What we do

“Helping people advance knowledge to enrich lives.”. That’s our mission statement. Our collections are used for research that can result in the discovery of a life-saving drug, the development of an economy-boosting new business, or the creation of an award-winning film. Our task now is to ensure that we lead the way in providing information in the digital age, ensuring more and more people have access to the 3,000 years’ worth of knowledge we hold.

We are developing a national digital library. We are changing the way people search for knowledge, by championing new information retrieval technologies. And we’re continually enhancing our collection by adding new items including web pages through our web archiving project. The recent creation of our state of the art Centre for Conservation enables us to continue our vital work in preserving knowledge.

By joining the Library you could be part of this information revolution.

Watch a video to find out more (Streaming Windows Media format, 4 minutes)