National Library of Scotland
From Free net encyclopedia
Image:National Library of Scotland.JPG The National Library of Scotland is a legal deposit library in Scotland. It is based in a collection of buildings in Edinburgh city centre, the headquarters being on George IV Bridge, between the Old Town and the university quarter. There is also a more modern building (1980s) in a residential area on the south side of the town centre, on Causewayside - built to accommodate some of the specialist collections (e.g. map library, science library) and provide large-scale extra storage.
The National Library of Scotland includes some one million books including copies of the Gutenberg Bible and the First Folio of Shakespeare.
History
The National Library of Scotland is a relatively recent body, only formally established by Act of Parliament in 1925. Prior to then, Scotland's national deposit library was the Advocates Library belonging to the Faculty of Advocates. This was opened in 1689 and gained national library status in the 1710 Copyright Act, giving it the legal right to claim a copy of every book published in Britain. In the following centuries, the Library added books and manuscripts to the collections by purchase as well as legal deposit, creating a national library in all but name.
By the 1920s, the upkeep of such a major collection was too much for a private body, and, with an endowment of £100,000 provided by Sir Alexander Grant of Forres, the library's contents were presented to the nation. The National Library of Scotland was formally constituted by an Act of Parliament in 1925.
Sir Alexander Grant gave a further £100,000 – making his combined donations the equivalent of around £6 million today – for a new Library building to be constructed on George IV Bridge. Government funding was secured which matched Sir Alexander's donation.
Work on the new building was started in 1938, interrupted by the Second World War, and completed in 1956. By the 1970s, room for the ever-expanding collections was running out, and it was obvious that other premises were needed. The Causewayside Building opened in the south-side of Edinburgh in two phases, in 1989 and in 1995, at a total cost of almost £50 million, providing much-needed additional working space and storage facilities.
Since 1999, the Library has been funded by the Scottish Parliament. It remains one of only six legal deposit libraries in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and is governed by a board of trustees.