National Library of Scotland

The National Library of Scotland stands in Edinburgh, its main building on George IV Bridge linking the Old Town with the university quarter. This Category A listed structure holds exhibitions and provides reading rooms where visitors consult primary materials. A modern Causewayside building in a residential area stores specialist collections and offers a Maps Reading Room. The library also operates a public centre in Glasgow’s Kelvin Hall for digital and moving-image access. Over twenty-four million items fill its shelves in many formats, from books to photographs. Scotland’s Moving Image Archive contains more than forty-six thousand films and videos. The library holds copies of the Gutenberg Bible and Charles Darwin’s letter submitting On the Origin of Species. The library began as the Advocates Library in 1689 and gained legal-deposit status in 1710. In the 1920s Alexander Grant donated £100,000 to transfer the collection to the nation, leading to the 1925 Act that created the National Library. Grant later funded the George IV Bridge building, completed in 1956 to designs by Reginald Fairlie and Hew Lorimer. By the 1970s the Causewayside building opened to house growing collections. Since 1999 the Scottish Parliament has funded the library, which remains one of six legal-deposit libraries in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Inside the George IV Bridge building, the General Reading Room offers journals and post-1850 books while the Special Collections Reading Room holds rare manuscripts. The Multimedia Room provides access to non-written materials such as microforms and photographs. The Causewayside Maps Reading Room lets visitors study atlases and cartographic reference works. Exhibitions change regularly, with past displays exploring the Scottish Enlightenment and Muriel Spark’s work. The John Murray Archive contains over a million items from the famous British publisher, including papers of Jane Austen and Lord Byron. Ancient family manuscripts, such as those of Clan Sinclair dating to 1488, are also preserved.