A Peek at the Reading Room – British Museum, Bloomsbury, London, England

The Reading Room stands at the heart of the Museum, in the centre of the Great Court. Completed in 1857, it was hailed as one of the great sights of London and became a world famous centre of learning.

By the early 1850s the British Museum Library badly needed a larger reading room. Antonio Panizzi, the Keeper of Printed Books (1837–56), had the idea of constructing a round room in the empty central courtyard of the Museum building. With a design by Sydney Smirke (1798–1877), work on the Reading Room began in 1854. Three years later it was completed. Using cast iron, concrete, glass and the latest heating and ventilation systems, it was a masterpiece of mid-nineteenth century technology. The room had a diameter of 140 feet (approximately 42.6m) and was inspired by the domed Pantheon in Rome. However, it is not a free standing dome in the technical sense. It has been constructed in segments on a cast iron framework. The ceiling is suspended on cast iron struts hanging down from the frame and is made out of papier mache. A number of bookstacks were built surrounding the new Reading Room. They were made of iron to take the weight of the books and protect them against fire. In all they contained three miles (4.8 kilometres) of bookcases and twenty-five miles (forty kilometres) of shelves.

The Reading Room opened on 2 May 1857. Between 8–16 May, the library was opened up for a special one-off public viewing. Over 62,000 visitors came to marvel at the new building. Those wanting to use it had to apply in writing and were issued a reader’s ticket by the Principal Librarian. Among those granted tickets were: Karl Marx, Lenin (who signed in under the name Jacob Richter) and novelists such as Bram Stoker and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

The Reading Room is currently closed.