by visiting our galleries.
Our values
- We put users at the heart of everything we do.
- We listen, innovate and adapt to a changing world.
- We treat everyone with respect and compassion.
- We embrace equality, fairness and diversity.
- We act with openness and honesty.
- We collaborate to do more than we could by ourselves.
Diversity and inclusion
We value difference and the benefits it brings. In practice, this means treating people as individuals by regularly asking questions and listening, and supporting them when their circumstances change.
We understand that differences exist, not only in race, gender, disability, age, sexual orientation, and religion/belief, but also in social and educational background, nationality, marital status and family or care responsibilities – and that list is not exhaustive.
We also recognise that each of these individual factors bring invaluable different perspectives that together can only help improve the services we offer.