Our visual arts collections include paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, sculpture and historical furniture.

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Reading Room Paul Grundy

St Pancras Reading Rooms

At St Pancras we have 11 Reading Rooms, each specialising in a different subject area or type of material and with different opening hours. In our Reading Rooms you can:

  • Consult books, journals and other items from our collections
  • Access a wide range of electronic resources and electronic journals
  • Consult subject guides, bibliographies and other research aids

If you need help, please ask our Reference Specialists at the enquiry desks or contact the Reference Service.

We offer a range of free Reader sessions and 1-2-1 consultations to help you make the best use of the Library's collections.

You’ll need a Reader Pass

Opening hours for all Reading Rooms

Blog posts

A Panegyric from the Deccan’s Golden Age

Tuesday, February 28, 2023

This week’s post is by guest writer Namrata B. Kanchan, PhD candidate at the University of Texas at Austin. Her dissertation examines the courtly Dakhni literary and manuscript culture between 1500 and 1700 CE. One of the gems to emerge...

Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis: a genius cursed by fate?

Friday, February 3, 2023

Dulwich Picture Gallery is currently holding an exhibition of the works of Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, the best known Lithuanian artist and composer. Over a hundred works are on loan from the M.K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art in Kaunas where...

The hidden life of Winifred Arthur, fore-edge painter

Tuesday, January 24, 2023

The working lives of Victorian women in England were apt to be hidden, rarely referenced in contemporary publications. This term could be doubly applied to gifted artist Winifred Arthur (b. 1864 in Lancashire) whose work was literally hidden. Winifred created...

The Photographic Collection of Indigenous Childhood

Thursday, January 5, 2023

The digitised photographic archive of Siberian indigenous peoples (available online from the British Library’s website) is a rich source of information about late Russian and early Soviet colonisation of Siberia. The collection of over 4000 images is the result of...

More blog posts

Over 500 collection items from the British Library and institutions across Europe

View in the Elysian Fields from the Spring of Helicon

Perspective Views of the Buildings and Gardens at Stowe

George Scharf, Ponte Vecchio, Florence, 24 November 1839. British Library Add. MS 36488 B, f.64

Ponte Vecchio, Florence

24 November 1839

Photographs of Old London [page: 18]

Photographs of Old London

Carlisle Cathedral

South east view of the Cathedral Church of Carlisle

Photograph showing the construction of the London Underground's Central Line

Photographs showing the construction of the London Underground's Central Line

Library experts

Malini Roy

Dr Malini Roy

Head of Visual Arts

Felicity Myrone

Felicity Myrone

Lead Curator, Western Prints and Drawings

External links

The British Library is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

The National Archives

Features a wide range of records relating to the East India Company

Shop

Points of View book

Points of View: Capturing the 19th Century in Photographs (paperback)

Points of View brings together, for the first time, a selection of images from the British Library's unique collections.

£15.95

Michael Katakis: Photographs and Words

Photographs and Words (hardback)

Michael Katakis’s photographs are now held in the British Library’s collections.

£25

The Book of the British Library

The Book of the British Library

As well as holding some of the world's most prized cultural treasures, the British Library is the repository of the nation's collective memory.

£25