Travel disruption and delivery updates

Web maintenance at the British Library

There may be some disruption to our services over the next few weeks caused by the planned transport strikes and updates to item delivery systems.

Published date:

Changes to opening hours 

Our St Pancras site will open at 10.00 on Saturday 1, Tuesday 4, Wednesday 5 and Saturday 8 October due to the planned transport strikes. We’re aiming to keep all our services open on these days and will update you on any further changes. 

Possible delays to Reading Room requests

We’re continuing vital work to improve our mechanical book handling system, which will put parts of it out of action from Monday 8 August to early November.

During this period there will be timed collection deliveries to the Reading Rooms in St Pancras and some manual movement of collection items.

This may result in some potential delays to orders so please check My Reading Room Requests before setting off to the Library to make sure any items have arrived. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your patience.